Morning Wire - Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying Law I 11.27.22

Episode Date: November 27, 2022

We dive deep into Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying law. We speak with a young man who lives near Toronto who, if he had his way, would be dead right now. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.  Text "WIRE" to 989898 for your no-cost, no-obligation information kit. Get 25% off your first set of Boll & Branch sheets and free shipping when you use promo code WIRE at https://www.bollandbranch.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=Radio&utm_campaign=WIRE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley. For this Sunday episode of Morning Wire, Daily Wire Culture Reporter Megan Basham presents a special on assisted suicide in Canada. And before we get started, just a gentle warning here that this episode addresses a very serious and sensitive topic that might not be appropriate for young listeners. Tiano Vafayan is 23 years old and lives with his grandfather outside of Toronto. He likes to listen to Ella Fitzgerald and binge watch Game of Thrones. He's 5'9 and has a muscular build, and the kind of white, even smile that comes from years of orthodontics. By any conventional standard, he's handsome. He has a dog, but no girlfriend.

And if he had his way, he'd be dead right now. When people think of assisted suicide, they typically imagine someone elderly, perhaps weeks or months away from natural death. Or they might think of patients diagnosed with terminal cancer or Alzheimer's. That's in large part because, These are the pictures that advocates for euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide have been painting for years. Their argument is that death in these cases is inevitable. Allowing doctors to kill, as well as heal, ease-suffering, advocates say.

They contend that allowing these patients to decide how and when they die provides a sense of dignity and autonomy. But what do you do with a young man who wants to end his life because he's depressed that the diabetes diagnosis he received at age four has recently caused him to go blind in one eye and is impairing his vision in the other. If you're the government-run assisted suicide system in Canada, the system that many U.S. legislators and activists are hoping to emulate,

you agree to kill him. We'll be right back. As inflation continues to plague our economy, how are you protecting north savings? Text wire to 9-8-9-8-98, and Birch Cold will send you a free info kit on diversifying into gold tax-free. With almost 20 years of experience converting IRAs

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When I ask Keanu about his desire to die, he talks a lot about his frustrations with his daily medical routines and is worried that he's a burden on his family. But mostly, he talks about losing his hope that he will ever recover his full eyesight. If you're looking for something in a room, if you're missing something, the first sense to acquire that item, that person, whatever it is, it's always first, I don't know. the vision. And after losing the vision, I felt like if there's no prosthetic for this condition, if there's no alleviating this condition, then why would I continue with such a terrible disease already with diabetes? I have to deal with diabetes and now all these accommodations I have to make for the blindness. It just doesn't make sense to work on your life when you're not getting paid with life's joys, with life's gifts.

He's not only not afraid of death. He says he would welcome the relief he believes it would bring. In my mind, it's playing like this. It's going, I'm going to go to sleep tonight or I'm going to go to sleep now. And I'm not going to have to test my blood sugar tomorrow. I'm not going to have to give myself a needle when I wake up. I'm not going to have to use my walking stick to walk around to go to the bathroom because I don't know this place.

I'm not going to have to do any of that. I'm going to go to sleep so happy, not even hesitating to close my eyes. And that's what I was looking forward to. Keanu's story drew international notice after his mother discovered, only two weeks before he was scheduled to die, that her son had been approved

for physician-assisted suicide. The email she found on Keanu's laptop laid out in clear clinical detail how his life would end on September 20, 22nd, 2022. He would arrive at the assisted suicide facility at 8.30 a.m. At 9, the doctor would administer two drugs that would put him into a coma and stop his breathing. The process would take no more than 10 minutes. He could bring his dog if he wanted. When the doctor who'd agreed to help her son kill himself refused to speak with her, Keanu's mom started an online campaign. She was racing the

clock to stop the procedure from taking place, and her efforts quickly caught the attention of local media outlets. In a few short days, Keanu's case was being debated on the evening news. Mike, we just talked before a break. Rupa Submarania had an article on the rise of Canada's assisted suicide program. She gives us case study of a 23-year-old young man with diabetes and depression, and just how easy it was for this young man to get signed up for assisted suicide. How do we find ourselves in this place? Kiano takes exception to the idea that it was easy for him to get approved for the medical assistance in dying program, known in Canada as Maid. The Maid Law that first passed in 2016 only applied to people facing imminent natural

death. But in 2021, the law was expanded to include those who have, quote, grievous and irremediable medical conditions. Keanu's diabetes meant he, quote, From there, two independent medical professionals had to evaluate his case over the course of 90 days to decide if his wish to kill himself should be granted. Keanu says the process was rife with the kind of inefficiency and disorganization common to government-run programs. He constantly had to find paperwork and medical records on his own just to push his request forward. I would text in between the two assessors. Like one assess, the second assessor said, I've asked for the psychiatric notes to your medical capacity, not received it from the first assessor. So I would message the first assessor and say, they're waiting on the notes. Can you please send them?

I've sent it in an email. Okay, they sent it in your email. Can you check your email? Well, I've checked my email. When would have they sent it? And if I'm going back and forth. So there's no secretary or person that called the Stenthouse frustrated. I was so furious actually when I called them. When I called the coordination service and I said, what's going on here? Like, who manages this? Who coordinates this? Why do I feel like I'm putting in all the effort?

But Keanu believes that his persistence in the face of so much bureaucratic incompetence only proves how sincere he was in his wish to die. and it explains why he was so upset when his mother's social media campaign succeeded in preventing him from doing so. After her petitions gained tens of thousands of signatures and generated public outcry, the doctor who'd agreed to carry out the procedure backed out.

If Keanu still wanted to kill himself, he would need to find another physician willing to help him. Perhaps fearing negative media attention, none has yet stepped forward to take up his case. He went to a local hospital to suggest he could stop giving himself insulin, then he'd qualify under a separate made condition of end-of-life care. Instead, the psychiatric evaluator said he should be admitted to the hospital for mental health observation. Keanu went home.

But his mother worries he'll continue trying. My mom keeps on threatening me. My mom's threatening me that she's going to take me to court, to take guardianship over me. so I can't make this decision. And it's clear he is still thinking about it. After one conversation, he texts me the Apple playlist he put together for his funeral. It's surprisingly upbeat, featuring a lot of Kanye West and Drake.

As more states in the U.S. are adding and expanding assisted suicide laws, it's worth looking to our closest neighbor to consider how the issue has developed in that nation. In some Canadian provinces, made accounts for nearly four. 5% of deaths. Next year, the country will expand its assisted suicide laws for a third time. And starting in March, it will approve requests on the basis of mental illness, including depression, bipolar disorder, and PTSD. Parliament is also considering legislation that will make mature minors, meaning patients under 18, eligible for all permissible conditions.

Many political analysts predict it will pass. But while Canadian polls show that voters overwhelmingly approve of assisted suicide, controversy has been mounting for what has been called the most permissive euthanasia regime in the world. Just this October, a national news broadcaster aired a segment on a man who applied for maid to avoid becoming homeless. Are you afraid to die? Yeah. Amir Farsud has applied for medically assisted dying, known as Maid. He lives in constant agony due to a back injury, but has suffered.

started the process for end of life because his rooming house is up for sale and he can't find anywhere else to live that he can afford. His doctor, who knows Farsud's real reason for Maid is his fear of being homeless, signed off on the application in August. I don't wish to be dead. Even with the pain, even with the meds, I still want to be here. And a few years ago, scandal erupted after a long-term neurological patient recorded hospital staff pressuring him to sign up for maid whenever he asked about plans for his ongoing care. If I had self-direct of farming, then I'd be fine.

But if you weren't, you can just apply to get an assisted. If you want it in your life, like, you don't have to do it in some dramatic manner. You can apply for a sense of it, you know, What's the plan that you know of? Roger, this is not my show. I told you, my piece of this was to talk to you about if you had interest in assisted diet. There was widespread criticism when a 22 report from Canada's parliamentary budget office estimated that the MADE program could save the government nearly $90 million in health care costs. Many American doctors say this is where the U.S. is headed.

Right now, physician-assisted suicide is legal in 10 states, including blue states like Oregon, red states like Montana, and purple states like New Mexico. For now, patients must have a terminal diagnosis to qualify, though assisted dying advocates are pushing to expand that. Euthanasia, where the doctor is the one who administers lethal drugs, isn't legal anywhere in the U.S., but it's a fine distinction. And according to Gallup, 72% of America, Americans believe both euthanasia and assisted suicide should be legal.

Hospice physician, Dr. Leslie Cochran, says this is because people have a fundamental misunderstanding of why patients typically seek assisted suicide. Contrary to popular conception, he says pain actually isn't the foremost reason. The vast majority of people who end up taking their own life aren't doing it because they're in pain. And being in pain isn't even the top one or two reasons why they actually. ask for it. It's autonomy. It's not being a burden on their family. It's wanting to be able to control the end of their life. Cochran adds that any patients who are concerned about pain can be reassured that it should never be a problem. So offering to help someone die on that basis is,

he says, unethical. I think it's very bad, it's very bad medicine. It's very bad ethics. It's just, it's medically unnecessary. Back to what I said, I mean, the idea that the only way we can treat pain is by killing patients as preposterous. You know, there's no argument that anyone on the pro side can make against that because it's just there's no argument to it. It's not true, you know. It's never medically necessary to kill someone to control their pain. There's just no, there's no such case that ever exists.

Cochran says medical professionals pressuring patients to choose assisted suicide is the inevitable consequence of allowing any form of euthanasia. He believes it fundamentally breaks trust between doctor and patient. In countries where euthanasia has been around for a while, people are now afraid of their doctors because, you know, the doctor no longer, in some cases, seems to need to feel that they need the consent of the patient, you know, to go forward with euthanasia. So it's a spectrum and it's a continuum. And I don't know, I don't know how you say that, you know,

once you open the door or once you open Pandora's box, maybe we should say, You know, the genies out of the bottle, you can't put it back in. Right now, Cochran is suing California for a religious liberty exemption to a law governor Gavin Newsom passed last year. It requires physicians who have objections to assisted suicide to refer patients to other doctors who will help them die. Cochran said that too violates his conscience as a Christian. I will work tirelessly to make sure that people live with dignity

until they take their last breath. And I will aggressively manage their symptoms so that they can be as comfortable as possible. But to ask me to intentionally do something with the only intent of killing them, it's unthinkable. Cochran and other doctors like him say that assisted suicide is the one decision that can never be undone.

And doctors sometimes make mistakes. I've admitted people to hospice who have graduated because we found out that what we thought was one problem was actually a different problem or they had a near-life-ending stroke and they unexpectedly recovered or a heart attack and they recovered.

And what a tragedy it would have been if they would have ended their life in two days at a point of despair. How much more does that apply to young patients with non-terminal diagnoses? Pro-life activists point out that issues like depression and mental illness can be temporary problems

while suicide is permanent. Perhaps that explains why Ontario's regulatory body for physicians and surgeons is currently considering a new policy that would require doctors to falsify medical records when it comes to made deaths. The policy would mandate that doctors list the disease or disability leading to the request for assisted suicide as the cause of death. They would be barred from making any reference to assisted suicide on death certificates. Critics say this will make it impossible to maintain accurate records of just how many Canadians are dying through assisted suicide, or even tracking their stated reasons for seeking it. We'll be right back. The holidays are the most exciting time of year, but if you want to enjoy them to the fullest, you'll need to get your best sleep every night.

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Have a date tonight. Yeah, yeah, I can't attend her. She wasn't. come pick you up and drive you after lunch, dinner, spent it. At the time of our conversation, Keanu is one month and three days past his death date. Thanks for listening to this special episode of Morning Wire.

If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, reach out to loved ones and professionals for help. You can call or text the 988-suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. You can also contact the crisis text line by just texting hello to 741-741. Both services provide 24-hour confidential support to anyone in suicidal crisis

or emotional distress. That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back tomorrow with the news you need to know. From all of us here at MorningWire, we hope you're enjoying the show. Did you know that if you subscribe to DailyWire

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