We hear again and again that the UK’s assisted dying will never be like Canada - we’re nothing like Canada! The headlines on Canadian Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) are pretty alarming. But to some surprise, the MPs considering assisted dying at Westminster didn’t ask any experts from Canada to give evidence. We want to know what those experts would have said, so we’re kicking off a short series of discussions with Canadian families, legal experts, and medics, to understand what on earth went wrong in Canada’s MAID, and whether the UK can avoid ever becoming ‘like Canada’.
First, we are immensely grateful for time with Alicia Duncan. With her sister Christie, she has been flung into a campaigning role that frankly no one would choose for themselves. Their mother Donna Duncan, an educated, fiercely independent woman, was given MAID in 2021. But Donna didn’t have a terminal illness, in fact she’d been suffering mental health issues since a minor car crash left her with post concussion syndrome. Her daughters faced a fierce fight to try to prevent their mother’s death. Appallingly, they did not succeed, and Donna was given MAID only hours after release from psychiatric hold.
We think you’ll agree after this discussion that Alicia and her sister Christie are a credit to their mother.
We cover the unfurling of Canada’s MAID, why we don’t hear about abuses in MAID (except for a few brave family members), what happens when the state kills someone it shouldn’t have, and Alicia’s asks of MPs in the UK.
Alicia Duncan will have a book out later this year. You can read her evidence to the Westminster Parliament considering Assisted Death here, get her newsletter, find her on substack and twitter/X
Canada’s MAID, some of the headlines mentioned in this discussion:
Woman undergoing a masectomy offered assistance to die, twice
Man given assisted death due to his hearing loss
Minors should be eligible for assisted dying, parliamentary committee says
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