The HighWire@HighWireTalk
Canada is on the verge of surpassing 100,000 assisted suicides. That number exceeds the country's entire World War II death toll. 🇨🇦
This is MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying). Track 1 applies to those whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable. Track 2 is where it gets deeply troubling.
Canada's own government website describes Track 2 to apply where a natural death is NOT reasonably foreseeable, leaving hospital bioethicists to determine whether a person has given "serious consideration" to other means of relieving their suffering. There is no clear standard. There is no defined boundary. It is, by design, a massive gray area.
The United Nations has formally told Canada to stop Track 2 entirely. Mental health professionals, disability advocates, and medical groups are raising alarms about how poverty and lack of access to adequate care are shaping patients' decisions to choose death. Even doctors are saying something is inherently wrong here.
Track 2 has not even been formally approved yet. The expansion it would bring is almost unimaginable.
The medical system is supposed to protect the vulnerable. This is not that.
