Welsh parliament to vote on assisted suicide bill.

The following message was sent from Care NOT Killing UK.

Gordon Macdonald CEO Care NOT Killing

On February 24, the Welsh Parliament (Senedd) will vote on whether Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill — if passed — would require the Welsh NHS to deliver medically assisted killing.

The Senedd cannot block the Bill outright.

But it can withhold “legislative consent.”

If consent is refused, assisted suicide in Wales would likely be restricted to private providers only — limiting its reach and protecting many vulnerable people from pressure to end their own lives.

While restricted provision is not the outcome we ultimately seek, it would significantly reduce the harm should the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill become law. Countless lives would be saved as assisted suicide wouldn’t become part of routine healthcare. It would also protect thousands of healthcare staff from potentially being indirectly involved in the process.

Wales has rejected assisted suicide before

In October 2024, the Senedd voted against legalising assisted dying: Against: 26
In favour: 19 - Abstentions: 9

Article - Great news: Welsh parliament rejects assisted suicide (Read).

Plaid Cymru’s Delyth Jewell, who voted against, warned:

“My fear with this motion — well, my terror, really — is not so much with how it will begin as with how it will end.”

She expressed concern that people may feel pressured to end their lives because they lack adequate palliative care or fear being a burden. 

Link to Members of the Welsh Senedd (Contact List)

She is right to be concerned.

Hospice UK estimates that 1 in 4 people who could benefit from palliative or end-of-life care do not receive it — around 100,000 people each year.

Without guaranteed access to high-quality care, “choice” can quickly become pressure to succumb to an assisted death.

This time, the vote could go either way.

Tomorrow’s Motion presents MSs with an important opportunity to send a clear signal from Wales to Peers at Westminster that the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill is dangerous and should fall.

Serious Reasons Why the Bill Puts People at Risk:

1. Safeguards Too Weak to Prevent Coercion

(High risk of coercion or undue influence on people who are frail, isolated, disabled, poor, or feel like a burden)

2. Eligibility Will Likely Expand Over Time

(Children, people with a mental illness or disability could eventually be included, as has happened around the world where assisted suicide has been legalised)

3. “Terminal Illness” Defined Too Broadly

(The definition may include conditions that are not inherently fatal—e.g. diabetes)

4. High Court Safeguard Removed

(Replaced with ‘expert’ panels, drastically reducing independent oversight)

5. Doctors Allowed to Suggest Assisted Suicide Unprompted

(In Canada, this has led to patients being repeatedly offered MAID despite insisting they were NOT interested)

6. Depression and Coercion May Go Undetected

(Studies show clinicians frequently miss depression in medically ill patients. Doctors only need to be satisfied “on the balance of probability” that a request is voluntary.)

7. No Clear Protocol for Lethal Drugs

(Drugs are not specified, and evidence from other jurisdictions suggests a potential for distressing deaths)

8. Capacity Safeguards for Disabled People Miss The Point

(How can individuals – e.g. with autism or a mental disorder – truly make a “clear, settled and informed” decision)

9. Conscience Protections for NHS Staff Are Weak

(Although doctors are not compelled to participate directly, they will likely be obliged to refer patients to assisted suicide services, so they will still be involved)

10. Palliative Care Gaps Remain Unaddressed

The Bill comes before improving palliative care services. Without guaranteed access to high-quality end-of-life care, many will feel ‘forced’ to ‘choose’ an assisted death)

11. Hospices Could Be Forced to Facilitate Assisted Death

(They would have no right to refuse to facilitate assisted suicide. Amendments seeking to give institutions an opt-out were rejected. This could mean: Hospices being required to allow assisted deaths on their premises. 

Public funding being threatened if they refuse

In addition, religious institutions may be forced to participate or face severe penalties.

Link to Members of the Welsh Senedd (Contact List)

Medical Homicide as psychiatric treatment.

Gordon Friesen

Elegy for "Conversation"

By Gordon Friesen
President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Canada is now facing the imminent arrival of homicide, practiced as psychiatric treatment. The legal authority has already been granted. The effective starting date is March 17, 2027.

The legislation to extend medical homicide (MAiD) to people with psychiatric conditions alone, was passed on March 17, 2021 (Bill C-7) but the implementation has been delayed now until March 17, 2027.

For the benefit of international readers, this grotesque reality results from removing the eligibility requirement of ‘terminal condition’. For if medical homicide is extended to any ‘grievous and irremediable’ circumstance (and if we accept, literally, the equivalence of somatic and psychological complaints) then it appears inevitable that medical homicide must be authorized for mental illness alone.

We should also note that the Canadian removal of ‘terminal condition’ resulted, not from spontaneous legislation, but in response to a fairness-based judicial decision, which was rendered in favor of a non-terminal plaintiff, seeking access to medical homicide.

For exterior observers thinking two steps ahead, therefore:

Preventing homicide as psychiatric treatment (and thus avoiding the medical execution of a chronically suicidal child, or other dear one) provides one more excellent reason for refusing any form, whatsoever, of medical homicide.

As if that were not enough, however, medical homicide for the mentally ill (and particularly for those suffering from mental illness alone) threatens the universally assumed certitude of fully informed, capable and uncoerced choice --for the symptoms of mental illness often make that sort of choice impossible. Its permission, therefore, favors that of other blossoms in the poisonous bouquet of incapable medical homicide, which also includes: advance requests for demented seniors, mature minors (on their own authority), infanticide, and children up to 12 years (with parental consent).

Ironically, nonetheless, this battle against medical homicide, for psychiatric disorder, also provides us with an opportunity to defend the capacity barrier, itself, not for these patients only, but for all other incapable categories as well.

Lastly, this ready-made assault, on the myth of medical homicide as a free and capable choice, provides a promising means of weakening political support for medical homicide more generally. We at EPC, with our allies around the world, are committed to fully changing cultural attitudes towards killing.

As many are aware, there is now an active legal opporunity with Bill C-218, whose intent is to specifically stop medical homicide for mental illness alone. We have deliberately placed capacity concerns prominently in the messaging surrounding our support of this Bill.

Unsurprisingly, that focus (and the threat it poses to their own agenda) has been noticed by different defenders of so-called 'medical assistance in dying'. In particular, the authors of a little known blog, named ‘Maid in Canada’, published a critique of one of our Parliamentary Press Gallery conferences held in support of Bill C-218. When contacted, they graciously agreed to publicly debate the subject over a period of six weeks.

As the reader may know, the dynamic duo from MIC have since returned to their on-line club house. However, they were kind enough to leave, in their wake, a public record of their reasons (and methods) opposing our campaign. And from this, we have the opportunity of making further improvements.

Beginning next week, I will sort through that exchange, separating the grain from the chaff. The goal will not be to prove ourselves right (in the past) but to sharpen our persuasive tools, as this crucial contest surrounding psychiatric homicide, and Bill C-218, moves forward.

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

Previous articles: 

• How a structured exchange became a masterclass in deflection (Read). 
• The human cost of medical homicide (Read).

MAiDed In A Funeral Home

This article was published by Kelsi Sheren on her substack on February 20, 2026.

He Paid for the Drugs That Ended His Life

By Kelsi Sheren

Kiano flew from Ontario to BC to end his life with (MAID) euthanasia. The Dr. Who ended his life not only did it after another Ontario Dr, Dr. Tepper, wouldn’t kill him at MAIDHOUSE after his mother went to the media to stop the death.

Ellen[Wiebe] has a record of dancing on the line of “acceptable” MAID deaths.

“On Oct. 27, 2024 a British Columbia judge intervened to prevent Dr. Ellen Wiebe, or any other doctor, from causing the death of a mentally ill Alberta woman. Justice Simon Coval granted a 30-day injunction to the woman’s common-law partner, one day before her death was scheduled to take place at Wiebe’s Vancouver clinic. A civil claim alleges Wiebe approved the woman’s request for MAID after a single Zoom meeting and without consulting her doctors. Wiebe declined to comment when contacted by National Post.”

On December 11, 2025, pharmacy records show that 26-year-old Kiano Vafaeian filled a series of prescriptions at Macdonald’s Prescriptions Ltd. in Vancouver.

The prescriber listed on each receipt: Dr. Ellen Wiebe. The most prolific MAID “PROVIDER” in the country.

The NON FDA APPROVED FOR KILLING DRUGS dispensed were:

• Midazolam injection
• Propofol injection
• Rocuronium bromide injection
• Bupivacaine injection
• A line item labeled “1 MAID”

The drugs

Each receipt lists a “Patient Pays” amount. In total, the records show hundreds of dollars paid directly by the patient on top of the flight he took across the country and $300-495 he paid KORU funeral home to be killed there.

This combination of drugs is consistent with a standard intravenous Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) protocol in Canada. Midazolam is used to sedate. Propofol induces deep anesthesia. Rocuronium causes paralysis and respiratory arrest. Bupivacaine may be used in certain protocols. The medications are administered by a physician once legal eligibility criteria are met.

Nineteen days later, on December 30, 2025, Kiano Vafaeian died under Canada’s assisted dying death regime, but not at Ellen’s Willow Clinic location in Vancouver where normally she ends their life. This time it was much, much darker.

Kiano took himself, by himself to a FUNERAL HOME where he met Ellen. Koru Cremation in Vancouver to be exact. According to official documentation, the location of death was Koru Cremation in Vancouver — a funeral home.

The receipts raise a stark and uncomfortable reality: the medications used in assisted death are prescribed, dispensed, and financially transacted like any other pharmaceutical product. The documentation shows the patient paid for the prescriptions issued in his name.

Under Canadian law, MAID is a legal medical procedure if strict eligibility criteria are met. Mental illness alone is not currently sufficient to qualify. A patient must have a grievous and irremediable medical condition, be in an advanced state of irreversible decline, experience intolerable suffering, and possess decision-making capacity.

Kiano’s mother has publicly alleged that approval for MAID was based primarily on mental illness. Dr. Wiebe has publicly stated she has never approved a patient who did not meet all legal criteria.

Those are two conflicting narratives, pro death and pro life.

The receipts do not answer whether the legal criteria were properly applied. They do not reveal the assessment process. They do not explain how eligibility was determined.

What they do show is this. A 26-year-old young man with mental health issues and diabetes flew himself to a different province away from his family, obtained and paid for the medications used to kill him.

That fact alone forces a deeper question about the structure of Canada’s assisted dying system. When assisted death becomes a prescription, dispensed with a receipt and a debit transaction, what does that say about how the system conceptualizes suffering, autonomy, and medical responsibility?

Supporters and cowards call it “compassion and choice.”

People with two eyes and a brain call it abandonment and normalization of state sanctioned killing.

The documentation does not resolve that moral divide but it puts a clear line in the sand. It does make one thing undeniably clear. This was not an abstract policy debate, this was the killing of a 26-year-old young man who deserved real help, REAL healthcare and a system that wouldn’t let him fall through the cracks.

But what he got was a Dr who knows how to work the system, drugs that are NOT FDA approved for killing and a system who valued him more dead than alive.

It was a set of prescriptions.
A named physician.
A pharmacy counter.
A transaction.

And a young man who did not live to see the new year.

I called KORU to see if this was an option, unbelievably shocked how easy and dark it sounded “a provision” This is the dark country of Canada.

This appeared on Kelsi Sheren’s Substack and reposted with permission.

Ottawa "mercy Killing" court decision reminds me of the Netherlands Postma decision.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Hébert & Rutherford

Nicholas Kohler reported for the Ottawa Citizen on February 17, concerning the "sentencing" of Philippe Hébert who killed his partner Richard Rutherford, that:

Philippe Hébert will serve no time in prison following his guilty plea to manslaughter in the homicide of his husband and partner for over 40 years, Richard Rutherford, a judge has ruled.

Superior Court Justice Kevin Phillips sentenced Hébert, 73, to two years less a day, to be served under house arrest at the home Hébert shared for decades with Rutherford in Ottawa’s east end.

David Fraser reported for CBC news on February 17 that:

Philippe Hébert, 74, killed his husband of 40 years, Richard Rutherford, on April 15, 2022, inside the Smyth Road home the couple shared. Rutherford was 87 and suffering from multiple health problems including a recent cancer diagnosis.

Fraser also reported that:

Last September, on the eve of his murder trial, Hébert pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. Crown prosecutors argued he should go to prison for six years, while his defence asked for two years.

So even though the original charge of second degree murder was lessened to manslaughter based on a plea bargain, Justice Phillips essentially gave Hébert no sentence (house arrest) for killing Rutherford.

Fraser reported Justice Philips reason for his decision.

Phillips said despite the killing being "close to murder," Hébert was honouring the "last wish" of his husband and friend. Rutherford had the mental capacity to make that decision, and given his medical condition it was understandable, the judge said.

Nobody questions that there were mitigating factors in this case but creating a precedent that one person can kill another person with a serious illness, and only receive a suspended sentence opens the door to further "mercy killings." In fact this decision indicates that legalizing euthanasia in Canada has eroded the willingness of judges to penalize someone who has murdered a sick friend or relative.

This decision reminds me of the Netherlands euthanasia court case, that eventually led to euthanasia being legalized. The Postma case concerned Geertruida Postma, a physician, who killed her mother in November 1971. Her mother was living with significant health conditions including a cerebral hemorrhage, she was partly paralyzed, could hardly speak, had pneumonia and was deaf.

Time Magazine reported that when asked in the court whether her mother's suffering was unbearable, Dr. Postma responded:

“No, it was not unbearable. Her physical suffering was serious, no more. But the mental suffering became unbearable.” That “was most important to me. Now, after all these months, I am convinced I should have done it much earlier.”

I hope that the Hébert decision has not opened the door to people in close relationships killing based on "mercy" without fear of serious legal repercussions.

MAiD in Canada’s Debate Style Is Steeped in Snootiness

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader

In his comments on my recent blog post, “Disability Opposition to MAiD: Some Clear, Accurate Data,” Paul Magennis of MAiD in Canada contends that my tone “vilifies” “MAiD” supporters like himself. Although I’ve acknowledged that many Oregon model supporters act in good faith, I concur that some of my writing, particularly about Canada-like “MAiD” programs, is harsh. It’s meant to resist the dehumanization of disabled people by countering society’s pattern of sanitizing disabled people’s wrongful deaths.

But if my rhetoric periodically has issues with “hostility,” MAiD in Canada’s rhetoric often has an issue with snootiness.

For instance, on December 10th, 2025, Maggenis and Carlson responded to Gordon Friesen’s article, “Medical Homicide Is Discriminatory Oppression For the Sick and Disabled," by writing this on Facebook:

“He attempts to use graduate-level vocabulary and long, winding sentences to deliver grade-nine level reasoning. The result is a convoluted, artificially complex style that imitates academic philosophy without actually doing the work.”

I do not share this assessment of Frieson’s blog post, but beyond that, it strikes me that this statement is arrogant and snide, so it was actually really nice of Gordon to have a debate with them.

Magennis and Carlson’s tone communicates an attitude of, “if only you silly, paranoid rubes were as smart as us, then you would understand how wonderful our ideology is.” Their assertions carry the implication: “Get a PH.D and publish some peer-reviewed research; then your opinion will matter.” Well, not everyone has the opportunity to earn a PH.D. Not everyone has a lifestyle that allows them to edit their writing and arguments until they are perfect. This is especially true for persons with disabilities whose lifestyle choices are limited by systemic ableism. Yet those people’s opinions about “MAiD” matter just as much as any bioethics scholar’s.

It makes sense that if the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and MAiD in Canada are going to write about one another, that it would be a formal debate. Nevertheless, many of MAiD in Canada’s statements have a sardonic, pretentious tone. Often their assertions suggest that any good faith wish for a debate on their part is intertwined with a desire to prove how intellectually and ethically superior they think they are.

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Statement Against The Texas vs. Kennedy Lawsuit

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition recognizes “Medical Aid In Dying” as one endpoint of society withholding care and opportunities from disabled and/or terminally ill people. Hence, we oppose assisted suicide and we oppose conditions that make assisted suicide more likely to happen or contribute to a climate where assisted suicide is viewed as reasonable and desirable.

Therefore, we oppose the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit, the latest version of which was filed on January 23rd, 2026. The lawsuit is asking SCOTUS to eliminate the Final Rule, a set of critical updates to the Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act that were passed in 2024, on the premise that the rule’s requirement that states implement better community supports to prevent the unnecessary institutionalization of disabled people is “burdensome.” The success of this lawsuit would undermine efforts to oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide.

First, the Final Rule contains Section 84.56(a), which forbids doctors from making “quality of life” decisions that cause disabled people’s deaths. Hence, that provision creates a strong regulatory bulwark against the legalization of assisted suicide.

The lawsuit contends that the Final Rule’s requirement that states implement additional community support to prevent the unnecessary institutionalization of disabled persons are “burdensome.” Hence, success of this lawsuit would contribute to situations in which institutionalized people with life-limiting conditions may feel coerced into assisted suicide.

The elimination of the Final Rule’s requirement that medical equipment be accessible to people with disabilities will also undermine efforts to prevent assisted suicide. Inaccessible medical equipment contributes to situations where people with life-limiting conditions feel steered towards assisted suicide.

Accordingly, we urge the attorney generals of Texas, Alaska, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana and South Dakota to drop the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit, and for HHS not to adopt its proposed policy changes. The lawsuit’s goals undermine both disabled people’s dignity and efforts to fight euthanasia and assisted suicide in the United States.

Note: Readers living in the aforementioned states who wish to contact their attorney generals asking them to drop the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit can find contact information here.

Grieving parents demand changes after son (26) was euthanized in Canada.

“No parent should ever have to bury their child because a system—and a doctor—chose death over care, help, or love.”

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have written several articles about the euthanasia death Kiano Vafaeian. Kiano was killed by Dr Ellen Wiebe on December 30, 2025. On February 5, we published a 15 minute interview with Kiano's mother Margaret Marsilla (Article Link).

Yesterday, the New York Post published an article by Kristine Parks explaining that Kiano's parents are committed to repealing Track 2 euthanasia deaths in Canada. 

Track 2 refers to euthanasia approvals for people who are not terminally ill but rather have a "grievous and irremediable" medical condition. The terms "grievous and irremediable" are not defined in the law.

Parks explains:

The grieving parents of a 26-year-old man are speaking out against Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) laws, arguing the system failed to protect their “vulnerable” son from being euthanized, despite a history of mental illness.

Kiano Vafaeian was euthanized on Dec. 30, 2025, in British Columbia.

Parks reports how Marsilla describes her son's condition

His family says he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age four and began struggling with mental health after a car accident at 17.

His mother, Margaret Marsilla of Ontario, said his depression was often seasonal, yet he became “obsessed” with MAID after losing vision in one eye in 2022.

“He kept on emphasizing about how he could get approved,” Marsilla told Fox News Digital. “We never thought there would be a chance that any doctor would approve a 22- or 23-year-old at that time for MAID because of diabetes or blindness.”

Kiano was originally approved for euthanasia and scheduled to die on September 22, 2022 after a doctor approved Vafaeian’s request, at the MAiDHouse, a euthanasia clinic in Toronto. The family launched a public pressure campaign on social media to prevent the death of their son which resulted in the doctor changing his mind.

Marsilla told Parks that her son was initially angry about not being euthanized but then things improved and in 2024 Kiano was living with his parents. But then in the fall of 2024 he started talking about euthanasia again. Parks reports:

The family said Vafaeian was rejected by multiple doctors in Ontario before he sought out Dr. Ellen Wiebe, a prominent MAID provider, in British Columbia. Marsilla believes Wiebe “coached” her son on what to say to meet the criteria for “Track 2” patients — those whose natural deaths are not reasonably imminent.

Vafaeian’s parents say they were not notified of the approval and only learned of his death days after it occurred. They noted his medical records did not substantiate the “severe peripheral neuropathy” listed on his death certificate as a qualifying factor.

Kiano's mother and stepfather told Parks:

“This whole process came to us as a shock,” said Joseph Caprara, Vafaeian’s stepfather.

In 2021, eligibility for MAID was expanded to include applicants with “grievous and irremediable conditions” whose deaths are not reasonably foreseeable.

The family is now advocating for the repeal of this “Track 2” provision and the passage of Bill C-218, a legislative effort to restrict MAID for patients whose underlying issue is solely mental illness.

“Realistically, safeguards for patients would be reaching out to their family members, giving them a whole bunch of different treatment options,” Marsilla said. Instead, she claims the current system allows doctors to approve and euthanize patients within 90 days on Track 2.

“How is that safe for patients?” she asked.

Marsilla wrote on facebook that:

“No parent should ever have to bury their child because a system—and a doctor—chose death over care, help, or love.”

Parks continues:

Caprara said their family hopes sharing their story will expose the risks these laws pose to the “vulnerable and disabled” and give states and other countries pause before implementing similar legislation.

“We don’t want to see any other family member suffer, or any country introduce a piece of legislation that kills their disabled or vulnerable without appropriate proper treatment plans that could save their lives,” he said.

Parks reports Dr Ellen Wiebe's response:

“Like my colleagues, every patient I approve for Track 2 has unbearable suffering from a grievous and irremediable medical condition (not psychiatric) with an advanced state of decline in capability and consents to MAID fully informed about treatments to reduce the suffering.”

Petition: We demand a review of Dr Wiebe's (MAiD) euthanasia practise (Link)

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition supports Kiano's parents, Margaret Marsilla and Joseph Caprara's direction and we share in the grieving of their son.

More articles about the euthanasia killing of Kiano Vafaeian:

• One mother's mission (video). Her son was killed by euthanasia (Article Link).
• Tragic euthanasia death of young man with mental illness (Article Link).
• 23 year old scheduled for euthanasia remains alive (Article Link)

Defeating the UK assisted suicide bills. Victory is close.

The following is the report from Dr Gordon Macdonald the CEO of Care NOT Killing in the UK, a leading group opposing the legalization of assisted suicide in the UK, Scotland and the British Isles.

Care NOT Killing needs donations to stop assisted suicide legalization in the UK (Donation Link).

Dr Gordon Macdonald

Dr Gordon Macdonald

I am delighted to report that the fruits of many months of campaigning could be about to pay off.

FIRST: England & Wales (Westminster)

Victory is now a real possibility.

Concerns over the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill in the House of Lords are growing.

Peers deserve great credit for refusing to be railroaded into rushing the Bill through the House of Lords.

They are coming under huge pressure from our opponents.

They are being wrongly accused of ‘filibustering’ (a term from US politics to describe deliberately blocking legislation by endless debating so that time runs out and it falls).

In fact, what is being misleadingly cast as blocking tactics is simply Parliamentary due diligence.

As one senior Labour MP put it:

“It [the Leadbeater Bill] only just scraped through the Commons by 23 votes because MPs were told that the Lords would scrutinise it carefully.

And that’s what the Lords are doing, with every debate revealing more holes and more problems with this proposed law.”

In addition, a More in Common poll published last week found fewer than half of those questioned (44%) expressed the belief that the House of Lords is deliberately trying to delay the Bill rather than taking time to go through legitimate concerns.

Experts and professional groups that have opposed or raised significant concerns include:

• The Royal College of Pathologists warned that its members would have to “review the process leading up to the decision to authorise an assisted death and the circumstances of the assisted death, which they are not qualified to do.” That could include probing whether safeguards were followed or if there was coercion, deception or other serious issues at play.
• The Association for Palliative Medicine, representing over 1,300 palliative medicine doctors in the UK, has stated it “opposes any change in the law to license doctors to supply or administer lethal drugs to a patient to enable them to take their own life.”
• The British Geriatrics Society reported that many of its members are “not confident that effective legal safeguards could be developed to protect older people from unwarranted harms.”
• Academics and Barristers: 73 leading academic experts in the fields of health, end-of-life care and the law signed an open letter to MPs warning that the Bill's safeguards are insufficient and would put vulnerable people at risk.

The Academics and Barristers emphasised that the dangers of allowing individual autonomy to trump all other considerations, the letter warned:

“Laws must be concerned for the safety of the whole population, especially the most vulnerable.”

It also noted that “research has shown that a person’s stated wish to die is frequently unstable and depends on the care and support they receive [or lack of]”.

Former President of the Family Division of the High Court, the late Sir James Munby, stated the Bill falls "lamentably short of providing adequate safeguards".

Former Chief Coroner of England and Wales, Thomas Teague KC, has warned that a key provision in the Bill would prevent coroners from routinely investigating assisted deaths as they would other unnatural deaths, potentially allowing cases of coercion to go undetected.

Disability Rights Groups: multiple disability rights organisations have opposed the Bill, citing concerns that it could put pressure on disabled and vulnerable people to end their lives.

The National Down Syndrome Policy Group has warned that every person with Down Syndrome would be eligible for assisted suicide under the Bill.

Illustrating how dangerous a step this would be, a professional who works with people with Down Syndrome warned:

“Years ago, I did a benefit appeal for a client with Down syndrome.

He was so suggestible [that] he agreed with the benefits assessor that he could successfully navigate across town.

I got the same positive answer when I asked if he could fly an aeroplane.”

The list goes on.

As things stand, the Bill is set to run out of time and fall.

It looks unlikely that Peers will have time to debate all the proposed amendments before the current Parliamentary session ends (late April/early May).

When a session ends, any legislation that has not completed its passage through both Houses of Parliament is generally 'lost' and must start from scratch in the new session.

We must guard against complacency

However, it is too soon to celebrate victory, because:

1. Our opponents are threatening to use the Parliament Acts

These allow the House of Commons to bypass the House of Lords should it repeatedly block a public bill. The Bill’s supporters could circumvent the Lords altogether—avoiding its scrutiny—by reintroducing the Leadbeater Bill in the House of Commons at the next session of Parliament (May 2026), then (if it passes) seek Royal Assent without the Lords’ consent.

• This would require MPs to pass the Bill in the same form it last left the Commons. It could include Lords’ changes from this session, but most of the changes currently under discussion (a) won’t be voted on until report stage, and (b) have in any case been rebuffed by Lord Falconer.

2. Disgruntled opponents could push legislation through in other ways

Presently, some are working to weaken the House of Lords’ powers to scrutinise legislation.

• The Observer reported this month that a new All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for “wholesale” House of Lords reform is being set up by pro-assisted suicide MPs Simon Opher and Kit Malthouse.

The new APPG will look at “how a minority of peers have been able to use filibustering to block a bill”.

(FACT CHECK: a firm majority – around two-thirds – of the 160 Peers who spoke or else were represented across two days of the Second Reading debate last September expressed opposition to the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill.)

While APPGs have no official law-making powers, when they are well-funded – as pro-Bill groups tend to be – they can have considerable influence among fellow politicians and feed friendly media outlets propaganda to print and broadcast.

The coming weeks and months will be crucial.

Winning the media war is vital.

We are bracing for media attacks on those Peers who refuse to be bullied into allowing vulnerable people to be abandoned to systematic killing or see the ‘checking and balancing’ role of the House of Lords undermined.

Indeed, former Telegraph and Spectator editor Lord Moore, warned in December that lobbyists working for our opponents are already attempting to influence the debate in Parliament:

“I know very well what happens—how to recognise when we’re being pushed to do a story.

“In the last two weeks, all the British media have been pressed very hard, by lobbyists in favour of this [Leadbeater] Bill, to produce a series of highly contentious arguments which attack anybody who tries to debate this Bill fully.”

SECOND: Scotland (McArthur) Bill

Major question marks also hang over the Scottish assisted suicide bill.

1. With the McArthur bill set to be voted on again on 17th March, just 7 weeks before the Scottish Parliament election, Holyrood proponents of that bill are getting nervous. Many MSPs who have doubts about the bill are worried that this might be an election-defining issue for many of their constituents.
2. The Health Committee at Holyrood wrote to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as important legal questions have arisen as to the Bill’s compatibility with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
3. Provisions for the protection of conscientious objection rights for NHS clinical staff — those who would be tasked with carrying out assisted deaths — will have to be stripped out of the Bill at Stage 3 in March because medical regulation is a power over which Holyrood has no legislative competence.

This could be a major stumbling block for our opponents as the area of employment rights is a matter reserved for the UK Government, whose approval would be required before the Bill could come into force. Already, some MSPs who voted for the bill at Stage 1 are expressing concerns about the conscience protection for medics and nurses being removed from the Bill.

BUT should these legal wrangles be settled in time and the final (Stage 3) vote scheduled for mid-March be lost, the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill would pass.

Should that happen, our opponents would gain valuable political capital for law change south of the border, arguing on ‘equality’ grounds that the people in other parts of Great Britain (including England and Wales) should also be legally entitled to an assisted death.

The best outcome would be for the Scottish bill to be voted down next month.

The final vote is expected to be very close.

A CNK social media campaign targeted at Scottish voters is a major priority.

We urgently need Scots to contact their MSPs to make their concerns over the Bill clear, and with the Scottish elections due in May, there couldn’t be a better time to make their case.

THIRD: Isle of Man

The Isle of Man’s landmark Assisted Dying Bill – the first to be passed in Great Britain – is being held up.

It needs to secure Royal Assent before the end of the current administration (September 2026) before it can come into force.

But this may NOT happen.

Major development

Last year, I wrote to the then-Lord Chancellor & Secretary of State for Justice, Shabana Mahmood, arguing that the Manx Bill contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights.

I pointed out that, should the Lord Chancellor recommend the Bill for Royal Assent (the final stage in a bill becoming law), it may breach the UK’s international obligations.

The Manx bill requires the UK government’s approval before it can receive Royal Assent.

Last week, the island's Chief Minister, Alfred Cannan, announced that the UK Ministry of Justice had asked for clarification on codes of practice to accompany the Manx bill, regarding matters relating to human rights law compliance mentioned in my letter, specifically:

• Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which upholds the ‘right to life’

The MOJ has also asked for clarification about capacity legislation in the Isle of Man. Mr Cannan stated that the Bill “…cannot commence until safeguards, oversight mechanisms and protections are in place…”

If amendments have to be made on the face of the bill, the proposed legislation would need to be debated again by the House of Keys, and considered also by the Legislative Council, the upper chamber of the Manx Parliament (Tynwald). At present, the two Governments are considering a Code of Practice which CNK believes is insufficient to meet the requirements of Article 2.

Care NOT Killing needs donations to stop assisted suicide from being legalized in the UK (Donation Link).

France's euthanasia bill would criminalize suicide prevention.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Sebastien Ostertag, an American who is living in France, sent EPC an analysis of France's euthanasia bill. 

France's euthanasia bill not only gives medical professionals the right in law to be directly involved with killing their patients the bill would also criminalize suicide prevention. Ostertag explains:

This bill would not only allow the killing of the physically and mentally ill, but would also do what no country in world history has ever done, which is to criminalize, with two years imprisonment, suicide prevention.

Ostertag continued:

The French bill would also criminalize anyone attempting to dissuade someone from committing suicide through assisted suicide or euthanasia. This applies to psychologists, therapists, priests, teachers, parents, doctors, and even organizations attempting to prevent suicide.

Ostertag explains:

Article 17, Section 2 states, “Is punished with two years imprisonment and a fine of 30,000 euros the act of stopping or trying to stop the practicing, or informing on medical aid in dying by any method including through electronic communication and online, notably by the transmitting of allegations or indications…with a goal of dissuasion, on the characteristics or consequences of medical aid in dying.”

Section 3 criminalizes trying to disrupt in any way the locations where euthanasia and assisted suicides will occur, which would mean that you couldn’t go to the hospital to try to dissuade your 18-year-old teenager or the doctor prepared to euthanize them.

That is followed by Section 4, which criminalizes the exercising of “moral or psychological pressure, by threatening or any act of intimidation towards people trying to be informed on medical aid in dying, the personnel participating in medical aid in dying, the people wishing to have recourse to medical aid in dying…” This means that any attempt to dissuade a loved one would be illegal.

All of this is topped off by the last section, which gives activist “right to die” organizations the legal right to file lawsuits against individuals and organizations that violate the delit d’entrave. These organizations have already stated that they will go after religious retirement homes and institutions that refuse to participate in assisted suicide and euthanasia. These groups would sue parents who try to keep their depressed 18-year-olds from getting assisted suicide.

Ostertag is urging the US government to condemn the French euthanasia bill. He believes that if this bill is stopped that it would likely die since President Emmanuel Macron is very unpopular.

Ostertag article: (Link).

Canadian Government Ignores UN Scrutiny Over Euthanasia Law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Breach published an article by Simon Spichak on February 11, 2026 concerning how Canada has ignored the scathing report UN Committee on Disability Rights on Canada's euthanasia law.

A press release from Inclusion Canada on March 26, 2025 explained that the report from the UN Committee on Disability Rights that called for Canada, among other recommendations, to: Repeal Track 2 Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), including the planned 2027 expansion to persons whose “sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness,” and reject proposals to expand MAiD to “mature minors” and through advance requests.

Spichak writes in the Breach how Canada's federal government has ignored this recommendation. Spichak writes:

When the United Nations released a scathing report on Canada’s treatment of disabled people last spring—calling out inadequate financial supports and urging Ottawa to halt the expansion of medical assistance in dying—the federal government was silent. 

Nearly a year later, it still is.

Spichak gained access to internal government emails indicating that the government expected little scrutiny of the report and further the government eliminated the Minister for Disability.

The disability movement are not surprised. Spichak reports:

The UN report and its recommendations weren’t “surprising to anyone listening to the disabled community,” said Gabrielle Peters, a disabled writer and policy analyst and co-founder of the Disability Filibuster. Disabled Canadians, she said, expressed the same concerns in government testimony, to the media, and to “anyone who would listen.”

Spichak contacted federal government departments to find out if they are planning to act on the report and was told that they are "reviewing" the report. Spichak states:

...But the government has not publicly responded to the findings nor has it committed to holding public consultations on how they will be implemented.

This is not the first time that the federal government has been tight lipped about United Nations criticism of Canada's euthanasia law. Spichak explains:

Three UN human rights experts cautioned Canada in 2021 about MAiD expansion but did not receive a formal response.

The United Nations further challenged Canada's euthanasia law in March 2025. Spichak writes:

In March 2025 Canadian officials met in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss Canada’s track record on disability. They were asked to justify how the expansion of MAiD differs from “state-sponsored eugenics.”

Rosemary Kayess, vice-chair of the UN’s disability rights committee, questioned officials about the 2021 creation of the Track 2 pathway for MAiD. Track 2 expands access to medical euthanasia to people with significant and irreversible medical conditions, whose deaths are not foreseeable, if they experience what the law defines as “substantial suffering.”

Kayess challenged Canadian officials concerning Track 2 MAiD because Track 2 euthanasia approvals apply specifically to people with disabilities. The UN Committee was not pleased with the response of the Canadian officials. Spichak explains:

The UN committee was not satisfied with the responses they received. In a report they released a month later, they argued the federal court case that led to the creation of Track 2 MAiD established euthanasia based on “negative, ableist perceptions of the quality and value of the life of persons with disabilities.” It implied, they said, that suffering is intrinsic to disability rather than that “inequality and discrimination cause and compound ‘suffering.’”

In line with many disabled advocates, the committee argued that providing MAiD to disabled individuals allows the government “to enable their death without providing safeguards that guarantee the provision of support.”

Spichak then commented on the Ontario Office of the Chief Coroner's MAiD reports:

According to the Ontario Office of the Chief Coroner, as well as federal government reports, women and marginalized individuals are more likely to access Track 2 MAiD. One woman, referred to as Mrs. B, was euthanized within one day because her husband was “experiencing caregiver burden.” The woman, who was in her 80s, experienced complications after a coronary artery bypass graft.

Critics also say MAiD advocates often ignore the role that systemic deprivation —including poverty, inadequate services, lack of access to publicly funded psychotherapy, and social isolation—has in shaping who seeks assisted death.

In 2022, a 51-year old woman known as Sophia, who lived with multiple chemical sensitivity, accessed MAiD after being unable to secure affordable housing with adequate ventilation that would ease her symptoms.

Spichak suggests that the UN Committee on Disability Rights reports may have delayed the implementation of euthanasia in Canada to people with mental illness alone. Currently Canada's federal government has scheduled the implementation of euthanasia for mental illness alone for March 17, 2027.

Spichak states that the euthanasia lobby consider denying euthanasia for mental illness alone is illogical and discriminatory while opposition to euthanasia for mental illness alone argue that:

...it has so far proved impossible to determine whether someone’s mental illness is truly untreatable. The International Association for Suicide Prevention, an official partner of the UN, echoed similar concerns.

Spichak continues by explaining that the federal government has established no consultation process on the United Nations recommendations. Health Canada told Spichak that they were having a closed door round table meeting on February 26 to discuss the United Nations recommendations.

Gabrielle Peters questioned whether government funded disability charities and non-profits who receive at least 50% of their funding from the federal government will be capable of providing a - “controlled opposition” to government policy. Peters called the government's consultation on disability:

“An illusion of involvement that props up a policy of horror disguised by euphemisms and omissions.”

The article further discusses the response by the federal government to the UN Committee on Disability Rights report on Canada's euthanasia law and concludes:

Almost a year after the report’s release, there is no plan to substantially act on any of the UN’s recommendations. Government officials guessed right: mainstream news outlets have largely ignored the report’s criticisms of MAiD. Meanwhile, the situation for disabled Canadians—the poverty, health-care inequity, and other systemic neglect contributing to these deaths—remains unchanged.

The government has ignored the concerns of the disability community concerning Canada's euthanasia law as they continue to move towards more killing by euthanasia.

More articles on this topic:

• How euthanasia fails Canada's most vulnerable (Link).
• Shouldn't care come before euthanasia? (Link). 
• The International disability rights community is concerned with Canada's euthanasia law (Link).
• UN demands change: Canada must end MAiD for people without terminal illness (Link).
  
• United Nations Committee directs Canada to repeal Track 2 euthanasia deaths (Link).
• Canada's euthanasia deaths continue to rise with approximately 16,500 euthanasia deaths in 2024 (Link).
• Has Canada's euthanasia law gone too far (Link).