Canada’s assisted suicide regime has devolved into doctors and the government encouraging people with non-terminal diseases or injuries to kill themselves. Despite the bleak example from its neighbor to the north, New York has decided it wants to follow Canada down the assisted suicide path.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to sign New York’s “Medical Aid in Dying Act,” getting the ball rolling on an assisted suicide system starting with terminally ill people who are told they have six months or fewer to live. Hochul has reportedly secured a handful of “concessions,” including a waiting period, a mandatory mental health exam for patients, and requiring their application to be submitted with a video of them requesting the act.
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This comes at the same time that the Democratic Party is barreling toward socialism, with Democratic politicians calling for a government-run healthcare system. That socialism is the strongest in New York, with such politicians as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and incoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Canada similarly has a government-run healthcare system, and its assisted suicide regime has devolved rapidly from its initial standard of being available only to adults with “grievous and irremediable” medical conditions.
Since assisted suicide was introduced in Canada in 2016, that standard has decayed. Now, you can be eligible even if you are not already dying, with a 2023 Health Canada report detailing cases where people received assisted suicide for depression. One man applied for and was granted assisted suicide, with his application listing his condition as hearing loss. Another woman was granted it for anorexia. People with various mental illnesses, and no terminal illness diagnoses, are being pushed by the Canadian government healthcare system to kill themselves, because that would be more convenient for the healthcare system than providing them with the treatment they need.
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In fact, Canada was pushing ahead with an official expansion that would allow the state to put down the mentally ill, but it couldn’t find enough doctors to sign on to it. Meanwhile, an increasing number of Canadian youths think people in poverty, with no health conditions, should be among those eligible to be killed by the Canadian healthcare system.
That is how far Canada’s system has devolved in less than ten years. That New York would see this all playing out to its north and still decide to push forward with it is a testament to their naivete, thinking that there is no way they will slide down the same slippery slope that Canada (and other assisted suicide countries) are sliding down. With government-run healthcare growing in popularity in the Democratic Party from Democrats in the heart of New York, a Canadian suicide regime is now far closer than any New York Democrat thinks.
