EXCLUSIVE - A man fell in his living room on Vancouver Island. Twelve days later he was killed by MAID.

This article was published by Kelsi Sheren on her Substack on September 20, 2026.

By Kelsi Sheren

EXCLUSIVE interview given to The Kelsi Sheren Perspective by Lori Bauman.

Twelve Days and Shawn was Dead. A man fell in his living room on Vancouver Island. Twelve days later he was dead by MAID. His family still can’t get his medical records.

On May 9, 2025, Shawn Bauman fell at home on Vancouver Island. He was 55 years old. On May 21, 2025, he was euthanized.

Twelve days.

He was not terminally ill. He had already survived cancer, he had already survived heart surgery. His ex-wife — the mother of his two daughters — says there was nothing to indicate the end was near. He was a heavy drinker and he was not in the best of health. That is a different thing than dying.

This is her account. She wrote it out herself, and she has given it to me. I am reporting what the family says happened and what the record shows. Where I could not confirm something, I say so.

What the family says happened below:

Shawn hurt his ribs in the fall. Paramedics came. He was admitted to emergency, X-rayed, and told it was bruising — no fractures, no dislocations. He was discharged.

He went back the same day. Trembling. Sweating. Pain at the base of his neck radiating across his shoulders. A CT scan of the cervical spine found a compression fracture at T3. No spinal cord compression. No neurological compromise. A neurosurgeon was consulted and determined surgery was not required.

He was sent home with acetaminophen, ibuprofen, ketorolac, hydromorphone, diazepam, cyclobenzaprine and furosemide.

The next day, May 10, his legs gave out. He was adjusting himself on the couch when he lost all movement and all sensation in both legs, completely and at once. He lay there for two hours, unable to move, waiting for his roommate to come home and call an ambulance.

When Shawn had new scans done, they found what the first ones had not: a large epidural hematoma — a collection of blood around the spinal cord — running from T4 to T11.

An emergency physician on the Island got Vancouver General Hospital’s spine service on the phone and told them this man needed specialized spinal surgery. Vancouver General accepted him for emergency transfer to relieve the spinal compression.

Then he crossed the water, and the family says the lights went out. They were never given a report. During his entire stay they never spoke to a single member of his medical team. What they know, they know from two of his friends. When his daughter reached him directly, he told her he was too drugged up to talk.

The emergency surgery he was transferred to was going to take place at Vancouver General, as far as the family knows, never performed. Nobody has told them why.

One of his friends told them MAID had come up. His ex-wife told her daughter not to worry about it. She had read the law. He wasn’t terminal, and there was a process, and a ninety-day assessment.

On the evening of May 20, his daughter got a call from her father. It was scheduled for the next morning. That quick and that simple. A friend set up a conference call the following morning, shortly before it happened. He was personable, he kept it light and he was proud of himself for agreeing to donate his eyes, and for agreeing to have his brain hooked up and monitored while the procedure was carried out. He called it his last little contribution to society.

Let me be clear about which half of that matters. Organ donation after euthanasia is settled practice in this country. Canadian Blood Services wrote the policy in 2019 and hundreds of Canadians have done it.

Shawn giving his eyes is not the part that should stop you. The brain is. Recording a man’s brain while he is being killed is not donation — donation happens after death, and this happened during. A living man, wired to a machine, producing data while the injection went into his arm. That is research on a human subject, and research on human subjects in Canada requires a written protocol, a research ethics board, an approval number, and the informed consent of someone competent to give it. So a file exists. It has to.

Somewhere in Vancouver there is a protocol with a number on it and a consent form with a signature on it, dated inside the eleven days between the afternoon this man lost the use of his legs and the morning he died — signed by a man who told his own daughter he was too drugged up to hold a conversation. I have asked for it.

His family were in shock. His ex-wife says she wanted to shout *don’t do it.* She didn’t. What do you say to someone who is about to have his life taken from him?

They were offered the chance to stay on the phone while it happened. They said no. She did not want that to be the last memory her daughters had of their father.

This is where the family’s account stops being a private grief and becomes a public question.

Canada runs two tracks.

**Track 2** is for people whose natural death is *not* reasonably foreseeable. It requires a minimum of ninety clear days between the start of the first assessment and the lethal injection. It requires a second assessor with expertise in the condition causing the suffering. It requires that the person be informed about — and give serious consideration to — counselling, mental health supports, disability supports, community services and palliative care.

Ninety days. That is what his ex-wife had read. That is why she told her daughter it wasn’t going to happen.

**Track 1** is for people whose natural death *is* reasonably foreseeable. There is no minimum waiting period. Parliament deleted the ten-day reflection period in March 2021. Track 1 also permits a written waiver of final consent, which allows a practitioner to proceed without the person confirming, at the moment of death, that they still want to die.

Twelve days from a fall in the living room to a lethal injection is not possible on Track 2 — unless the ninety days was shortened, which the law permits only when the person is about to lose the capacity to make health care decisions and both assessments are already complete.

So one of two things happened. Either Shawn was assessed as Track 1, or he was assessed as Track 2 and the clock was cut short because someone determined he was about to lose capacity.

Both roads run through the same finding: that this man’s natural death was reasonably foreseeable. Eleven days after Vancouver General Hospital accepted him for emergency surgery to relieve the compression on his spine.

I want to be careful here. It is possible for a clinician to reach that finding lawfully. A man with a serious spinal cord injury, a history of cancer and heart surgery, and heavy alcohol use is not a man in perfect health, and I am not a physician. But somebody made that call, and somebody signed it, and the family has never been shown a single page of it. This is what they do, they have a pattern of not alerting the families before this happens.

That is not a medical question, that is simply a records question.

His daughter made a formal request for her father’s medical records. Vancouver General’s response, as the family provided it to me, acknowledged that she may be considered an appropriate person to act on behalf of the deceased — and then refused her, on the grounds that her access was sought for her own personal reasons rather than on behalf of the deceased.

“You are the right person to ask. You are asking for the wrong reason.”

The reason was that her father died and she wants to know how. A coroner opened an investigation. Fifteen months later the family has still not received a report.

Here is the part that most people won’t catch. Since November 2018, a MAiD death in British Columbia is only reportable to the BC Coroners Service in narrow circumstances — including where the underlying condition that led to the request relates to an accident, violence, or self-inflicted injury. Shawn’s condition started with a fall.

Which means the province’s own reporting rules classified the chain of events that ended his life as beginning with an accident. Not a terminal disease. An accident. In his living room. Twelve days earlier. The care he received on the Island is separately being reported through Island Health’s Patient Care Quality Office.

The questions I have put these to Island Health, Vancouver Coastal Health, and the BC Coroners Service. Lori has also reported this to the Ombudsman. A deadline for comment was given and no response was issued on the following.

1. Was the emergency spinal surgery Shawn was transferred to Vancouver General to receive ever performed? If not, why not, and who decided?

2. Was he assessed under Track 1 or Track 2?

3. If Track 1, on what basis was his natural death determined to be reasonably foreseeable, eleven days after he was accepted for emergency surgical intervention?

4. If Track 2, was the ninety-day period shortened on the basis of imminent loss of capacity — and if so, how was capacity to consent to death assessed in a man who told his own daughter he was too drugged up to talk?

5. Was a waiver of final consent signed?

6. Who raised MAiD first — Shawn, or a member of staff?

7. Under what research protocol, with what ethics approval and what consent documentation, was his brain monitored during the provision?

8. Why has an adult daughter, acknowledged in writing as an appropriate person, been refused her father’s records?

I’m not telling you Shawn was murdered. I don’t know that, and neither does his family, and anyone who tells you otherwise is guessing.

I’m telling you a man fell down in his living room and was dead of a needle inside two weeks, that the surgery meant to save him appears never to have happened, that nobody will explain why, and that his daughters have been locked out of the paperwork by the same institutions that hold every answer.

A system that was doing nothing wrong would hand over the file.

An 83-year old incompetent grandma was killed by euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On July 22, I published an article titled: My Family's Experience with Medical Assistance in Dying. 

On July 27, Kelsi Sheren published an article titled: The Last 10 days of Brigitte (GG) Stegemann.

On September 20, the Daily Mail published an article by Imogen Garfinkel titled: Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother was euthanized against her will under Canada's assisted dying system.

Garfinkel's article is based Brigitte Stegemann (83), who was killed by euthanasia and whose family are now challenging Canada's euthanasia system that approved and then killed their grandmother. Garfinkel writes:

Two days before her Christian grandmother’s assisted dying procedure in Ontario, Canada, Brigitte Kranendonk sat her down to make sure she knew exactly what was going to happen.

‘I used very frank terms. I said: “Do you know that you’re going to die on Friday?”'

The 83-year-old was in visible disbelief and began crying for 45 minutes. ‘I’ve made a mistake,’ Brigitte Stegemann, known affectionately to her family as ‘GG’ or ‘Oma’, wailed.

‘She was bawling. Inconsolable,’ Kranendonk, a real estate agent who shares the same first name with her late grandmother, tells the Daily Mail.

Brigitte Kranendonk, who was named after her grandmother explained to Garfinkel that even though her grandmother got every question wrong during a cognitive test, she was declared competent for the purpose of being killed. Garfinkel reports:

Yet 48 hours after she wept uncontrollably at the notion of MAiD, Stegemann is said to have died with her hands clasped in prayer, covered in her own blood due to a botched first attempt at connecting the IV, administered by a nurse allegedly not wearing gloves.

Brigitte is searching for answers and change. Garfinkel reports:

Kranendonk is currently in the process of desperately appealing to the Chief Coroner’s Office in Ontario, as well as the Patient Ombudsman and Belleville Police, in a bid to ascertain whether what happened the morning of July 10 at The Pearl care home in Cannifton was legal.

Bereaved and distraught, she claims MAiD practitioners took advantage of her grandmother’s vulnerability to perform the procedure, which she alleges was carried out without express consent.

‘She was a vulnerable human being, and they saw an opportunity,’ Kranendonk says, her rage and sadness visible.

Kranendonk suspects the MAiD practitioners were inappropriately ideologically motivated, and believes the chain of events leading up to the procedure should be investigated.

Kranendonk's is absolutely right about the ideological motivations of the MAiD practitioners. My experience with other families who are dealing with euthanasia decisions or grieving from a euthanasia death is that they speak about how the "MAiD team" convinced their loved one to agree to be killed. They use sales techniques to sell the killing as beautiful and peaceful while saying that the alternative will be a painful and horrific death.

Kranendonk suggests that her grandmother's euthanasia was the first one at “The Pearl, long-term care facility, formally known as EJ Mcquigge Lodge” in Belleville, Ontario and it is suggested that they just didn't know what they were doing.

But this was not the first killing for the euthanasia team. Nonetheless, Kranendonk describes how her grandmothers death was not peaceful and dignified. Garfinkel reports:

The moment of Stegemann's death was anything but peaceful, as she had once wished.

Recalling those nightmarish minutes, a traumatised Kranendonk speaks in the present tense, as if the procedure was still happening in slow motion.

'There was a phenomenal amount of blood,' she says, describing the way that the nurse failed to find the correct vein in the right arm to insert the IV, before switching to the left – but only after having 'poked her about three or four times with the needle'.

'It is all over my Oma's arm, it is all over her nightie, soaking through her pillow, all over the sheets, there is so much blood.

'And throughout all this time, mind you, the nurse is not wearing gloves.'

In case some of the readers are euthanasia lobby activists and think, it was her choice, you need to know that Kranendonk was not just a grandchild. Garfinkel explains:

Prior to Stegemann’s death that summer, Kranendonk had been her caregiver for 12 years, and her medical power of attorney for the past six.

A year and a half before her death, the family made the decision to house Stegemann in The Pearl as her physical and cognitive health began to deteriorate.

In February, she was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer. But doctors were not certain about whether the diagnosis meant she had six months to live, or as much time as two years.

For the past decade, Kranendonk had been carefully monitoring what her grandmother ate to keep her healthy, including limiting her sugar intake.

Following the cancer diagnosis, she changed tack and allowed her to eat whatever she craved, deciding she just wanted her grandmother to feel as ‘joyful’ as possible in her final stage of life.

Kranendonk had cared for her grandmother for 12 years and was her power of attorney for her for 6 years. Also, Kranendonk explains that her grandmother had previously said no to MAiD based on: 

her religiosity, and the notion of displeasing God, was a large factor in why her German-born grandmother instinctively opposed assisted dying.

It wasn't until Kranendonk, went on a 10-day road trip that everything changed. Garfinkel reports:

Everything seemed normal. She picked up numerous phone calls, and the doctors didn't discuss a dramatic decline in Stegemann’s health – only that she had fallen over and would need a wheelchair.

But towards the end of the trip, on July 3, Kranendonk received a different kind of call. It was from the home, saying they were going to book a MAiD assessment for her grandmother.

When she returned she learned that her grandmother had already had her first euthanasia assessment. When she asked a nurse who had introduced the topic of euthanasia the nurse responded:

‘The nurse became very abrasive, very defensive,' Kranendonk recalls. 'She was like, "Well, I’m just trying to advocate for her. I’m just trying to do what’s right for her."'

Kranendonk felt that the nurse was pushing death. Garfinkel reported her as stating:

'I truly believe that one nurse really saw us as an obstacle,' she says. 'We were getting in the way of her doing MAiD on my grandmother. I think she really, truly believes that MAiD is the best for people, and shame on me for trying to stop that.'

Selling death.

The law requires that a person who asks to die must clearly request, be informed and be competent. Kranendonk explains how none of this was true:

Kranendonk made sure she was in the room for the second MAiD assessment, and it was there where she noticed the doctor speak in ‘really loose terms, never using the words death or dying’.

‘She explains MAiD to my grandmother by saying: “We’re going to give you medicine, you’re going to feel at peace. And I just want you to know that you won’t have a bowel movement.”'

‘She’s saying it in these strange terms, that aren’t literal,’ Kranendonk says, adding: ‘My Oma’s just kind of nodding. Her first language is not English, she is 83-years old and severely hearing-impaired.’

Kranendonk looked at the doctor, and said: 'She doesn’t understand what you’re saying.'

That’s when the doctor allegedly turned to the grandmother, and offered: ‘We’re going to make sure you won’t have any more pain.’

During the cognitive assessment, which she also sat in on, Kranendonk claims that the questions were curiously designed, in that the doctor couldn’t immediately verify the answers.

As opposed to questions such as who the prime minister was, or that day's date, the grandmother was asked personal questions, like how many siblings she had.

‘But none of that is in her records. They would not know if the information was correct, or not,’ Kranendonk says.

Even so, Stegemann got the answers wrong.

She said she had no siblings, despite having 13.

The doctor asked how many were still alive, and Stegemann answered, saying none.

But two are still alive, and the grandmother had seen one only a month and a half before.

‘So we're going through this assessment. None of the answers could be proven, unless I was there. 

Kranendonk was then asked to leave the room, during the assessment. She was sure that her grandmother had failed the cognitive test

But four minutes after the cognitive test was complete, the doctor announced that Stegemann was 'deemed fit for MAiD, and we're going to proceed'.

Kranendonk was assured that her mother could change her mind at any time.

Pushing death. Garfinkel reports:

On Wednesday, Kranendonk woke up after barely sleeping and prepared to visit her grandmother.

But before she had a chance to enter the home, she got a call from the nurse, who said they planned to fast-track her grandmother's death to Thursday – simply because the doctor had an early opening.

'I was like: "I'm not talking about this right now, I'm on my way to visit my Oma."'

The nurse replied: 'Oh, well, I already spoke to your Oma, and she agreed.'

But Thursday wouldn't have allowed enough time for Stegemann's pastor to arrive, or her son – depriving her of her dying wishes to be surrounded by her loved ones and prayer.

Kranendonk said Thursday wasn't an option, so Friday was kept as the death date.

Stegemann was not imminently dying, so the only reason to fast-track the death date was to get it done before she changed her mind.

Kranendonk then went to the "care" home and demanded the euthanasia paperwork, but no paperwork was shared with her. She doesn't know if there was a valid signature or who the witnesses were.

She then spoke to her grandmother. Garfinkel explains:

Following the altercation with the manager, Kranendonk confronted her grandmother and explained what would be happening on Friday in vivid terms.

The conversation caused her to breakdown in tears and admit that she had made a mistake. 'I just kept saying there's no mistake, there's no mistake. You don't have to do this.

'The doctors are coming on Friday, and you just say no,' Kranendonk recalls pleading.

But it got to a point where Kranendonk didn't want to 'keep fighting MAiD, and lose sight of who I'm fighting for'.

Her grandmother was unwell, and confused, so she made the decision to just try and experience all the precious quality time she could have with Stegemann – while she still had a chance.

And crucially, she trusted the nurses to not take advantage of the ailing woman. 

Kranendonk said that both her and her grandmother were vulnerable and she decided to make the best of the situation. Garfinkel reports:

On Thursday, the pair danced together to traditional German Polka music and ate ice-cream in her room.

'We had the best day,' Kranendonk recalls, tearfully. 'I felt great leaving on Thursday.'

But she went home utterly confused. On the one hand, she was elated she had such a fantastic day with her grandmother.

But on the other hand, she couldn't bear the possibility of what might happen the next day.

'I was so split. Part of me was like, maybe it's not going to happen. And then there was this underlying feeling of, oh God, what if it does?'

Kranendonk has examined the reality and stated:

In hindsight, she felt like she was in an unworkable situation. She at once wanted the best for her grandmother and wanted to respect her autonomy, but was terribly concerned that she had never once heard her say, out loud and clearly: 'I want MAiD.'

'All I saw was her not understanding the process,' Kranendonk recalls.

Friday July 10. The day of death. Garfinkel reports

When Friday, July 10 arrived, everything felt rushed again. The family took Stegemann out into the residential home's garden to share strawberry ice-cream – her favourite – and the pastor arrived, who started a round of prayers.

'She's very confused at this point,' Kranendonk remembers.

At 9.30am – after 10 minutes of being outside – the MAiD nurse asked for the family to return indoors, despite the fact that they were told the doctor would not arrive until 11am.

The nurse said that she needed time to get the IV started, and Kranendonk remembers telling her forcefully that they were not finished having time together as a family.

'Well, how long do you need?' she claims the nurse said, rather dismissively, in response.

Once back inside the home, the nurse started the IV, Kranendonk alleges. According to Kranendonk, the doctor hadn't even arrived, and her grandmother was not asked if she gave consent for the procedure to begin.

The nurse struggled to insert the IV into Stegemann's right arm, and ended up piercing her repeatedly with the needle before attempting her left arm.

Kranendonk remembers in graphic detail the copious amount of blood, which made the whole procedure feel strangely unprofessional.

'She's asking us to hand her things, to flush out the needle. So we're now a part of this. She's asking us to grab things for her, and to hold things for her.

'This nurse is not wearing gloves. There's blood all over her hands, there's blood all over the place,' she says, horrified by the memory.

The doctor then entered the room and told Stegemann she was there to give her 'medicine', and asked if that was okay with her.

'My Oma is not moving. She doesn't open her eyes. She doesn't nod. She doesn't say anything, and the doctor just said: "Okay, well, I'm going to proceed."'

Within 10 minutes, Stegemann was pronounced dead. Due to how unresponsive she was, Kranendonk doesn't know if her grandmother died shortly before the MAiD, because of the MAiD, or whether she was just in deep prayer.

She says that no heartbeat was taken, before or after the procedure.

Did Brigitte Stegemann know what MAiD actually was? Kranendonk told Garinkel: 

'What was concerning, though, is that that morning, I was crying. My grandmother looked at me and said, "If you don't stop crying, I'm not going to sleep tonight." She said that to me on Friday morning.'

The article finishes with Kranendonk outlining some of the concerns with her grandmother's death:

She has subsequently learn't that nurses are strictly prohibited from pressuring a patient to pursue MAiD, and that all the correct paperwork for MAiD to take place must be submitted before a death date can be determined.

Stegemann's paperwork was completed after her death, her granddaughter claims.

'She did not consent the morning of the procedure,' Kranendonk says, steadfast in her conclusion that her grandmother was euthanised against her will.

She has consistently asked The Pearl to hand over her grandmother's medical records, but all of her requests have been refused, she says.

She regrets not applying for a legal injunction to prevent the MAiD from occurring, but she also didn't realise she had the right to ask for one at the time.

'I was flying blind,' she says. And crucially, her grandmother still needed medical attention in those final weeks.

'We live in Canada, where medical care is not always easy to get. She still needed medical care. I could not just scoop her up and bring her home,' she says.

She trusted the government, and the medical establishment, not to take advantage of her grandmother. In the months since July, that trust has completely shattered.

The article ends with Garinkel reporting that A spokesman for Belleville Police told the Daily Mail: 'This incident is currently open and under investigation with our Criminal Investigations Division. We are unable to provide any additional information at this time.'

If this was the only concerning story about Canada's euthanasia regime, then it would be tragic and worth investigating, but nonetheless a reality. But this is one of a massive number of concerning euthanasia stories in Canada and Canada's killing machine only continues to grow and speed up.

MAiD (euthanasia) should never be legal. To give medical professionals the right in law to kill their patients is lethal and not safe. One of the strongest messages from Kranendonk's experience is how the "MAiD team" appeared to be ideologically motivated.

Canada now has a small group of doctors and nurse practitioners who do a lot of killing. That small group has drank the kool-aid and are convinced that euthanasia has made them "angels of mercy."

The truth is that many of these medical professionals have become medical serial killers and the legalization of euthanasia has MAiD it possible.

Sadly, death cannot be reversed. Brigitte Stegemann cannot be brought back. Her real intentions and understanding will never be known and her death is one of many horrific Canadian euthanasia deaths.

They ended the life of a two-year old. I refuse to call that care.

This article was published by Kelsi Sheren on her substack on September 17, 2026.

By Kelsi Sheren

The first Dutch case under its expanded child life-termination framework should horrify us—not because the child wasn’t suffering, but because suffering became the justification for intentionally ending a life that could never consent.

I have covered euthanasia and MAiD for years.

I have read the legislation. The committee reports. The cases. The sanitized medical language. The phrases designed to make something irreversible sound clinical, controlled and humane.

I know what I am looking at and this one has deeply upset me, I am angry. The person at the centre of this case was not an adult making an informed decision about their own body.

This was a child. Not yet two years old.

A profoundly disabled child with catastrophic medical problems whose life was intentionally ended by adults and now, in September 2026, the Dutch committee responsible for reviewing the case has concluded that the physician acted with due care.

I keep coming back to the same question…..how the hell did we get here?

A child cannot consent to death, the entire modern argument for euthanasia is usually sold through the language of autonomy.

My body. My choice. My suffering. My decision.

You may disagree with me about euthanasia for competent adults. Fine, but that argument collapses here.

A two-year-old cannot understand death.

A two-year-old cannot understand euthanasia.

A two-year-old cannot weigh treatment options.

A two-year-old cannot give informed consent.

A two-year-old cannot make a voluntary and considered request to die.

The Dutch system recognizes that basic reality. Ordinary euthanasia requires such a request, which is why children this young fall under a separate framework allowing physicians, under certain circumstances, to intentionally terminate the lives of seriously ill children.

That distinction should stop every one of us cold because we are no longer talking about someone choosing death for themselves. We are talking about adults deciding that another human being’s suffering has reached a point at which deliberately ending that human being’s life is acceptable.

That is an entirely different ethical universe and yes, this child was terribly sick. I am not going to minimize what this family was facing.

The child was born at 26 weeks.

There was extensive brain damage, severe cerebral palsy, visual impairment, serious seizures that were extraordinarily difficult to control, swallowing problems, breathing problems and other severe complications. Doctors did not expect the child to survive into adulthood.

According to the committee record, the child was developmentally around six weeks old at nearly two years of age, had no verbal development and had only minimal ability to communicate.

That is devastating, I cannot imagine watching your child suffer like that, I cannot imagine being told there may be no cure coming. I am not interested in sitting comfortably behind a keyboard and calling desperate parents monsters. That is not my argument.

My argument is that compassion for suffering cannot mean eliminating the human being who is suffering, there is a difference and we are losing it.

Then I read what the doctors actually said, this is the part that made me even angrier.

The first independent physicians consulted did not simply rubber-stamp what happened. According to the committee’s own record, those doctors concluded that the child’s condition was irreversible—but that at that moment there was not continuous unbearable suffering and that reasonable alternatives still remained.

Those alternatives included palliative options and additional medications that might have controlled the seizures more effectively. The physician attempted the recommended medication. The child experienced additional side effects and treatment was stopped.

The parents did not want prolonged sedation that would eventually result in death without fluid or nutrition, and the treating physician did not view palliative sedation as a reasonable answer.

Then another physician outside the region was consulted. That doctor reached a different conclusion: that the suffering was unbearable and that there was no other reasonable way to relieve it and the procedure went ahead.

Read that again.

The initial independent medical opinions said reasonable options remained.

A later doctor disagreed, and the child died. You can dress that sequence in whatever bureaucratic language makes everyone more comfortable.

I am not comfortable. The rules weren’t even fully written and then we get to the part that almost reads like satire if the consequences weren’t so horrifying. The regulation governing children aged one through twelve did not yet contain its own due-care requirements.

The committee therefore relied on requirements originally written for newborns, together with criteria approved by the Dutch paediatric association in October 2024. There was also no guideline for carrying out the procedure.

The committee’s judgment records that the physician actually searched for a protocol and could not find one.

Stop there.

A country expanded a framework allowing intentional life termination in children between one and twelve. The first reported case occurs, a child dies and the official record says parts of the framework and implementation guidance still had not been written.

Yet we’re supposed to feel reassured by the word safeguards.

I don’t.

“Handled with due care”

The committee ultimately found that the physician had acted with due care. That phrase bothers me more than I can explain, because “due care” sounds comforting.

It sounds responsible, professional, measured, safe…. but the outcome remains exactly the same. A child who was alive became dead because adults intentionally caused that death. That is not the same thing as withdrawing futile treatment.

It is not the same thing as allowing the natural process of dying. t is not the same thing as treating pain aggressively while knowing a dying patient may pass. It is not the same thing as palliative sedation. Intent matters, words matter here.

The Dutch framework itself recognizes that: the objective of the intervention is to end life because the suffering has been judged hopeless and unbearable.

That distinction matters enormously to me. I believe medicine should treat suffering, that medicine should aggressively control pain. I believe families caring for profoundly disabled children deserve more resources than most governments will ever provide them.

Nursing, respite, palliative medicine, hospice, psychological support, specialists, equipmen and financial support. Everything and when treatment has truly failed and death is coming, medicine should make that death as peaceful and humane as humanly possible but there is a moral difference between accompanying somebody through death and intentionally causing it.

I refuse to erase that distinction. What upset me most is there is another sentence in the committee material that I haven’t been able to shake.

The committee wrote that:

“All facets of ‘being human’—regarding motor skills, behavior, and personality—were severely impaired and were not going to improve.”

Think for a second about that language.

Motor ability.

Behaviour.

Personality.

Developmental disability.

Communication.

Dependence.

Those things may be medically relevant when treating a person. Of course they are, but when the end result of an assessment can be intentional death, disabled people have every reason to ask where these judgments take us.

Human worth cannot become proportional to independence, humanity cannot depend on verbal communication. Dignity cannot depend on whether you can feed yourself. Your right to continue existing cannot depend on how “burdensome” your medical condition appears to somebody else.

That is the territory that terrifies me, this is why precedent matters here. The Netherlands expanded this particular framework in 2024 and officials estimated that no more than approximately five children a year might qualify.

This was the first reported case under that expansion and, at the time of the committee’s judgment, the only one.

Somebody will inevitably say:

It’s one case.

It was exceptional.

The child was extremely sick.

All of this may be true so I don’t need to exaggerate it. I’m not pretending thousands of children are suddenly going to die, but one case is enough to ask what principle has just been established.

A law changes then a framework is created, next the first case happens. A committee declares that it met the standard and that decision then becomes part of the guidance surrounding future cases. That not me making up some conspiracy, that’s just how precedent works.

My answer is still a hard, hard no.

I understand that people will read this case differently, some will believe the physician acted compassionately, cool. But I cannot. Some will believe the parents faced an unbearable situation and made the most merciful decision available to them.

I don’t need to hate those people to oppose what happened, I don’t need to call the doctor evil. My argument is bigger than one doctor or one family, I reject the philosophy that says there comes a point where intentional death becomes an acceptable medical response to human suffering and I reject it most agreesively when the person whose life is being ended can’t ask for it!

Care for the child, treat the seizures, control the pain, help them breathe, support the family, pour resources into their care and when death comes despite everything medicine can do, surround that child with comfort and love.

But please don’t tell me intentionally causing the death of this child is simply another form of health care, we have to stop with this nonsense.

Don’t clean it up with words like procedure. Don’t hide behind due care and don’t tell me autonomy justifies it when the tiny human being at the centre of the decision had none.

A two-year-old cannot choose to die by a doctors hands, so adults chose instead. That’s just the reality of what happened here. Then another group of adults reviewed their decision afterward and determined that the rules had been followed and I am supposed to find reassurance in that.

I don’t. I find it hyper disturbing. Why aren’t enough people saying something.

We need to hit the breaks hard. We are rationalizing kidding children, say what this is.

I believe future generations will look back at this era and ask how doctors became authorized to intentionally end human lives in the name of compassion. They will ask how suffering became confused with the value of the person suffering, and then they will ask, how young we were ultimately willing to go.

In the Netherlands, we now know at least part of that answer.

Not yet two years old and that should disturb every single one of us.

Two-year old killed by euthanasia in the Netherlands.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The NL Times reported on September 9 that the first euthanasia death in the Netherlands of a child under the age of 12 was done at the end of 2025. The child was around 2 years old.

The Netherlands has allowed infant euthanasia (under the age of 1) for many years based on the Groningen Protocol. This case is different because the child was not a newborn

The recent article is a follow-up report to an article that was published in June, 2026 confirming that the first child euthanasia death happened.

The NL Times report stated that:

This child was born very prematurely, at only 26 weeks of gestation. It quickly became apparent that the child had suffered severe brain damage, resulting in severe cerebral palsy and a visual impairment. This was compounded by frequent and severe epileptic seizures, which were largely unresponsive to medication. This left the child restless and unable to sleep for long periods. They also had mucus in their lungs, which made breathing and swallowing very difficult.

The report justifies the killing based on the child being born prematurely and having significant disabilities. But the child had lived approximately 2-years-old, meaning, that the killing was actually based on the disabilities since the child had survived two years since birth.

This case reminds me of the first child euthanasia death that was on July 24, 1939. The Nazi euthanasia program was launched in 1939 after Adolf Hitler received a letter from Richard Kretschmar, the father of an infant (referred to as "Case K" or the 'Knauer child'). Historians now know that the child was Gerhard Herbert Kretschmar.

The letter stated that Gerhard was born on February 20, 1939, that he was blind, had one leg and part of one arm was missing and was described as "an idiot". Hitler sent Dr Karl Brant to see the child in a hospital in Leipzig. Brant testified at the Nurembourg trial that he had been instructed that if the father's letter was correct that the physicians at the hospital would be told that euthanasia could be carried out - in Hitler's name. Gerhard was euthanized on July 24, 1939.

History indicates that the German T4 euthanasia program, that followed, began with parental request for euthanasia and in the end resulted in the deaths of, at least, 250,000 to 275,000 people with disabilities.

Further to that, the technique in killing large numbers of people by gas was first developed in the psychiatric hospitals for the euthanasia program and later installed in the death camps for killing millions of people. According to the Holocaust Museum, T-4 staff were redeployed to the death camps. 

Canada is debating Child euthanasia.

A report by the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (AMAD) was tabled in the House of Commons on February 15, 2023 calling for a drastic expansion of euthanasia (MAiD) in Canada. Among other recommendations, the report recommends that euthanasia be expanded to include children "mature minors."

While presenting to the AMAD Committee on September 7, 2022 Dr Louis Roy from the Québec College of Physicians urged Canada's Federal government to adopt a protocol to permit infant euthanasia. Dr Roy suggested that this should only be allowed in rare circumstances, such as a newborn who is unlikely to survive.

Infant euthanasia opens the door to a new justification for killing since the baby lacks competence and is not autonomously capable of choosing to be killed. Infant euthanasia is a form of eugenics whereby protocols will determine which lives are worth living.

While the AMAD committee didn't accept the recommendation from the Québec College of Physicians researchers at Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto have also considered the issue. 

Guidelines for child euthanasia. 

Article: Sick Kids Hospital Toronto will euthanize children with or without parental consent (Link). 

A report from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto (October 2018) stated that they are ready to do euthanasia on children but their policy states that a child should be able to die by euthanasia without the consent or knowledge of the parents. 

An article by Sharon Kirkey published by Sun Media, published on October 9, 2018; reported that "ethicists" at the Children's Hospital believe that there is no difference between killing someone and letting them die. Kirkey reported:

The working group said it wasn’t convinced that there is a meaningful difference for the patient “between being consensually assisted in dying (in the case of MAID) and being consensually allowed to die (in the case of refusing life-sustaining interventions).” 

Sick Children's hospital draft policy applied the same "ethics" for mature minors making medical decisions as making death decisions. Canadian provinces allow mature minors to make decisions about their own care, including withdrawing or withholding life support. In Ontario a minor can provide consent for treatment or withdrawal of treatment if they understand the “reasonably foreseeable consequences” of their decision. The Sick Kids' hospital policy stated that they encourage minors to involve their families in medical decisions.

Kirkey explained that the Hospitals for Sick Children draft policy would permit children to decide to be killed by euthanasia without the consent of the parents:

The draft policy argues the same rules should apply to MAID since there is no meaningful ethical or practical distinction from the patient’s perspective between assisted dying and other procedures that result in the end of a life, such as palliative sedation (where people sleep until they die) or withdrawing or withholding life-sustaining treatments. 

The draft policy by Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children set out what can be expected if Canada permits euthanasia for children (mature minors).

The child euthanasia issue is being promoted by the death lobby and medical "ethicists." The euthanasia death of a two-year old in the Netherlands is a very serious issue and has international overtones. 

Lying About Disabled People’s Welfare Is Wrong

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

Meghan Schrader

I’ve talked several times on this blog about the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit, because it threatens new protections against euthanasia and infanticide. It also contains critical new protections to help disabled people stay in their communities rather than institutions, as well as improvements to internet access, support for disabled parents, etc. These protections directly impact disabled people’s quality of life, declines in which contribute to euthanasia, suicide and/or medical neglect.

The Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit takes the position that implementing the new community integration clarifications is “burdensome” to states. It asks the government to strike these regulations from the final rule and let disabled people shoulder the burden of being coerced into institutions for state convenience.

Alas, the Department of Justice, along with five other states, has joined a proposed resolution to the lawsuit in which the United States District Court Northern District of Texas would rule that the government must drop the community integration protections from the 2024 Final Rule. 

But I think that many EPC blog readers may not be aware of this.

To address this issue I have to mention the debate about whether the law should define gender dysphoria as a disability, but I’m also putting that issue aside for now, not because it isn’t something important that impacts vulnerable people, but to help EPC blog readers understand what the lawsuit actually says.

The original version of the lawsuit was partially precipitated by a section of the Final Rule that defined gender dysphoria as a disability and the lawsuit mentioned that, along with asking the government to vitiate all of the new protections in the Final Rule and Section 504 itself. Yet regardless of what one believes about whether Section 504 ought to define gender dysphoria as a disability, the President’s EO on gender identity issues specifically says that gender dysphoria is not a disability. That means that that provision of the Final Rule will not be enforced.

So, several states dropped out of the lawsuit and the lawsuit was amended to contest the rest of the Final Rule, especially its community integration mandate.

Since January of 2026, the lawsuit has not mentioned gender dysphoria at all; the text of the lawsuit makes this clear. Yet when agreeing to drop out of the amended lawsuit in May, Indiana’s attorney general wrote this on his Facebook page:

“With the Trump Administration’s swift action to reverse Biden’s unlawful expansion of Section 504, we have voluntarily dismissed our claims in a multi state lawsuit. Section 504 was never meant to advance a radical and woke agenda. It exists to protect Americans with real physical, intellectual, and developmental disabilities-not include gender dysphoria at the expense of those that need support.”

This statement is not accurate. The version of the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit that Indiana dropped out of in May 2026 says nothing about gender dysphoria.

Surely Indiana’s AG was aware of that, since it’s his responsibility to be apprised of the content of his own lawsuit.

Unfortunately, that statement seems like an attempt to hide the lawsuit’s contents from people in his political orbit who may agree that Section 504 shouldn’t define gender dysphoria as a disability, but might not be cool with coercing nonviolent disabled people into institutions.

Indiana’s AG is not the only government official erroneously claiming that the lawsuit was restricted to gender dysphoria; I’ve seen other AGs do it as well.

But aside from impacting disabled people who identify as all different genders and hold different beliefs about gender dysphoria-related policies, the lawsuit no longer has anything to do with gender dysphoria. 

It has to do with arbitrarily coercing disabled Americans of all socioeconomic backgrounds into institutions so that state officials can direct their energy and money to things other than community support. That’s it.

Lying is wrong, and lying about coercing disabled people into institutions for state convenience violates society’s moral obligations to persons with disabilities. 

We oppose killing people, we support better end-of-life care.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

We are incredibly thankful with the defeat of the assisted suicide bills in the UK and Scotland this year and the incredible victory in Slovenia in November 2025.

These victories are proof that there is not overwhelming support for the concepts surrounding medical homicide (euthanasia and assisted suicide). Nonetheless these victories also uncover significant cultural challenges, especially in the UK.

One of the major reasons that these assisted suicide bills were defeated was that the language of these bills lacked effective definition and adequate protections for people at a vulnerable time of their life. Would a bill with clear language and proper oversight have passed?

The problems with the language and definitions within the UK assisted suicide bills are the same problems that we have experienced in Canada with the lack of oversight and expansions of medical homicide based on undefined language in the law.

During the assisted suicide debates in the UK and Scotland, those who opposed and supported the assisted suicide bills recognized that it was necessary to improve end-of-life care. 

We agree. It is unacceptable that people do not get the care that they need as they approach the end of their life.

This is a significant challenge for the UK National Health Service (NHS) as the cost of care is significant and yet necessary. I hope that the UK and Scottish governments don't simply talk in platitudes but rather employ action.

We support caring for people and we oppose killing people.

There are many reasons to oppose medical homicide but the primary reason is the effect on the culture and every individual when the government gives medical professionals, or some other group (Swiss assisted suicide clinics) the right in law to be directly involved with killing people.

• Effective legislative language will not protect people once they are killed.
• Excellent end-of-life care will not safeguard people once they are killed.

Further to that, the incentive to kill is great.

• Dead people don't need medical treatment or pain control.
• Dead people don't collect retirement pensions.
• Dead people don't collect disability benefits.

The commitment to opposing medical homicide must come first and then jurisdictions must actually provide better end-of-life care, equality for people with disabilities, and support for people with chronic conditions.

This is similar to suicide prevention campaigns. A commitment to suicide prevention requires the resources to help people at their lowest point, but the commitment starts with recognizing that every suicide is tragic.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition celebrates the victories in the jurisdictions that have rejected medical homicide as we oppose killing people. We challenge these jurisdictions to improve end-of-life care, equality for people with disabilities and the care of people living with chronic and often painful conditions.

We oppose killing people, and we can, and must provide better care.

Assisted suicide, suicide - There is no mushy middle.

By Gordon Friesen
President: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Gordon Friesen

Those of us who are committed to the prevention of medical homicide have frequently felt betrayed by the unfortunate adoption of pro-death policies, by those very organizations whose natural mandate is to oppose such practice without reservation.

Our latest example involves the American Association of Suicidology, which has apparently reposted the following policy statement on its website: 

“the practice of physician aid in dying ... is distinct from the behavior that has been traditionally and ordinarily described as “suicide”.[1]

According to this incongruous theory: people blowing their brains out should be seen as an evil to be prevented; but achieving the same result by consulting a doctor, should not! Regardless of any possible subtleties, the blunt effect of such a doctrine would greatly limit the scope of suicide prevention, and potentially, render that effort irrelevant altogether.

In their own defense the authors of AAS policy embrace (or feign to embrace) political neutrality: 

"...The document does not speak for or against legalization of this practice..."

However, there can be no neutrality in such a case. For to cease opposition to medical homicide is to implicitly support its practice.

Indeed, Such pretended neutrality is strongly reminiscent of the false language offered by the Canadian Medical Association, in 2014, and the British Medical Association, in 2021. In these cases, also, the pretense of political neutrality was a complete refusal of fundamental duty.[2] [3] Both of these announcements significantly took the wind out of medical homicide resistance, and greased the pole for future acceptance.

To explain their own extraordinary self-destructive position, the authors of AAS policy (again like those of the CMA and BMA) claim pragmatic political necessity: 

“The final document accepted by the AAS Board is the product of an effort to try to resolve the tension, evident within the AAS over a period of many years, between commitment to suicide prevention and the recognition that medical aid in dying is now legal in multiple jurisdictions.” [4]

And yet why should legality dictate acquiescence? Mere legality does not make actions right; and that fact is even more certain in the realm of medical ethics. 

Personally, I do not credit this alleged motivation of pragmatic expedience. On the contrary, I believe that a more experienced reading reveals a carefully scripted process, apparently dominated by elements whose ideas are closely aligned with the death lobby itself; and where the reasons given to support their final position might well have been copy/pasted from generic death lobby websites.

And yet (however that may be) our most important concern should not be with those few States where medical homicide is legal. That concern should be with the effects of medical-homicide-enabling doctrine upon the majority of AAS members, in jurisdictions where that practice is still prohibited by law. For as Wesley J. Smith has recently described in detail: the legalization of medical homicide represents an absolute disaster-in-waiting for any effort at suicide prevention.[5]

In short: it is of no benefit, for anyone in such a State or Country, to belong to an Association whose ideology is aimed at undermining the very ground upon which they themselves are standing; an Association, in effect, which is preparing them for extinction.

On the contrary! What we require now is the formation of representative groups dedicated to the protection of basic principles; groups prepared to dispute every inch of ground; groups committed to providing a living model of conceptual integrity, even (and especially) in places where less positive visions have temporarily gained ascendance.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is proud to take an unambiguous stand on medical homicide (as do also: the World Medical Association, the American Medical Association, and many others).

Moreover, recent victories in Slovenia, Alberta and the UK, show that a proactive, morally repugnant submission, is not justifiable on grounds of pragmatic expedience. This fight has not been lost! We have barely yet begun! And the progress of our adversaries is visibly grinding to a halt. 


[1] American Association of Suicidology, Statement Clarifying the Distinction Between “Suicide” and “Physician Aid in Dying”, first posted October 2017, withdrawn 2023, reposted 2025 (Article Link).

[2] Somerville, Margaret, There’s no “mushy middle” on euthanasia, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, October 3, 2014 (Article Link).

[3] Macdonald, Gordon M.D., BMA goes Neutral on Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, September 21, 2021 (Article Link).

[4] Battin, Margaret P. Phd, Development of the AAS Statement on “Suicide” and “Physician Aid in Dying”, The American Association of Suicidology, June 2019 (Article Link).

[5] Smith, Wesley J., World Suicide Prevention Day Hypocrisy, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, September 10, 2026 (Article Link).

Bill C-218 is scheduled for a vote on October 7. Help prevent euthanasia for mental illness.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

In March 2021, the Canada's parliament expanded the euthanasia law by passing Bill C-7. One of the expansions in the law  permitted euthanasia for a mental illness alone. but, at that time, the government declared a two-year moratorium to provide time to prepare for the change.

The government has now delayed the implementation of euthanasia for mental illness, as a sole criteria, three times with implementation currently approved for March 17, 2027.

On June 20, 2025, Tamara Jansen (MP - Cloverdale - Langley City) introduced private members Bill C-218 to prevent euthanasia (MAiD) for mental illness as the sole criteria. 

Bill C-218 excludes mental illness from being defined as a "grievous and irremediable medical condition" for the purposes of MAiD. Bill C-218, if passed will prevent MAID for mental illness alone.

Bill C-218 had it's first hour of debate on December 5, 2025. It's second hour of debate is scheduled for Wednesday, September 23, 2026 with the vote scheduled for Wednesday October 7, 2026.

There are several ways that you can help Bill C-218 be passed:

1. Sign the petition in support of Bill C-218 (Link).
2. Share your story about living with mental illness, as Andrew Lawton (MP) did with his message: I got better. Support Bill C-218 prevent MAiD for Mental Illness (Link). 
3. Send your personal stories about living with mental illness to info@epcc.ca.
4. Contact your Member of Parliament (MP) and share your story and your support for Bill C-218. Contact your Member of Parliament at: (Member of Parliament List).
5. It is easier to call your Member of Parliament. The phone number is part of the MP contact information. (Member of Parliament List).
6. Refer to the information in the Bill C-218 handout for Members of Parliament (Link).

Remember. The majority of Canadians do not support MAiD for mental illness. 

Mario Canseco, the President of Research Co, was published by Business Intelligence for BC on October 30 with new polling indicating that the majority of Canadians do not support (MAiD) euthanasia for mental illness. Conseco reported that:

At this point, only an adult with a grievous and irremediable medical condition can seek medical assistance in dying in Canada. An expansion that would cover mental illness is expected to come into place in March 2027. Just over two in five Canadians (42 per cent, down one point) believe mental illness is a good reason for a person to request medical assistance in dying.

To pass, Bill C-218 needs Member of Parliament from all political parties to support it. Keys to speaking to your Member of Parliament:

• Only comment on MAiD for mental illness alone. Bill C-218 only deals with that issue. There are many concerns, but mixing issues weakens your position.
• Contact your Member of Parliament, even if you know his/her position on MAiD.
• Ask others, including groups that you belong to, to contact the Member of Parliament.

More information on Bill C-218.

• Bill C-218 introduced to prevent MAiD for Mental Illness (Link). 
• Support Bill C-218. No to MAiD for Mental Illness (Link). 
• Supporting Bill C-218 - I am so thankful to be alive (Link). 
• I got better. Support Bill C-218 prevent MAiD for Mental Illness (Link). 
• My story: No to MAiD for Mental Illness (Link). 
• Patti's story. Support Bill C-218. (Link).
• The majority of Canadians do not support MAiD (euthanasia) for mental illness (Link).

Ashley Dalton (Labour MP) speaks out against Britain's assisted suicide bill

Ashley Dalton UK (MP) L

This is the speech in the British parliament by Ashley Dalton (Labour MP) West Lancashire who is living with terminal cancer.

Dalton spoke out against the assisted suicide bill on Friday September 11, 2026. 

Dalton is not philosophically opposed to assisted suicide but she is concerned about it's effects and she was opposed to the bill which was defeated by a vote of 286 to 270. (Link to the speech) 

The last time this House considered this bill at Second Reading I was keeping a secret.

Whilst Honourable and Right Honourable members were debating the issue I was grappling with my own terminal diagnosis. I was told I have stage 4 incurable metastatic breast cancer.

I was overwhelmed with grief fear and anxiety. I was scared of what was to come and I was fearful of how it was to affect my family and my loved ones.

I was scared that I was going to get very poorly and thinking how will I cope, how will my family cope, I will I be cared for, how will I afford it, how badly will it hurt and how long will it last.

When you hear those words, depression anxiety, grief, shame and guilt come inbounds.

Suicide risk is highest immediately after diagnosis and it usually falls quickly within three to six months.

I would be lying if I said that when thinking about all that was to come I didn't consider that it might just be fairer and easier on everyone if I just got the dying done as soon as possible.

Having treatable depression however will not exclude anyone from an assisted death in this bill and depression is common among people with terminal illness but it is often treatable.

Clinicians are trained to prevent suicide in people suffering from depression, but where will the line be drawn. This bill makes no provision to support this difficult transition or to create safeguards around it.

A person can also be suicidal and have unmet mental health needs prior to developing a terminal illness and then ask the state to kill them without any assessment of their psychological health just their mental capacity. Because mental capacity and mental health are not the same thing.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends a holistic multi disciplinary assessment of every applicant. The three person panel at the end of the assessment process in this bill is not what most NHS clinicians recognize as a multi-disciplinary team. It certainly does not allow the meaningful multi-disciplinary decision making. The assessment needs to happen at the beginning of the process, not the end and each team member should be independently assessing the patient, in person, this is not what is being included in this bill.

Now I don't know how long I will live. I will be on treatment for life, however how long or short that may be. I at the moment live between scans in 9 to 12 weeks blocks of time. The last scan may show that the disease is stable but the next scan may show that it is growing again. If the disease is stable the drug is working and we can carry on. Eventually the drug will stop working, the cancer will grow and we will have to try another drug and see if that works.

At some point we'll either run out of drugs to try or I will be too poorly to tolerate them. Then I die. It could be months, it could be years, no one really knows.
Prognosis is notoriously difficult to predict. Palliative care professionals and oncologists tell me that whilst they can more or less give me an indication of when I'll die when I'm a few days or weeks off, anything beyond that is a flip of a coin.

But what the palliative care professionals have told me is that palliative care can help me when I die.

But in the campaign around this bill it seems to me that it is being implied that a person with a terminal illness will have a dreadful painful death unless they have access to assisted dying and it is simply not true.

Palliative care in the UK is excellent. Far to many people do not have access to palliative care that they need. But the idea that it is not possible to alleviate pain and discomfort is false.

People, I, have been terrorized with tales of people vomiting up their own feces as though this is common place during death. It is vanishingly rare. Bowel obstructions are more common but they are treatable, I know, I have had one.

It's nothing short of irresponsible to scare monger people like me into believing that our deaths will be horrific when all the evidence suggests that with access to good palliative care deaths are, on the whole, gentle.

The answer is not to terrify people and their families. It's to sort out palliative care and social care first because of this takes place in a vacuum.

Until we can say that everyone who needs it has access to high quality palliative care then we are offering nobody a choice. A terrible death or an assisted death is not a choice it's a threat.

Whilst I speak today from the position of someone with a terminal illness, I am acutely aware that this is not about me. This debate is also not about an abstract concept or a position of principle. The question that will be put at the end of this debate will not be that this House has considered the question of assisted dying it won't even be that this House agrees with the principle of assisted dying. The question will be that this House agrees that this bill be read for a second time. This bill. Not the bill it might have been, not the bill members might have hoped it would be, not the bill it could be. This bill. And it incidentally it says absolutely nothing about the House of Lords. That is not the question that we are being asked.

And whatever Honourable and Right Honourable Members think about the principle of assisted dying surely our first and foremost responsibility is to write law that is safe and workable.

Not one of the professional bodies that will be tasked with delivery of the bill will attest that it is either safe or workable. The Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Association of Palliative Medicine, the Royal College of Physicians all say the bill is seriously inadequate. They aren't opposed to assisted dying in principle, but they cannot support this bill.

Instead of bringing a bill identical to the last so the Parliament Acts could be used and it can be forced, un-amended on the statute books, why didn't the proposers spend the summer working with the Royal Medical Colleges, professional bodies and organizations to build a bill that they could also support. If they had done that it would have been very difficult for those opposed to principle to argue against the bill, but they didn't. This is not about sides, this House is not a debating society, it is about making the law.

Whilst we may be campaigners out there, in here we are all legislators. It is our responsibility not to pick a side and dig in but to work together to build the best laws that we can and that is never truer than with a private members bill on a matter of conscience.

This bill does not protect the most vulnerable, it does not protect the poor, the old, people with disabilities or black and minority and ethnic people being disproportionately affected. It does not protect people who are mentally ill, it does not recognize that not everyone has the same level of agency, control or influence over their decision making and what the clinicians who are asked to deliver the bill are saying is that it isn't even workable. That there is every expectation that it wouldn't even work for the terminally ill people who want an assisted death either.

And there is no stopping it. Auto commencement in the bill means that if it is passed by the commons and pushed through by the Parliament Act and even it the government and NHS is not ready it has to happen on the strike of four years from it being passed. Even if there is no funding, even if palliative care is still broken, even if it is known to be dangerous flawed or unworkable, it is happening - ready or not.

This is not a last chance saloon. This debate has been going on for years, it is not a once in a generation opportunity, it could come back again at the next parliament.

My days could be numbered but that doesn't mean that I want this Chamber to rush through bad law just so I might have a chance to see it or use it. It's of huge importance.

If Honourable and Right Honourable members have any doubt that the exact bill before us today is not the best it could be. Is anything less than excellent well thought out and robustly drafted legislation that protects the vulnerable and recognizes the expertise of our world class clinicians, and a bill that I and other terminally ill people deserve, then I urge them to vote NO or vote to abstain.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition agrees with nearly everything that Dalton said, but we, of course, oppose killing people in general, as much as we recognize that the British bill was completely flawed.