A disabilities advocate has slammed a proposed expansion of Canada’s euthanasia laws as “irresponsible and extremely unethical”.

The country already allows doctors to directly kill or assist the suicide of vulnerable people who are terminally ill.

Bill C-7 removes the requirement for a person’s natural death to be reasonably foreseen.

This means persons with disabilities, including those suffering from an incurable mental illness, could access so-called Medical Assistance in Dying.

Heidi Janz, ethics professor at the University of Alberta and chair of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities’ Ending-of-Life Ethics Committee, called the plans “irresponsible and extremely unethical”.

Having grown up among other children with disabilities, Prof. Janz said: “we all knew that some of us would live longer than others. But we also knew that all of us would live with the best quality of life possible”.

But she confessed that she worries about the effect expanding euthanasia will have “on kids and youth with disabilities”.