December 20, 2022 - 10:05am
Since Canada’s euthanasia regime broke into the global public consciousness earlier this year, people across the world have been horrified by stories of ordinary Canadians choosing to die at the hands of a doctor instead of carrying on living in poverty, of disabled Canadians told to kill themselves by bureaucrats, and of plans to extend euthanasia access to the mentally ill and to “mature minors”.
But until now, defenders of Canada’s MAiD (medical assistance in dying) regime have pushed back aggressively, accusing their critics of spreading disinformation, or worse. They hide behind the fact that poverty is not in and of itself a legal ground for accessing euthanasia, or else claim that the cases of abuse reported in the media are outliers. And because of the opacity that naturally comes with the medicalised rituals of death, it has been difficult for outsiders to know exactly what goes on between the doctor’s office and the funeral home.
Now we know more. Alexander Raikin, a writer based in Washington D.C., has unearthed a cache of publicly accessible but hitherto unreported training material created by the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers (CAMAP), an umbrella group for the medical professionals involved in the peculiar process of providing death. This material, a small portion of which was recently published in an American magazine, The New Atlantis, reveals that those self-appointed guardians of life and death knew all along that many of the public defences for the practice were untrue.
CAMAP, a charity, has no official regulatory role under Canadian law for the provision of assisted suicide. Nevertheless, it has established itself as the de facto standard-setter for euthanasia providers in the country. In July this year, Canada’s federal health ministry announced that it would outsource assisted suicide training to CAMAP, along with a $3.3 million grant.
In public, its leaders deny that there is anything wrong with Canada’s euthanasia regime. Its head, Dr Stefanie Green, has performed more than 300 euthanasia procedures and says “the act of offering the option of an assisted death is one of the most therapeutic things we do”. She is a vocal defender of the practice: in an interview, she said that “you cannot access MAiD in this country because you can’t get housing. That is clickbait. These stories have not been reported fully”.
But her organisation’s internal training seminars tell an entirely different story. In a seminar tellingly titled “Accessing Alternatives to MAiD: What is the role of the MAiD Assessor when resources are inadequate?”, Althea Gibb-Carsley, a recently retired MAiD professional in Vancouver, documents several real-life cases of patients who have sought to die because of a lack of housing or of other resources.
One 55-year-old woman who sought to die “identifies poverty as the driver of her MAiD request – food insufficiency and inability to access appropriate treatments”. The slide (above) points out that “what she really needs” is “an extra $600 or so /month”. Another patient, a 57-year-old man and published author, identified lack of housing and lack of access to medical care among the reasons for his request to die. He had been told that obtaining social housing would take between three and six years; he planned to “stretch credit to the edges then […] set final date” for his death.
Although similar to stories already reported in the Canadian press, these cases are noteworthy because they have been documented by Canadian euthanasia providers themselves, despite their well-trodden public line that such things did not happen in real life.
Nor is this the only area in which euthanasia providers’ public position differs from their private one. For instance, MAiD providers have been at pains to emphasise the rigorous nature of Canada’s procedural safeguards for euthanasia. On paper, they seem adequate: each demand has to be assessed and approved by two medical doctors or nurse practitioners.
What euthanasia providers don’t say out loud is that a patient who is turned down by one assessor can simply “doctor shop” for another one until a willing assessor is found. In another CAMAP seminar, Dr Ellen Wiebe describes a case of a man who was rejected by a MAiD assessor for the procedure because, as Raikin writes, “he did not have a serious illness or the ‘capacity to make informed decisions about his own personal health.'”
But a pro-euthanasia group connected him with Dr Wiebe, a prominent MAiD supporter who was previously accused by a Vancouver Jewish nursing home of sneaking in to euthanise one of its patients (to which she admitted; the provincial medical regulator cleared her of wrongdoing). As she recounts, she performed an assessment online, found him eligible, found another assessor who agreed with her, and drove him from the airport to her clinic, where she “provided for him” or, in other words, ended his life.
All this was legal since, according to yet another speaker, law professor Jocelyn Downie, doctors “can ask as many clinicians as you want or need”. “There is no certainty or unanimity required. There is no perfection required”. As Raikin puts it, “There are many paths available to reach the end, and you only need to find one. The system makes it easy to die.”
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Raikin, who has collected two years’ worth of such training sessions and personally interviewed many of the protagonists, has shared with me details of many other shocking instances where MAiD providers admit in private what they strenuously deny in public.
Meanwhile, participants of these seminars continue to shape the public debate over euthanasia, using their status as ostensible experts to do so. Professor Downie, who told euthanasia providers that they can “ask as many clinicians as you want or need”, has just criticised the Canadian government for seeking to delay the introduction of MAiD for mental disorders because “she does not think a delay is the right decision from a legal and clinical perspective”. How easy should it be for someone to die? Downie does not say.
We implicitly trust our doctors with our lives; but what happens to their profession’s moral guardrails when they are entrusted with the task of killing instead of curing? We are beginning to find out.
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SubscribeIn the most populous state in the world, there are inevitably ethnic and sectarian disputes with casualties. But tot them up and compare with India’s neighbours and you find things are much much worse elsewhere.
India uniquely is a democracy. Modi’s party lost a considerable number of seats in the election earlier this year. A change of government is possible and eventually likely. The rule of law operates if not up to North London human rights industry standards.
The Hindu Muslim conflict is insoluble as in Leicester. The policy on which the BJP will be tested is do they risk and can they prevent a permanently simmering dispute from boiling over?
There’s a smug, racist (reverse) undertone to this article. Not impressed.
“By 1937, a mere 2.2% of the party membership was Muslim; at the time, one in four Indians swore by Islam”
That’s because muslims preferred to join the muslim league and form an islamic state, rather than join any political party that advocated for treating religions equally.
Brits will find out to their cost soon. Muslims are reaching the stage where they discard Labour etc and group together to form an unashamedly “muslim” party.
“when Britain was in the throes of a rabidly intolerant postimperial nationalism.” not sure which Britain he’s referring to. The one that actually existed or a made up pretend version done by Lego at a film studio?
This column strangely disappeared from the home page for the last couple of days. It couldn’t be found even by using Unherd’s own search button, only by googling it. Now it’s back. I almost wondered if the author had withdrawn it for corrections, but it still contains all the same bizarre, fantastical assertions. Such as ‘Britain’s return to cosmopolitanism [between the 1970s and now], in great part of Europhilic stamp, took the edge off English nationalism’. I mean really … what? This author simply has no feel for the recent past in England/Britain.
I was unaware that India had managed to outsource Family Law involving as it does the aggrieved in love, children, estates and mothers-in law to the priests and mullahs of their charming religions. What a wise move. I doubt whether any sensible legislature or work from home Civil Service would be brave enough to venture back in to the fray. Tossing a coin as to the guilty party in separation and divorce is best left to those with a more direct line to the Almighty than mere state officials.
The one thing I never expected from UnHerd was to be bored. There is no better person than this pretentious twit to bore the pants of readers.
I agree. Unfortunately, he’s probably contracted to write a certain number of articles, but as with others, the impression gained is that he’s struggling to fulfil that contract.
His “facts” are so ahistorical that I pity the students who ‘ learn” Indian history from him!
The two Muslem invasions were unwanted, hated and destructive, and btw the inheritance laws mentioned are exactly the same as in Morocco today, leading one to wonder what was so conservative and unusual in 18th century India.
People vote with their feet. The west is provably better since we know people want to immigrate there.
If the environment is so bad for minorities, why do you see illegal muslim immigrants from Bangladesh into India and not the other way around? The Bangladeshi economy is pretty comparable on a per-capita basis.
Because the situation in Bangladesh is much worse.
India is ranked at no 11 on the persecution of Christian’s World Watch List. Christians, a minority group of 5% of the population of the nation of India find themselves increasingly under threat. This hostility is often driven by an ongoing belief among some Hindu extremists that Indians ought to be Hindu—and any faith outside of Hinduism is not welcome in India. This mindset has led to violent attacks across the country and impunity for the people who perpetrate this violence, especially in places where the authorities are also Hindu hardliners.
More and more states are also implementing anti-conversion laws, creating an environment where any Christian who shares their faith can be accused of a crime, intimidated, harassed and even met with violence.
Ethno-religious violence erupted in May 2023 in the northeastern state of Manipur. What began as a dispute between ethnic groups took on a disturbing religious dimension, as Christians were targeted across the ethnic groups. Thousands of Christians were displaced, dozens of churches were burned down and many believers were killed.
India also witnessed mob attacks against thousands of Christians in Chhattisgarh State in January 2023. Christians were chased out of their homes and villages.
It is a country of religious nationalism, dictatorial paranoia, ethno-religious hostility and clan oppression.
Utter nonsense. Of course if you are part of the Soros/ Evangelism etc lobby or ISI backed it’s normal for you to write lies.
Heard about pogroms against minorities including Hindus in Bangladesh and Pakistan?
Your analysis of Manipur shows the ISI line as you are obviously( conscious or ignorance based) unaware of the Kuki conflicts with Nagas( fellow Christians) or links with the Chin Xomi of Myanmar.
As also the involvement of Kuki drug mafias who are equally disliked by ordinary Kukis, but whose links with foreign intelligence agencies triggered the violence.
Hi Sayantani,
Thank you for taking the time to read my post and your comments.
‘Utter nonsense. Of course if you are part of the Soros/ Evangelism etc lobby or ISI backed it’s normal for you to write lies’. – This doesn’t apply to me.
‘Heard about pogroms against minorities including Hindus in Bangladesh and Pakistan?’ – Yes, but I was on the topic of India.
‘Your analysis of Manipur shows the ISI line as you are obviously( conscious or ignorance based) unaware of the Kuki conflicts with Nagas( fellow Christians) or links with the Chin Xomi of Myanmar’. – I talk about ethno-religious hostility. Some news on this front is that the Manipur High Court has revoked a previous order which had asked the state government to expedite the inclusion of the Meitei ethnic community in the Scheduled Tribe category, granting them tribal status. The court’s ruling on 27 March 2023 is considered a key factor behind the violence that engulfed the state two months later, resulting in the displacement of 70,000 people, largely from the majority-Christian Kuki community. In its review, the court ordered the paragraph be deleted from last year’s ruling.
‘As also the involvement of Kuki drug mafias who are equally disliked by ordinary Kukis, but whose links with foreign intelligence agencies triggered the violence’. – Interesting, I didn’t know about this aspect. This is also the link to poppy fields and Indo-Myanmar border you comment on?
While Manipur’s Christians have not been specifically targeted in recent attacks in Jiribam, they are still suffering the impact of violence last year. Huge numbers remain displaced, with their homes destroyed or the communities too unsafe to return to. Christians from the Meitei community are still unable to gather freely for prayer. They are under relentless threats from extremist groups and are closely monitored for Christian activities. Meanwhile, most of the Kuki Christians are still displaced and unable to return to their own land given the erratic situation. Even if Christians gather, there is always a cloud of fear looming over them of unpredictable attacks and firings.
So in any ethnic conflict both sides suffer. There are Meteis in Kuki territory who equally suffer. They are living in camps in the valley too- displaced from their homes. Also they have been attacked in neighbouring Mizoram where there were streams of Meteis made to leave their homes as the Mizos are ethnically similar to Kukis.
Please understand this is an ethnic conflict. Distorting one side of the narrative is quite unfortunate.
You refer to the Court judgement. You need to know about the strong action launched against Kuki drug mafias predating that. Most of these drug traders are not ordinary Indian Kukis but illegal immigrants from Burma. There are aspects of foreign intelligence agencies at work. I speak with some authority here as I know about the conflict owing to my work.
You can hear Rami Niranjan Desai on You Tube or read her analysis to know more.
https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/ramification-a-year-of-manipur-conflict-the-role-of-drug-lords-and-illegal-immigrants-13766706.html
Incidentally the Government has given Scheduled Tribe status to the Kuki Zo while the Meteis suffer.
It’s similar to what would happen if white English people don’t get affirmative action benefits while non whites do. It’s also a twisting of facts to say that there is religious persecution. No.
There are dubious NGOs whose funding is questionable. It’s like the British government doesn’t allow Russian funding of NGOs.
A nation state cannot ignore anti -national groups seeking to break up India. Most of these NGOs have violated Foreign exchange tax laws and regulations. Thus they deserve to be acted against.
This is a complex story of rival ethnicities and not a religious conflict as lobbies in the West project.
This contains some interesting ideas but also a lot of complete bollox. ‘The Seventies, when Britain was in the throes of a rabidly intolerant postimperial nationalism’ … WHAT?? I was there, and I assure you it wasn’t. A few skinheads roamed the streets, and quite a lot of older people were discombobulated by the sudden change in their neighbourhoods due to immigration, but the reins of power were always firmly in the hands of the ‘tolerant’ and cosmopolitan. And that turned out really well, didn’t it?
The author also writes as if nationalism in England, which had been a nation state with a religiously and ethnically homogeneous population for centuries before it acquired a multi-ethnic empire, is directly comparable to nationalism in India, which had always been a patchwork of mutually hostile statelets, castes, religions and sects. Pretty basic misapprehension.
Regarding India ” mutually hostile statelets” not always. Read ancient or even Mughal history. The Mauryas. The Guptas. Kushans. Harshvardhan. Mughal Empire under Akbar. Intelligent and united empires with strategic coalitions.
Author changed the subject in last paragraphs. It treats Islam as if it were a branch of unitarians. Author has managed to write entertaining trifle.
Anil Pratinav- why do you fool Western audiences with this clap- trap?
Do you care to read genuine narrative non- Marxist history and sociology- not only Barrington Moore from the 1960s but also ICS memoirs and prescient commentators like Valentin Chirol?
India has been subjected to violent Islamism since the Arabs conquered Sind.
Under British rule, EIC was genuinely interested in an imperial yet liberal project.
That subsided after the Crown took over due to a cautious elite based policy.
Are you aware of Gandhi and Nehru going out of their way in the years immediately leading to 1947, to appease Muslims by denying Hindu massacres in Noakhali, Bihar etc?
Are you au courant with the post 1947 Indian Constitution privileging Sharia Law above Uniform Civil codes? The fact that Muslims and all minority communities enjoy complete autonomy in running their institutions including educational ones; while all Hindu shrines are Government controlled- effectively using Hindu funds and donations for welfare of all- including minorities?
I can go on and on, but you can take a Marxist to all facts, yet they will still not absorb anything other than their Marxist opiates punched with copious amounts of their echo chamber hogwash!
To claim that the 1947 Constitution of India privileged Sharia Law over Uniform Civil Codes (UCC) might be misleading. The Indian Constitution, adopted in 1950, does not explicitly prioritise Sharia Law. It provides for personal laws based on various religious communities, including Muslims, Hindus, and others, which can coexist alongside civil laws.
Article 44 of the Constitution encourages the state to implement a UCC throughout the country, but this hasn’t been fully implemented. In practice, personal laws, including those based on Sharia, continue to govern family matters for Muslims.
Though the Constitution does not privilege Sharia Law, the existence of personal laws reflects a complex balancing of cultural and religious identities within a secular framework. The ongoing debate around UCC highlights tensions between secularism and religious freedoms in India.
If you analyse the Directive Principles of State Policy it will be clear what privileging of minority rights was ensured.
What you call ” complex balancing” maybe true of the spirit of what the original Constitution planned. The First Amendment of 1951 effectively destroyed that. Then the Congress Party’s minorityism of a consistent kind destroyed the ability of India for decades to build a liberal constitutional ethos as the original Constitution had envisaged.
The Special Marriage Act and Hindu Code Bill Act of the mid 1950s brought in reform only for Hindus but remained ambiguous for minorities who thus were protected enormously.
There is more religious freedom for minorities in India than most other of its neighbours. Rajiv Gandhi destroyed the original spirit of the Constitution by privileging Sharia in the Representation of People’s Acts of 1985. These effectively legislatively disempowered Muslim women and went against the Supreme court judgement in the Shah Bano case.
His mother had similarly acted against the majority through a slew of legislation in the 1970s embodied in the 42nd Amendment which inserted ” Socialist and Secular” to what Dr Ambedkar, the founder of the Constitution had kept as ” Sovereign, Democratic Republic”.
I occasionally wonder whether it might have been better for India to emerge from British rule as a collection of independent nations (as it was before British rule) rather than as one country (or three, if you include Pakistan and Bangladesh).
No.
The problem lay with the Nehruvian bias and stifling of dissent in a post 1947 dynastic democracy only ended in 1989 partially.
That is probably also the case for most of the British empire.( and other European colonies) Newly independent “Nations” were expected to function with numerous ethnic groups of various religions, languages, political and social traditions as well as conflicting economic systems, within national boundaries, often a straight line drawn on a map with a ruler, as often as not bisecting the traditional territory of preexisting ethnic groups.
Clickbait
I gave a long riposte which as usual UH has withheld. Your analysis spot on.