Try refreshing your browser, or Why Liberals' move to expand assisted dying laws to cases of mental illness prompts intense debate Back to video The government’s move followed an intense, extensive and sometimes emotional debate in the Senate over whether excluding mental illnesses from medical assistance in dying (MAID) would be found unconstitutional. “There was no full discussion at the House level about mental illness because it was not in the bill,” said Trudo Lemmens, the University of Toronto’s Scholl Chair in Health Law and Policy, in an interview. But other experts who argued in favour of the bill are happy to see the Senate get its way. To understand why the amendment provokes such strong debate among experts, it first requires understanding how we got to this point. In removing that restriction the government had to clarify its stance on mental illnesses, and so it put a specific provision into C-7 that excluded cases where mental illness is the sole underlying condition.

Source: National Post February 27, 2021 00:22 UTC