“While some patients may be legally eligible for MAiD by meeting the Criminal Code eligibility criteria, their assessors and providers can still have non-clinical or extra-legal motivations to participate, such as sadism, financial gain, misapplied altruism, or ideology,” wrote Christopher Lyon, a Canadian social scientist and author of the study.
“Canada’s MAiD system is criticized as the most permissive or least safeguarded in the world, raising the question of whether it could protect patients who fit the clinical profile of adult victims of HSK from a killer working as a MAiD provider,” he writes.
Lyon’s study references historical instances of illegal deaths–often linked to euthanasia advocacy groups–before MAID was decriminalized in 2016 and suggests that these past activities may offer insights into how MAID could be exploited today.
‘World’s Fastest-Growing Assisted-Dying Program’
Canada’s MAID program, which has seen the number of assisted deaths increase thirteenfold since its legalization, is deemed the world’s fastest-growing assisted dying program, according to Ontario-based think tank Cardus.
“Mandatory requirements that permit physicians or nurse practitioners to lawfully provide MAID in Canada are set out in the Criminal Code. These requirements include stringent eligibility criteria and robust safeguards that must be applied. In addition to the Criminal Code requirements, physicians and nurse practitioners are bound by professional regulatory rules, and their professional ethics,” the spokesperson said in an email statement to The Epoch Times.
“They also have access to additional guidance, including model practice standards and advice to the profession documents, as well as a national MAID curriculum.”