Trudo Lemmens is a professor of health law and policy at the University of Toronto. In 2022, 13,241 people used “assisted death” in Canada.
Lemmens: “Assistance in dying’ became normalized because it was integrated into the care process, often almost as a first option.” The law was quickly interpreted very broadly. Euthanasia was authorized for patients who had several years of life ahead of them. In these situations, we can understand that the circumstances of the death are frightening, even if there are solutions to accompany it. In 2016, Canada adopted a law authorizing “medical assistance in dying ” for seriously ill adults whose death would be “ reasonably foreseeable”. The use of euthanasia has exploded in Canada, where the use of assisted dying has exploded. In 2012, the number of people who used assisted dying in Canada was 1.3 million. In 2013, the figure was 2.2 million.