Canada’s MAID expansion looms over UK assisted suicide defeat

OTTAWA — Canada's expansion of medical assistance in dying shows why British lawmakers were right to reject assisted suicide last week, according to Canadian anti-euthanasia advocate Amanda Achtman.Achtman, founder of the Dying to Meet You project, spoke to the Western Standard Monday following the British House of Commons vote against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill..“The UK has rejected assisted suicide in this latest attempt to legalize it,” Achtman said. “That shows that this is not a foregone conclusion.”British MPs voted 286-270 against the bill Friday after a contentious debate over safeguards, palliative care and the possibility of vulnerable people feeling pressure to end their lives.The proposal would have allowed some terminally ill adults expected to have six months or less to live to seek assistance to die.Achtman said the narrow vote shows the debate is far from settled.“There's a lot of sympathy for those who are suffering, and rightly so,” she said. “It's not that one side has sympathy for the suffering and the other side doesn't, but the question is: how do we respond to the sick and suffering person?”She pointed to Canada's experience as a warning about relying on safeguards to keep assisted dying narrowly limited..Canada legalized MAID in 2016 for eligible adults under a regime that included a requirement that natural death be reasonably foreseeable. Parliament expanded eligibility in 2021 to some people whose deaths are not reasonably foreseeable.Achtman argued that once assisted dying is accepted as a response to suffering, pressure builds to extend it to other groups on equality grounds.“Once legalized, euthanasia cannot remain limited but will be expanded on the grounds of equality,” she said.“If euthanasia or assisted suicide is a reasonable and compassionate means to alleviate suffering, why wouldn't you allow it for more and more people?”Canada has also legislated MAID eligibility where mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition, although implementation has been repeatedly delayed and is currently scheduled for 2027.Achtman also pointed to a major difference between the British proposal and how MAID operates in Canada.The British bill required patients to self-administer the substance used to end their lives. Canadian law permits both self-administration and practitioner-administered MAID.“In 2024, 100% of the cases of MAID — all 16,499 people who died by MAID in 2024 — were directly euthanized,” Achtman said. “Not one person chose to self-administer.”Health Canada's latest annual report confirms 16,499 MAID provisions were reported in 2024 and all involved practitioner-administered MAID.Achtman argued Britain's self-administration safeguard could eventually face the same equality arguments that drove expansion in Canada.“If someone's not able to self-administer, they need someone to do it for them,” she said.The British debate also included concerns about whether hospices and other institutions opposed to assisted suicide could remain free from the practice.Achtman pointed to similar disputes in Canada involving faith-based health-care institutions, including the legal battle surrounding St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver.She argued maintaining institutions that refuse to provide MAID gives patients an alternative model of end-of-life care.Achtman said the answer for opponents cannot simply be stopping assisted dying legislation.“It's not enough to know what we are saying no to,” she said. “That's the first step. But now what is it that we have to say yes to?”“Yes to palliative care, yes to accompaniment, yes to valorizing courage in the face of suffering and death rather than checking out of life.”Achtman said the British vote provides an opportunity for a broader discussion about how societies treat people approaching the end of their lives.“We have to ask ourselves, what do we want to be to those who are older and suffering and dying?” she said.“This is what I mean about recovering a cultural conversation around death and dying.”

Canada’s MAID expansion looms over UK assisted suicide defeat

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