A group of Canadian lawmakers has called for the assisted suicide program to be extended to minors, even in cases where their parents oppose the decision to end their lives.
A special committee of MPs and senators tasked with reviewing the so-called “medical assistance in dying” (MAiD) program in Ottawa issued a series of recommendations in the Canadian House of Commons this week.
The report calls on the government to amend its assisted suicide law to make the service available to minors deemed to have the “requisite decision-making capacity”.
Assisted suicide should only be available to “mature minors” whose “natural death is reasonably foreseeable”, the committee said.
The government would have to establish standards for assessing a young man’s capacity to make such a decision, the report added, but lawmakers did not offer details on how imminent a person’s death would have to be for the government to help end their life.
The commission also suggested that parents or guardians should be consulted about their child’s decision to kill themselves “where appropriate”. However, Ottawa should also require that “priority is given to the will of a minor who is found to have the requisite decision-making capacity,” the report said.
Another government recommendation calls for “consultations with minors on MAiD, including minors with terminal illnesses, minors with disabilities, minors in child protection and minors of the indigenous population.”
Critics of Canada’s MAiD program condemned the panel’s findings.
“Unfortunate teenagers are such a burden on the welfare state that parliament believes doctors should be paid to kill them,” said podcast host Kevin Michael Grace.
The committee released its report after hearing from nearly 150 witnesses, Canada’s Global News reported Thursday.
Many witnesses argued that minors are already allowed to make decisions about withholding treatment, hastening their deaths in some cases, and the level of suffering they suffer from terminal illness is not a function of age.
More than 30,000 Canadians have died in assisted suicide since it was legalized in 2016 for people with terminal illnesses.
In 2021, the program was extended to adults with serious and chronic health problems, even if their illness is not life-threatening. Lawmakers were set to consider expanding MAiD eligibility to people who suffer solely from mental illness this year, but Attorney General David Lametty announced the introduction of the bill earlier this month.
