Letter to the British Parliament. Vote No to the assisted dying bill.

The Canadian experience proves that you should not legalize assisted dying.

By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and Dr Paul Saba, Co-Founder of Physicians Alliance Against Euthanasia and a Québec family physician.

Many people believe that the Edwards assisted dying bill will legalize a "limited" assisted dying law. In reality, the bill lacks effective definition to limit its application. Even so, the Canadian experience with legalizing assisted dying proves that the law will expand based on a lack of definition in the language of the law and the reality that, once legalized, restrictions in the law will be challenged based on equality. 

Canada’s original law (Bill C-14) appeared designed to limit assisted dying to people who were terminally ill by including the restriction that a person’s natural death must be reasonably foreseeable, a phrase that was never defined in the law. 

Even under the original law, which was more restrictive than Canada’s current law, Dr Paul Saba had a patient who wanted to die by euthanasia, but his patient had a wrong diagnosis. Dr Saba explains:

Dr Paul Saba

Let me share a personal experience. Eight years ago, one of my patients, Jim (a pseudonym), came to see me for a cough, thinking he had a cold. I ordered a Chest X-Ray. According to the radiologist’s report, Jim appeared to have lung cancer. I sat down with Jim and told him, “We need to do a CT scan immediately. You need to see a specialist. We need to do a bronchoscopy…”

Jim replied, “Dr Saba, I know you’re against assisted suicide, but you know what? I don’t necessarily agree with you.” I replied, "No, no. You need to go through all the steps of the diagnostic process, because this is only a preliminary diagnosis. Even if it is lung cancer, it’s a disease that can be treated today. There are new treatments available. It might not even be lung cancer.”

I spoke with the radiologist who had performed the lung CT scan; he told me, “We don’t know exactly what it is. It looks like lung cancer, but it could be lymphoma, which would be highly treatable. ”

Jim is an intelligent, well-informed man, an engineer, who thought he had a cold, only to be told he might have cancer. He could have resigned himself to an assisted death before even knowing 

what it was, since Canadian law allows a person to refuse all the testing necessary to confirm the diagnosis. He could have lost hope when the situation was still full of hope.

The power to move people to give up is one of the dangerous and misleading aspects of assisted dying. However, Jim is alive today because I was able to get his attention and persuade him that the situation was hopeful and that he should get more tests and undergo treatment. Today, eight years after diagnosis, investigations and treatment, he is happy to be alive with no further evidence of disease. 

Jim was finally diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which is a condition that is highly curable with targeted medical treatment.

Misdiagnosis is not uncommon. DP Medical reported in February 2025 that a 2023 study by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) estimated that misdiagnoses affect around one in 18 patients in primary and secondary care. The same study found that misdiagnosed cancers, strokes, and heart attacks were among the most serious cases, often leading to life-altering consequences or death.

Misdiagnosis is a strong reason to oppose assisted dying laws, but the biggest reason to oppose the Edwards bill is what it actually legalizes and what legalization will lead to over time.

Assisted dying is an act of killing a person, usually upon request, by prescribing a combination of lethal poison drugs to cause death. This is not a minor issue, as it requires medical professionals to be directly involved with the act of killing their patients.

Another issue is how these laws evolve over time. The Canadian experience shows how a law can move from assisted dying for the terminally ill, to assisted dying for the chronically ill to assisted dying for people with chronic mental illness as their sole criteria, to assisted dying by advanced request and to considerations of assisted dying for mature minors.

A recent parliamentary committee stated that the Canadian government should not extend assisted dying to people with chronic mental illnesses as their sole criteria. Dying with Dignity, an assisted dying lobby group, responded to the committee by launching a court case arguing that Canadians with mental illness as their sole criteria had a right to an assisted death.

Assisted dying is not what people think it is. It is about creating an avenue to kill people and legalizing assisted dying leads to extensions over time based on discrimination, as the restrictions in the law will be deemed to deny people equality under the law. 

Vote NO on the Edwards assisted dying bill while being committed to improving the care that everyone needs and deserves. 

Alex Schadenberg - Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr Paul Saba - Co-Founder of the Physicians Alliance Against Euthanasia

World Suicide Prevention Day Hypocrisy

This article was published by National Review online on September 10, 2026.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

You may not have heard, but today is the annual World Suicide Prevention Day. Usually, such efforts are almost invisible. We don’t put nearly as much emphasis on suicide prevention as we once did.

I am all for suicide prevention, of course. I just wish that those efforts included assisted suicide/euthanasia, which costs the lives of approximately 25,000 people annually around the world — with that toll increasing every year. But despite proliferating laws allowing doctors and nurse practitioners to assisted suicides — or, as in Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand, and other countries — actively kill suicidal people, prevention efforts are generally silent about this category of suicide.

I checked on the World Health Association link to Prevention Day for 2026. It has a four-tiered prevention strategy that goes by the acronym LIFE:

• L: Limit Access to Suicide;
• I: Interact with the media on responsible reporting;
• F: Foster life skills of young people;
• E: Early identity and support everyone affected.

That’s fine but assisted suicide/euthanasia directly violates three of those four prevention strategies. Let’s look at the “L”:

Limiting access to means of suicide is a universal evidence-based intervention for suicide prevention. Depending on the country, this may mean banning acutely toxic highly hazardous pesticides, restricting firearms, installing barriers in places where suicides are known to occur, limiting access to ligature points or taking other measures.

And yet, assisted suicide provides the means of self-termination to suicidal people.

Does the WHO oppose that — or even mention it? No, it does not.

What about the “I?”:

Interacting with the media for responsible reporting of suicide is significant because media reporting of suicide can lead to a rise in suicide due to imitation — especially if the report is about a celebrity or describes the method of suicide.

And yet, how many glowing media stories have we seen describing assisted suicides as “dying on his own terms,” or extolling suicide/euthanasia goodbye parties, and celebrating suicidal patients conjoining euthanasia with organ donation etc. Good grief, Brittany Maynard was declared by CNN to be an Extraordinary Person of the Year because she committed suicide after being diagnosed with brain cancer, and she was featured repeatedly on the cover of People.

Does WHO oppose that — or even mention it? No, it does not.

What about the “E?”:

Health services are often the entry point for people in distress or for those who have made a suicide attempt where early identification, assessment, management and follow-up care can be provided.

The health system is the “entry point” for all physician-assisted suicides. All are therefore identified. And virtually none receive suicide prevention services.

Does the WHO oppose that or even mention it? No, it does not.

With the exception of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, no suicide prevention associations of which I am aware ever mentions assisted suicide, much less explicitly opposes it. This despite studies demonstrating that legalizing and advocating for assisted suicide increase suicides generally.

One association shamefully says that it isn’t really suicide, but that suicide is a “what,” not a “why.” What an abdication of responsibility.

So, let’s stop the hypocrisy and rename it, “World Some Suicides Prevention Day.” At least that would have the virtue of honesty.

Judge refuses to block Illinois assisted suicide law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A federal judge, on September 10, denied the request from disability rights advocates’ to block the Illinois assisted suicide law from going into effect on September 12.

Jeremy Gorner reported for the Chicago Tribune on September 10 that:

The ruling came in a federal lawsuit filed earlier this year by two disabled patients, a doctor and several disability and patients’ rights organizations. They allege the state’s End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, which bars discrimination against people with disabilities; the Affordable Care Act, which regulates healthcare costs; and the plaintiffs’ equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

But in his 25-page decision, U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp rejected at least one of the plaintiffs’ arguments calling for a preliminary injunction to put the law on hold, disagreeing that doctors “will start inviting disabled patients to consider medical aid in dying” once the law takes effect.

On December 12, 2025 Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed assisted suicide bill SB 9 into law. The Illinois assisted suicide law is scheduled to go into effect later this week, on September 12, 2026.

We reported on September 9 that Hannah Meisel reported for Capital News Illinois on September 8 that disability rights organizations, on September 5, petitioned a federal judge to block the implementation of the Illinois assisted suicide law based on how the law contravenes the Americans with Disabilities Act, and is discriminatory against disabled people, who are more susceptible to physician bias and therefore coercion to end their life.

Gorner also reported that Tharp questioned the standing of the plaintiffs in the case.

As referenced in Tharp’s decision, one of the plaintiffs — a quadriplegic woman named Ebony Payne who is paralyzed from the neck down and has repeatedly been in serious life-threatening situations in hospitals — contended that for disabled people the law “removes the legal and ethical obligation of doctors” to act solely as healers by allowing them to respond to requests about procedures related to medical aid in dying. But the judge argued the plaintiff has not shown that she is a “qualified patient” under the law. 

The judge also noted Payne did not explain “why she is necessarily harmed” by the law if she does not seek a medical-aid-in-dying method “or the physician is in any event unwilling to provide such assistance.”

The Illinois assisted suicide law will go into effect on September 12. Tharp gave the plaintiffs 30 days to appeal the decision.

Assisted suicide laws give medical professionals the right in law to prescribe lethal poison for the purpose of suicide. The Illinois assisted suicide law is designed to make it impossible to prosecute a medical professional who assists a suicide, even in the most egregious cases.

Illinois Judge considers blocking assisted suicide law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On December 12, 2025 we reported that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed assisted suicide bill SB 9 into law. The Illinois assisted suicide law is scheduled to go into effect later this week, on September 12, 2026.

Hannah Meisel reported for Capital News Illinois on September 8 that disability rights organizations, on September 5, petitioned a federal judge to block the implementation of the Illinois assisted suicide law based on how the law contravenes the Americans with Disabilities Act, and is discriminatory against disabled people, who are more susceptible to physician bias and therefore coercion to end their lives.

Miesel reported that:

Thomas Geoghegan, who represents the disability rights groups, physician and disabled Illinoisans who brought the case, told U.S. District Judge John Tharp that the law upends the millennia-old tradition of the Hippocratic oath, a pledge doctors make to “first do no harm.” As a result, Geoghegan argued, EOLA will result in the “severe impairment” of the relationship a patient with disabilities has with his or her physician.

Miesel further reported that Geoghegan argued that:

“It’s our view, ultimately, this is authorizing a different standard of care,” he said.

Disability rights advocates fiercely opposed the two-year effort to pass the law, warning that physician bias in perceived quality of life may make doctors more inclined to encourage life-ending treatment over other options for people with disabilities.

Judge Sharp must decide if the Illinois assisted suicide law contravenes the Americans with Disabilities Act and is therefore discriminatory towards people with disabilities. Sharp said that he would make a decision before September 12.

On August 24, 2026 Molly Sweeney reported for WCIA news that Illinois agreed to a temporary order pausing assisted suicide law for certain hospitals and doctors.

On September 4, Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Blase Cupich and two orders of Catholic nuns launched a lawsuit seeking to block the Illinois assisted suicide law that is scheduled to to into effect on September 12, arguing that the law violates constitutional protections for free speech and religious freedom.

Attend the Bring Roger Home Campaign Town Hall meeting

Register for the Bring Roger Home Campaign Town Hall Meeting.

Date: Wednesday September 16 at 2 pm (Eastern Time), 11 am (Pacific Time)

(Zoom event Registration Link)

Join our speakers:

• Roger Foley
• Alex Schadenberg, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition,
• Lino Defacendis, Life Care Network,
• Kathy Matusiak Costa, Compassionate Community Care.

It will also be Roger's 51st birthday.

There is now a plan to bring Roger home.

(Zoom event Registration Link)

After almost a decade living in a London Ontario hospital and experiencing multiple series issues related to his care, and being denied direct funding home care alternatives and being offered euthanasia.

The Bring Roger Home Campaign enables you to get involved.

Check out his music, merchandise, T-shirts, coffee, plushies, his upcoming book and more!

You will hear new music, meet Roger live on Zoom and learn what Roger is going through and how you can be part of the solution.

(Zoom event Registration Link)

Let's celebrate Roger's 51st birthday and showcase real hope for people who live with disabilities.

Big Money can be Made Assisting Suicides

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

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

The New York Times published an unbelievably puffy piece about a new assisted-suicide clinic starting in New York as legalization kicks in, describing it oh, so objectively as “a start-up for better deaths”–complete with Buddhist chanting. Good grief.

But the saccharine story raises an important issue discussed too little in the debate over assisted suicide. Legalization creates acute financial conflicts of interest that have the potential to push suicidal people toward death.

For socialized systems and government funded health care, killing instead of caring for expensive patients can save a lot of money over time, particularly when the terminal-illness limitation is lifted. Indeed, some advocates argue that saving money is a big part of the point. The Canadian media has even celebrated that potential.

For now, however, that macro conflict of interest is muted in the U.S. Medicare does not pay for assisted suicide, nor does the federal portion of Medicaid — thanks to a law signed by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. State Medicaid may pay for it, but currently the numbers don’t add up to that much money. Private insurance companies have been smart enough to stay out of the controversy. Some plans pay the cost of doctor visits but not the price of the prescribed poison.

But legalization also creates acute potential conflicts of interest at the micro level. There is big money to be made for individual doctors in writing lethal prescriptions. For example, a death doctor in New Jersey has assisted more than 200 customers — I refuse to call them patients, since prescribed suicide isn’t a legitimate medical treatment — at up to $8,000 per prescribed overdose. If the average charge was $5,000, that’s more than a million bucks in a short time for not doing a whole lot of doctoring.

The New York assisted-suicide start-up touted so glowingly in the Times is another case in point. The clinic plans to charge up to $12,000 per suicide facilitation. Here’s what twelve grand covers.

Patients get two medical evaluations and a mental health screening, as well as a prescription for the combination of drugs — sedatives, morphine, lethal doses of cardiac medication — that will kill them.

New York is a populous state. So, let’s do a little math. If 1,000 people receive assisted suicide over the next few years from these “clinicians,” at say an average of $10,000 per death, that comes to — holy cow! — $10,000,000! Again, for doing very little actual doctoring. And the assisted-suicide clinic doesn’t have an office, so no rent payments will cut into the cash flow.

Moreover, the assisted-suicide clinic isn’t offering any actual “treatments,” since the price doesn’t cover caring for patients’ illnesses or, apparently, palliating symptoms. Nor will the “clinicians” practice in the medical specialties that treat the various illnesses with which suicide customers will present, such as cancer, ALS, or kidney disease.

Indeed, according to the story, the leader of the clinic is a nurse practitioner who treats chronic pain, which isn’t the same thing at all as caring for terminally ill people. Another M.D. is an ER specialist. They don’t treat terminal illnesses over the long haul, either. A palliative-care doc is involved with the suicide clinic but, according to the story, appears most interested in psychedelics. There is a former “hospice worker” and Buddhist monk. They sure don’t diagnose or treat terminal illnesses.

I’ll also bet the twelve grand doesn’t cover suicide prevention, which I doubt will be offered in any event. At least, there is no mention of that essential hospice service in the story. Besides, if the good death prescribers find that a patient does not qualify for a prescribed poisonous overdose, one would assume they don’t get the $12,000, a clear potential conflict of interest in my book.

Assisted-suicide proponents always argue that it will be implemented by doctors who have long-term relationships with their patients. That has always been a crock since most M.D.s properly will have nothing to do with prescribing suicides.

This story proves that point yet again. These suicide facilitators may know their customers for only about the two weeks it takes to jump through the bureaucratic hurdles. They certainly won’t have a long-term doctor-patient relationships with them.

With assisted-suicide numbers increasing every year and more states pushed to legalize doctor-prescribed death, there is big money to be made by doctors from writing lethal prescriptions. The subjects of this story do not appear to be motivated by avarice. But do we really want to financially incentivize access to suicide and let doctors get rich providing it?

That would sure allow bad practitioners who fail in clinical practice to personally do well by doing bad. Which reminds me of a joke. What do you call a medical student who graduates last in his class? “Doctor."

New York Times promotes assisted suicide "business"

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On February 6, 2026, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed the assisted suicide bill with the law caming into effect on August 5. This is terrible news as it will lead to the deaths of many people, at a vulnerable time of their life by lethal poison.

To increase the demand for assisted suicide the New York Times published an article on September 3 by Emma Goldberg promoting a new assisted suicide "business". Goldberg describes it as a business "start-up" for assisted suicide. In reality the article is providing free advertising for a business and steering people to assisted suicide. Goldberg writes:

You can think of it as a start-up for better deaths.

They have created a one-stop shop, (name of killing center withheld), where people can get help meeting every legal and medical requirement for a death on their own terms. Patients get two medical evaluations and a mental health screening, as well as a prescription for the combination of drugs — sedatives, morphine, lethal doses of cardiac medication — that will kill them. Medical aid in dying is legal in 13 states, and New York has among the strictest regulations, including that patients must be state residents, have six months or less to live, and wait five days between getting the prescription and filling it.

Goldberg describes it as a "start-up for better deaths" which is a sales technique. Notice how the article states that New York has among the "strictest regulations". This is another sales technique because most people want restrictions on assisted suicide.

Goldberg describes the "business partners" with compassionate descriptors and explains the cost for being assisted in a suicide is $12,000 and states: 

(...This covers medical consultations, psychological evaluations, logistical support, drugs and help for the grieving family after the death. The team also says it will care for people who cannot afford the cost.)

When asked about concerns related to the Hippocratic Oath, an oath that doctors once professed, the response was:

“The Hippocratic oath says do no harm,” ... “And I don’t think we’re harming anyone by doing this. I think we’re actually being compassionate and relieving suffering.”

Your not harming anyone by prescribing lethal poison for the purpose of suicide?

I didn't mention the name of the killing center or the medical team because I don't want to promote the business. Sadly killing people may become a lucrative business and the New York Times seems willing to provide free advertising to help them make a killing.

British government admits that disabled people may face ‘subtle pressure’ to choose assisted suicide, if bill passes

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

John Pring reported for the Disability New Service on September 3, 2026 that the British government admitted that disabled people may face 'subtle pressure' to choose assisted suicide if the assisted suicide bill becomes law. Pring reported that:

The impact assessment was published by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) last Thursday (August 28).

The assessment’s publication came on the same day that prime minister Andy Burnham wrote to Labour MPs to say he would not vote on the bill on 11 September because he did not want to “unduly influence the debate as prime minister”.

He had already told the media that he believed the funding crisis in palliative and social care should be fixed before there is any debate about legalising assisted dying.

And he has now also told ministers that as the government will remain neutral on the bill, they should “avoid being part of the public debate, and should not express views” about the implications of the bill for their own departments.

Pring reported that the government published three assessments of the assisted suicide bill on August 28.

On Thursday (28 August), DHSC and MoJ published three key documents that assess the “potential impacts” of the bill.

Their equality impact assessment of the bill accepts that disabled people “may be more susceptible to feeling as though they are a burden on those around them”, a key concern raised by campaigners opposed to legalisation.

The impact assessment says that this pressure “is not necessarily felt or applied by other people” but that disabled people “may feel subtle pressure due to attitudinal barriers or a lack of alternative appropriate services and support”, such as with the lack of access to palliative care.

It says these feelings of being a burden could also be caused by “structural pressures such as neglect, poverty and difficult living conditions”, while disabled people are twice as likely as non-disabled people to be victims of domestic abuse such as coercive behaviour.

And the equality impact assessment warns that factors such as high rates of poverty, poorer access to healthcare, lower quality care, and disproportionate levels of domestic abuse of black and Asian women could cause disproportionate numbers of minority ethnic people to choose an assisted death “to avoid financial hardship or escape abuse”.

It also highlights how older people, who are likely to be the main recipients of assisted dying, are “often dependent on those who care for them”, which puts them at increased risk of abuse and pressure to choose an assisted death.

And the assessment reports findings by the UN in 2021 that older people “may feel subtly pressured to end their lives prematurely”.

On November 29, 2024; the UK House of Commons voted 330 to 275 at second reading to support Kim Leadbeater's assisted suicide bill, a bill that was fatally flawed and died in the British House of Lords.

On June 17, 2026 Labour MP Lauren Edwards introduced a similar version to the Leadbeater bill that is scheduled to be voted-on at second reading on September 11, 2026.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is convinced that Edwards introduced a nearly identical assisted suicide bill as the Leadbeater bill in order to invoke The Parliament Acts, which allows the House of Commons to forgo approval from the House of Lords when passing two nearly identical bills within consecutive parliamentary sessions.

EPC victory. Court denies Brosseau euthanasia for mental illness.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have good news. Justice Carissima Mathen denied Claire Brosseau and Dying With Dignity an injunction to approve Brosseau to be killed by euthanasia (MAiD) based on mental illness as the sole criteria. Brosseau lives in Toronto Ontario.

(Link to the court decision).

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) intervened in the Brosseau case and participated in the hearings on July 21/22, 2026. (Read). 

The cost to intervene in a court case is prohibitive. EPC continues to need at least $20,000 in donations to cover our current intervention costs. (Donation Link).

Mathen wrote:

For the following reasons, I find that the balance of convenience does not favour granting the relief that Ms. Brosseau seeks.

The "relief" that Brosseau was seeking was death by euthanasia. Mathen writes: 

The question at the heart of the balance of convenience inquiry is where the risk of error is best placed. That risk is for the judge hearing the plea for interlocutory relief; they must consider what happens if they apply the test incorrectly: Sharpe, at p. 26. In constitutional cases, determining that risk can be exceptionally difficult. In this case, Ms. Brosseau has presented compelling evidence of the harm she is and likely will continue to suffer. At the same time, the interests on the other side are considerable. They include Parliament’s role to make policy decisions on sensitive social issues, and the proper interpretation of the Charter rights in play. On a full record, an application judge will have the tools to fully consider those interests and questions. On the current record, the court does not have such tools. Therefore, it is not possible to find for Ms. Brosseau on the relief that she seeks.

In other words, Mathen did not "grant relief" (approving euthanasia for Brosseau) because the court lacked the information that would be needed in order to make such a decision, but the information would be obtained in a full hearing, rather than an injunction hearing that this hearing represented.

This was a victory, but there is also bad news as the case of euthanasia for mental illness will continue in the court since Justice Mathen essentially found that Brosseau's case had merit.

Kristy Kirkup reported for the Globe and Mail on September 3:

In a written decision Thursday, Justice Carissima Mathen described how Ms. Brosseau presented compelling evidence of the harm she has suffered and will likely continue to endure.

Justice Mathen also noted the considerable interests on the other side including “Parliament’s role to make policy decisions on sensitive social issues and the proper interpretation of the Charter rights in play.”

I found it astounding that Justice Mathen mentions 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 that was released on June 17, 2026 but Mathen doesn't respond to the concerns of the government committee. The AMAD Committee advised the government to indefinitely pause the inclusion of (MAiD) euthanasia for mental illness.

Dr Marcus Powlowski MP

As part of the supplemental information in the report, committee chair Dr Marcus Powlowski, the Liberal MP from Thunder Bay - Rainy River explains his position on Canada's Charter by stating (starting at page 63 of the report):

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.

Powlowski argued that since Canada's law requires a person to have an irremediable medical condition, to be approved for euthanasia 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. 

Powlowski commented on the role of parliament and the role of the courts:

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.

These comments were important and Justice Mathen should have considered them as part of her decision. The euthanasia lobby want the court to legislate from the bench by the court legislating euthanasia for mental illness as a sole criteria. 

Fix how we care for the most vulnerable. No to assisted suicide.

The following article by Zubir Ahmad was published by the Guardian on August 25, 2026.

Usually we comment on an article, but Dr Zubir Ahmad it was better to simply republish this article. The British parliament will once again vote-on an assisted suicide bill on September 11, 2026. The new bill is nearly identical to the previous bill.

Dr Zubir Ahmad

By Dr Zubir Ahmad 

As a doctor, I have spent much of my professional life caring for people at some of the most vulnerable moments they will ever face. I have seen the anxiety that surrounds the prospect of dying, and the desperate wish of patients and families to avoid unnecessary suffering.

Naturally, we all want people facing the end of life to be treated with kindness and respect. But when considering the debate on assisted dying, true compassion demands that we ask a more fundamental question. What kind of society are we building if, before we’ve fixed the systems designed to care for people, we introduce a system designed to help them die? As a former health minister who has seen the system from the inside, I am able to say it is not ready or equipped to answer this question.

Andy Burnham has been right to raise this as a priority issue at the start of his tenure as prime minister. Speaking at a care home recently, he explained that assisted dying should not be introduced while Britain’s palliative care and social care systems remain under such strain. A choice between death without adequate care and a death prematurely self-induced is not a real choice.

Indeed, as parliament prepares for yet another vote on assisted dying in England and Wales on 11 September, I fear that the offering has been somewhat mis-sold to the public. A state-controlled medicalised dying process is still a process – one where there remain risks of complication and suffering. The reality of assisted dying is more complex than the promise of a perfectly controlled death.

Many people imagine a system where a person facing a terminal illness can choose the exact moment and manner of their death, free from distress. But the legislation does not and cannot provide that certainty. A patient who self-administers medication to begin the dying process may still experience complications. The process may take time; it may require medical intervention. It may not happen where or when the person imagined. The promise of absolute control can therefore become something different in practice: an appearance of choice that does not always deliver the agency people expect.

I am far from the only medical professional to be worried about the prospect of assisted dying being available on the NHS. Among those raising concerns about the bill’s dozens of flaws have been the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Complex Life and Death Decisions (CLADD) group from King’s College London, the Royal College of Pathologists, the British Geriatrics Society and numerous other medical bodies and care authorities. The same concern comes up again and again: is it really a “free choice” when palliative care and social support fall short?

A person’s wish to die does not happen in isolation from their circumstances. It can be shaped by whether they feel supported, whether they fear becoming a burden, whether their family is coping and whether they have access to the care they need. That is why the state of our care systems cannot be treated as a separate issue from assisted dying. Timely access to palliative and social care remains too often determined by where someone lives rather than what they need. For some families, excellent end-of-life support is available; for others, particularly in rural areas as well as constituencies experiencing high inequality, the experience is one of waiting, uncertainty and having to fight for services that should be guaranteed.

A Labour government founded the NHS on a principle that remains as important today as it was at its creation: that healthcare should be there when people need it most, regardless of their circumstances. A postcode lottery in care cannot be ignored while debating a new legal pathway for people at the end of their life.

In Scotland, this concern has been expressed clearly, and was an important reason why, in March, 85% of Labour MSPs voted against the legalisation of assisted dying in Holyrood. The bill introduced in Westminster by my colleague Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley, in October 2024 did not fare much better: too many concerns about patient welfare meant the House of Lords would not rubber-stamp the flawed text. And yet, on 11 September, MPs will be faced with yet another vote on assisted dying before the care systems are improved to a level which even makes that debate appropriate. Andy Burnham has his priorities right: this is the wrong debate at the wrong time. This is why I, and many others, will be voting against this bill, in pursuit of comfort, dignity and appropriate care for people who are vulnerable and dying.

Zubir Ahmed MP is an NHS vascular and transplant surgeon, and served as the parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Department of Health and Social Care from 6 September 2025 to 12 May 2026.

Bioethical Advocacy to Compel Medical Help in Dehydration Suicides

This article was published by National Review online on August 31, 2026.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

Many Western countries and jurisdictions are legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide. That opens up a problem for the death pushers. Since states aren’t going to get into the wet work of the actual killing, medical professionals and caregivers are going to be conscripted to do the deadly deeds — even if that means violating their religious beliefs and moral consciences.

Instead of resisting this rank authoritarianism, the medical and bioethics establishments are increasingly going along. This proposed coercion includes requiring doctors’ participation in suicides when patients starve and dehydrate themselves to death — known as VSED for “voluntary stop eating and drinking.”

As I wrote a few weeks ago here, the British Medical Association just so opined. And now, following closely in that guidance’s wake, a major article in the Journal of Health & Biomedical Law argues similarly — using dementia patients as the prime example — that doctors have to both inform patients about their right to commit suicide by VSED and ease the process by providing palliative care against the agony that killing oneself in that manner causes.

(It is important to emphasize at this point that we are not discussing the common phenomenon of patients who stop eating as a natural part of the dying process when the body can no longer assimilate nourishment. That isn’t suicide. VSED is. That’s a big difference both morally and factually.)

The article’s definition of VSED is skewed to promote the propriety of facilitating such deaths (citations omitted):

VSED is “a deliberate, voluntary, self-initiated action to hasten death by a patient with decision-making capacity who is suffering from an irreversible illness or prolonged dying that the person finds intolerable.”

But as the BMA guidance stated, refusing food and water onto death isn’t limited to dementia cases but can be decided upon for any reason at all. Indeed, the euthanasia pushers Compassion and Choices used to advertise this method of suicide for elderly people who are not seriously ill but “simply done.”

The article claims that clinicians have the obligation to inform patients who inquire about the process of committing VSED:

Health care professionals are ethically obligated to inform their patients of relevant health care information. This is to help patients make informed decisions: “Respecting the principle of autonomy oblige the physician to disclose medical information and treatment options that are necessary for the patient to exercise self-determination and supports informed consent, truth telling, and confidentiality.”

But eating and drinking isn’t a medical act. Receiving nourishment orally in a health-care context isn’t a treatment. In fact, the VSED itself isn’t any more “medical” than asphyxiating oneself by running a car in a closed garage. Should doctors have to teach patients how to die by that means? Of course not. Nor should they with VSED.

The article argues that people diagnosed with dementia should not be encouraged to pursue that means of death but should be provided written information about VSED among other data provided, which really means encouraged subtly, as the text below makes clear:

Referenced sources in such a compendium can then direct patients and their families to the more detailed information they should consider, such as, for example, that simply stating in an advance directive that they do not want artificial nutrition and hydration may not be adequate to ensure care and support during VSED. Links and references to VSED should include an explanation of the importance of a VSED-appropriate advanced directive if patients plan to VSED as well as templates for such advanced directives. The referenced sources should direct individuals to prepare a video explaining why they chose to VSED, and how they want their health care proxy and caregivers to respond if the patient asks for food or fluid as they become befuddled during their VSED process.

By “befuddled,” the author means: Even if the patient asks for food or drink it should be refused if previously instructed, an idea also being pushed in bioethics advocacy as “VSED by Advance Directive.” Can you imagine forcing caregivers to deny patients who ask for nourishment? Because that is what is being increasingly advocated here and elsewhere in bioethics discourse.

The article further claims that doctors must palliate the agony that comes with starving and dehydrating oneself to death — even when it violates their moral consciences — based on the principle of non-abandonment: 

The second limitation on providers’ right to conscientiously object to providing patient care is the principle of non-abandonment. No provider is permitted to abandon a suffering patient: “The duty to relieve pain and suffering is central to the physician’s role as healer and is an obligation physicians have to their patients.” Providers are ethically and legally obliged to provide care to a suffering patient even if doing so violates their personal beliefs unless they assist the patient in transferring to a provider who will provide such proper care.

But surely patient autonomy has its limits. If a patient wants to burn themself with cigarettes, are doctors require to numb the flesh to make that easier? No.

We may not be able to legally prevent VSED deaths. Nor can we prohibit doctors from palliating such cases. Indeed, VSED is often touted by activists as a loophole to get around laws banning assisted suicide.

But requiring doctors to participate is to force them to assist in suicide. And that is just plain wrong. I can’t think of a more efficient way to drive pro-life and Hippocratic Oath medical caregivers out of the professions. In fact, I believe that is a big part of the point.

Where next with this darkness? Once the false premises of VSED are accepted and such suicides become normalized, people will eventually say, “Why make people die slowly by something as awful as self-starvation? Just get it over with by allowing doctors give them a lethal jab” — and ethical guidelines will soon require doctors to do that too (already the case in Ontario, Canada).

Finally, people sometimes ask why I pay such close attention to the discourse in professional journals. This particular article is a good example of the importance of that focus. Its opinions are justified by citing earlier pro-VSED journal articles, thereby bootstrapping the author’s opinions to greater authority. And the next such article will likewise cite this piece to add to its authority. And on and on it goes.

That is precisely how radical proposals in bioethics discourse move from hypothetical examples to implemented public policy. Once the “experts” reach a consensus, the law tends to go along.

Previous articles on this topic:

British Medical Association requires doctors to help patients commit suicide by dehydration (Link). 

VSED is part of the assisted suicide agenda.

Gordon Friesen

By Gordon Friesen
President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

One of our great friends and allies, Wesley J. Smith, has recently written about the British Medical Association's newly minted policy and other bioethics articles which require doctors to collaborate with patients who are attempting to kill themselves through hunger and thirst.

This practice is commonly euphemized as ‘voluntarily stopping eating and drinking’, which ungainly expression is then replaced with the more slick-sounding acronym ‘VSED’. However we must unfortunately note (as usual) that the most important facts of this matter are absent from that deceptive formulation: first, the primary fact of suicide does not appear at all; and second, a misleading confusion is suggested between this specific method, of suicide, and traditionally familiar practices of fasting.

To be clear on this score, our subject has nothing to do with fasting (even to the point of death). For our bodies are well adapted to suffer the naturally frequent periods of famine to which we have been exposed throughout our evolution.

That is what makes fasting so comparatively easy (as long as fluid intake is properly maintained). For after a brief period of normal hunger (familiar to all occasional fasters), our bodies literally hunker down to wait out the interruption of nourishment.

Indeed, dying of hunger takes approximately one day for every pound of fat on our bodies, followed by another day for every three pounds of muscle. Hence, suicide by fasting is relatively painless, but takes a very long time, which generally provides plenty of opportunity for second thoughts.

Deprivation of fluids, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter. In this case, death follows in a few days only. And for that practical reason, our bodies are not adapted to quietly suffer thirst. Indeed, thirst is a biological emergency, and our bodies ring the alarm on this emergency through the communication of insufferable discomfort.

It is this unbearable discomfort, in turn, which death-friendly doctors happily propose to alleviate, through the provision of various medications (which also heavily impair critical thought). In other words: because suicide by dehydration is virtually impossible to endure, it is only the assistance of doctors which make such deaths possible, by numbing both the body and the brain.

For that reason, so-called ‘VSED’ is clearly an instance of assisted suicide, not mere comfort care and because doctors are professionally responsible for their acts in a way that ordinary people are not, it is also a form of medical homicide.

In truth, while so-called ‘VSED’ might appear very similar to terminal sedation, it is also much more problematic. For palliative sedation is only to be used in the most difficult of medical cases. But suicide by dehydration may be chosen, by any person, for any reason. It thus represents a truly radical departure from accepted norms, by providing suicidal persons with a voluntary entry point to the practical equivalent of palliative sedation, but without the need of medical justification. 

In reporting on the decision of the British Medical Association (to force the collaboration of doctors with this practice) the headline message has quite properly been centered upon the serious attack, thus produced, upon individual and institutional rights of conscience. For dissenting doctors, and institutions, are thus robbed of that crucial medical status, of independent moral agent, upon which all patients rely for proper care.

It is also worthwhile, however, to recall the importance of medically assisted suicide by dehydration, even in those jurisdictions where no such compulsion has yet been contemplated.

In the simplest of terms: so-called ‘VSED’ is definitely a form of medically assisted suicide, and yet its practice is legal in all States. Which means that even if you live in a State where assisted suicide is illegal, medically assisted suicide (VSED) is still being practised, in your State.

Furthermore, all of the terrible harms of medical homicide are enabled through this practice. For if there is nothing illegal about informing patients of the dehydration suicide option (and there is not) then there is similarly no check on any death-practitioner's ability to energetically market their product, and thus to professionally deliver as many people from the pains of human existence, as they possibly can.

In fact, unlike any other form of medical homicide (in the US or even in Canada) medically assisted suicide by dehydration is already available for dementia patients, through professionally solicited advance requests (similarly legal in all States).

Such, then, is the portrait of that formidable Trojan Horse, medically assisted suicide by dehydration (aka ‘VSED’).

Becoming aware of this practice, as yet another finger on the hand of medical homicide (and by no means the least of these) is a powerful first step in pushing back.

And while we may understand the zealous actions of fully devoted death-cult physicians, it is less easy to understand why our leaders, as in this latest British example, are so keenly committed to the promotion, and facilitation, of that extreme death agenda.

Sellling euthanasia (MAiD) at the bedside.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Do not ask me about euthanasia. I am not interested.

I was contacted by a woman who called us on behalf of her elderly Aunt who was receiving treatment in a hospital in London Ontario.

The Aunt wanted to know if there was anything that could be done to stop the MAiD team from asking her if she wanted MAiD.

The woman told me that her Aunt was asked, if she wanted euthanasia twice, in a pretty persuasive manner, and she said NO.

The woman told me that her Aunt was very upset because the person in the bed next to her was sold euthanasia at the bedside. Her Aunt told her that the MAiD team sold euthanasia as a beautiful death and made the person in the bed next to her, who was not asking for euthanasia, fear that she would otherwise have a terrible death.

The Aunt was concerned that the MAiD team might do the same to her, when she was going through a difficult time.

I told the woman to order the Life Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care for her Aunt.

The clear language in the EPC Life Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care is designed to protect her life.

EPC sells the Life Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care for $10 + taxes. Order the Life Protecting Power of Attorney (Order Link) or call EPC at: 1-877-439-3348 or info@epcc.ca

I asked if they wanted our new Do not ask me about euthanasia. I am not interested card.  

 

EPC will send this card with any donation amount (Donation Link) or by emailing us at info@epcc.ca.

EPC will also send you the Do Not Kill Me. I oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide card upon request. Just email us at: info@epcc.ca.

MAiD teams are selling euthanasia at the bedside. This is a form of coercion.

Euthanasia is medical homicide.

Support Alex's half-marathon fundraising run by donating to CCC and/or EPC

Alex Schadenberg and Marcel Lemmen are running a half-marathon on September 27, 2026 to raise money for the Compassionate Community Charity (CCC) and/or the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

This is the seventh consecutive year that Alex and Marcel are running the half-marathon fund-raiser for CCC and EPC.

The money raised for CCC from the previous 6 half-marathon runs combined is almost $90,000. 

Donations from the half-marathon (21.1 km) run are very much appreciated. 

 

The Compassionate Community Care (CCC) charity operates a help-line, a training program for visiting seniors, an advocacy training program and a calling service for lonely seniors.

Charitable donations can be made to Compassionate Community Care at: (Donation Link).

 

You may also consider donating to the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

 
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition informs, educates, and supports opposition to killing by euthanasia and assisted suicide and endorses proper care for people in need.

Donate to the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which is not a charity, at: (Donation Link).

“Euthanasia And Arbitrary Institutionalization Are Both Immoral”

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader
Meghan is a disability activists and a member of the EPC-USA board.

As I’ve said, I think that one of the most effective ways to prevent euthanasia is for euthanasia opponents to be thinking about what kind of world we want people with disabilities to live in, and do what we can to link euthanasia prevention to creating a better world. 

Hence, I think it’s valuable for euthanasia opponents to be aware of the trend towards broad re-institutionalization that is happening in the United States right now, especially since we know that coerced institutionalization contributes to euthanasia.

Institutions often smell like pee. The odor of urine hangs in the air. If you live in an institution you might get the chance to do something fun once in a while, like make a craft or watch a TV show, but your options for recreation are limited. Your loved ones and friends might come visit you at designated hours. You eat whatever food the institution serves. Often if you want to go to the bathroom, an orderly will have to unlock the door for you. Maybe the person living in the room next to you screams constantly. Maybe your roommate died from a bedsore that became infected because there weren’t enough staff to take care of his needs. 

In many ways living in an institution is like living in prison, except the residents generally aren’t criminals.

So, as a euthanasia prevention advocate, I’m disturbed that apparently, that’s the world that Texas, Florida, Alaska, and the Department of Justice want for some disabled people.

As I’ve noted, a 1999 SCOTUS precedent called Olmstead LC. generally requires states to provide community supports to disabled people who would be unnecessarily institutionalized without them. Ie, SCOTUS held that there may be some people who do need institutionalization in a humane setting, like if they are homicidal, have no ability to care for themselves whatsoever or prefer to live in an institution. But within reason, states can't put disabled people in institutions because states prefer that to community support. This determination created Olmstead’s “community integration mandate,” which helps protect disabled people from living in institutions just because that’s where the supports are.

But now, Texas, Florida, Alaska and the DOJ are fighting to let states design their home and community support systems in a way that would make many disabled people unable to receive the support they need without living in an institution.

This would be the case even when the disabled people aren’t a threat to themselves or others.

Florida, Texas and Alaska are the three states still clinging to the aforementioned Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit. The lawsuit threatens euthanasia-preventing healthcare protections for disabled people, but especially takes aim at simple, straightforward 2024 guidance about how to implement Olmstead’s mandate that disabled people who aren’t a threat to themselves or others be able to receive services in their communities.

These guidelines were also outlined by DOJ guidance in 2011 and 2020 and aren’t complicated: they define what community integration means and what states must do to achieve it. The regulations define what it means to be at risk of unnecessary institutionalization, and clarify that disabled people need not wait until they are unnecessarily institutionalized to invoke their right to community support. 

But the remaining Texas vs. Kennedy plaintiff states complain that implementing the updated community integration guidance will “add new regulatory burdens and imposes substantial costs on the state.”

(You know, like how the Canadian government sees disability services as a burden, so it’s incentivizing its disabled citizens to die by (MAiD) euthanasia?)

The Department of Justice has been conferring regularly with these states, and despite community integration being enforced by every administration since the Clinton administration, including the President’s first administration, the DOJ is apparently poised to give these states what they want and more.

Repealing the 2024 guidelines would be destructive enough, but the DOJ has now said that longstanding legal interpretations of Olmstead's community integration mandate are null and void: there is no community integration mandate; states don’t have to serve disabled people in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.

For instance, having declined to enforce Olmstead, the Department of Justice has asked the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to vacate its ruling that Florida illegally withheld the community services necessary for medically fragile children to live at home with their families. A recent court judgment found that Texas violated the law by unnecessarily placing intellectually disabled adults in nursing homes, and the DOJ would like that ruling to be reversed. Alaska, the third state still pursuing the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit, was found by the previous administration’s DOJ to have unnecessarily withheld community services from emotionally disabled children. The DOJ will likely seek to nullify that judgment as well.

Hence, the DOJ is failing to protect the same vulnerable people whose flourishing mis being undermined by the euthanasia movement, because that’s what the states of Texas, Florida and Alaska want the DOJ to do.

Incentivizing disabled people to die by assisted suicide violates society’s moral duties to people with disabilities. The current government’s approach to institutionalization also violates those principles. Coercing disabled people into institutions to get your political allies out of a legal pickle is an amoral thing to do.

A lot of people in the current government make vocal appeals to family and moral values. Is forcing intellectually disabled adults to live in understaffed nursing homes that smell like pee, and depriving disabled children of the opportunity to grow up with their families, consistent with those values?

I’m not writing about this issue to shame or praise people for how they vote; my commentary on how other disability issues are related to euthanasia is meant to be nonpartisan. I’ve met people from accross the political spectrum who care about disabled persons.

But recent government choices take steps toward creating a more limited and painful world for people with disabilities. Regardless of anyone’s intentions, making it easier for disabled people to be unnecessarily institutionalized contributes to a culture in which disabled people are so marginalized that offering assisted suicide seems normal and appealing.

It’s unjust to medicalize disabled people’s suicides in order to ease burdens on the medical system.

It’s also immoral for disabled people to shoulder the burden of living in institutions to relieve “regulatory burdens” on the state.

Author Note 1: I did an interview with moral theologian Charlie Camosy about how coerced institutionalization and assisted suicide are connected to one another. It can be read here.

Author Note: Here are the details about the updated Community Integration Mandate that is under threat.