MAID’s evolving ethical tensions: Does it make dying with dignity easier than living with dignity?

There is debate about whether a health-care worker can ethically participate in both palliative care and the MAID program. (Shutterstock)

Medical assistance in dying (MAID) has received lots of media attention over the past few years. This is especially true as the Canadian government considers expanding eligibility for people whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness. This has led to increased concerns about the ethics of MAID.

Even in its present form, MAID is fraught with ethical tensions. As scholars engaged in research on MAID, we have heard about these tensions firsthand through interviews with physicians and nurses who provide MAID-related care, clinical ethicists who perform MAID-related consults, family members of patients who have received MAID and patients who have requested MAID.