Medical Assistance in Dying, Palliative Care, Safety, and Structural Vulnerability

As more jurisdictions consider legalizing medical assistance in dying or assisted death (AD), there is an ongoing debate about whether AD is driven by socioeconomic deprivation or inadequate supportive services. Attention has shifted away from population studies that refute this narrative, and focused on individual cases reported in the media that would appear to support these concerns. In this editorial, the authors address these concerns using recent experience in Canada, and argue that even if we accept these stories at face value, the logical policy response would be to address the root causes of structural vulnerability rather than attempt to restrict access to AD. In terms of concerns about safety, the authors go on to point out the parallels between media reports about the misuse of AD and reports of wrongful deaths due to the misuse of palliative care (PC) in jurisdictions where AD was not legal. Ultimately, we cannot justify having a different response to these reports when they apply to AD instead of PC, and nobody has argued that PC should be criminalized in response to such reports. If we are skeptical of the oversight mechanisms used for AD in Canada, we must be equally skeptical of the oversight mechanisms used for end-of-life care in every jurisdiction where AD is not legal, and ask whether prohibiting AD protects the lives of the vulnerable any better than legalization of AD with safeguards.