Senate investigates leaked euthanasia report

Some are celebrating Canada’s government “indefinitely suspending” legalizing euthanasia for mental illness as a great victory for life. Not me. Here’s why. Of course, I am gratified that mental illness will not become grounds for being killed in 2027 as was scheduled. But note: In announcing the suspension, the government mooted legislation likely to pass that would have permanently outlawed killing for mental illness. Moreover, “indefinite” can mean years — or a month. So, it’s not a matter of principle.

Canada’s federal government said on Wednesday it would advance legislation to prevent people whose sole health condition is mental illness from accessing euthanasia, an effort by the ruling Liberal party to address a clash in the country over who has access to physician-assisted death. Under the current rules, people whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness have been barred from accessing medical assistance in dying (Maid) to end their lives. But that ban – due to be lifted in March – has divided lawmakers over whether to permit this expansion of the Maid program. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the justice minister, Sean Fraser, said his government would indefinitely bar people whose sole condition is mental illness from accessing the program. He said that while there was no “perfect consensus” on this issue, upcoming legislation reflected the “correct” approach. Earlier this year, a government committee concluded the government should expand access to Maid and should “indefinitely exclude persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness from eligibility for medical assistance in dying”.

How do you fully unpack a film like Fjord? Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes earlier this year. It’s a complex moral drama about white conservative migrants from Romania who arrive in a remote village in Norway and find themselves embroiled in a court case after being accused of abusing their children. It’s a film that withholds rather than divulges: we never see the cause of the bruise that raises the alarm. It’s a slippery undertaking that tries to navigate the issue without taking a side. However engrossing this might be on a narrative level, it also plays a dangerous game of false equivalence. Can we really compare progressivism run amok with fascism? For better and for worse, Mungiu doesn’t fully commit to an answer. The movie does not ask us to back the Gheorghiu family uncritically, despite (mostly) taking their point of view. While loving and well-intentioned, their traditional values emerge as close-minded and, even without corporeal violence, borderline abusive.

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