Unravelling MAiD in Canada

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide as Medical Care

Ramona Coelho, K. Sonu Gaind, Trudo Lemmens

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN:
  9780228024538
• Subtopic: Global Politics

Since legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide as medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in 2016, Canada has witnessed an internationally unprecedented expansion of the practice, making it the country with the highest number of MAiD deaths.

Initially introduced to relieve suffering in a broad end-of-life context, the law expanded quickly to make MAiD available to disabled Canadians not approaching their natural deaths. MAID will also become legal for sole reasons of mental illness sometime after 2027, and there are plans to expand it further to include minors and advance requests. From a cross-disciplinary perspective, including contributions from authors with lived experience, Indigenous perspectives, and expertise in medicine, mental health, disability, law, and ethics, Unravelling MAiD in Canada challenges readers with the ethical, medical, legal, societal, and disability justice rights concerns that have arisen in regard to this hotly debated irreversible practice.

Canada now provides more state-facilitated euthanasia and assisted suicide than any other country. This volume puts forth critical reflections and valuable insights as more jurisdictions consider their own assisted dying laws and policies.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 MAiD in Canada: A Tale of Rapidly Expanding Euthanasia
• 2 Fall of Duty: The Breach of Trust and Moral Failure of Canada’s Entrusted Experts
• 3 Assisting Dying: A Policy Framework Developed without Adequate Ethical Consideration
• 4 How Canada’s MAiD Law Has Made Death a “First-Line Therapy” for Suffering
• 5 Conscience and MAiD
• 6 MAiD and Palliative Care
• 7 Disability and MAiD 188
• 8 Creating a Killable Class and Manufacturing Selective Suicidality: Thoughts of a Past and Future Ironing Board
• 9 Indigenous Peoples and MAiD
• 10 Ableism in Canada: Why Track 2 MAiD Violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• 11 Mental Illness, Health Care, and Assisted Death: Part I – Examining Parameters for Expanding or Restricting MAiD under Canada’s Charter
• 12 Mental Illness, Health Care, and Assisted Death: Part II – Examining Parameters for Expanding or Restricting MAiD under Canada’s Federal System
• 13 Evaluating the Existing Scientific Evidence for Physician-Assisted Death for Mental Illness
• 14 MAiD by Advance Request: Vulnerability, Stigma, and the Myth of Free and Informed Advance Consent
• 15 Mature Minors and MAiD
• Conclusion | Insights on Canada’s MAiD Expansion: Is This About Autonomy or Privilege?
• Contributors
• Index