Choice is led by values

It is disappointing to see Canadian Family Physician being used to perpetuate the myth that dying people request medical assistance in dying (MAID) because of inadequate palliative care.¹ This is simply false and misleading. People exercise their right to choose MAID in more than 90% of cases for existential reasons, not for inadequate pain and symptom management. Nor are the 2 options mutually exclusive.

Patients who choose MAID are commonly used to living autonomously according to their own values. These empowered people, when faced with suffering leading to death, choose to exercise control over this aspect of their lives, and in authoring the final chapter of their lives, choose the best death available to them according to their own values. Not what some religious group or palliative care “expert” opines.

They choose to make their own passing as peaceful as possible, and planned according to their values regarding where, when, and who is present.

Yes, they should be aware of and access any and all palliative care options, providing the best pain and symptom management they choose, and every effort should be made to find meaningfulness and closure in their time remaining. That is just proper palliative care—that goes without saying, but it has nothing to do with the reason for the recognition of MAID as a constitutional right by the Supreme Court and its presence as an option to Canadians.

The propaganda against MAID is rooted in falsehoods and religious dogma, none of which should be repeated in any Canadian medical journal in 2017.

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