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Doctors say explicit requests for MAID have come from parents involving very young children. Should it ever be granted?
They have a brainstem that will keep their hearts beating, and their lungs breathing, but there is no expectation they would ever experience thoughts or emotions or higher brain functions, said Dr. David Lysecki, a pediatric palliative care specialist. With surgery and life-support, “we can sometimes keep their body alive for years. But that child would never be able to process the outside world in a cognizant way.”
Most parents, when faced with this tragic scenario, opt not to pursue aggressive treatments to prolong their child’s life. Without interventions, the child will die slowly, over the course of weeks.
“Some families ask, ‘If they’re going to die at the end of this anyway, maybe three weeks from now, and we don’t believe they’re going to have meaningful positive experiences between then and now, why must we all have to go through this period of waiting,’” said Lysecki, division head of palliative medicine in McMaster University’s department of pediatrics.
Lysecki will explain that hastening death is not legal in Canada for children. “I reassure them that we are, and will continue to do everything that we can to ensure that their child doesn’t suffer now or as things progress,” he said.
It took 39 seconds to reinvigorate debate over medical assistance in dying on Friday, when a member of Quebec’s college of physicians told a joint House of Commons committee studying the country’s MAID law that deliberately and actively ending the life of an infant less than one would be appropriate in cases of grave malformations and where life expectancy is “basically nil.”
Dr. Louis Roy was simply reciting a statement the college put out nearly a year ago, in December 2021. After reflecting on expanding eligibility criteria for MAID, the college announced it supported the idea of newborn euthanasia in cases with a very poor prognosis and “extreme suffering that cannot be relieved.” It also supported extending MAID to 14- to 17-year-olds and encouraged more public discussion about endorsing euthanasia for seniors “tired of living.”
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-maid-medical-assistance-in-dying-children
Euthanasia for kids?
Sounds wrong to me.