A newly proposed Canadian law, announced Thursday, will seek to legalize physician-assisted death for Canadians with serious medical conditions, but will also forbid non-Canadians from receiving assisted suicide services in the country. While the proposed law will expand access for Canadians, it will effectively prevent American citizens from traveling to Canada to die on their own terms.
A senior Canadian official, speaking anonymously, told the Associated Press late Wednesday that the new assisted suicide policy will preclude “suicide tourism” from the United States and elsewhere. The proposed law will also exclude those who experience mental illness or psychiatric conditions, and outlaw advance consent, which is essentially a request to end one’s life in the future.
This proposed law follows a Canadian Supreme Court decision from last year that ruled in favor of assisted suicide, stating that outlawing the practice deprives dying people of their dignity and autonomy. Prior to the decision, it had been illegal in Canada to counsel, aid, or abet a suicide, a crime that carried a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. The Supreme Court ordered the government to pass an updated law within a year.
The Conservative Party, previously led by Stephen Harper, strongly opposes legalizing assisted suicide. However, the Liberal Party, which rose to power last fall, is more receptive to physician-assisted suicide, and is now planning to pass the court-ordered legislation by the court’s revised deadline in June. Given the Liberal Party’s strong majority in the House of Commons, the legislation is expected to pass. However, the Liberal Party will not require its members to vote for the law, since some members hold conflicting religious beliefs.
Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, Germany, Albania, Colombia, and Japan, and doctors are allowed to perform euthanasia in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg under severe circumstances. However, the practice is illegal in most of the United States. Terminally ill Americans can legally take their own lives only in Washington, Oregon, Vermont, and Montana.
Since assisted suicide is legal in very few places, “suicide tourism” to countries where it is permitted has become increasingly prevalent. Switzerland, whose laws on the practice are unclear, saw 611 people, including 12 Canadians, travel to the country for assisted suicide services between 2008 and 2012. The phenomenon has also been documented in Mexico, where foreign travelers have purchased pet sedatives in order to facilitate painless death. Belgium and the Netherlands have attempted to prevent “suicide tourism” by requiring patients to have a close relationship with the doctor assisting with the suicide.
Momentum is growing in the United States for the expansion of assisted suicide services. The majority of U.S. doctors support physician-assisted suicide, and 70 percent of the American public supports “death with dignity” laws when they don’t include the word “suicide” in them. Later this year, California will become the largest state to permit physician-assisted suicide when a new law passed in 2015 takes effect.
Bryan Dewan is an Intern at ThinkProgress.