Canada is stricter if safeguards ignored

Canada recently expanded access to MAID by removing the requirement for a “reasonably foreseeable death,” such as a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Now, Canadians can receive MAID for a “grievous and irremediable” condition, even when natural death isn't imminent.

But the authors said that doesn't account for the discrepancy, since 96.5 per cent of MAID procedures in Canada in 2022 still relied upon the reasonably foreseeable death criterion.

California requires that death be expected within six months, though “both jurisdictions recognize that any such prognosis is fraught with uncertainty,” the authors wrote.

Canada, the authors said, also has more explicit punishment for failure to comply with safeguards or reporting standards than California.

“California is silent on the matter,” he said.

In the Calgary case now before the courts, the father of a 27-year-old woman approved for MAID argues his daughter has been misdiagnosed with physical ailments that are psychological, and therefore ineligible under current law.

Trudo Lemmens, a University of Toronto professor of law and ethics, has argued that MAID is being promoted as a form of therapy, “even for only remotely disease-related suffering.”

“Canadian patients are much more frequently confronted with offers of MAID and with a physician providing it as a form of care,” Lemmens said in an email.

Yet Lemmens is also not convinced that “it's all about public awareness,” because Canada's rate of MAID deaths is higher than in jurisdictions with greater public awareness, as it has been an option for decades.