An Appointment to Die For

In Canada, it is easier to schedule your death than to schedule a colonoscopy. Although the average wait time in Nova Scotia for a colonoscopy is 7 months, Canadians can get an appointment to die within weeks.  

Some call it euthanasia or physician assisted suicide or mercy killing, but the Canadians refer to it as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). First legalized in 2016, MAiD was expanded in 2021 to no longer require a person’s natural death to be “reasonably foreseeable” to qualify. All that is required now is that 2 health care professionals—not necessarily medical doctors—certify a patient of adult years and sound mind has a serious, irreversible condition “that cannot be relieved under conditions that the person considers acceptable.” Oh yes, coverage by government funded health insurance is also required.

Rupa Subramanya—writing in the Common Sense substack—tells the chilling story of Margaret Marsilla finding out her son had scheduled his own death at a government sponsored thanatorium:

She had known that her 23-year-old son, Kiano Vafaeian, was depressed—he was diabetic and had lost his vision in one eye, and he didn’t have a job or girlfriend or much of a future—and Marsilla asked her daughter to log onto Kiano’s account. (Kiano had given his sister access so she could help him with his email.)…

That was when Marsilla learned that Kiano had been approved for “medical assistance in dying,” aka MAiD, aka assisted suicide.

In a September 7 email from the doctor, Tepper mapped out the schedule:

“Hii,” he emailed. (Apparently, Tepper did not use spell check.) “I am confirming the following timing: Please arrive at 8:30 am. I will ask for the nurse at 8:45 am and I will start the procedure at around 9:00 am. Procedure will be completed a few minutes after it starts.”

The procedure entailed administering two drugs. First, a coma-inducing agent. Then, a neuromuscular blocker that would stop Kiano’s breathing. He would be dead in five to ten minutes.

A chill ran up my spine the first time I read this matter-of-fact explanation of the procedure. It is not “allowing nature to take its course.” It is not giving morphine to a terminally ill patient to relieve discomfort, knowing the morphine may accelerate the time of death. This is murder. Plain and simple. It is not even assisted suicide. The Canadian doctor is introducing a lethal pathology. It is the same sort of lethal injection procedure used to carry out the death sentence of heinous criminals. Presumably, though, the setting for patients’ deaths is nicer than that for prisoners. I hope they have wide-screen movie projections of nature scenes and classical music playing like Edward G Robinson experienced in the suicide parlor in Soylent Green.

Canada believes that the declining slope in eligibility from terminally ill to ‘unacceptable suffering’ hasn’t proven to be slippery enough. Now, the requirement for adult years and sound mind is being questioned. Next March, the government is scheduled to expand eligibility to include the mentally ill and mature minors. Minors will be allowed to permanently end their suffering without parental consent.

I must commend the death doctors on one aspect of their care, however—their punctuality. The time from arrival at clinic to final exit is less than 45 minutes. Most patients seeking life-sustaining treatment for diabetes would still be in the waiting room. That’s all we need to know about the misguided priorities in healthcare.

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