(LifeSiteNews) — A Canadian woman is calling for reforms after detailing how her suicidal mom was given euthanasia only hours after leaving care instead of being properly treated for a serious psychiatric medical issue.
Alicia Duncan said that her 61-year-old mom, Donna Duncan, was given Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) at home in Abbotsford, British Columbia, on October 29, 2021. Her family is demanding answers as to why she was released from psychiatric care.
Donna was a retired psychiatric nurse who had tried to kill herself only days before she was given MAiD. Alicia said that her mother was approved for MAiD by two independent assessors who claimed that her death was reasonably foreseeable, something she disputes.
Alicia noted that her mom was “not dying” but was instead in a “crisis,” as she was quoted as saying in an Epoch Times report.
She also noted how her mom had just tried to kill herself, and only “days later” the “same wish to die was treated as an autonomous medical decision.”
Alicia, who wrote a book about the experience, “The Other Side of the Straitjacket: A Daughter’s Story of Mental Illness and Assisted Dying,” now wants answers.
Her mom had developed anxiety and paranoia after suffering a concussion from a car accident a year before her death. Donna had wanted to get MAiD, but her doctor declined, as he thought her physical issues were a mental health issue.
Donna eventually found health practitioners to approve her MAiD request. However, once Donna’s family found out, they asked for an emergency application before a British Columbia provincial judge to have her assessed.
A warrant was issued for Donna under the Mental Health Act to undergo more assessment, putting a pause on her euthanasia date. Donna then tried to kill herself, but she survived the attempt. She was then place in involuntarily psychiatric care.
However, after only four hours after being released, she was given MAiD at home.
Daughter demands answers over mom’s death
A subsequent police investigation concluded that Donna’s MAiD death involved “no criminal offence” being committed.
According to Alicia, she has warned that the supposed safeguards in place to stop MAiD for those whose sole condition is a mental illness failed.
She recently testified before Canada’s Special Joint Committee on MAiD that, as LifeSiteNews reported, recommended against the planned expansion of euthanasia in Canada to those with mental illness.
The expansion of euthanasia for the mentally ill is slated to become law in 2027 as a consequence of Bill C-7 passing.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, Canada’s Catholic bishops have said they “support” Bill C-218, a law that if passed would stop the expansion of euthanasia to those with mental illness.
Alicia said that the supposed “safeguards existed on paper, but no one was independently checking whether they had actually been met.”
“The public assumes someone is independently checking these decisions. They aren’t,” she said, adding, “MAiD assessments are completed by the practitioners involved, and oversight largely takes place after the person is dead.”
The reality of euthanasia in Canada is that it has become so prevalent that recent statistics show the nation has recorded more deaths by MAiD than murders by guns in the United States in 2024.
Currently before the House of Commons is a Conservative bill that would in effect ban extending state-sponsored euthanasia to those with mental illness.