Medical assistance in dying (MAID) became legal in Canada in 2016 to allow adults who have a serious and incurable illness or disability that puts them in enduring and intolerable physical or psychological pain to pursue a medically assisted death. Social media posts claim the ϳԹ government recently passed a law to allow children to seek MAID without their parents' consent. This is false. A parliamentary committee is reviewing the MAID law to examine issues related to the legislation, including eligibility of “mature minors,” and it is expected to submit its report to Parliament next month.
“New ϳԹ law would allow minors to be euthanized without parental consent,” reads a post on Twitter that also included a clip from an October in which host Tucker Carlson claims a “new law in Canada is expected to allow children to be killed by doctors, by state doctors, without the approval of their parents.” The tweet was shared by thousands of the platform’s users.
Posts containing similar claims have been shared hundreds of times on and .
Rating: False
A spokesman for Minister of Justice and Attorney General David Lamettisaid those who are under 18 are not eligible for medical assistance in dying in Canada under any circumstances.
David Taylor said in a statement people who would like to seek medical assistance in dying must be adults and legally able to make that decision.
“It is a fundamental requirement of Canada’s MAID regime that a person be at least 18 years old and have full decision-making capacity in order to be eligible for this form of medical assistance,” he said.
The history of MAID
The federal medical assistance in dying law was after a 2015 Supreme Court of Canada that invalidated parts of the Criminal Code prohibiting medical assistance in dying.
That law allowed people aged 18 or older to request a medically assisted death if they met certain criteria, includingthat they had an illness, disease or disability that was causing enduring and intolerable physical or psychological suffering, and that their natural deaths were reasonably foreseeable.
In response to the law was revisedin March 2021through , which removes the requirement for a natural death to be reasonably foreseeable, among other changes to eligibility.
A total of 10,064 medical assistance in dying provisions were , accounting for 3.3 per cent of all deaths in Canada that year.
Changes coming to MAID
Bill C-7 also requires eligibility for MAID to be expanded to people whose sole medical condition is a mental illness as of March 17, 2023, but fromLametti, Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos and Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health Carolyn Bennettsaid the government is seeking to push back the deadline t “allow more time for dissemination and uptake of key resources by the medical and nursing communities.”
The statement also said delaying the deadline will provide more time for the government to consider the final report of that is reviewing the MAID legislation. The report is expected by Feb. 17.
The committee is examining several issues related to the MAID legislation including to seek medical assistance in dying.
Children who are sufficiently mature are generally allowed to make their own treatment decisions in Canada under that includes the mature minor doctrine,which allows an unemancipated minor patient to choose or reject a particular health-care treatment, as well as provincial and territorial legislation governing consent to medical treatment and child protection legislation.
A Health Canada spokesperson said in a statement the government of Canada has no immediate plans to alter the ,but it will consider the recommendations of the special parliamentary committee on the issue of mature minors.
Sources
Claim can be found on Twitter () and (), and Facebook (,)
(, )
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
About ϳԹ Press fact checks
You can find out more about ϳԹ here. To reach our fact-checking team with any tips, corrections or comments, please email us at cpfactcheck@thecanadianpress.com.
