Canadian icon Robert Munsch has chosen to die by MAID

It has of course been four years and counting, but Munsch said he was convinced he’d made the right decision after watching one of his brothers (he grew up in a family of nine children) dying from Lou Gehrig’s disease, also known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

“They kept him alive through all these interventions,” the author said. “I thought: Let him die.” He added that he will choose to die “when I start having real trouble talking and communicating. Then I’ll know.”

One of the rules of MAID is that consent has to be made at the time of death, and not merely earlier. “The person must be given an opportunity to withdraw consent and must expressly confirm their consent immediately before receiving MAID,” according to regulations posted on a government website.