The spectrum of end of life care: an argument for access to medical assistance in dying for vulnerable populations.

Medical assistance in dying (MAiD) was legalized by the Supreme Court of Canada in June 2016 and became a legal, viable end of life care (EOLC) option for Canadians with irremediable illness and suffering. Much attention has been paid to the balance between physicians' willingness to provide MAiD and patients' legal right to request medically assisted death in certain circumstances. In contrast, very little attention has been paid to the challenge of making MAiD accessible to vulnerable populations. The purpose of this paper was to examine the extant literature and resources that are available on the provision of MAiD in Canada. We found that the provision of EOLC in Canada offers insufficient access to palliative and EOLC options for Canadians and that vulnerable Canadians experience disproportional barriers to accessing these already limited resources. Consequently, we argue that palliative care, hospice care and MAiD must be considered a spectrum of EOLC that is inclusive and accessible to all Canadians. We conclude by imploring Canadian healthcare professionals, policy makers and legislators to consider MAiD as a viable EOLC option for all Canadians.

The medicalization of birth and midwifery as resistance.

Through the medicalization of women's bodies, the credibility and traditional knowledge of midwives and healers was forcibly lost. Northern Aboriginal communities continue to be especially impacted by the medicalization of birth. In recent years, there has been a resurgence in midwifery that is framed by a feminist discourse of women's reproductive rights. Many researchers believe that women who choose midwifery are exercising a conscious choice of resistance to the medicalization of women's bodies. In this article, I offer a review of the literature on how the medicalization of birth is conceptualized in relation to women's birthing experiences in Canada.