In the absence of consensus around the notion of neuromotor disability in the draft law on the expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAD), a committee of experts will be created to study the question, the minister announced on Wednesday. Health and Seniors delegate, Sonia Bélanger.
Special consultations on Bill 11 ended last week, said Ms.me Bélanger, during a press briefing at the National Assembly. “What came out is that the concept of neuromotor disability is difficult to define, so it would mean possibly difficult to apply and it also means that it could cause harm.”
The committee — which will be made up of professionals, ethicists, lawyers and people living with disabilities — should be formed by the end of the week. He will have approximately three weeks from next week to carry out his work. “The mandate that we will give to the committee of experts, essentially, is to try to define for us what neuromotor disability could mean,” explained Christine Labrie, MP for Québec solidaire.
Bill 11 aims in particular to allow Quebecers with “a severe and incurable neuromotor disability” to request medical assistance in dying. “Someone who is a prisoner of his body, that’s what we’re talking about,” illustrated the minister, when the legislative text was tabled last February.
In its brief submitted during the special consultations on the bill, the College of Physicians of Quebec believes that the qualifier “neuromotor” should be removed. This term does not appear in the Canadian Criminal Code, which states that a person suffering from a “disease, disease or disability of a serious and incurable nature” may be eligible for MAID, if they meet the other criteria.
Work on the other aspects of the bill, such as the one aimed at authorizing advance requests for medical assistance in dying for people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, will continue in parallel, assured Minister Bélanger.
More details will follow