Death with Dignity

On 22 November 2017, the web sites Neon Nettle and YourNewsWire.com (among others) published reports about euthanasia and pediatric patients in Canada, claiming that “a controversial new law” now allows parents to end the lives of children with disabilities:

Neither site referenced any news reports to support the claims, linking instead to a 26 October 2017 National Review Online speculative editorial: “Canada Child Euthanasia: A Matter of Time?” That opinion piece speculated that legal euthanasia in Canada could eventually be available to minors:

The “controversial new law” passed in June 2016, not November 2017. Further, that law specifically prohibits even “mature minors” (much less parents) the ability to choose medically assisted death, and it is not by even the most creative interpretation a free pass to euthanize children.

Bill C-14, legislation on medical assistance in dying, received royal assent on June 17, 2016. For more information, visit canada.ca/health

The following is a list of questions and answers related to the proposed medical assistance in dying legislation.

SINCE 2002 Belgium has been one of the very few countries in the world in which doctors can perform euthanasia. Patients need to be in a hopeless state of constant and unbearable physical or mental pain that cannot be alleviated, or suffering as a result of a serious and incurable disorder caused by an accident or illness.

The main motivation for the change in the law was to give doctors the possibility to relieve physical symptoms such as pain, suffocation or anxiety in terminal disease. However, euthanasia is now applied in patients with longer life expectancy who are not suffering unbearable physical symptoms but experiencing a lack of meaning in life and limitations in their activities: for instance in chronic neurodegenerative or psychiatric diseases such as dementia, autism or depression.

LITTLE doubt exists as to where The Economist stands on assisted dying. In 2015 we ran a cover calling for laws to be changed in Britain and elsewhere to allow doctors to help the terminally ill and the suffering to choose when they die.

But as part of our Open Future initiative—in which, for our 175th anniversary, we aim to remake the case for liberalism—we wanted to open up the conversation to both sides, in the spirit of respectful debate.

• Steven Fletcher: Dying with dignity is the biggest shift in morality in a generation
• Emilie Yerby: Guernsey was right to reject assisted dying
• Ellen Wiebe: Doctors should ensure their patients have a good death
• Charles Falconer: The law on assisted dying in Britain is incoherent and hypocritical
• Ilora Finlay: Fear of dying should not lead to dangerous legal changes
• Bernhard Sutter: Patients should have the right to assisted dying
• Kevin Yuill: Liberals and atheists can also oppose assisted dying
• Michael Irwin: A doctor-assisted suicide is a human right and a relief for many
• Peter Saunders: Assisted dying is simply another form of euthanasia
• Benoit Beuselinck: Proper palliative care makes assisted dying unnecessary
• Anonymous: Patients alone have the right to decide whether to end their lives
• Trista Carey: Assisted dying is the natural extension of pro-choice beliefs
• Dignitas: Access to end-of-life options improves public health
• Raphael Cohen-Almagor: Patients should be allowed to die at home, surrounded by family and friends
• Emilie Yerby: Assisted dying would be damaging to those whose choices are not simple
• Ellen Wiebe: Canada’s example of assisted dying refutes those who argue against it
• Kevin Yuill: The case for assisted dying is still inherently flawed
• Trista Carey: Fears of undignified or painful deaths are nothing new
• Steven Fletcher: Assisted dying legislation is part of a modern, healthy democracy
• James Mildred: The slippery slope of assisted dying is real

As people got used to the new law, the number of Dutch people being euthanised began to rise sharply, from under 2,000 in 2007 to almost 6,600 in 2017. (Around the same number are estimated to have had their euthanasia request turned down as not conforming with the legal requirements.) Also in 2017, some 1,900 Dutch people killed themselves, while the number of people who died under palliative sedation – in theory, succumbing to their illness while cocooned from physical discomfort, but in practice often dying of dehydration while unconscious – hit an astonishing 32,000. Altogether, well over a quarter of all deaths in 2017 in the Netherlands were induced.