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Podcast: North Star with Ellin Bessner
Episode: A rabbi and a surgeon explain why they support MAiD and discuss whether to include those suffering from mental illness
Description: On Feb. 1, the Canadian government announced it wants to postpone until 2027 the commitment to expand medical assistance in dying (MAiD), which currently does not allow patients with mental illness to end their lives with a physician’s or nurse practitioner’s help.
MAiD has been legal for terminally ill patients since 2016, and since 2021, for those with chronic illness, allowing nearly 45,000 Canadians to subsequently legally end their lives with the program. That number is growing every year.
The new mental health provision was actually supposed to come into effect this March, already a year later than originally planned. But the Libe...