Ten years later. MAID in Canada is still strongly supported

At the ten-year anniversary of Canada's Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) law, there has been a flurry of articles about how successful the initiative has been. In particular, there have been two competing opunion articles in the Globe and Mail, exemplifying the different attitides to the service.

MAID, or assisted suicide, has been legal in Canada since June 2016, originally just for cases where natural death was "reasonably foreseeable". In March 2021, after much consultaion, this was extended to people suffering intolerable whose death was not necessarily reasonably foreaeeable. These two types of cases are now known as Track 1 and Track 2, although strict safeguards are of course still maintained, particularly in Track 2 cases.

One of the articles, by the regular Globe health critic André Picard, puts forward what is probably the majority view, that MAID has been an unalloyed good. Over the last ten years, about 100,000 Canadians have been spared unnecessary suffering, 95% of them in cases where death was "reasonably foreseeable" in the language of the law. Picard argues, "Life has not been cheapened by MAID. Dignity, choice and bodily autonomy have all been bolstered". Furthermore  it has not led to the "slippery slope" nay-sayers warned against, and continue to warn against, despite the extension to cases where death is not necessarily reasonably foreseeable (which continue to make up a small minority of MAID deaths). The law is deliberately couched in very conservative and cautious terms for that very reason.

The other article, by regular contributor Robyn Urback, is more of a nuanced critique, alleging that, while the program has been generally susccessful, there has still been anecdotal examples where a small minority of Track 2 MAID deaths (where natural death is not necessarily probable) may - or may not - have been botched or mishandled. Improbably, Ms. Urback sees these isolated incidents as evidence that "life has become cheap in Canada", and that the extension to Track 2 MAID in particular is "eating away at the country's soul", a radical conclusion that does not seem to follow from her detailed argument. A few poignant sob stories do not negate the general good the 

My point here is that the negative arguement is on much more tenuous ground, and is anyway not completely negative, but rather a relatively minor quibble against an otherwise highly successful initiative. Certainly in terms of general satisfaction, the Canadian public is quite happy with what was initially such a contentious issue. An Environics poll show that between 81% and 89% of seniors and caregivers support MAID. Another recent poll found that 89% of Canadians support in MAID in cases of terminal illnesses, while 84% support MAID  for people who are suffering intolerable but are not near the end of their lives.

When we get into the area of extending MAID to people whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness, however, the picture muddies considerably. But that is not currently part of Canada's MAID program, and a parliamentary committee recently voted that those with mental illness should not have access to MAID, at least for the foreseeable future. Now, that one IS contentious.