Five years after assisted dying was legalized in Canada, lawmakers are preparing to review the system that has permitted thousands of Canadians to choose the time and place of their deaths. "There is simply not enough evidence available in the mental health field … to ascertain whether a particular individual has an irremediable mental illness," the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto stated in 2017. Advance requestsThe original law required that patients who had been approved for assisted dying reconfirm their wishes right before the procedure. The Canadian Pediatric Society has pushed to exclude minors from MAID access, while others have argued age limits are arbitrary. Downie said that if mature minors have the legal right to refuse life-saving treatments, they should have the right to choose assisted death.

Source: CBC News May 16, 2021 07:52 UTC