Canadian writer Robert Munsch approved for assisted death

The famous children’s writer Robert Munsch was approved for medical death in Canada.

Munsch, of which 85 books published include the Princess and Love You Forever paper bag, received a dementia diagnosis in 2021 and also has Parkinson’s disease.

The author told the New York Times Magazine that he had not decided to meet for his death, but said he was going to say “when I start to have real problems to speak and communicate. Then, I will know.”

Canada legalized euthanasia in 2016 for people with terminal phase. In 2021, the law was modified to include those who have serious and chronic physical conditions, even in non -threatening circumstances.

Munsch has sold more than 80 million copies of his books alone in North America and were translated into at least 20 language – including Arabic, Spanish and Anishinaabowin, an Aboriginal North American language.

In 1999, Munsch was appointed member of the Order of Canada. A decade later, he received a Walk of Fame star of Canada in Toronto.

In the interview with New York Times magazine, Munsch said that his decision had been influenced by looking at his brother to die from Lou Gehrig’s disease, also known as the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (SLA) – the most common form of motor neuron (MND).

Munsch said: “They kept him alive through all these interventions. I thought, let him die.”

In Canada, people over the age of 18 must meet several requirements to be eligible for assisted death.

They include a “serious and incurable disease”, making a “voluntary request which is not the result of external pressure” and be in an “advanced state of irreversible decline in capacity”.

Two independent doctors or nurses must then assess the patient to confirm that all eligibility conditions are met.

Scholastic, the editor of Munsch, said in a press release on Instagram that his decision to speak publicly about medical death “reminds us, once again, why Robert’s work continues to reach many generations”.

Munsch’s daughter Julie posted on Facebook that her father’s decision to continue medical death was taken five years ago.

Julie called the interview with the New York Times Magazine “Great”, but added that “nowhere he says that my father is not doing well, or that he will die anytime soon”.

According to Canadian law, the person must be able to actively consent on the day of his death.

“I have to choose the moment I can still ask for it,” he said in the interview.

Medically assisted death represented 4.7% of deaths in Canada in 2023 – the most recent official statistics.

Some 96% of the 15,300 people who suffered a death helped to die in 2023 had a death deemed “reasonably preliminary”, due to serious medical conditions such as cancer.