Canada isn't pushing minors to end their lives. Current euthanasia laws don't apply to them anyway

Social media users are misrepresenting a screenshot of the advocacy organization’s website as proof

Ottawa (AP) - Canada government is not pushing minors to end their lives and current euthanasia laws don’t apply to them anyway.

CLAIM: Canada is encouraging minors to commit suicide through its medical assistance in dying process.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Social media users making the claim are sharing a screenshot from the website of an independent organization called Dying With Dignity Canada, which is advocating for certain minors with severe medical conditions to be able to end their lives. Medical assistance in dying, or MAID, is currently only available to adults 18 or older with a serious illness, disease or disability. Canada’s government has said it will pursue research about end-of-life options for young people, but a spokesperson for the country’s federal health agency said it has no immediate plans to lower the minimum age requirement for eligibility.

THE FACTS: Social media users are misrepresenting a screenshot of the advocacy organization’s website as proof that the Canadian government is pushing its youth to cut their lives short.

The screenshot shows the top of a page titled “Mature minors” on the website of Dying With Dignity Canada, a charity focused on end-of-life quality and rights. It includes a photo of a child in bed and states: “With the appropriate safeguards in place, mature minors should be allowed the right to choose MAID.”

“Canada is inciting minors to commit suicide with the excuse of being ‘mature’?” reads one tweet that shared the screenshot. “@JustinTrudeau making Hitler look like a choir boy.” The tweet had received more than 2,000 likes as of Monday.

Other posts with the screenshot go a step further, claiming that minors can already use MAID to end their lives.

But Dying With Dignity Canada is independent of the country’s government, and minors do not currently qualify for MAID, a process that allows Canadians to end their lives via euthanasia or assisted suicide.

What’s more, the posts are misrepresenting Dying With Dignity Canada’s position, as well. Its website advocates for access to end-of-life options such as MAID for mature minors — children who are deemed mature enough to make their own decisions about medical treatment — with severe medical conditions. But Sarah Dobec, a spokesperson for the organization, told the AP that it “does not encourage minors, or anyone else, to die, including by suicide.

A person must be 18 years old and mentally capable of making their own health care decisions to currently qualify for MAID, and the Canadian government said it does not currently intend to change this criteria.

“The Government of Canada has no plans to alter the minimum age requirement to access MAID,” Health Canada spokesperson Anne Genier told the AP. “Health Canada is considering undertaking research to understand the views and perspectives of young people, and their parents/caregivers, about suffering and end of life options, including Medical Assistance in Dying.”

Those seeking MAID must have a medical condition that is “grievous and irremediable,” voluntarily request assistance and give informed consent to receive it, and be eligible for Canadian health services. Two independent medical practitioners assess each MAID request.

The medical condition does not need to be terminal, but must be in an advanced, irreversible state that causes “unbearable physical or mental suffering” that cannot be addressed “under conditions you consider acceptable.” This may include certain disabilities, a fact that has concerned some experts. People whose only medical condition is a mental illness will be considered starting on March 17, 2024.

Canada’s highest court declared in 2015 that outlawing assisted suicide deprived people of their autonomy. The following year, a new law created two options for eligible adults to end their lives — either a medical practitioner can directly administer a substance that will lead to death, such as an injection of a drug, or the practitioner can prescribe a drug the person takes themselves.

In 2018, three reports on medical assistance in dying commissioned by the Canadian government were released, including one focused on mature minors. None of these reports contained specific recommendations.

A Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, composed of lawmakers from the country’s Parliament, explored the possibility of eligibility for mature minors, among other topics. Its final report was released in February and includes five recommendations related to minors, including that “minors deemed to have the requisite decision-making capacity upon assessment” be eligible for MAID.

In its June response to this report, the Canadian government wrote that it “has actions underway, or planned, in many of the areas covered by the Committee’s recommendations.” This includes funding for research on MAID and marginalized people, including mature minors, and engagement with Indigenous people on the topic.

Daryl Pullman, a professor of bioethics at Memorial University of Newfoundland, told The Associated Press that if mature minors do eventually become eligible for MAID, it will be imperative to ensure that there are appropriate safeguards in place.

“It’s not coercing people into it, but I do have a lot of concerns about how it will actually be carried out,” he said. ___ This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online.