Jersey assisted suicide bill receives Royal Assent

The following is a media release from the Care Not Killing Alliance on July 9, 2026.

Care Not Killing deeply disappointed as Jersey’s assisted dying law receives Royal Assent despite ECHR breaches

Campaign group Care Not Killing has expressed deep disappointment following the decision to grant Royal Assent to Jersey’s Assisted Dying (Jersey) Law 2026, making Jersey the first part of the British Isles to legalise assisted dying.

The group believes the legislation breaches the UK’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights — including Article 2 (right to life), Article 9 (freedom of conscience), Article 10 (freedom of expression), Article 11 (freedom of association), and Article 14 (freedom from discrimination) — and that this is precisely why Royal Assent had been held up for so long.

In a legal letter sent to the Attorney General of Jersey and the Ministry of Justice on 21 May 2026, Care Not Killing’s solicitors, Conrathe Gardner LLP, set out a series of concerns about the Law’s compliance with the ECHR. The letter warned that the legislation places vulnerable individuals at “severe risk of loss of life in a way that is discriminatory and impermissible under the ECHR.”

It highlighted that the law fails to adequately test for coercion, duress or undue influence — particularly in the case of disabled people — by relying on “an assessing doctor simply asking the individual if anyone has coerced them.”

The letter also noted that individuals with conditions such as bipolar disorder, depression, and autism face significantly higher rates of suicidal ideation, and that the Law makes no provision to protect them.

Care Not Killing pointed to the well-documented expansion of euthanasia regimes in other jurisdictions — noting that in Canada, one in twenty deaths is now by assisted suicide, and in the Netherlands, 5.4 per cent of all registered deaths are by assisted suicide with uptake increasing by 8 per cent every year.

The group also highlighted that even before the Law was passed, a proposition was tabled to extend it to incurable (non-terminal) conditions, and that Health Minister Tom Binet has stated this amendment will be proposed again in future. The Law also introduces so-called “safe access” zones that could criminalise prayer and sermons in places of worship near where assisted dying takes place, interfering with rights under Articles 9, 10 and 11 of the ECHR.

Dr Gordon Macdonald

Dr Gordon Macdonald commented: 

“This legislation will fundamentally alter health and palliative care on Jersey and put the lives of vulnerable people at risk, exactly as we have seen in those places that have introduced assisted suicide or euthanasia. It fails on a number of fronts, including: lack of legal protections for doctors and nurses who do not want to be involved, protections for the elderly and disabled people at risk of being coerced, will see money taken out of palliative care and has been sold to the public as a way to end suffering when we know from places like Oregon, those who take the death row drugs may suffer long and agonising death from a pulmonary oedema - where their lungs slowly fill up with bodily fluid and the drown in their own secretions.

“Importantly, as our lawyers have pointed out, this law does not comply with the European Convention on Human Rights and is not compatible with the UK’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We will be consulting our lawyers to determine our next steps and how and when this dangerous law can be challenged.”

For media inquiries, please call Alistair Thompson or Team Britannia PR on 07970 162225.

Editors Notes

Care Not Killing was founded as a UK-based alliance of human rights and disability rights organisations, health care and palliative care groups, faith-based organisations groups, and is supported by thousands of concerned individuals.

We have three key aims:

• to promote more and better palliative care;
• to ensure that existing laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide are not weakened or repealed;
• to inform public opinion further against any weakening of the law. 

*As this story is dealing with suicide, please could we ask that you include details about organisations that offer help and support to vulnerable people who might be feeling suicidal such as the Samaritans, CALM or similar - Thank you.*

Concerns about Organ Donation.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Larry Black Jr with his sister Molly Watts

KFF Health News published an article by Cara Anthony on September 12, 2025 about organ donation featuring the story of Larry Black Jr who on March 24, 2019, at the age of 22, arrived at the SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital after being shot in the head.

A week later, Black, was on the surgical table being prepared for organ harvesting when his physician demanded that Black be removed from the surgical table, because he was not declared brain dead and his heart was still beating.

Anthony reported that:

Black’s sister Molly Watts said the family had doubts after agreeing to donate Black’s organs but felt unheard until the 34-year-old doctor, in his first year as a neurosurgeon, intervened.

Today, Black, now 28, is a musician and the father of three children. He still needs regular physical therapy for lingering health issues from the gun injury. And Black said he is haunted by what he remembers from those days while he was lying in a medically induced coma.

“I heard my mama yelling,” he recalled. “Everybody was there yelling my name, crying, playing my favorite songs, sending prayers up.”

He said he had tried to show everyone in his hospital room that he heard them. He recalled knocking on the side of the bed, blinking his eyes, trying to show that he was fighting for his life.

New Zealand 2025 euthanasia report. Assisted deaths increase again.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The New Zealand 2026 assisted dying report (April 1, 2025 - March 31, 2026) was recently released indicating that the number of reported assisted deaths increased to 486 reported assisted deaths up from 472 in the 2025 report (April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025) and 344 reported in the 2024 report.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide were legalized in New Zealand in November 2021. The law allows doctor administered death (euthanasia) and self-ingestion (assisted suicide).

 

The 2026 report indicated that 460 of the 486 assisted deaths were carried-out by the doctor (euthanasia) which was up from 450 of the 472 assisted deaths being carried-out by the doctor (euthanasia) in 2025.

On November 11, 2025 I reported that New Zealand MP Todd Stephension introduced - The End of Life Choice Amendment Bill, a private members bill to expand the New Zealand assisted dying law.

What would the New Zealand euthanasia expansion bill (among other things) do?

• Amends the definition of who can do euthanasia by changing the terminology from attending medical practitioner to attending practitioner.
• Changes the terminal illness requirement to a person who has been diagnosed with a condition that is advanced, progressive, and, either on its own or in combination with 1 or more other diagnosed conditions, is expected to cause death. (Expected to cause death is not the same as a terminal illness with a 6 month prognosis).
• Eliminates conscience rights by forcing a medical practitioner to refer a person to the assisted dying service when they have received a request for assisted dying.

The New Zealand government may follow Canada's lead with plans to expand euthanasia to people who are not terminally ill. In fact the bills definition of who qualifies to be killed can be interpreted wide enough to include most people with disabilities.

In October 2020, New Zealand voters supported euthanasia based on specific legalization legislation. The law has only been in place since November 2021 and now there is a push to expand the legislation.

Canada had approximately 17,700 euthanasia deaths in 2025.

Canada has had more than 103,000 euthanasia deaths since legalization.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director,
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I predict that Canada had 17,700 reported euthanasia deaths in 2025 representing about 5.6% of all deaths and a 7.3% increase from 2024. 

I am researching the 2025 Canadian euthanasia data since Health Canada is slow to release data and Canadians have the right to know.

Health Canada's Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying was released on November 28, 2025 (2024 data). The 2024 data indicated that there were 16,499 reported (MAiD) Canadian euthanasia deaths representing 5.1% of all deaths which was up by 6.9% from 15,427 in 2023. 

I published an article on March 17, 2025 with preliminary predictions for 2025 and predicted that Canada would surpass 100,000 reported euthanasia deaths in April 2026.

Where do I get my data?  

The Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario 2025 (MAiD) euthanasia data indicates that there were 5303 reported euthanasia deaths in 2025 which was up by almost 7.3% from 4,944 reported euthanasia deaths in 2024. Ontario represents 38.9% of Canada's population. 

The British Columbia (BC) Health Authority released its 2025 euthanasia data indicating that there were 3189 reported euthanasia deaths in BC in 2025 which was up by 6.3% from 3000 in 2024. 

Based on the reported 43,223 total BC deaths in 2025, euthanasia represents almost 7.4% of all deaths. BC has 13.5% of Canada's population.

Alberta Health Services also released its 2025 (MAiD) euthanasia data indicating that there were 1,242 reported euthanasia deaths in Alberta in 2025 which was up by more than 11% from 1,117 in 2024. Alberta represents 12.7% of Canada's population.

Nova Scotia Health released its 2025 MAiD euthanasia data indicating that there were 462 reported euthanasia deaths in 2025 which was up by 5% from 440 in 2024. Nova Scotia represents 2.6% of Canada's population.

Based on the official euthanasia data from Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Nova Scotia, in those provinces, there were 10,196 reported euthanasia deaths in 2025 which was up from 9501 in 2024 representing a 7.3% increase. These provinces represent about 67.7% of Canada's population.

How many people have died by euthanasia in Canada? 

According to the Sixth Annual Report, from legalization until December 31, 2024 there were 76,475 reported euthanasia deaths in Canada. When adding approximately 17,700 reported euthanasia deaths in 2025 we can estimate that from legalization until December 31, 2025 there were approximately 94,175 reported euthanasia deaths.

Is the number of euthanasia deaths increasing, decreasing or stable in 2026?

The official Chief Coroner of Ontario data indicates that there were 1,283 reported euthanasia deaths in the first quarter of 2026 which is up by 2.5% from 1,252 in the first quarter of 2025. This is not conclusive information but it does suggest that the number of euthanasia deaths has continued to increase by approximately 2.5% in 2026.

Based on this data, I estimate that there have been approximately 1,500 reported Canadian euthanasia deaths every month in 2026 and as of June 30, 2026, that there have been approximately 103,175 Canadian reported euthanasia deaths since legalization. 

More articles on Canada's euthanasia deaths.

• Canada surpassed 100,000 euthanasia deaths since legalization (Read). 
• Canada: Euthanasia continued to rise in 2025 (Read).
• Canada will soon surpass 100,000 euthanasia deaths (Read). 
• Canada reports a record number of deaths in 2024 (Read). 
• Health Canada 2024 report states that 16,499 people died by euthanasia (Read)

German doctor convicted of killing 15 patients but he likely killed many more.

The lethal poison drug combination was the same as used for euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Bethany Bell reported for BBC news on July 8, 2026 that a German doctor was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing at least 15 patients.

Bell reported that:

A court in Berlin found the 41-year-old man, named only as Johannes M. in line with German privacy rules, guilty of murdering 12 women and 3 men between September 2021 and July 2024.

The authorities believe these killings could be just the tip of the iceberg. Prosecutors are currently investigating dozens of other incidents involving the doctor.

His victims were between the ages of 25 and 94. The court heard how they were all critically ill, but that their deaths were not imminent.

Prosecutors said that during home visits, the doctor administered a lethal combination of various medicines without his patients' consent.

On several occasions, they said he set fires to cover his tracks.

In July 2024, shortly before his arrest, prosecutors said the doctor killed two patients in a single day - a 75-year-old man at his home in central Berlin and, a few hours later, a 76-year-old woman in a neighbouring district.

They said the doctor tried to set fire to the woman's house, but failed. 

CBS News reported on July 8 that:

Presiding judge Sylvia Busch said the conviction for 15 murders may well be only a glimpse of his many crimes.

Prosecutors said during the proceedings that he was suspected of having killed more than 70 other people.

An article by Emily Atkinson that was published by the BBC on April 16, 2025, suggests that he used the similar drugs as are used for euthanasia:

He is accused of administering an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant to his patients without their knowledge or consent.

The relaxant "paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes", the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Based on the way he killed his patients, they appear to have died in the same way as a euthanasia death. It is likely that the physician was trained by a euthanasia group. 

In 2019, Niels Högel, a nurse in Oldenburg, Germany, was convicted of murdering 85 patients from 2000 to 2005, and investigators suspect the true number of victims was far higher. Mr. Högel was found to have administered drug overdoses that caused cardiac arrest so that he could revive the patients and be celebrated as a hero.

Cases of medical homicide are not uncommon. Medical practitioners who have been convicted of murdering patients, include: Dr. Harold Shipman, Charles Cullen, Dr Virginia Soares de Souza, Aino Nykopp-Koski and Dr. Michael Swango.

Professor Christopher Lyon, who teaches at the University of York (UK) published a research paper on August 2, 2024 stating that Canada's (MAiD) euthanasia law enables healthcare serial killers (HSK).

It is not safe to give doctors, or others, the right in law to kill people.

When a nation legalizes euthanasia, it gives medical professionals, who were already killing their patients, the legal right to proceed.

Norwegian who was convicted of murder is now convicted of assisting a suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A Norwegian man who was first convicted of murder when he was 15 years-old has been convicted of assisting the suicide of a woman in Sweden.

Steinar Wangen (55), who calls himself a "euthanasia activist" was already in prison for assisting the suicide of of a 76-year-old woman in Strömstad Sweden.

Wangen was convicted of murder last Friday.  Newsinenglish.no reported on July 6, 2026 that:

...a Norwegian court in Vestfold convicted him on Friday of murdering another woman in Sweden (Trollhättan), who allegedly wanted to die, by holding a pillow over her face after she’d consumed sleeping pills and alcohol. His trial took place in Tønsberg, Norway because that’s where he lived when he established contact with the Swedish woman.

Using a pillow is murder. The Newsinenglish.no article stated:

Norwegian prosecutors sought and received a 15-year prison term for Wangen with forvaring, which means a judge must determine every 10 years or so whether he still poses a threat to society. Wangen denies he helped kill the woman in Trollhättan and appealed on the spot.

An interview that was published by svt.se on June 16, 2026, that, in the past, Wangen had been acquitted for assisting the suicides of four people in Sweden. In the interview:

Steinar Wangen calls himself an "euthanasia activist" and has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

The family of the 7 year old girl who Wangen killed when he was 15 referred to him in their book as a

“A cold-blooded and calculating person.”

Legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide (medical killing) creates the perfect cover for murder.

Event Exposing Assisted Suicide / Euthanasia in Canada (August 13)

Lessons on opposing MAiD in Canada

Rachel Parker Live and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition are sponsoring an important event in Jordan Ontario

Date: Thursday, August 13 at 7 pm.

Location: The Jordan Hotel

Cost: $55 (early bird price before July 16)

(Purchase tickets) 

An evening with: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Executive Director, Alex Schadenberg, podcaster Rachel Parker and author / activist Jonathon Van Maren.

The evening provides excellent speakers and an incredible opportunity to focus-on and share what needs to be done to change Canada's future. 

(Purchase tickets) 

 

 

How narrative control is narrowing Canada’s MAiD debate

This article was published by Alicia Duncan on July 2, 2026.

Alicia Duncan

The Cost of Certainty

By Alicia Duncan & Kelsi Sheren

Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) regime was built on a promise that has become central to public trust: that those seeking an assisted death may do so within a framework of careful safeguards designed to protect the vulnerable while respecting autonomy.

I came to this issue not through ideology, but through experience. In October 2021, my mother died by MAiD in British Columbia after a rapid decline marked by severe weight loss, chronic pain, psychiatric deterioration, disordered eating, and profound hopelessness. My family believed these circumstances raised serious questions about vulnerability, capacity, and whether her desire to die reflected enduring autonomy or the distortions of untreated mental suffering.

The questions we asked in the aftermath changed the course of my life. What began as a daughter’s attempt to understand how this could happen evolved into years of investigation involving Freedom of Information requests, regulatory complaints, and what became Canada’s first police investigation into a MAiD death. That work eventually led me to testify before parliamentary committees on two separate occasions and to discussions with policymakers in the United Kingdom and Scotland. It also became the foundation for my forthcoming book, The Other Side of the Straitjacket: A Daughter’s Story of Mental Illness and Assisted Dying.

What has struck me most over these years is not simply the polarization surrounding MAiD, but the increasingly narrow boundaries of acceptable discourse around it.

Every ethically serious medical practice should be able to tolerate scrutiny, especially one involving the intentional ending of human life. Yet in Canada’s MAiD debate, criticism is often treated less as a contribution to oversight than as a threat to the legitimacy of the system itself. Questions about safeguards are reframed as attacks on autonomy. Concerns about psychiatric vulnerability are dismissed as ideological opposition. Scientific uncertainty is presented to the public with a confidence that the underlying evidence does not always justify.

One of the clearest examples of this is the debate over the physiological effects of MAiD medications. Public discussion of this issue gained momentum following the work of Dr. Joel Zivot, an American anesthesiologist and expert in lethal injection pharmacology, who raised concerns during testimony before the Canadian Senate in 2021 as Canada was considering the expansion of its MAiD regime to include individuals whose natural death was not reasonably foreseeable. Zivot questioned whether the drug protocols used in assisted dying may, in some cases, lead to rapid fluid accumulation in the lungs—a condition known as pulmonary edema, which impairs oxygen exchange and, in severe cases, may produce a dying process he described as more akin to drowning.

His testimony raised an important question: how much do we actually know about the physiological effects of MAiD medications during the dying process?

Recently, I came across a Substack article from a MAiD advocacy platform criticizing military veteran and MAiD critic Kelsi Sheren for raising concerns about pulmonary edema during assisted dying. In dismissing those concerns, the authors wrote: “Perhaps the most common and harmful example is her claim that the MAiD medications cause fluid to build up in the lungs and cause the person to drown—which is completely untrue.”

I found that statement deeply troubling—not simply because I disagree with it, but because I possess evidence that directly challenges it.

Through Freedom of Information records, I obtained documentation of the precise medications and dosages administered to end my mother’s life. The protocol was neither unusual nor experimental. It matched the standard intravenous drug regimen recommended by the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers (CAMAP).

I also possess something extraordinarily rare in a MAiD case: an autopsy.

Because MAiD deaths are generally classified as expected deaths with a known cause, autopsies are seldom performed. As a result, post-mortem evidence examining the physiological effects of MAiD medications in real-world settings remains remarkably limited.

My mother’s autopsy documented pulmonary edema.

Whatever conclusions one draws from a single case, it leaves little room for absolutism.

I am not suggesting this proves pulmonary edema occurs in every MAiD death, nor that every patient experiences conscious respiratory distress. It does, however, establish an important point: pulmonary edema can occur after the administration of standard MAiD medications.

That makes the assertion that such concerns are “completely untrue” difficult to defend.

A more intellectually honest position would be to acknowledge that we do not yet know how often pulmonary edema occurs during MAiD, under what circumstances it develops, or what clinical significance it may carry, largely because the research simply has not been done.

I have attempted to engage directly with the authors of this Substack on this issue. I approached them in good faith, outlining the evidence in my possession and raising what I believe are legitimate questions about the physiological effects of MAiD and the troubling lack of meaningful clinical research in this area.

What I encountered was not curiosity, but defensiveness. And that, in many ways, captures the deeper problem.

Increasingly, I see advocacy groups, institutions, and stakeholders responding to questions about MAiD not by openly examining potential flaws in the system, but by protecting the system from scrutiny. The impulse is not to ask what might be missing from our understanding, but how confidence in the existing narrative can be preserved.

This is a pattern I know intimately. My family experienced it repeatedly after my mother’s death. Over time, I came to recognize this pattern as a form of institutional gaslighting. Not overt manipulation, but something subtler: selective framing, strategic omission, and unwavering certainty in areas where meaningful uncertainty remains.

The effect is profound. People begin to question what they witnessed, what they know, and whether their observations are legitimate—not because the evidence disproved them, but because the dominant narrative leaves no room for competing truths.

That principle matters profoundly in medicine, where progress has never depended on the defence of existing assumptions, but on the willingness to question them. Medicine advances because clinicians and researchers remain open to anomalies, willing to investigate uncomfortable evidence, and humble enough to acknowledge the limits of current knowledge. Ethical systems should demand no less of themselves.

That is why the growing defensiveness surrounding MAiD concerns me. Any system empowered to intentionally end life carries an extraordinary burden of accountability. Public trust in such a system cannot rest on polished messaging or categorical reassurance; it must be earned through transparency, rigorous scrutiny, and a genuine willingness to examine where safeguards may fail.

What concerns me most is not disagreement, nor even criticism. It is the gradual normalization of a culture in which difficult questions are treated as threats rather than as necessary components of ethical oversight. Once that happens, the goal subtly shifts. The priority is no longer understanding what is true, but preserving confidence in what is already believed.

That is a dangerous place for medicine—or for any institution entrusted with irreversible decisions—to operate.