There were 15,280 state-sanctioned assisted suicides in Canada in 2023, campaigners against euthanasia estimate ahead of the release of official data. SPUC has warned that Canada offers a “frightening” vision of the UK’s future if assisted suicide is legalised.
Assisted suicides surged by 15.4% between 2022 and 2023, according to a projection by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition that is anticipating a record annual death toll under Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) scheme.
The estimation gathered from various Canadian provinces shows that MAiD accounted for 4.6% of all deaths in the nation in 2023. 60,000 people have been killed by assisted suicide since MAiD was introduced in 2016.
“It’s scary how the system is getting looser, doctors are signing the paperwork, and people who didn’t meet the original criteria have become eligible”, Alex Schadenberg, the director of the Coalition, told the Daily Mail.
A recent cost analysis of assisted suicide estimated that MAiD could save the Canadian health care system up to $136.8 million a year. “As death approaches,” the study stated, “health care costs increase dramatically in the final months. Patients who choose medical assistance in dying may forgo this resource-intensive period.” SPUC slammed the report as “heartless utilitarianism”.
“Assisted suicide is a philosophy of despair”
Daniel Frampton, SPUC’s Editorial Officer, said: “The huge death toll in Canada offers up a terrifying vision of the UK’s future if assisted suicide is legalised here. We must heed the warning, which is increasingly stark and impossible to ignore, especially as more horror stories emerge.
“Assisted suicide is once more on the agenda in the UK following the 2024 General Election, and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said he supports a new vote on such legislation. There is also cross-party support for assisted suicide.
“The British public must be made aware of the mortal threat that assisted suicide poses to the vulnerable, as we see in Canada where people have been offered death as a ‘solution’ to PTSD, autism, disability and even poverty. These are not mere scare stories; they are true cases that expose the slippery slope for what it really is.
“Far from being about compassion, assisted suicide is a philosophy of despair that treats patients as problem people to be dealt with efficiently, whether that person really wants to die or not. We should not be surprised that assisted suicide is rising exponentially in Canada. We cannot allow such a horrible ethic to be imposed on the UK.”
A Canadian Horror Story
A desperate Canadian father is currently fighting to save his 27-year-old autistic daughter from being killed by assisted suicide, approved by doctors. Known as MV, she is physically healthy, and her father has had her case temporarily blocked. It has been conjectured that MV was only granted MAiD because she is autistic.
Campaigner Liz Carr, in her BBC documentary Better Off Dead?, spoke to a disabled man in Canada who, when he was homeless, thought he had no choice but to opt for MAiD since the waiting period for assisted suicide, in his case, was 90 days compared to a ten-year wait for social housing.