The euthanasia committee got it right on mental illness. Parliament must go further.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr Ramona Coelho

The Globe and Mail published an article by Dr Ramona Coelho, on June 29, 2026. 

Dr Coelho is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an adjunct professor of family medicine at the University of Western Ontario's Schulich School of Medicine and a past member of the Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee.

Dr Coelho, who has written extensively on Canada's euthanasia law begins her article by explaining how the law is not protecting Canadians. She writes:

Thomas Dillon’s MAID assessment took place in 2023 outside a Tim Hortons in St. Thomas, Ont., after a psychiatrist had raised the option with him. He died at age 45, with his mental illness and addictions largely untreated. The MAID law was not precise enough to prevent cases like his – and that is a problem.

Dr Coelho continues by explaining the decision of Canada's parliamentary MAiD committee:

Canada’s parliamentary committee has recommended indefinitely pausing the 2027 planned expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAID) where mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition. I testified at the committee. The recommendation is necessary, but Parliament must go further. The mental illness debate has exposed a problem that runs through the whole MAID framework.

The debate over MAID for mental illness has focused on several concerns, including the impossibility of reliably determining whether mental illness is irremediable, and the significant role that community life and supports play in recovery. We also cannot distinguish a “reasoned MAID request” from suicidality, leaving assessments without an objective standard, and therefore allowing bias to shape who accesses MAID versus suicide prevention and care.

Euthanasia proponents believe that physical and psychological suffering should be viewed in the same manner. Coelho suggests that a deeper problem is how uncertainty is addressed across MAID decision-making. Coelho explains:

In my work as a family physician serving marginalized patients, and as a former member of Ontario’s MAID Death Review Committee (MDRC), I have seen similar uncertainty extend beyond MAID for solely psychiatric illness. In one MDRC case, a socially isolated woman with severe obesity and depression was deemed eligible for MAID after refusing any diagnostic workup or treatments that might have improved or reversed her condition. Eligibility was not shaped by a clear disease trajectory but by treatment refusal and disengagement from care, with neglect interpreted as irremediability.

In another, a man in his 70s with essential tremor, which is not typically considered to cause a serious decline in capability, was approved for MAID, despite his request being mainly driven by spousal bereavement.

In both these cases, a chronic, manageable condition became grounds for death once isolation, poverty or lack of care entered the clinical picture. That is structural ableism – the institutional assumption that living well with disability is impossible, leading clinicians to view death rather than support as the more appropriate response.

Dr Coelho then comments on the Track 2 euthanasia Ontario data:

Ontario data from Track 2 MAID – the option for those whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable – confirms these concerns extend beyond individual cases. Nearly 30 per cent of Track 2 recipients were living in poverty, were less likely to have family members listed as their next of kin, and most were not offered mental-health, disability, housing or income supports. These patterns point directly to problems with the architecture of the law itself.

Dr Coelho explains that determination of a Track 1 euthanasia death ranges from 6 month prognosis to a 5 year prognosis, which means that euthanasia assessments are very uncertain at best and applying the same level of uncertainty to mental health assessments would be incredibly problematic. She then makes some suggestions for future parliamentary sessions.

As Parliament considers the next phase of MAID legislation, it must confront whether the law’s central concepts are precise. Avoiding unnecessary deaths requires clear statutory definitions of “reasonably foreseeable natural death,” “grievous and irremediable,” and “intolerable suffering,” along with oversight to stop interpretive drift and doctor-shopping. It requires restoring minimum waiting periods under Track 1 and introducing a real-time mechanism to pause MAID assessments when concerns are raised by families or clinicians.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has called for changes, including repealing Track 2 MAID due to risks related to discrimination and social vulnerability. When a system cannot reliably protect those most likely to be harmed, it should not be allowed. Track 2 is exactly that.

Dr Coelho ends her article by reminding the readers that euthanasia was legalized in Canada as an exemption to homicide. She states: 

The least we owe Canadians is a law that makes wrongful deaths harder, not easier.

Previous articles by or related to Dr Ramona Coelho (Articles Link).

Is it a choice when a veteran with PTSD can’t see a way out?

This article was published by Kelsi Sheren her substack on June 24, 2026.

Kelsi Sheren rebuts Catherine Ford’s recent piece: Everyone should have the same or equal rights

Why would we deny him his right to suicide prevention?

Catherine Ford of the Calgary Herald wants equal rights. So do I.

But here’s the question she didn’t ask in her June 24th column: equal right to what, exactly? Because the right she’s describing the right to a medically assisted death when your pain is psychiatric is not the only right on the table. There’s another one. The right to be fought for. The right to have the system stand between you and the worst moment of your life instead of handing you a form.

That right is called suicide prevention and in Canada right now, it is not equally distributed.

I served in Afghanistan. I came home. I watched what the system did and didn’t do for the people I served with. I have testified before Parliament on veteran suicide, on MAID, and on the gap between what we promise the people who put on a uniform and what we actually deliver. So when Ford writes about choice, I need her to sit with something specific.

A veteran with PTSD who cannot see a way out is not making a free choice. He is making a choice inside a tunnel. His nervous system has been altered by what he witnessed. His access to quality psychiatric care has been inadequate because Veterans Affairs wait times are documented, the underfunding is documented, the failures are documented. The tunnel he is standing in was partly built by institutional neglect.

Ford calls the parliamentary committee’s recommendation to exclude mental illness as a sole criterion “cruelty.” I call it the first responsible thing a committee has done on this file in a decade. Not because people with mental illness don’t suffer. They do. Profoundly, but because “irremediable” is doing an enormous amount of work in that sentence, and we have not been honest about what it means.

Irremediable compared to what treatment? The treatment we haven’t provided yet? The therapy that has a two-year waitlist? The psychiatrist who isn’t available in the rural community where this person lives? We are declaring conditions irremediable in a system that has never fully tried to remediate them. That is not a medical standard. That is a budget decision dressed up as compassion.

Ford anchors her argument in autonomy. Fine. Then let’s apply that standard consistently and see where it takes us.

A thirteen-year-old girl is targeted by an algorithm. Instagram surfaces content specifically calibrated to deepen her body dysmorphia. She develops an eating disorder. She wants to harm herself. Her suffering is real. It is documented. By the logic Ford is advancing that mental pain is pain, that psychiatric suffering deserves the same access as physical suffering, that we cannot treat some Canadians as “dependent children incapable of making their own decisions” on what principled basis does that girl not qualify?

I already know the answer Ford would give. She would say that’s not what she meant. That there are safeguards. That minors are different.

But that’s the problem. Once you accept that the state’s role is to facilitate death for those whose psychiatric suffering is deemed irremediable, you need a bright, defensible line about who qualifies. Canada does not have one. Belgium and the Netherlands, which have had this framework longer, do. They’ve used it on minors. They’ve used it on people whose primary diagnosis was depression and social isolation. That is not a slippery slope argument. It is what the data shows actually happened.

Ford writes that forcing some Canadians to live is cruel. I’d ask her to consider the inverse. Is it not cruel to build a system where the answer to “I can’t go on” is “we can help with that” rather than “why not, and what haven’t we tried?”

The veteran with PTSD deserves every resource this country has. He deserves peer support workers who’ve been downrange. He deserves access to treatments including psychedelic-assisted therapy, which has shown significant clinical results for treatment-resistant PTSD and which Canada has been unconscionably slow to make accessible. He deserves a system that exhausts every option before it considers the last one.

What he does not deserve is a country that skips to the end because the beginning and the middle are expensive.

Ford is right that successive Canadian governments have punted this question down the road. But she has misidentified the punt. The failure wasn’t in delaying MAID expansion. The failure was in never building the mental health infrastructure that would make “irremediable” a meaningful word rather than a bureaucratic shortcut.

Equal rights. Yes. I’m for it.

Every Canadian equally deserves a system that fights for their life before it ends it. Every Canadian equally deserves a psychiatric care system funded at the same level as emergency cardiac care. Every Canadian equally deserves to have their crisis treated as a crisis — not a decision.

That is the equal right we are not having the conversation about and until we do, I am not prepared to call a death-first system compassionate.

Kelsi Sheren is a Canadian disabled combat veteran, Author of Do No Harm? and host of The Kelsi Sheren Perspective. She has testified before Parliament on veteran suicide, MAID, and psychedelic therapy.

France to vote on bill to legalize euthanasia tomorrow (June 30)

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

France's National Assembly will once again vote on a bill to legalize euthanasia on June 30 (tomorrow) even though this same bill has been twice overwhelmingly defeated by France's Senate. The June 30th vote will be a Third Reading vote, that if passed will likely lead to the legalization of euthanasia in France.

If the euthanasia bill passes in the National Assembly it will go to the Senate, but if the Senate defeats the bill a third time, the bill would be sent to the National Assembly for a final vote on July 15.

Even though France's Senate continues to defeat the euthanasia bill, the National Assembly can over-ride the vote of the Senate and legalize euthanasia.

On January 21, 2026, France's Senate defeated the euthanasia bill that had passed in the French National Assembly on May 27, 2025.

France's Senate once again defeated the euthanasia bill, on May 11, 2026 by a vote of 151 to 118. The Senate then passed, by a vote of 325 to 18, the part of the bill that improved access to palliative care.

France's government is strongly supporting the bill and have pressured members of the National Assembly to once again pass the bill. President Emmanuel Macron and the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet are both committed to legalizing euthanasia.

France's government is unlikely to extend the euthanasia debate as they lack parliamentary time. France's parliament take an August break and in September the National Assembly will focus on the national budget.

Groups opposing euthanasia have organized rallies across France. We have great hope for a miracle and we remind people that it is not over yet.

We believe in caring for people, not killing them.

The Anglican Church of Canada Publishes Pastoral Liturgies Blessing Euthanasia

This article was published by the National Review online on June 26, 2026

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

The Anglican Church of Canada has authorized clergy to bless people being euthanized just before, during, and after being lethally jabbed (when permitted by the bishop). From “Pastoral Liturgies at the Time of Death in Contexts of Medically Assisted Dying”:

It is not our intent to enter into the ethical arguments regarding MAiD, nor to provide a moral argument for or against MAiD. . . . No matter where people are in their life journey, we as a Christian community and Christian leaders in particular are called to respond pastorally to the needs and concerns of the people before us. Wherever the church serves, we are the Body of Christ reaching out to the suffering, the sick, and the dying. When someone reaches out for pastoral care, the church responds: there is a duty of pastoral care.

If the Anglican Church can’t enter into an ethical argument about euthanasia what is the point of being a church? And given that suicide has always been considered an egregious sin in Christianity from its very early days, wouldn’t “Christian” pastoral care be obligated to at least try and help the suicidal person decide not to be made dead?

Here is another justification for blessing a euthanasia killing in the document:

Death is a natural part of life, and in the spirit of the Church’s continued ministry, we are called to walk alongside health care agencies and practitioners to offer a pastoral response and presence to those who are dying. As the Book of Alternative Services notes, “if the sick could not get to church, then the Church [. . . should] come to them.”

Natural death is “a natural part of life.” Being killed is not. Moreover, is it really properly a Christian act to “walk alongside” a doctor or nurse practitioner who kills? The earliest Christian ethical writing dating from about 100 — the Didache — explicitly condemns “murder” as profoundly sinful. True, Canada has legalized this particular form of homicide, but the issue with regard to a church is not statutory legality, but rather, ethics and morality.

The document spouts false premises and shallow rationalizations for supporting being euthanized:

People who choose MAiD freely and without coercion may indeed be ready to go. They have been living with and suffering through complex health challenges and they want the pain to stop. They want to be able to sleep. They desperately do not want their families and loved ones to watch and wait, wondering how much longer? They have exhausted all medical options, and they know, everyone knows, that there is no cure. Some wish, most of all, not to be alone at the time of their death, and to die well. Some, who are Christian, also desire not to be alone at the time of their death, and to die well, and with the grace and blessing of God and with the presence of the Church at their side.

The law in Canada does not require that “all medical options” be exhausted. And how can putting oneself out of their loved ones’ misery be blessed? Moreover, every suicidal person is “ready to go.” If someone who is disabled or ill can be supported spiritually in having themselves made dead, why not also any other suicidal person?

The Netherlands is euthanizing children.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Kevin Yuill was published by Spiked on June 28, 2026 concerning the expansion of euthanasia in the Netherlands to now allow children to be euthanized.

Article: Child euthanasia confirmed in the Netherlands (Read).

Yuill, who is emeritus professor of history at the University of Sunderland and CEO of Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia explains:

For the first time in the history of the Netherlands, a child has been euthanised by the state. The Dutch health minister revealed this week that Sophie Hermans, a child under the age of 12, was given a lethal injection in late 2025.

This case follows another relaxation of the safeguards on euthanasia in the Netherlands. In 2002, the Dutch decriminalised euthanasia and assisted suicide for competent adults. The law expanded to cover 16- and 17-year-olds, with parental consultation, and 12- to 15-year-olds with parental consent. In 2023, another change in the law allowed children under the age of 12, according to Dutch MP Harry Bevers, to ‘die with dignity’ if there is no possibility of recovery and they faced unbearable pain and distress.

The Netherlands didn't technically change their euthanasia law but rather they extended the Groningen Protocol, which allowed euthanasia of newborns, to include children under the age of 12. Yuill continued:

Euthanasia in the Netherlands is officially only permitted if the request comes from the patient and if a doctor agrees that they are suffering unbearably. But how can a minor request something a child cannot possibly comprehend – namely, the end of his or her life? How can a young child understand the need to maintain his or her dignity? The age of consent for sex is 16 in the Netherlands, and those below the age of 18 cannot legally get married. The Dutch government advises that children under the age of 15 should not use social media. And yet, Dutch children now have the ‘right’ to request a lethal injection.

In fact, the Netherlands appears to be moving relentlessly and thoughtlessly towards a euthanasia model employed in Europe in the 1930s. Then, euthanasia proposals began as requests from patients. However, when Nazi Germany began its euthanasia programme in 1939, the ‘patients’ were generally children with physical and intellectual disabilities. They did not consent – let alone request – euthanasia.

Yuill states that doctors in the Netherlands are not the same as doctors in Nazi Germany, nonetheless child euthanasia suggests that some lives are not worth living.

Yuill shares some of the crazy euthanasia stories from the Netherlands and then states:

Similarly, the expansion of euthanasia to children was motivated – in the words of then health minister Ernst Kuipers – by the hope it would ‘end the “dilemma for doctors” to administer euthanasia to young children who can’t decide for themselves’. The voluntary part of ‘voluntary’ euthanasia seems to have disappeared.

Yuill explains that most Canadians were unaware that Canada had planned to expand euthanasia to mental illness alone in March 2027.

Yuill ends the article by stating:

All of this is why we in the UK must look very critically at the legislation recently brought forward by Labour MP Lauren Edwards. The bill – which supporters will not allow to be amended – is not safe in its current form. Indeed, that is why there were 1,200 amendments tabled when it was first introduced by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater. And the experience of every jurisdiction where euthanasia is legal would tell us that it would only get worse.

Belgium expanded euthanasia to children in February 2014.

In February 2023 a Canadian parliamentary committee decided that Canada should expand euthanasia to children (mature minors).

Euthanasia, once legal, always expands.

Disability Inclusion: The Americans With Disabilities Act is Not ‘Liberal Fascism’

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader

As I’ve said, I think it’s important that euthanasia opponents try to develop a cursory understanding and appreciation for disability inclusion efforts, especially in light of several recent policy efforts that are harmful to people with disabilities. This post is for “MAiD” opponents who may understand that “MAiD” harms people with disabilities, but also view statutes like the Americans with Disabilities Act as a burden or intrusion on personal liberty.

In choosing an example of such thinking, I found myself remembering a passage from assisted suicide opponent Jonah Goldberg’s 2007 book “Liberal Fascism,” in which he does a great job tracing the right to die movement’s roots in the eugenics movement, but then argues that the Americans With Disabilities Act’s effects on small businesses make the ADA “fascist.”

Goldberg writes:

“In Nazi Germany businesses proved their loyalty to the state by being good “corporate citizens,” just as they do today…let us concede that what the Nazi regime expected of “good German businesses” and what America expects of its corporate leaders differed enormously. This doesn’t change some important fundamental similarities. Consider, for example, the largely bipartisan and entirely well-intentioned Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, celebrated everywhere as a triumph of “nice” government.”

It’s not OK to compare the Americans with Disabilities Act to the policies of Nazi Germany, especially given the Nazis’ mass murder of the disabled.

Also, the Americans with Disabilities Act is not “nice;” it requires society to accommodate disabled people, even if some of the people doing the accommodating hate the disabled people’s guts. Because that’s what has to happen in order for disabled people to be fully functional members of society.

Goldberg goes on to complain:

“The law mandated that businesses take a number of measures, large and small, to accommodate customers and employees with various handicaps…Now imagine that you own a small, regional soft drink company. You’ve worked tirelessly toward your dream of one day going eyeball-to-eyeball with Coke or Pepsi. Proportionally speaking, making your factories and offices handicapped-friendly will cost you vastly more money, not just in terms of infrastructure, but in terms of the bureaucratic legal compliance costs (Coke and Pepsi have enormous legal departments; you don’t).”

Disabled people do not have an obligation to experience daily humiliation for a small soda business owners’ dream of going eyeball to eyeball with Pepsi any more than we have a duty to be demoralized and die for “MAiD” proponents’ designer deaths.

Goldberg laments,

“Or imagine you’re the owner of an even smaller firm hoping to make a play at your regional competitors. But you have 499 employees, and for the sake of argument, the ADA fully kicks in at 500 employees. If you hire just one more, you will fall under the ADA. In other words, hiring just one more thirty thousand-dollar-a-year employee will cost you millions.”

The Americans with Disabilities Act actually kicks in at 15 employees, but more importantly accessibility adjustments do not cost “millions.” There are also government tax incentives and grants to help small businesses offset the cost of complying with the ADA, but Goldberg does not mention that.

Overstatements about the expense of accommodating disabled people draw from the same “burden to society” trope that permeates “MAiD” ideology. Goldberg continues:

“The ADA surely has admirable intent and legitimate merits. But the very nature of such do-gooding legislation empowers large firms, entwines them with political elites, and serves as a barrier to entry for smaller firms.”

The ADA is not “do gooding,” it is one of the only tools disabled people have to ensure that we are treated with at least a modicum of dignity. To put it bluntly, it is selfish to try to consign disabled people to ignominy so that your small soda business can compete with Coca Cola.

Goldberg goes on to claim,

“Indeed, the penalties involved in even trying to fire someone can amount to guaranteed lifetime employment. Smaller firms can’t take the risk of being forced to provide a salary in perpetuity...”

No, that’s not how it works. No business provides “salaries in perpetuity” to employees with disabilities. The Americans With Disabilities Act requires that disabled people be “otherwise qualified” for their jobs and that accommodations not place an “undue hardship” on the employer. Employers are given significant latitude to decide which situations fall under these clauses and it is very easy for disabled people to lose our jobs. This causes the poverty that can push disabled Americans with life-threatening disabilities toward “MAiD.”

If Goldberg were disabled, he would like the Americans With Disabilities Act a lot more. In comparison to the experiences of disabled people who would not otherwise be able to enter a small business to buy a soda, a soda company’s desire to compete with Coca Cola is rather trite.

I mention Goldberg’s 2007 statement because I am wondering if the current American government has implemented or suggested so many damaging disability rights policies because many of its supporters are people like Goldberg who have said “Man, implementing laws like the Americans With Disabilities Act is a pain in the head. Could you eliminate them, or at least make their requirements more “reasonable,” please?

But maintaining a fair society requires some level of sacrifice from its members. Right to die proponents do not have the right to medicalize disabled people’s suicides so that they can die with champagne in their hands and small business owners do not have the right to undermine disabled people’s dignity so that their small businesses can compete with Coca Cola.

So, other euthanasia opponents, don’t be like Jonah Goldberg. If you want euthanasia prevention to fully promote the dignity of disabled people, demonstrate full support of laws like the Americans With Disabilities Act.

What should happen to the UK assisted suicide bill?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Alex Schadenberg

I have been in the UK for several days as I spoke at an international leaders conference and I attended another international conference. 

It has been an interesting experience in the UK with the resignation of Prime Minister Keir Starmer (Labour Party) and the emergence of Andy Burnham, as his likely successor as the leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister.

The UK is also preparing to once again debate the Kim Leadbeater assisted suicide bill, that died on the order paper in the House of Lords earlier this year. The bill passed, on November 29, 2024 at second reading, in the UK House of Commons, by a vote of 330 to 275.

The House of Lords debated multiple amendments to the Leadbeater bill but the bill was so flawed that the debate (timed-out) before voting on the bill.

All of this happened in-spite of the fact that Prime Minister Starmer was a strong supporter of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Now, Lauren Edwards, (Labour MP) for Rochester and Strood has promised to bring back the Leadbeater bill. Edwards wants to pass an identical version of the bill to enable parliament to legalize assisted suicide without needing approval from the House of Lords.

If the UK parliament passes an identical bill in two consecutive sessions it can bypass the required support of the House of Lords.

Since the House of Lords uncovered flaws with the assisted suicide bill, it would be ridiculous to approve the bill, in the House of Commons based on procedural rules.

Starmer / Burnham

Considering the multiple parliamentary issues faced in the UK, the most reasonable approach would be that after the Labour Party choose a new leader / Prime Minister, then the new Prime Minister (7th in 10 years) would set the parliamentary agenda with a new speech from the throne.

If another assisted suicide bill is introduced then it would be dealt with in a democratic manner and likely be defeated based on the reality of legalizing assisted suicide.

As for assisted suicide in the UK, last March Scotland defeated their assisted suicide bill by a vote of 69 to 57 even though the same bill had passed by a vote of 70 to 56 at second reading. Members of the Scottish legislature changed their vote after debating the reality of assisted suicide.

The British House of Lords and the Scottish parliament essentially recognized that Canada's experience with euthanasia proves that it is impossible to legalize assisted suicide with effective oversight and without inevitable expansions.

Britain needs to focus on improving care and rejecting killing.

We oppose killing people and support caring for people.

Spain court rules: Families can challenge euthanasia approvals.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Noelia Castillo

An article by Alex Trelinski that was published by The Olive Press in Spain reported that on June 24, 2026 the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that families can legally challenge a euthanasia approval.

Trelinski reported that following the euthanasia death of Noelia Castillo, 25 that the Supreme Court decided with a 23 to 9 vote that parents can challenge a euthanasia approval of a family member. The report stated that:

In its ruling, the Supreme Court specifies that those who appeal the granting of euthanasia must be part of the applicant’s closest living circle.

They must possess, according to the ruling, ‘a sufficient capacity for knowledge and empathy with them to be able, if necessary, to detect possible flaws in the understanding and comprehension of the situation in which the applicant finds themselves’.

The court says they can challenge a decision when they demonstrate a special affective closeness with the person requesting euthanasia and provide a reasonable indication of proof over a possible breach of legal guarantees.

The Spanish Supreme Court has enabled some effective oversight of the law, as close family members will have the insight and relationship to question decisions by doctors when the approve the killing of a close family member.

The Spanish Supreme Court decision grants rights to Spanish family members that does not exist in Canada.

In September 2020 a Taryn Grant reported for CBC News Nova Scotia that a man who has received conflicting assessments for MAiD (euthanasia) and whose wife of 48 years says is delusional about his medical condition, can go ahead and die by euthanasia. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) enabled the plaintiff (wife) to challenge her husband's euthanasia approval. Grant reported:

A Nova Scotia Court of Appeal judge has upheld a lower court decision that effectively allows a man to go ahead with a medically assisted death, in spite of his wife's efforts to stop him.

The 83-year-old man from Bridgewater, N.S., was assessed by physicians and approved for medical assistance in dying (MAID) earlier this year, but his wife, Katherine, 82, filed for an injunction with the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, forcing him to cancel his plans.

In early 2024 there was a case in Calgary AB concerning a 27-year-old autistic woman who lived with her family and had been approved for death by euthanasia. Her father challenged the approval to kill his daughter and claimed that, based on the law, she does not qualify to be killed by euthanasia.

CBC News reported on March 12, 2024 on the Calgary court case that the father stated that his daughter did not have a medical condition that qualified, under the law, and yet his daughter had already been approved for death by lethal poison.

CBC News reporter, Meghan Grant reported on March 25, 2024 that Justice Feasby ruled that the 27-year-old daughter can die by euthanasia despite her father's concerns. Justice Feasby withdrew the temporary injunction that prevented the woman from dying by euthanasia but maintained a 30 day stay of the injunction, which gave the father time to appeal the decision.

On April 2, 2024, Kevin Martin reported for the Calgary Herald that the father of the 27-year-old autistic woman appealed the decision to the Alberta Court of Appeal.

On April 8, Justice Anne Kirker ordered a stay on the injunction to prevent the death of the 27-year-old autistic woman until after the appeal was heard. The date of the appeal is not known but will likely be heard in October.

The EPC sought and received intervention standing in the case, but the appeal was never heard.

The EPC has been contacted by many family members who are concerned about the euthanasia approval or death of a loved one. Currently there is no legal precedent in Canada t0 enable families members to challenge a euthanasia death approval.

It is only just to enable close family members to challenge a approvals for euthanasia based on a clear understanding of that person's physical and mental health.

Child euthanasia confirmed in the Netherlands.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Preveniton Coalition

As we celebrate a victory after a government committee decided that Canada should not extend euthanasia to people with a mental illness alone, the Netherlands government has confirmed that at least one child has been killed by euthanasia.

We received an update from the Care Not Killing Alliance that the NL Times reported on June 23, 2026 that:

For the first time, a doctor in the Netherlands has ended the life of a terminally ill child, Minister Sophie Hermans of Public Health wrote in a letter to parliament. The special committee established to assess euthanasia for children received the report last year, NOS reports.

The assessment committee has reviewed the case, spoken with the doctor involved, and passed its assessment to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), Hermans wrote. The OM will determine whether the doctor acted in accordance with the law. The assessment committee’s recommendation will weigh heavily in this decision.

Let's be clear, the assessment committee recommendations that the Public Prosecution Service is seeking happens after the death of the child. If the Public Prosecution Service finds concerns with the death, it won't matter because the child is already dead.

Now that the Netherlands have reported a child euthanasia death, I am concerned about the further spread of this scourge to other countries including Canada.

A report by the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (AMAD) that was tabled in the House of Commons on February 15, 2023 called for a further expansion of euthanasia (MAiD) in Canada by recommending, among other things, that euthanasia be expanded to include children considered "mature minors."

As bad as euthanasia for "mature minors" is, during a presentation by Dr Louis Roy from the Québec College of Physicians to The Special Joint Committee on euthanasia on September 7, 2022, Roy urged Canada's Federal government to permit infant euthanasia. Dr Roy suggested that euthanasia of newborns should be allowed in rare circumstances, such as a newborn who may not survive.

Euthanasia of newborns is eugenic, the belief that some lives are not worth living.

Fortunately Canada has not expanded euthanasia to mature minors but euthanasia lobby groups such as Dying with Dignity have been lobbying the Canadian government to make this expansion.  

Euthanasia was legalized based on the concept that it would be limited to competent adults who were terminally ill and freely capable of consenting to be killed. Child euthanasia does not fit this paradigm, but the euthanasia lobby was never actually concerned with consent or competence. Those were just sales pitches to create support for the concept of allowing doctors and nurse practitioners to be legally permitted to kill.

Prescription Poison will be released in July 2026

The Prescription Poison film (43 minutes) will be released on July 24, 2026. Watch the Prescription Poison film trailer.

The Prescription Poison film was produced by Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and Frank Panico with Xs in the Sky films. 

Prescription Poison is a warning to America  concerning the growth of assisted suicide that, unless stopped, will lead to a Canadian system of killing.

American supporters and groups can organize screenings of the Prescription Poison film. 

You may also want a speaker, such as Alex Schadenberg, to lead a discussion forum, after the screening. 

For early screening plans contact EPC at: info@epcc.ca

Donations to cover the cost of the film are still required. Donations are made to the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at: (credit card online Link) or (Paypal donation Link) or send an E-transfer to info@epcc.ca or call the EPC office at: 1-877-439-3348.

The cost to order and screen the film will be available soon.

The Prescription Poison film will be available on July 24.

The film features: Denise Leipold, Margaret Marsilla, Victor Nieves, Professor William Peace (RIP), Ales Primc, Alexander Raikin, Jessica Rodgers, Alex Schadenberg, Wesley J Smith, Dr Sarah Smith, Nir Solomon, Dr William Toffler.

We demand a complete review of Canada's euthanasia law. We want real medical care.

*Please sign and share the link to our EPC petition (Petition Link)

By Gordon Friesen & Alex Schadenberg

President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

EPC has an online petition and post-cards to be sent to members of parliment as well as a traditional paper petition demanding a complete review of Canada's euthanasia law. 

*Please sign and share the link to our EPC petition (Petition Link)

Contact EPC at: info@epcc.ca to order post-cards or paper petitions at no cost.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) is petitioning the government to undertake a complete, and long-promised review of Canada's euthanasia (MAiD) law.

Events have unfolded in a completely unexpected and alarming fashion; that current policy has little to do with its originally stated intent of the law; that such policy is in fact led to a horrific course that no one anticipated (or very few) but which is now evolving under its own anti-human economic logic and impetus.

Even our organized resistance to euthanasia did not anticipate Canada's euthanasia law becoming so extreme. Canada has always made it a priority to champion fair treatment of the most vulnerable, in terms of access to needed care and services. For we all immediately understand that legal medical homicide threatens safety. What we did not understand is just how bad the law would become.

Very simply put, the "most vulnerable" narrative assumes that disputed benefits actually exist; that people are generally able to access appropriate services; that only certain groups (defined perhaps by economic, racial, gender, or ability criteria) are not. However, as the situation now exists in Canada, real health care --meaning truly life-affirming care, free of the pressure to accept euthanasia-- is hard to attain (in so far as that availability depends upon the State).

Good and decent doctors and nurses do exist, of course! And they are clearly among the most influential part of our Coalition. However, our chances of being treated properly as patients should not be dependant upon the personal moral compass of individual professionals who are now forced to operate as dissidents within a hostile system.

That is not at all how things were intended to be. We have always been taught to expect proper medical care as a right of citizenship. Our universal Canadian system was established with the precise goal of making such care available to all.

Shockingly, the true calamity we are now experiencing involves nothing less than the cynical replacement of that time-honoured medical ideal, with a radical, euthanasia-based, veterinary-style system of population management.

In this scheme, advanced medical treatment will indeed be provided for those briefly incapacitated persons who may easily be restored to full productive status. But a radically different path is marked out for everyone else, which is to say: for anyone at all whose physical or mental status --for whatever reason-- might cause their expected economic contribution to fall below the cost of their upkeep. In these cases, illness, disability, and even simple aging itself, are now to be collapsed into the smallest social dimension possible, by actively steering all such individuals towards the newly discovered medical "treatment" of euthanasia.

Indeed, the only easy way to escape this trap requires personal resources large enough to privately make up the difference. For our ruling elites there is obviously no difficulty. Simply jump in the plane, and off they go, to state-of-the-art facilities provided by dynamic extra-national organizations dedicated to the satisfaction of every client whim (medical or otherwise) in settings of luxury.

However, in Canada few individuals possess such options. The available earnings of the entire working and middle classes are already fully committed to the spending policies of which medical care is by far the greatest component. For the individual taxpayer, that money cannot be spent twice. No personal budgetary room remains for typical Canadians to pay, out of pocket, for real medical care.

To repeat the essential: service deprivation is now the norm, not the exception. To portray this as a "most vulnerable" issue (wholly, or even primarily) would require the redefinition of "most vulnerable" to include any person whose speedy recovery cannot guarantee prompt return on investment. And in the normal experience of accident and aging (while excluding our rulers) this is a category which includes the entire population.

Alex Schadenberg May 5 presentation

The EPC presentation to the AMAD Committee on May 5 stated that Canada needs to do a complete review of it's euthanasia law, which was actually part of the original euthanasia law that was implemented in June 2016. I stated:

...Parliament needs to examine how the current law has led to outcomes like the death of Kiano Vafaeian (26) who died by MAiD in Vancouver on December 30, 2025. 

Parliament needs to completely review the euthanasia law.

More broadly, Canada’s assisted dying law is vague. While Health Canada provides guidance, the legal framework allows for wide interpretation and it lacks effective oversight.

Because of time constraints, I will highlight one key issue.

Sections 241 (3) and 241 (3.1) of Canada's Criminal Code states that medical practitioners or nurse practitioners are required only to be “of the opinion” that the eligibility criteria are met. That, in practice, makes accountability extremely difficult, even impossible to prosecute a medical or nurse practitioner in Canada, even when the MAiD death is clearly wrong or deeply disturbing.

The MDRC reports and cases that have already been submitted to you speak to that reality.

Canada should not be considering the expansion of the euthanasia law to include people with mental illness alone but rather Parliament needs to fully review the law.

In short, the problem of euthanasia affects every person at certain seasons in their life. Our common problem is the deliberate promotion of euthanasia by the State. It is the shameless presentation of medical homicide as a legitimate solution for many problems. Nor have we seen the worst. We may now expect decision-makers to actually lower care standards on purpose. For if suffering is assumed to have a cure --in euthanasia-- then suffering can no longer be allowed to impede rationalization.

In retrospect, I think it is fair to say that very few people could have suspected that a supposedly limited access to voluntary euthanasia might ever devolve into the scale of industrial destruction, of human life, to which we are now witness. Quite naturally, many people have come to question the "why" and the "how" of such a calamitous outcome.

And that is why we are calling for a complete review of Canada's euthanasia policy.

*Please sign and share the link to our EPC petition (Petition Link)

We demand a full review, as originally promised in the original law but never happened: an open and unfiltered scrutiny of current practice, accompanied at each stage by questions of past decisions. Everything must be on the table.

We further believe that serious changes must result. For we want real medical care.

 

Link to our letter to federal and provincial parliaments (Link to letter).

Important insight into decision to reject euthanasia for mental illness.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The report of the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (AMAD): Mental Disorder as the Sole Underlying Medical Condition: A Complex and Challenging Conversation Among Canadians was released on June 17, 2026, which is also the 10th Anniversary of the legalization of euthanasia in Canada.

The AMAD Committee decided that Canada should not implement euthanasia for mental disorders as the sole underlying medical condition on March 17, 2027. The report concluded:

That the Government of Canada amend the Criminal Code to indefinitely exclude persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness from eligibility for medical assistance in dying.

It is great news that the AMAD Committee decided that Canada should not implement euthanasia for mental illness, but the battle is not over.

Possibly the most interesting parts of the AMAD Committee report were the supplemental reports from the members of the Committee. 

Dr Marcus Powlowski MP

The supplemental report (starting at page 63 of the report) from AMAD Committee Chair, Marcus Powlowski, (Liberal MP from Thunder Bay - Rainy River) and a physician is most interesting. Powlowski's arguements may influence Canada's future euthanasia debates.

Powlowski first examined Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter) with regard to not permitting euthanasia for mental illness alone. he writes:

Unfortunately, the discourse about whether to allow MAiD for mental illness seems to have been largely reduced to the somewhat simplistic question of whether not allowing it is a violation of the Charter. The argument being if we allow MAiD for physical illness, but do not allow it for those with mental illness, we discriminate against those with mental illness (under s.15) and inappropriately restrict their liberty or threaten their security (s.7)...

Powlowski explains his position on Canada's Charter:

I think the courts ought to conclude, as did our committee, that not allowing MAiD for mental illness, until such time as some fundamental concerns are addressed, is a reasonable limitation under s.1. These fundamental concerns are the difficulty/perhaps even impossibility of determining irremediability of mental suffering (a core requirement under the law), and the lack of ability to distinguish suicidality from rational decision making in someone with a mental illness (I will return to this issue, and explain why it is so important, at the end of this submission). Numerous witnesses cited these concerns as reasons why we should decline to expand MAiD to this population.

The Supreme Court of Canada Carter decision did not obligate the government to permit euthanasia for mental illness alone, but even when interpreted in that manner, I agree with Powlowski that not permitting euthanasia for mental illness is a reasonable limitation.

Powlowski then deals with the question of "readiness" to expand euthanasia to people with a mental illness alone.

In addition, although some, perhaps a majority, of MAiD providers assured us of their readiness to provide MAiD for mental illness, and the adequacy of existing safeguards, we also heard disturbing stories of questionable conduct by some MAiD providers. Given what we heard it is hard not to conclude that some providers take an exceedingly expansive interpretation of what constitutes "serious and incurable illness, disease or disability", what constitutes an "advanced state of irreversible decline in capability"; and what constitutes "enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable". Furthermore, we heard stories of doctors with a seemingly cavalier attitude towards ending a life. 

Although we were assured that mechanisms, such as Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, would provide adequate safeguards, we were presented with scant, if any, evidence to indicate that such bodies have, as of yet, seriously pursued allegations of misconduct by MAiD providers. This does not mean that colleges have not received complaints or looked into them. As the president of the Nova Scotia College of Physicians and Surgeons pointed out- colleges only publish the reports of hearings when there has been a finding of wrong doing. That being said the paucity of any prosecutions of providers, combined with the suggestion by a number of witnesses that in fact there seems to be a lacunae of law enforcement when it came to MAiD ought to give rise to concern. Several witnesses suggested the criminal system, the medical colleges, and at times government Ministry's responsible for MAiD provision (BC), all allegedly treat enforcement as someone else's responsibility. Given the lack of evidence to the contrary it is frankly difficult to believe that the system is ready to expand.

This may be the most important comment by Powlowski. As the chair of the committee he recognizes that Canada's euthanasia law lacks effective oversight and is saying that expansion to people with mental illness alone would not be safe.

Further to that, his comments are important to the argument by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) that Parliament needs to completely review the law. The evidence suggests that the law lacks oversight, but further to that, the original law required a complete review and that has not happened.

Powlowski then argues that since Canada's law requires a person to have an irremediable medical condition, that the law would need to be amended to approve euthanasia for mental illness alone. He wrote:

But perhaps we will never be ready for MAiD for mental illness as the law is currently written. Numerous very experienced psychiatrists told us of seemingly irremediable cases where for some reason patients, after prolonged periods of seemingly irremediable suffering, the person eventually got better and started to enjoy life again. Furthermore, what evidence there is seems to suggest psychiatrists can not accurately predict who will not get better. 

Perhaps the simplest solution to the legal question is to recognize the requirement of irremediability as being dispositive of the issue. The law as written requires irremediability. If there is really no way to accurately determine irremediability it would seem we would need to change the law if we want to allow for MAiD for mental illness.

Jocelyne Downie

Powlowski suggests that based on irremediability that many euthanasia deaths for physical illness also do not qualify within the law. He writes:

We did, I would acknowledge, hear the argument that perhaps with some physical illness irremediability is not certain either (the argument was most forcibly made by Professor Downie- a law professor not a medical clinician). To the extent that there are such cases I would suggest it would be more appropriate to question whether MAiD is appropriate in any such case where there is uncertainty over the medical prognosis - rather than to accept the conclusion of those practitioners who suggested they were "comfortable" with making a decision about irremediability even if there was inherently some inability to come to that conclusion with reasonable certainty. 

Powlowski then answers the question about the role of parliament and the role of the courts. He writes:

I would suggest the elected legislature is totally justified in drawing a line, in deciding that we are unwilling to support the state enabling physicians to taking the life of someone who, perhaps, would have gotten better. The decision of whether we do so is a moral decision and very much a reflection of what we value as a society. As such it is a decision more appropriately made by those of us who are elected by the members of society, and who are ultimately accountable to the people- at the poll box, rather than the unelected courts.

This is important since Claire Brosseau and the euthanasia lobby are seeking an emergency court decision that would approve Brosseau for death by lethal poison based on mental illness alone. The euthanasia lobby want the court to legislate from the bench by approving that Brosseau be killed. 

EPC is intervening in the Brosseau court case concerning euthanasia for mental illness alone.

Powlowski made many more important comments but his closing argument is important:

In recommending that we not extend MAiD to those with mental illness we are not suggesting embarking on a new path of prohibiting suicide, or further trying to limit people's autonomy. We are suggesting the state decline to provide assistance to people with mental illness ending their lives and decline to allow medical professionals to actively do it for them.

EPC opposes killing people but we are not limiting a persons autonomy but rather we oppose the state giving doctors and nurse practitioners the right in law to kill people. When a doctor or a nurse pracitioner kills you, it is not about autonomy, it is about someone else killing you.

The EPC presentation to the AMAD Committee on May 5 urged Parliament to do a complete review of the euthanasia law, which was actually part of the original euthanasia law that was implemented in June 2016. I stated:

...Parliament needs to examine how the current law has led to outcomes like the death of Kiano Vafaeian (26) died by MAiD in Vancouver on December 30, 2025. Parliament needs to completely review the euthanasia law.

More broadly, Canada’s assisted dying law is vague. While Health Canada provides guidance, the legal framework allows for wide interpretation and it lacks effective oversight.

Because of time constraints, I will highlight one key issue.

Sections 241 (3) and 241 (3.1) of Canada's Criminal Code states that medical practitioners or nurse practitioners are required only to be “of the opinion” that the eligibility criteria are met. That, in practice, makes accountability extremely difficult, even impossible to prosecute a medical or nurse practitioner in Canada, even when the MAiD death is clearly wrong or deeply disturbing.

The MDRC reports and cases that have already been submitted to you speak to that reality.

Canada should not be considering the expansion of the euthanasia law to include people with mental illness alone but rather Parliament needs to fully review the law.

In April 2026, Canada surpassed 100,000 euthanasia deaths since legalization. Many of these deaths have been controversial and were outside the intent of the law.

EPC urges the government to consider the many stories associated with our euthanasia law that have been publicized world-wide and recognize that the law needs to be reviewed.

We look forward to presenting to the AMAD Committee when they provide a complete review of Canada's euthanasia law.