bioedge.org
2023-05-18
As Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying regime expands, it is meeting more resistance. One of the most powerful criticisms, one which has surfaced often in the media, is that some people with chronic illnesses, whose death is not reasonably foreseeable, are choosing to die because they are poor and social services are inadequate. They do not want to die, but they feel that they have no choice.
Critics say that these cases show that people are being railroaded into choosing euthanasia and are unable to make a truly autonomous choice.
However, critics may be paddling upstream. According to a recent poll by Research Co, which monitors public opinion in Canada, more than one in four Canadians would allow euthanasia for homelessness (28%) and for poverty (27%). Even more shocking is that the poll showed that 50% of Canadians would allow euthanasia for people who had been unable to access medical treatment and 51% for people with a disability.
Millennials are even more strongly in favour.
What counts as evidence? a uniquely valuable analysis of a Belgian criminal case involving euthanasia by Trudo Lemmens