Canada’s Doctors Coerced Into Promoting Euthanasia Call the Practice ‘Illegal’ and ‘Unethical’

An expansion to medical assistance in dying laws will soon compel psychiatrists to consider euthanasia requests for those with depression, PTSD, and other conditions

People rally against Bill C-14, the medically assisted dying bill, during a protest organized by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 1, 2016. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press

Over 1,500 of Canada’s publicly funded psychiatrists, pediatricians, medical professors, and general practitioners have joined an organization to fight the government’s expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAID). Originally, patients suffering from conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder, personality disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD, or any other mental affliction were to gain access to the lethal injection in March 2023. That timeline is likely to be extended to March 2024 after the Liberal government tabled bill C-39 on Feb. 2 to delay implementation.

Some critics argue medical professionals are being pressured to promote MAID because suicide is cheaper than having to provide care under Canada’s publicly funded medical system. A group of 1,502 Canadian doctors, including medical professors and specialists, calling themselves Physicians Together with Vulnerable Canadians (PTVC), have publicly expressed their concerns about the situation on their website:

“Medicine … has been transformed into a technical occupation that allows physicians to deliberately end the lives of their suffering patients. Forced participation in arranging and facilitating euthanasia and assisted suicide is now required by certain regulatory colleges … patients can no longer unconditionally trust their medical professional to advocate for their life when they are at their weakest and most vulnerable. Suddenly, a lethal injection becomes part of a repertoire of interventions offered to end their pain and suffering.”

Dr. Ramona Coelho, a London, Ontario-based family physician and a founding member of PTVC said in an interview in the Ottawa Citizen:

“Our profession has been coerced into facilitating suicide rather than preventing it, for ever-increasing numbers of citizens. We watch in utter dismay and horror at how the nature of our medical profession has been so quickly destroyed by the creation of misguided laws.”

When Canada passed its first euthanasia law in 2016, the high court ruled that only competent adults suffering from a “grievous and irremediable” medical condition had a right to receive a lethal injection. There were safeguards in place such as a 10-day waiting period to allow the patient time to change their mind and there was an onus on the physician to provide alternative treatments to euthanasia to alleviate pain and suffering—such as government-funded palliative care programs.