The Trudeau regime has announced plans to legalize euthanasia in Canada for people with a range of mental illness and people addicted to drugs in a move critics are comparing to “modern-day eugenics.”
When Canada’s law medically assisted dying (MAID) law changes in March 2024, mental health patients, including those with substance abuse issues, with no other physical ailments will be eligible to be legally euthanized by the state.
A special parliamentary committee in the coming months is due to re-scrutinize the controversial move ahead of the rollout, following pushback from Trudeau’s opponents in Canada.
Daily Mail reports: More than 10,000 Canadians were euthanized in 2021, a tenfold increase over 2016 when the practice was legalized. Some cases have involved people experiencing poverty agreeing to die.
Currently, people solely with mental illnesses such as depression and personality disorders with no physical conditions are not eligible for assisted suicide.
A framework for assessing people with substance use disorders for MAID is being discussed at an annual scientific conference held in Canada this week.
The agenda for the workshop includes teaching attendees and medical professionals how to “know the difference between suicidality and a reasoned wish to die.”
Zoë Dodd, a Toronto-based harm reduction advocate, told VICE News the practice equates to eugenics.
She said: “I just think that MAID when it has entered the area around mental health and substance use is really rooted in eugenics.
“And there are people who are really struggling around substance use and people do not actually get the kind of support and help they need.”
Dr David Martell, physician lead for Addictions Medicine at Nova Scotia Health, who is presenting the framework at the conference, told VICE News: “I don’t think it’s fair, and the government doesn’t think it’s fair, to exclude people from eligibility because their medical disorder or their suffering is related to a mental illness.
“As a subset of that, it’s not fair to exclude people from eligibility purely because their mental disorder might either partly or in full be a substance use disorder. It has to do with treating people equally.”
