An inmate’s right to die: legal and ethical considerations in death row volunteering

“Dying with a Smile, Just Knowing that Somebody’s Listened to Me”: End-Of-Life Care and Medical Assistance in Dying in Canadian Prisons

“…Beyond reviewing the limited scholarly literature that exists on assisted dying for prisoners in Canada (Downie et al, 2019) and globally (Devolder, 2016;Handtke & Bretschneider, 2015;Harrington, 2004;Messinger, 2019;Reichstein, 2020;Schildkraut, 2013;Shaw & Elger, 2016;Urwyler & Noll, 2020), we acquired and reviewed Canadian documentation related to EOLC and MAiD that was available publicly online (CSC 2017b Guideline 800-9: Medical Assistance in Dying; OCI reports for the years 2017, 2019, 2020OCI and CHRC 2019 report Aging and Dying in Prison: An Investigation Into the Experiences of Older Individuals in Federal Custody), available through Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) requests (CSC data on applications and approvals; CSC 2009 Hospice Palliative Care Guidelines for Correctional Services Canada), and made available through direct release to us (Parole Board of Canada [PBC] data on applications and approvals for release). In this paper, while we include a brief overview of some of these documents because they compose the policy context of MAiD and Canadian prisons, we focus our findings and the majority of our analysis and discussion on the primary research data that we elicited from the prisoner interviews.…”