A man suffering from severe lung disease requested euthanasia in Canada because he was homeless and in debt. An 80-year-old woman requested medical assistance in dying after losing her husband, her brother and her cat in six weeks… An Associated Press investigation into assistance in dying in Canada, published last week, reveals behind the scenes cases of euthanasia apparently motivated by social reasons, for patients who are certainly sick, but whose vital prognosis is not in jeopardy.
Euthanasia, legalized in Canada in 2016 for people at the end of their lives, was in fact extended in 2021 to patients suffering from incurable illnesses, without being terminally ill. However, 15,280 deaths caused by medical assistance in dying were recorded in 2023, an increase of 15% compared to 2022. While the “end of life” bill should be debated in the National Assembly, in France, from January 2025, the Canadian example deserves to be observed closely.
The Associated Press investigation is based in particular on messages published online, on private forums, by doctors who express their discomfort with aid in dying for vulnerable people whose deaths were avoidable. In these forums, doctors debate, for example, euthanasia granted to people suffering from severe obesity. Other health professionals also mention four cases of euthanasia for patients suffering from blindness… “I do not want euthanasia to become the solution to all forms of suffering”writes a doctor on one of these forums.
The extension of the law in 2021 has not even closed the debate: on the one hand, disability organizations filed a complaint last month, claiming that this law had led to premature deaths of disabled people; on the other, the Dying With Dignity group launched legal action in Ontario, deeming the exclusion of mentally ill people from this law “discriminatory”…
The experience of Canada and the Netherlands should question the French
In France, the text initially presented in April 2024 provides that assisted dying is intended for patients whose vital prognosis is compromised in the medium term, after informed consent, two medical opinions and that of an unrelated third person. It excludes children and the mentally ill. “The law, as it is intended, is not intended to be extendedaffirms Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, president of the National Consultative Ethics Committee. As part of this law, do not forget that there are also plans to improve palliative care with an allocation of one billion euros over ten years. » While awaiting parliamentary debates and possible changes to the text, the experience of Canada and the Netherlands, however, does not fail to question us.
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“When in the mid-1980s the Netherlands opened the door to legalizing euthanasia, my position, along with that of most of my colleagues, was that the 'slippery slope' argument in Discussion of euthanasia was pointless at best, if not disingenuous. But over the past forty years, my perspective has changed. I saw the slippery slope happen”lamented Theo Boer, professor of health ethics at the University of Groningen (Netherlands), in a text recently published on the site of the Espace Ethique de la Île-de-France region.
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