The Canadian government has announced plans to begin euthanizing “drug addicts” and citizens with a range of mental illnesses.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government plans to relax current “assisted suicide” laws so that more Canadians who have become a burden on taxpayer-funded health care systems can use them, Hunter Fielding reports.

 

However, critics compare the move to “modern eugenics”.

When Canada’s medically assisted dying (MAID) law changes in March 2024 (ER: a lot can happen before then), mental health patients, including those with substance abuse problems, without other physical conditions, will be eligible to be legally euthanized by the state.

A special parliamentary committee will re-examine the controversial move ahead of its implementation in coming months, following protests from Trudeau’s opponents in Canada.

Daily Mail reports: More than 10,000 Canadians were euthanized in 2021, a tenfold increase from 2016 when the practice was legalized.

In some cases, people living in poverty have agreed to die.

Currently, people with mental health conditions such as depression and personality disorders without physical conditions are not eligible for assisted suicide.

A framework for assessing people with substance use disorders for MAID is being discussed this week at an annual scientific conference in Canada.

The agenda of the workshop includes teaching participants and medical professionals to “know the difference between suicidality and a motivated desire to die.”

Zoë Dodd, a harm reduction advocate from Toronto, told VICE News that the practice is tantamount to eugenics.

She said: “I just think that MAID, when it has entered the realm of mental health and substance use, is really rooted in eugenics.

“And there are people who are really struggling with substance use and people are actually not getting the support and help that they need.”

Dr. David Martell, chief physician of Addiction Medicine at Nova Scotia Health, who is presenting the framework at the conference, told VICE News:

“I don’t think it’s fair, and the government doesn’t think it’s fair, to exclude people from eligibility because their medical condition or their suffering is related to mental illness.

“As a subset of these, it is not fair to exclude people from subsidies simply because their mental disorder may be partially or completely a substance use disorder.

“It has to do with treating people equally.

(ER: There is a shocking inhumanity to this argument under the banal appeal of ‘fairness’.)

The process for an assisted death in Canada starts with downloading a simple form online.

This means that the applicant must answer a number of questions and sign the bottom.

The applicants must then obtain the signatures of witnesses.

This is followed by a phone call and a home visit from a doctor.

If the application is approved by two different doctors, the person must wait 90 days from the time of application.

A doctor can then administer the lethal drug via an injection.

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