A man who had applied to receive assisted suicide from the Canadian government is no longer considering the option after the public offered money and support, City News reported Wednesday.
The outlet reported last month that 54-year-old Amir Farsoud was applying for medical assistance in dying (MAID), a process in Canada where an individual who meets certain criteria can receive a substance from a medical professional that will kill them. The Ontario resident was in danger of losing his house, and said he would rather die than be homeless.
“I don’t want to die but I don’t want to be homeless more than I don’t want to die,” Farsoud, who suffers from a debilitating back injury, said in the original October news story. (RELATED: California Passes Amendment By Massive Margins To Enshrine A ‘Right To Abortion’ In The State’s Constitution)
Now, Farsoud tells the outlet he is a “different person” after more than $60,000 was raised via a GoFundMe started by a stranger named Effy.
“The first time we spoke, I had nothing but darkness, misery, stress and hopelessness,” Farsoud told the outlet on Nov. 16. “Now I have all the opposite of those things.”
Amir Farsoud will no longer move forward with a medically assisted death. He feels guilt with the act of kindness as there are 500k people still treated like “throwaways.” The solution is not more GoFundMe’s, but ending the structural violence of poverty. pic.twitter.com/5oA8cgIzx3
— Andrew Baback Boozary MD (@drandrewb) November 17, 2022
“I honestly thought by December I wouldn’t be here. So no, I certainly did not envision this by any stretch of the imagination.”
In 2021, MAID cases accounted for 3.3% of deaths in Canada, according to a report by Canada Health. The number of cases grew by 32.4% from what it was in 2020. The total number of reported deaths from the practice in Canada since MAID was approved in 2016 has climbed to 31,664.