Did Gavin Newsom Witness His Mother’s Murder?

This article was published by National Review online on February 5, 2026.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

California Governor Gavin Newsom is clearly running for president and — surprise, surprise — has a new memoir coming out. In an interview about the book, he recounted attending his mother’s hastened death. From the Washington Post story:

It was the spring of 2002 when Gavin Newsom’s mother, Tessa, dying of cancer, stunned him with a voicemail. If he wanted to see her again, she told him, it would need to be before the following Thursday, when she planned to end her life.

Newsom, then a 34-year-old San Francisco supervisor, did not try to dissuade her, he recounted in an interview with The Washington Post. The fast-rising politician was racked with guilt from being distant and busy as she dealt with the unbearable pain of the breast cancer spreading through her body.

Newsom’s account of his mother’s death at the age of 55 by assisted suicide, and his feelings of grief and remorse toward a woman with whom he had a loving but complex relationship, is one of the most revealing and emotional passages in the California governor’s book, “Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery,” which will be published Feb. 24.

Some call it assisted suicide, but it appears to have actually been a homicide because she was lethally injected by a doctor:

Forty-five minutes before the “courageous doctor” arrived to administer the medicine that would end her life, Newsom and his sister gave their mother her regular dose of painkillers to keep her comfortable, he said.

When the doctor arrived, Tessa Newsom lucidly answered his questions and told him she was sure of her decision, Gavin Newsom said. Her labored breathing and the gravity of the moment became too much for Newsom’s sister. She left the room. Newsom stayed.

“Then I sat there with her for another 20 minutes after she was dead,” he said, his voice breaking briefly and his eyes welling as he told the story. “My head on her stomach, just crying, waiting for another breath.”

Here’s the thing. If the “courageous doctor” intentionally administered an overdose with the intent to kill Tessa, it was murder, which is defined in California as “the unlawful killing of a human being . . . with malice aforethought.”

Malice in this context doesn’t mean ill will. Rather, “(1) Malice is express when there is manifested a deliberate intention to unlawfully take away the life of a fellow creature.” That was clearly the case in Newsom’s telling.

It’s what she wanted! Perhaps. But under the law, a victim cannot consent to being murdered, so that would be no defense for the doctor.

But Wesley, it would be legal in California today! No, it wouldn’t. California’s assisted suicide law requires self-administration. So, under the law as it currently exists, if a doctor intentionally lethally injects someone with the intent to kill, it remains murder.

Despite the obvious emotional pain caused in witnessing his mother’s killing, Newsom says that he strongly supports legalizing assisted suicide. Of course he does. Legalizing assisted suicide is a liberal agenda item. And as I said, he’s clearly running for president.

So, the question is: Did Newsom break the law? If he did not participate directly in his mother’s killing or arrange for the doctor to do the deed, probably not.

But in a 2018 recounting, he told a New Yorker reporter a somewhat different story: “The night before we gave her the drugs I cooked her dinner, hard-boiled eggs, and she told me, ‘Get out of politics.’ She was worried about the stress on me.” Assisted suicide was illegal in 2002, so I don’t know.

I do wonder though, that if he had been continually caring for her so that she didn’t have to leave him a message about her plan, if he had tried to dissuade Tessa from having herself ended, and had facilitated the kind of medical care that might have made her not want to be killed, whether things might have turned out differently. Hospice, properly administered, can work wonders in that regard. But as Newsom said, he was “distant” from her and oh, so very busy.

The human cost of medical homicide

Gordon Friesen

The following post is part of a structured, multi-week, simultaneously published exchange between Kim Carlson and Paul Magennis, authors of  MAiD in Canada, and Gordon Friesen, President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. These alternating messages will explore deeply divergent views on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), and no mutual endorsement is implied.

Previously published installments have been:

Gordon Friesen, Monday, January 12, 2026.
Maid in Canada (MIC)     January 19, 2026.
Gordon Friesen                January 26, 2026.
Maid in Canada (MIC)     February 2, 2026.

The human cost of medical homicide

By Gordon Friesen

In order to properly "concede" a point which I have never disputed (and also to correct misrepresentations of our common sources) I must first establish a larger context.

One stellar participant in our October EPC press conference was Gunner Kelsi Sheren. Kelsi is a Canadian combat veteran suffering from battlefield PTSD. She is also one of many persons who believe they would not be alive today, had psychiatric homicide existed in the past.[i]

The attempted Maid-in-Canada take-down of Kelsi Sheren is shameful and riddled with Orwellian doublespeak. I warn readers to beware of any statement, from MIC, regarding this outstanding individual whose personal sacrifice was made in our defense. In particular, the Maid-in-Canada suggestion that Kelsi Sheren's voice be silenced, is despicable.[ii]

That said, Kelsi and I have a natural connection, because we are both eligible for medical homicide --and thus both personally threatened by the Canadian system of managed death.

To be clear: judges and legislators (thus far) have only considered speculative harms, to the so-called "vulnerable", not those real and immediate harms inflicted on the entire eligible population.

Under Canadian law, Kelsi and I may be put to death with no consequences for the perpetrator.[iii] This is not speculative. It is perfectly real. Furthermore, this outrage is discriminatory. Eligibility is not a choice. We (of the eligible group) are deprived of protections enjoyed by all others; deprived of equal treatment before the law.

Worse still, thanks to homicide enthusiasts in the Province of Quebec, so-called "assistance in dying" has been authorized, not as a mere liberty of permission, but as a medical entitlement.[iv]

(Please note that I am against all killing. But the harms of homicide --defined as medical care-- are of a whole new order. In particular, talk of "autonomy" becomes absurd. For the allegedly objective benefit, of real medical treatment, is independent of patient choice.)

With homicide now incrementally imposed, as true medical care: all eligible persons are systematically targeted by a medical system re-tooling to that end. Those real, life-affirming doctors, hospitals, and nurses --who are required to support the survival-oriented majority-- are being phased-out just as quickly as legal repression and generational replacement can accomplish.[v] "Autonomy" becomes limited to the doubtful possibility of refusing homicidal "care".

Naturally, these facts are especially important to permanently eligible survivors like Kelsi and myself, but we are only the canaries in the coal mine. The struggle for life is common to all. And the danger of medical homicide is not choice-dependent like the one confronting alcoholics outside the tavern door. People do not have to go to taverns. But they all do, eventually, go to hospitals.

It is important, therefore, to understand how quantitatively marginal are the atypical desires which have been seized upon to determine standard medical care, and standard clinical culture.

Medical homicide is the final goal of death-lobby icons going back to Sue Rodriguez (1993).[vi] They do not seek a simple liberty to die. They demand that society validate their death. That society be complicit in its accomplishment. That society agree with them.

But the eligible part of society (at least) does not agree. There is no medical circumstance, whatsoever, in which consent to medical homicide is statistically typical.[vii] Hence, there is no circumstance in which medical homicide might be presented as normal medical care.

In psychiatric medicine this is particularly clear. There is no way to objectively predict, among comparable patients, which ones will actually die by suicide, and which will not. There is, therefore, no excuse for psychiatrists to professionally validate particular deaths. The great majority of patients, like Kelsi Sheren, need professionals who remain unconditionally committed to life, even (and especially) at times when no positive prognosis is obtainable.

For the protection of psychiatry, and that of psychiatric patients, any respectful suicidal death, whether assisted or not, must at least occur without medical validation (and without the participation of any medical professional).

Or more colorfully stated:

If someone wants to pee, that is fine. But they have no right to pee in the punch bowl from which all others must drink.

This is obviously a sensitive point for Maid-in-Canada. For it was in response, to the expression of these sentiments, that their criticism of Kelsi Sheren really went ballistic.[viii]

Forget the irony of Maid-in-Canada condemning anybody for trivializing suicide. What we realize is that the question of medical homicide has become a cage fight.

Society must decide: Is it more important to provide medically entitled access to poisoning by doctors... or to provide a general protection against that occurrence?

Clearly, the same professionals and institutions cannot do both.

No medical homicide for mental illness. Support Bill C-218.[ix]

Unfortunately, I have insufficient space (this time) to honor my promise of correcting Maid-in-Canada's misrepresentation of sources. But I would be glad to do so (and also, to critique their pet theory of Carter and "categorical exclusion") should they feel confident enough to continue this conversation.

---

[i]      Sherin, Kelsi,MAID and the Cost of Abandonment, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, October 29, 2025  https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2025/10/kelsi-sheren-maid-and-cost-of.html

[ii]     Carlson, Kim Magennis, Paul, Misinformation at Parliament: What Happened on October 28th (Part II), Maid in Canada, Nov 29, 2025 https://maidincanada.substack.com/p/misinformation-at-parliament-what?open=false#%C2%A7part-ii-kelsi-sheren

[iii]   Criminal Code of Canada (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-46) (art. 214:227)  https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46

[iv]    Quebec bill 52 "An act respecting end of life care" (2014) https://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-52-40-1.html

[v]     Schadenberg, Alex, Court case (Day 2) to force all healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia; Euthanasia Prevention Coalition,January 15, 2026, https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2026/01/court-case-to-force-all-healthcare_15.html

[vi]    Rodriguez v. British Columbia 1993 https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1054/index.do  

[vii]  Friesen, Friesen, Quebec can tell us about the lack of social legitimacy for euthanasia and assisted suicide, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, April 2, 2025 https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2025/04/quebec-can-tell-us-about-lack-of-social.html

[viii] Carlson, Kim Magennis, Paul, Misinformation at Parliament: What Happened on October 28th (Part III,a), Maid in Canada, Nov 29, 2025 https://maidincanada.substack.com/p/misinformation-at-parliament-what?open=false#%C2%A7sherens-prior-statements-about-suicide

[ix]    Schadenberg, Alex, Bill C-218 introduced to prevent euthanasia for mental illness alone, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, June 25, 2025, https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2025/06/bill-c-218-introduced-to-prevent.html

Disability Justice Opposition to MAiD: Some Clear, Accurate Data.

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader

Meghan is an instructor at E4 - University of Texas (Austin) and is a member of the EPC-USA board.  

Currently the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and MAiD in Canada are having a mutually published debate about whether “MAiD” should be used to help people with mental illnesses kill themselves. I don’t want to distract from Gordon Frieson’s responses to Paul Magennis and Kim Carlson. But Magennis and Carlson also commented on my “Academia Routinely Dehumanizes Disabled People” post to counter my statement, “the majority of the disability community opposes “MAiD.” They claim that this statement is just an “opinion;” that it does not include enough “accurate data.” So, I thought I’d write a blog post responding to their claim.

Statistically, people with disabilities have a higher suicide rate, so I am sure that Magennis and Carlson can find lots of disabled people who would like to kill themselves with “MAiD.” I have also encountered a minority of people with disabilities who support some form of “MAiD;” my opposition to “MAiD” cannot speak for every disabled person on the planet. And, regrettably it is possible that majority opposition to “MAiD” could erode over time as euthanasia becomes more accepted by the dominant culture. But conducting my peer-reviewed research about representations of eugenics, disability and euthanasia in horror films showed me that opposition to “MAiD” is and has long been a part of disability justice culture. A few months ago I used that disability studies training to write a post titled, “Disabled Opponents of Assisted Suicide Are Not A Vocal Minority.” I’m going to re-quote two of the scholars I cite in that blog post.

In his essay in the peer-reviewed anthology The Disability Bioethics Reader, professional ethicist and disability studies scholar Dr. Harold Braswell asserts:

“The framework of this debate limits the potential for disability discrimination. PAS is itself a moderate iteration of the right to die. And this moderate iteration is, in the USA, only available to individuals who are terminally ill. This makes the American interpretation of PAS relatively conservative even relative to other countries where it is legal. This conservatism makes it possible for some disability bioethicists to justify supporting it, though such support is still relatively marginal within the field.”

A peer-reviewed anthology on disability bioethics is clearly a form of authoritative data, and as someone who has also conducted disability studies research on the euthanasia issue, I can tell you that Harold Braswell is right: support for assisted suicide is “marginal within the field.”

Self-proclaimed “disability rights advocate” and unrestricted assisted suicide enthusiast Christopher Riddle also admits that his efforts to sell death to disabled people set him apart from most of the disability studies field. In his 2017 Bioethics article “Assisted Dying and Disability,” Riddle writes:

“While academic literature has a multitude of perspectives on this issue, the public attitude amongst mainstream disability rights scholars, activists, and more generally, people with disabilities, is relatively consistent in its position: assisted dying should not be permitted.”

Riddle is one of the generals in Kim and Paul’s pro-MAiD “army,” so I’ll repeat that quote again:

While academic literature has a multitude of perspectives on this issue, the public attitude amongst mainstream disability rights scholars, activists, and more generally, people with disabilities, is relatively consistent in its position: assisted dying should not be permitted.”

In the aforementioned comment thread, Magennis asserted that it is important to avoid arguments that are “stated sloppily” or “cause uncertainty about what exactly you are stating.” So, in the interest of avoiding any sloppiness or uncertainty, I’ll cite Riddle’s statement a third time:

“While academic literature has a multitude of perspectives on this issue, the public attitude amongst mainstream disability rights scholars, activists, and more generally, people with disabilities, is relatively consistent in its position: assisted dying should not be permitted.”

Riddle is Magennis and Carlson’s compadre, yet he acknowledges that the majority of persons with disabilities oppose “MAiD.”

What other sources do Carlson and Magennis want? Did every anti “MAiD” disability rights leader, scholar and disabled person have to be a co-author on my aforementioned blog posts?

Frankly, Magennis and Carlson’s determination to obscure disability rights opposition to “MAiD” despite their distance from the negative consequences of that practice shows a lack of humility. Magennis and Carlson defend their assertion that “support for MAiD might actually be quite strong among those living with a disability” using a paid for poll from a “MAiD” advocacy group. But the plethora of disability rights leaders, disability studies scholars and disabled people who have expressed opposition to “MAiD” lead lives dedicated to disability issues. We live with our disabilities and/or spend a significant amount of time studying the experiences, perspectives and rights of disabled persons.

Yet Carlson and Magennis want society to listen to them instead of us.

No community is completely ideologically monolithic. But Magennis and Carlson’s contention that there is widespread support for “MAiD” among people with disabilities, especially for expansive “MAiD” programs like Canada’s, is not intellectually honest. If Carlson and Magennis want their debates about euthanasia to be based on accurate data, they need to accept politically inconvenient data about disability justice opposition to “MAiD.”

Author Note 1: For a nuanced and thorough exploration of disability justice opposition to “MAiD,” watch the film Life After: A Film Maker Investigates Assisted Dying Through The Lens of Disabled Voices Missing From the Debate.

For information about the history of disability justice opposition to “MAiD” read Joe Shapiro’s book No Pity: People With Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement.

Author Note 2:

In his comments on my blog post, Magennis asserted that Sammy Choun, the author of the British Medical Journal article I quoted to support my statement that the majority of the disability community opposes “MAiD,” “stated that as fact in the article, but didn’t provide any references or links studies and surveys to back that up.” To read Magennis’s comment, one might think that Choun did not provide any citation for her statement.

But, Choun did provide a reference for that statement in the endnotes of that article, with citation 21. It cites the Third Reading of Bill C-62, which delayed the expansion of “MAiD” to include mental illness until 2027. During that debate Hon. Marilou McPhedran noted widespread opposition to Track 2 “MAiD” among both disability experts and disabled people more generally. She asserted, “The disability community has been articulate in asserting that MAID violates Canada’s international human rights obligations to people with disabilities under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in certain respects.”

I suppose one might interpret Magennis’s comment about a lack of references for Choun’s statement as reflecting his preference for “surveys and studies” over senate debate transcripts, the United Nations, statements from multiple disability policy experts, and the cries of individual disabled people about the trauma that “Track 2 MAiD” has caused for them. But Magennis’s comment did not acknowledge that Choun cited the 3rd reading of Bill-62; it implied that Choun did not provide any reference at all. Hence, Magennis’s comment strikes me as failing to embody his own admonishment about debate participants avoiding arguments that are “stated sloppily” or “cause uncertainty about what exactly you are stating.”

Author Note 3:

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition did a Zoom panel on disability justice opposition to “MAiD” that includes nuanced discussion of widespread opposition to “MAiD” in the disabled community. It can be viewed here.

Eileen Mihich: It was too easy to fraudulently get assisted suicide drugs.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I first published an article about the tragic death of Eileen Mihich on December 17, 2025. Aging with Dignity uncovered the story of Eileen Mihich who was a lonely 31 year-old woman who fraudulently received a lethal assisted suicide poison cocktail even though she:

• She suffered from serious mental illness
• She was not a Washington resident
• No doctor verified if she was terminally ill
• No waiting period was enforced

On February 4, 2026; The Atlantic published an article by Elizabeth Bruenig about the death of Eileen Mihich. This story provides information about the death of Eileen Mihich and how she obtained the poison assisted suicide drugs. Bruenig states that:

Her case should disturb both advocates and opponents of medically assisted suicide.

Bruenig explains the death scene:

The four-star Hotel deLuxe in Portland, Oregon, features a soaring lobby with a gilded ceiling that drips with chandeliers. Eileen Mihich, a 31-year-old woman from nearby Beaverton, checked in on the afternoon of March 6, 2025. Two days later, a hotel employee named Stephen Jones noticed that Mihich had failed to check out at the appointed time and went to her eighth-floor room to investigate. No one answered, and the room was silent behind the door, so he let himself in. He found Mihich dead on the bed, with purpling skin. Jones immediately called the police, who noted the empty pill bottles at Mihich’s bedside, along with a pamphlet: “Step-by-Step Instructions for Taking Aid in Dying Medications.”

Bruenig statess that Mihich had complained about a mysterious abdominal pain and had spoken about assisted suicide but nearly a year after her death, family members are still investigating how Muhich actually obtained an assisted suicide poison drug cocktail to die.

After Mihich died, the investigation indicated that she had no signs of an illness but they had pharmacy receipts for prescription drugs commonly used to end the lives of patients by assisted suicide.

The question was - how did Eileen Mihich obtain a poison drug cocktail used for assisted suicide? Bruenig writes:

For both advocates and opponents of this medically and culturally sanctioned form of suicide, Mihich’s story is a nightmare.

Bruinig speaks to members of Mihich's family.

Torina suspects that her niece would still be alive had it been just a little harder for her to secure lethal medication. “She didn’t really want to die, but she felt that she was powerless to create a life worth living. She mentioned that to me on more than one occasion,” Torina told me. Studies show that even minor barriers to suicide, such as selling pills in blister packs and limiting the amount of analgesics that can be sold over the counter, may deter people from ending their life, perhaps because they introduce delays into what can be a rash act. Shortly before her death, Mihich had ordered eye shadow online, which arrived after she was gone. “She was showing signs that she did want to live,” Torina said.

Mihich lived with long-term mental illness.

Mihich had been mentally ill for a long time, her relatives said, and she had needed many things that life did not supply her. An only child of negligent parents, Mihich identified with the Roald Dahl character Matilda, a precocious schoolgirl who learns to fend for herself against sometimes cruel adults. Mihich’s parents had screaming fights in front of her, Sarah and Torina recalled, and Mihich alleged that her father, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, had raped her when she was a teenager. (Mihich did not pursue the allegations in court, and her father did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Her mother declined to comment.)

After bouncing from foster home to foster home, Mihich was 15 when she fled her last foster parent and arrived on Torina’s doorstep, asking to be taken in. Torina obliged. Mihich’s psychiatrist eventually diagnosed her with bipolar disorder and borderline-personality disorder, the symptoms of which were so severe that she struggled to hold down a job or a home...

Further to that Mihich didn't take care of herself, nor did she receive good care

Mihich’s relatives said that she often refused to take the medication prescribed to treat her bipolar disorder, and that she nursed semi-delusional beliefs about her capacity to heal herself. She lived on Social Security Disability Insurance and was occasionally homeless. Mihich sometimes told her family about mysterious pains she felt in her pelvic area...

...All the while, Mihich repeatedly told her family that her pain was so great, she did not want to live. “She would tell me often that she couldn’t do it anymore,” Torina said. “She was too traumatized and broken” to keep on living.

The family then learned that Mihich's suicide drugs were the same poison drug cocktail used for assisted suicide. Bruenig wrote:

Once her toxicology report came back, they also knew which medications she had used to kill herself. Many of the drugs prescribed for medical assistance in dying are not commonly thought of as vulnerable to abuse. But when death is a possibility, minor errors can have catastrophic consequences.

Bruenig explains how Mihich obtained the lethal poison cocktail.

To understand just how Mihich had secured these medications, Sarah turned to Mihich’s phone. Reviewing her incoming and outgoing calls in the days leading up to her death, Sarah found that Mihich had been in touch with multiple hospice coordinators and loan agencies, as well as a Washington State pharmacist who runs a compounding pharmacy out of a gift shop. Posing as a California family-practice physician under an assumed name, Mihich requested a prescription order form over email, then completed the paperwork and emailed it back—a method of submitting prescriptions that is illegal in Washington and elsewhere, in most cases. She then asked that the pharmacist coordinate via text with her “patient,” and gave her own phone number.

Ultimately Mihich was able to carry out her fraud with publicly available information and relative ease. Unlike conventional pharmacies, which sell only FDA-approved pharmaceuticals, compounding pharmacies are able to sell customized formulations that are not FDA tested and approved.

Therefore Mihich submitted the prescription for the poison drug cocktail by claiming to be a California physician. The pharmacy didn't check the credentials of the physician, but rather filled the prescription which enabled Mihich to die by lethal drug poison suicide.

Bruenig explains that Eileen Mihich's cousins submitted a police report, in May 2025 in order to find out how the pharmacy could have filled this fraudulent poison prescription.

The story explains that Mihich's had considered suicide methods. Mihich had considered suicide by not eating and drinking and she had also considered using a gun. They believe that Mihich investigated death by assisted suicide drugs based on an aversion to possible suffering. Assisted suicide is not necessarily pain free.

The next question is how did she find out about how assisted suicide. Bruenig writes:

What we do know is that Mihich found a network of support in her pursuit of a medically assisted death. Her relatives discovered a message on her phone left by a representative of a naturopathic health company called Temple Natural Health, who explained that she had found “a way forward” after discussing Mihich’s case with a hospice-care organization called A Sacred Passing. The message did not include details, and the company did not respond to requests for comment. A representative of A Sacred Passing confirmed that the organization had responded to Mihich’s request for help in seeking medical assistance in dying with “a list of things to do” to get legal medical support—“the ways to reach out and locations to call.” The representative added that she stayed on the phone with Mihich because she sensed that the caller was struggling and needed someone to talk to, but that she didn’t think Mihich would qualify for a medically assisted death.

After publishing the video of Eileen Mihich's story, a representative from Sacred Passing contacted the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and assured us that they did not facilitate the death of Eileen Mihich.

In response to the legal loopholes that resulted in Mihich's death, family members contacted Aging with Dignity a nonprofit that advocates against the practice and offers resources to people facing end-of-life problems. This group has worked with Sarah and Torina to create a video about Mihich that helps share her story. (Link to the video about Eileen Mihich).

Bruenig explains the concern:

Mihich’s method of suicide was clearly illegal in Oregon, Washington, and elsewhere in the United States, where medical assistance in death is available only to adult patients who are terminally ill, have six months or less to live, and are mentally capable of making their own health-care decisions. But her ability to access fatal drugs is concerning, as the spread of laws allowing medical assistance in dying makes it likely that incidents like this will happen again.

Bruenig discusses issues related to assisted suicide for mental illness, as is already legal in the Netherlands and Belgium and is scheduled to begin in Canada in March 2027.

Bruenig ends her article by stating that Americans may take comfort that Mihich's suicide death is technically illegal in every state that has legalized assisted suicide, but she questions whether this story is a sign that the current laws are not working and that, once legal, it is impossible to keep assisted suicide narrow in scope. She then states:

For some, Mihich’s story offers a salient lesson about the importance of greater oversight and tighter regulation of lethal drugs. Others may see in Mihich’s suicide a glimpse of things to come.

Previous story about Eileen Mihich's death:

• Eileen fraudulently died by assisted suicide in Washington State (Read).

One Mother's Mission (video). Her son was killed by euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition interviewed Margaret Marsilla, the mother of Kiano Vafaeian (26) who was poisoned to death by euthanasia in Vancouver by Dr Wiebe on December 30, 2025. This 15 minute video - One Mother's Mission, explains how Kiano died by euthanasia.

Sign our Petition: We Demand a Review of Dr Ellen Wiebe's MAiD Practice (Read)

Kiano was not terminally ill. Kiano was a diabetic that resulted in him becoming legally blind and experiencing some neuropathy. But Kiano was driven to seek death by euthanasia based on his mental health. 

Kiano's mother explains in the interview how shocking it was for her to learn on January 3, 2026. Kiano was originally approved to be killed by euthanasia in September 2022, but his death was averted, at that time, when his mother launched a social media campaign, with the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, to change the mind of the euthanasia doctor.

Since then Kiano has been subsequently turned down, in Ontario, for euthanasia based on him not fulfilling the requirements of Canada's (MAiD) euthanasia law.

But Dr Wiebe, in Vancouver approved Kiano's death and killed him on December 30, 2025.

More articles about Kiano Vafaeian:

• Petition: We Demand a Review of Dr. Ellen Wiebe's (MAiD) Euthanasia Practice (Read).
• Tragic euthanasia death of a young man with mental illness (Read). 
• 23-year-old scheduled to be killed by euthanasia remains alive (Read).

Amazing News: Virginia assisted suicide bill dies in Committee.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have amazing news. The Virginia assisted suicide bill died on February 5 (today) by a vote of 8 to 7 in the Virginia Senate Committee on Education and Health.

Congratulations to everyone who worked with the coalition and/or contacted their state representatives. Lives have been saved by the defeat of this bill.

Legalizing assisted suicide in Virginia, which is to poison people to death, has been a goal of the assisted suicide lobby for many years.

In 2025, Delaware, Illinois and New York passed assisted suicide bills. New York Governor Kathy Hochul stated that she would not sign the New York bill until amendments were made. 

The amendments included a 5 day waiting period, that can be waived if the person is deemed to be near to death, a residency requirement, a mandatory psychiatric evaluation and a recorded assisted suicide request.

Sadly the amendment bill passed in both of the New York State Houses on February 4 and Governor Hochul is expected to sign the bill on February 6.

Is assisted suicide always peaceful?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The question of whether or not assisted suicide poison cocktails actually lead to a peaceful death has been examined and studied by several researchers and medical professionals.

Manuela Callari just added to the debate with an article that was published in Medscape on February 3, 2026. Callari writes:

The scene was meticulously set for a final, serene farewell. Family and friends gathered, champagne was poured, and a pianist played softly in the background. In this atmosphere of profound emotion, Arjen Göbel, MD, a general practitioner in Amstelveen, Netherlands, began the procedure that would bring a planned and peaceful end to his patient’s life.

Following the standard protocol, he began by injecting a coma-inducing drug. The 48-year-old patient with breast cancer closed her eyes and a deep hush fell over the room as her breathing grew shallower.

But the expected stillness did not come. The family noticed that the patient continued to breathe. Göbel, maintaining an outward calm, saw it too.

Callari reports that the woman didn't die. Göbel fetched an emergency kit and injected her again, but she still didn't die. Callari reports:

Göbel called an ambulance service while he fetched two more emergency kits from a nearby pharmacy. The paramedics helped him inject the lethal cocktail directly into a vein in her groin, but nothing happened. They then injected the fourth dose into the artery in her neck. It wasn’t until half an hour later at 6 o’clock in the evening — 4 hours after the first injection — that she finally died. The planned, beautiful farewell had become a prolonged and traumatic ordeal. “It was the worst thing in my life,” Göbel told Medscape News Europe.

Callari continues by explaining that unlike other "procedures" there are very studies or protocols concerning euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Similar stories of long drawn-out deaths can be witnessed in the Oregon assisted suicide data which indicated that one death, in 2023, took 137 hours to be completed.

Callari then defines euthanasia and assisted suicide for clarity.

Euthanasia is the intentional, direct administration of a lethal substance by a physician to end a patient’s life at their voluntary request to end unbearable suffering.

Assisted dying (suicide) is the voluntary, self-administered ingestion of lethal drugs prescribed by a physician. Crucially, the patient, not the doctor, performs the final, fatal act.

Notice how Callari uses pro-death definitions by implying that the wish to be killed is based on ending unbearable suffering, when the data in nearly every jurisdiction that allows death by lethal poison indicate that only a minority seek death based on ending unbearable suffering.

Callari then explains how euthanasia was first legalized in the Netherlands. Callari comments on the lack of protocols by stating:

It wasn’t until around 2010 — 8 years after the Dutch Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide Act was officially introduced — that physicians approached pharmacists to develop a joint guideline. This collaboration resulted in the first combined protocol in 2012, with its most recent major update in 2021.

Today, the Dutch standard for euthanasia is a two-step intravenous (IV) process: a high dose of a coma-inducing barbiturate (typically propofol) followed by a neuromuscular blocker (usually rocuronium) to paralyze the respiratory muscles. A small dose of lidocaine is often injected prior to the process to reduce the burning sensation of the barbiturate.

Without going into further descriptions around killing it is important to note that the Callari suggests that the complications rate is generally under-reported and states that the 2023 Oregon data indicates a 9.8% complications rate.

Callari also comments on studies on the effect of the poison drug regimen on the body, particularly the lungs, and states:

Philippe Camus, MD, professor of pulmonology and respiratory intensive care at Dijon University Hospital in Dijon, France, has studied the effect of drugs on the lungs since 1972, when he began collecting data as a medical student at the University of Burgundy. Over five decades, he has compiled more than 200,000 references into a global database tracking drug-induced respiratory disease.

Even at therapeutic dosages, he explained, anesthetics such as propofol can cause ventilatory depression, a deep coma, peripheral vasodilation, and myocardial dysfunction. At therapeutic doses, however, these risks are minimal and promptly managed. “The poison is in the dose,” he said.

Callari quotes Didier Cataldo, MD, PhD, pulmonologist at the University of Liège in Liège, Belgium who explains:

These drugs shut down the brain’s drive to breathe, the patient becomes comatose, and breathing slows and becomes shallow. A deep coma can lead to loss of airway reflexes, which means the patient is no longer able to cough or gag. The tongue falls back, blocking the upper airway and causing effort during inhalation. This creates a vacuum inside the chest. As the diaphragm contracts to draw air into the lungs against a closed glottis, the pressure inside the alveoli drops rapidly and becomes significantly lower than the pressure in the surrounding blood vessels. This pressure difference acts like a suction pump. It forces fluid, and sometimes red blood cells, out of the pulmonary capillaries and across the thin membrane into the alveoli, resulting in negative pressure pulmonary edema. This is why, in standard surgery, patients are sometimes intubated and connected to a ventilator before the full anesthetic load is delivered. Anesthetics can also cause vasodilation and myocardial dysfunction. This causes a drastic drop in blood pressure, making it impossible for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body.

While Cataldo claims that pulmonary endema is rare he does refer to a case of an 18-year-old male who ingested a lethal overdose of pentobarbital, the same barbiturate used in the oral method for assisted death. When emergency teams arrived, they found the patient in cardiac arrest. But as they attempted to intubate him, they found a “substantial quantity of frothy, bloody secretions” discharging from his throat. A postmortem CT scan confirmed severe bilateral pulmonary edema. His lungs were sodden with fluid. The patient, sedated but perhaps not yet dead, might have struggled to breathe against a blocked airway, drowning himself from the inside.

Similar research by Dr Joel Zivot who researched autopsies of people who died by lethal injection capital punishment. Zivot found that the lungs were filled with fluid likely resulting in death by drowning.

Callari continues with comments by Philippe Camus:

Camus said that experiencing pulmonary edema would be like drowning on dry land. It feels like being forced to breathe through a narrow straw. Every attempt to inhale draws not air but a mixture of blood and fluid that churns into a thick, pink froth. This foam rises up the trachea, blocking the windpipe. The brain, starved of oxygen, triggers a state of panic. “We need to decide whether that’s pain,” Camus said. “It’s not physical pain but can be extremely distressing.”

Callari then interviews several euthanasia doctors who suggest that pulmonary edema is unlikely, but even if it is happening, that the amount of drug that is used causes the person to be in a deep coma and unlikely to experience pain or distress.

Nonetheless, Callari concludes by stating that we simply don't know if assisted suicide is always peaceful.

More articles on this topic:

• Death by assisted suicide is not what you think it is (Link). 
• Assisted suicide: Proceed with caution (Link). 
• Assisted suicide is the wrong prescription (Link). 
• Assisted suicide. It's not that simple (Link). 
• Assisted suicide deaths are not what you think they are (Link). 
• Assisted suicide is neither painless nor dignified (Link).

Wesley Smith: The effective use of language in the assisted suicide debate.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On Wednesday, January 21, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) and EPC-USA held a strategic meeting in Washington DC.

There were four speakers at our event, (Left to right: Alex Schadenberg, Alexander Raikin, researcher and visiting fellow in Bioethics at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Ales Primc an organizer of the referendum campaign that overturned Slovenia's assisted suicide law, and Wesley Smith, author, lawyer, bioethicist and long-term campaigner against euthanasia and assisted suicide. 

Wesley Smith spoke first concerning the use of language. 

Wesley stated these points.

 

Euthanasia and assisted suicide advocates continue to engage in word engineering. He who defines the words wins the debate, and often that is true. The media will often use the assisted suicide lobby language because they are generally supportive of assisted suicide. 

Smith created a list of terms that should and should not be used. He insisted on using descriptive terminology. 

The first word that was stolen by the death lobby was euthanasia by changing its meaning to mean killing as an answer to suffering. They don't like using that term anymore because it is associated with killing. So they have created gooey euphemisms with terms that avoid what they are talking about.

We should never use the death lobby terminology and if you have to, make sure you refer to it as a euphemism. 

When they say (MAiD), notice how the term MAiD doesn't refer to dying. We need to be accurate and say assisted suicide or lethal injection homicide or medical homicide or euthanasia. The death lobby activists will say that our language is not accurate but it is perfectly accurate and discriptive.

Suicide means to kill yourself, assisted means to have help.

Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) is a gooey euphemism that is intended to deflect from the actual agenda that is being described. They are also using the term Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) to transform killing into a medical treatment. 

When they say that MAiD is really not suicide because the person is terminally ill, the statement is nonsensical. 

Whether a person has a health condition, a mental health condition, or a terminal condition, the act of suicide remains suicide. Just because a doctor prescribes the poison, doesn't change what is actually happening.

When we are advocating we must always use the proper terminology: assisted suicide, euthanasia, medicalized homicide or poison.

In terms of euthanasia, the lethal jab is a homicide. Homicide means one person killing another person or a human being killing another human being. Even where it is legal it is still homicide.

As I wrote in my first book, Forced Exit, when it is legal it may not be defined as murder but it is homicide and it is a form of killing. It is alway perilous and dangerous to society and individuals.

When the death lobby uses the term "medications" (they will often say they are prescribing medications). A medication is supposed to make you feel better or alleviate pain or symptoms, therefore it is not a medication. It is poison. 

Always use the term poison and never use the term medication.

When the death lobby uses the term "choice" we need to say that it is the end of all "choices."

When they say "dying on our own terms," we would say that applies to all suicides. Anyone who commits suicide is dying on one's own terms. Again, it is a nonsensical statement that is based on emotion.

This whole death agenda is being pushed through emotionalism and not rationality.

When they say "death with dignity" we need to challenge their implication that dying naturally is not dignified. 

When they say it is a "medical treatment" we say no killing is never a medical treatment. 

When they refer to their organizaton name - "Compassion & Choices" you can make fun of it. They used to have a much more honest name, the Hemlock Society. The term Compassion & Choices is a name that was poll tested into existence.

When they say nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come, our response should be that it is not a good idea. Our job is to ensure that this is not an idea whose time has come.

Beware of social movements that use euphemisms to promote their agenda's. It means that they are trying to pull wool over people's eyes. If you have to use euphemisms and word engineering then there is probably something wrong with your agenda.

Links to previous articles on language by Wesley Smith:

• Euthanasia lobby continues to engineer language (Link).
• Euthanasia euphemisms (Link)
• Assisted suicide: Word engineering propaganda (Link).
• Euthanasia poisons people and society (Link).