The Uncertain Meaning of "Medical" in Canadian Medical Aid in Dying
Thursday, October 12, 2023
8:15 AM – 9:30 AM ET
Location: Heron (Fourth Floor)
Canada’s medical aid in dying (MAID) policy, which has given rise to several controversial reports of people “choosing” MAID due to a lack of basic resources to manage their conditions, has recently stirred debates about the limits of physician-assisted death policies. These events arise from the unique way in which the Canadian MAID regime integrates an autonomy-based framework into the medical system. In essence, the system allows the patient to ultimately determine their own medical eligibility for MAID, in contrast to other regimes in which the physician must use objective medical criteria to base MAID eligibility decisions through a professional standard of care. Consequently, patients can qualify for MAID not primarily because of their medical condition, but because of sociopolitical limitations such as poverty that prevent them from managing their condition. The implication of this practice is that social-political causes of unbearableness of suffering are reframed as individual medical problems. This is problematic in that: (1) it neglects societal need to reduce unjust health disparities and normalizes the use of MAID among vulnerable populations who are likely to view MAID as society’s preferred solution to their problems; and (2) it radically changes the nature of medicine by making objective professional judgments of healthcare providers irrelevant, thus diminishing the traditional conception of professional standards of care.