![]() ![]() He said it was a mercy killing because of the chronic pain linked to her severe cerebral palsy. ![]() His father said an assisted suicide law for children would have told his son that caregivers had 'given up' on him.Īppearing with his wife, Jennifer, Mr Schouten told the Canadian parliamentary committee: 'By giving some minors the right to request, you put all minors and their families in a position where they are obliged to consider.'Ĭampaigners often highlight the case of Robert Latimer, a Saskatchewan farmer who was convicted of killing his 12-year-old daughter, Tracy, in 1993. Schouten's son, Markus, was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma in February 2021 and died just 15 months later, on May 29, 2022, aged 18, after multiple operations, chemotherapy and 25 rounds of radiation therapy. 'There would be vigorous debate and hopefully, people would make the right decisions, although we don't have much faith in some of those institutions at the moment, considering our current government,' said Schouten. Mike Schouten, director of advocacy for the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA), called the committee 'reckless' and urged members of parliament to ensure the 'committee's recommendation do not become law'.Īlex Schadenberg (left), executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, and Amy Hasbrouck, from the group Not Dead Yet, say politicians should not expand accesss to MAiD This month, ministers deferred by a year plans to extend MAiD to the mentally ill. It remains unclear whether the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would immediately push for expanded access to children. They also called for more research into the experiences of minors in relation to assisted suicide and for an independent expert panel to investigate criminal issues around child access to MAiD. In their 138-page report, members said the procedure - typically a lethal injection administered by a doctor - should be available to 'mature minors … whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable.' Ultimately, members agreed that children with terminal illnesses, most likely aged between 14 and 17, could be influenced by many factors and that 'eligibility for MAiD should not be denied on the basis of age alone'. Still, others noted that poorly Canadian children can already decide to stop receiving life-saving treatment for their condition, even when doing so hastens their death. Witnesses had told members that children were ill-equipped to manage such a weighty decision, that they were more vulnerable to external pressure than adults, and that there was no going back from an irreversible decision. Any teenagers with a disability, who's constantly told their life is useless and pitiful, will be depressed, and of course they're going to want to die.' ![]() 'Teenagers are not in a good position to judge whether to commit suicide or not. 'I think it's horrible,' said Amy Hasbrouck, who campaigns against MAiD for the group Not Dead Yet. The report and its 23 recommendations will be discussed in the House of Commons in the coming months and could prompt revisions of Canada's assisted dying laws as soon as this year. In its long-awaited report, the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) recommended that 'mature minors' whose deaths were 'reasonably foreseeable' could access assisted suicide, even without parental consent. They told that sick and disabled kids could soon be joining the roughly 10,000 adults who end their lives each year by state-sanctioned euthanasia in the world's most permissive such program. Campaigners have slammed as 'reckless' and 'horrible' a plan by a Canadian parliamentary committee to expand the country's assisted-suicide program to terminally sick children. ![]()
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