(LifeSiteNews) — Canada could be one step closer to allowing euthanasia, or so-called “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAID), as it’s known, for newborns, should a provincial medical college get its way.
The Quebec College of Physicians is on record suggesting that “medical assistance in dying may be an appropriate treatment for babies suffering from extreme pain.”
The College added that “parents should have the opportunity to obtain this care for their infant.”
Allowing euthanasia for newborns is not a new idea in Canada. In 2022, a Quebec College of Physicians member, Louis Roy, said at a Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying that the procedure could be allowed for “babies from birth to one year of age” who have severe deformities or disabilities.
At the time, even the radical-left governmental then-Liberal Disabilities Minister Carla Qualtrough said there is “no world where I would accept that.”
Last year, LifeSiteNews reported that Health Canada has been funding a university research project concerning “youth views” on euthanasia that included a brief discussion as to whether children with severe autism would ever be allowed to qualify for death under euthanasia.
Assisted suicide was legalized by the Liberal government of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016.
Under the current law, assisted suicide is prohibited for minors and the mentally ill. Activists, however, have been pushing for expansions with varying degrees of success.
In 2021, the Trudeau government expanded euthanasia from killing only “terminally ill” patients to allowing the chronically ill to qualify after the passage of Bill C-7. Since then, the government has sought to include those suffering solely from mental illness.
In February of 2024, after pushback from pro-life, medical, and mental health groups, as well as most of Canada’s provinces, the federal government delayed the mental illness expansion until 2027.
The expansion of euthanasia for the mentally ill is slated to become law in 2027 as a consequence of the passage of Bill C-7.
Conservative MP Garnett Genuis introduced Bill C-260, titled “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying – protection against coercion),” which, if passed, would ban any person in government or other authority from proposing to someone that they consider euthanasia if the person did not ask for it.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, Canada’s Catholic bishops have said they “support” a Conservative bill before Parliament that would ban extending state-sponsored euthanasia to those with mental illness.
Bill C-218, as reported by LifeSiteNews, or “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying [i.e., euthanasia]),” was introduced by Conservative Party MP Tamara Jansen and passed its first reading on June 20, 2025.
LifeSiteNews reported on Bill C-218, noting that the bill’s sponsor, CPC MP Jansen, said allowing “medical assistance in dying” for those with mental illness is “not healthcare, that’s not compassion, it’s abandonment.”
Euthanasia is the sixth-highest cause of death in Canada, but it was not listed in Statistics Canada’s top 10 leading causes of death from 2019 to 2022.