Canada is not expanding medical assistance in dying to infants

"Canada expands assisted suicide laws to allow for killing of INFANTS for profit," says a November 14, 2023 headline from Natural News.

Screenshots of the article have circulated on Instagram, Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter. AFP has fact-checked Natural News multiple times for spreading health and vaccine misinformation.

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Screenshot of a Natural News article taken November 24, 2023

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Screenshot of an Instagram post taken November 24, 2023

 

The website claims without evidence that Canada is now "a state-sanctioned baby-killing regime, all to exploit the valuable organs of healthy children for the organ harvesting trade."

The Canadian government first passed the MAID program in 2016 following a 2015 Supreme Court ruling (archived here and here). It is intended for citizens aged 18 and older with a "grievous and irremediable medical condition."

Canada has considered expanding the program to mature minors -- as young as 14 in some provinces -- but no such changes have been implemented.

"The Government of Canada has no plans to alter the minimum age requirement to access MAID," said Anne Genier, a spokeswoman for Health Canada, in a November 24 email.

AFP has previously debunked claims that MAID is available for Canadian minors.

Recommendation, not regulation

The Natural News article references testimony from Louis Roy, a doctor with the Quebec College of Physicians (QCP), to the Special Joint Committee on MAID on October 7, 2022 (archived here).

Roy recommended expanding MAID to children and infants, a position the QCP has taken since at least 2021 (archived here).

Roy's statements received pushback, but the QCP stood by its stance that infants experiencing "unbearable suffering and (no) prospect of survival" should be granted MAID upon their parents' request, according to a November 2022 statement (archived here).

The Special Joint Committee on MAID was established in April 2021 to review provisions of Canada's law on physician-assisted death. The committee heard from experts to inform potential updates to MAID -- including whether minors should be allowed to request the procedure.

In its final report submitted to Canadian Parliament in February 2023 (archived here), the committee said more research was needed to decide whether access to MAID should be expanded to minors. The government had not adopted any such change as of November 28.

Who is eligible?

To receive MAID in Canada, a patient has to be experiencing "enduring and intolerable" suffering that cannot be alleviated (archived here).

When the law was originally passed in 2016, the patient's death also had to be reasonably foreseeable. That changed in 2021 when it was updated to include those experiencing medical situations where their demise may not be imminent (archived here).

After the conclusion of an Expert Panel on MAID and Mental Illness in May 2022, the government moved to make the procedure accessible to people suffering solely from mental illness (archived here). But that change has been pushed back several times and will not be implemented until at least March 2024.

Critics of the law often say the procedure is too accessible and could become an alternative to suffering experienced by people with disabilities or in poverty. The federal government says there are safeguards in place to protect against misuse of the MAID, including approval from at least two different health professionals.

Read more of AFP's reporting on misinformation in Canada here.