The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced legislation on Thursday to legalize physician-assisted suicide for Canadians with a “serious and incurable illness,” which has brought them “enduring physical or psychological suffering.”
The New York Times reports that the proposed law limits physician-assisted suicides to citizens and residents who are eligible to participate in the national health care system, an effort to prevent a surge in medical tourism among the dying from other countries.
If the bill passes, Canada will join a group of countries that permit some form of assisted suicide, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. Assisted suicide is legal in only a few American states, including Oregon and Vermont.
Under Canada’s proposed law, people who have a serious medical condition and want to die will be able to commit suicide with medication provided by their doctors or have a doctor or nurse practitioner administer the dose for them. Family members and friends will be allowed to assist patients with their death, and social workers and pharmacists will be permitted to participate in the process.
The legislation is the latest step in a decades-long and frequently emotional debate in Canada about the rights and protections of patients with serious medical conditions who might seek to end their lives.
The legislation is expected to pass, given the Liberal Party’s strong majority in the House of Commons. However, the government has promised to further study the issue after the law’s passage and may make changes to the system.
“For some, medical assistance in dying will be troubling,” Jody Wilson-Raybould, the justice minister, said at a news conference on Thursday. “For others, this legislation will not go far enough.”
The bill would allow consenting adults “capable of making decisions with respect to their health” to choose to end their own lives or seek assistance in doing so from their doctors. A physician must decide that “natural death has become reasonably foreseeable, taking into account all of their medical circumstances.”
Officials said that a patient does not have to have a terminal condition, citing the example of someone with an immune system deficiency which leaves them vulnerable to lethal infections.
Two independent physicians must agree and the patient must wait 15 days before moving to end his or her life, though the bill would allow for that waiting period to be shortened under certain circumstances.
Doctors will not be required to help people die, but they must refer patients to another physician if they have an objection to participating.
“I’ve seen people die well and I’ve seen people die in misery,” Dr. Jane Philpott, the health minister who is also a family physician, told reporters on Thursday after the bill was introduced. “I want Canadians to have access to the best care possible.”
