Wednesday, February 12, 2025

How many times will the online "consultation" on euthanasia by advance request let you vote?

One supporter told me that he completed the online "consultation" for euthanasia by advance request more than 20 times.
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On December 19, 2024 EPC published a Guide to answering the online "consultation"  on euthanasia by advance request. EPC created the Guide to completing the online "consultation" because some of the questions in the "consultation" were a sham because the wording to those questions implied support for euthanasia by advance request.

Today, I was contacted by a supporter who told me that he decided to see if the online "consultation" enabled him to respond to complete the consultation more than once. He then told me that he has completed the online consultation more than 20 times.

Obviously, the consultation is more of a sham than first thought.

We are still encouraging our supporters to complete the "National conversation" on advance requests for medical assistance in dying but we recognize that the online consultation results will not be accurate.

The "National conversation" on advance requests for medical assistance in dying will be open until February 14, 2025. The online consultation link is found on the Consultation website below the words - Join in: How to participate (Consultation Link).

Before completing the online consultation, please read our EPC guide to answering the online consultation.(Link to the EPC consultation guide).



Oregon bill would expand assisted suicide law again. Non doctors could prescribe death.

Alex Schadenberg
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Will there ever be enough killing?
Will there ever be enough killers?

On January 30, I published an article concerning Vermont Bill 75 that expands Vermont's assisted suicide law for the third time.

Oregon are also debating a bill to expand their assisted suicide law for the third time. Oregon assisted suicide bill SB 1003 will allow non doctors to prescribe death.

SB 1003 changes the term "attending physician" to "prescribling provider" and "consulting physician" to "consulting provider."

Provider means: 

(a) A physician licensed...,
(b) A physician assistant licensed...,
(c) A nurse practitioner licensed...

Therefore SB 1003 will allow non physicians, such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners to participate in killing.

The weak link for the assisted suicide lobby is that very few doctors are willing to be involved with killing their patients. By adding physician assistants and nurse practitioners they will increase the number of providers who are willing to be involved with killing.

SB 1003 also reduces the waiting period from 15 days to 48 hours while enabling the "providing prescriber" to waive the waiting period to essentially allow a same day death.

SB 1003 also requires hospices and hospitals to publicly disclose their assisted suicide policy. Hospices and other healthcare facilities will be required to inform patients of their assisted suicide policy and post their assisted suicide policy online.

SB 1003 is the third time that Oregon is expanding their assisted suicide law.

In 2019 Oregon passed Bill SB 0579 which allowed doctors to waive the 15 day waiting period. 

In 2023 Oregon passed Bill HB 2279 which removed Oregon's assisted suicide law residency requirement.

The 2023 Oregon assisted suicide report indicates that there were 367 reported assisted suicide deaths up by 21% from 304 in 2022. Will there ever be enough killing?

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Canada's euthanasia deaths continue to rise.

Ontario and Alberta release their 2024 euthanasia data.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On December 11, 2024, Canada's Ministry of Health released the Fifth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying which found that there were 15,343 reported euthanasia deaths representing 4.7% of all deaths in 2023. The number of Canadian euthanasia deaths was up from 13,241 in 2022 and 10,092 in 2021.

Based on the 2024 MAiD data from Ontario and Alberta I predict that there were approximately 16,600 Canadian euthanasia deaths in 2024.

How did I make my prediction?

The Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario released the December 2024 MAiD data which indicated that there were 4,957 reported euthanasia deaths in 2024 which is up from 4,641 in 2023 and 3,934 in 2022. Ontario represents almost 40% of Canada's population.

The data indicates that, as of December 31, 2024, there have been 23,333 Ontario euthanasia deaths since legalization. The City of Alliston had a population of 23,253 in 2021.

Alberta Health Services released their MAiD data indicating that there were 1,116 reported euthanasia deaths in 2024 which is up from 977 in 2023 and 836 in 2022. Alberta represents almost 12% of Canada's population.

Since there was an 8% increase in euthanasia deaths in Ontario and Alberta and since both provinces represent more than 50% of Canada's population and considering the fact that Québec has had the highest euthanasia rate of increases, I conservatively estimate that there were at least 16,600 euthanasia deaths in 2024.

The Chief Coroner of Ontario has attempted to institute greater oversight in Ontario. Greater oversight may have led to a slowing euthanasia growth rate.

In October 2024 the Chief Coroner of Ontario released the Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee report indicating that between 2018 and 2023 there were euthanasia deaths driven by homelessness, fear and isolation and that poor people are at risk of coercion and Canadians with disabilities are needlessly dying by euthanasia. The data from the report indicated that there were at least 428 non-compliant euthanasia deaths between 2018 and 2023 and 25% of the euthanasia providers violated the law.
 
The Ontario MAiD Death Review report has three parts (Part 3) (Part 2) (Part 1).
 
The Ontario (MAiD) euthanasia report shows that the number of reported MAiD deaths increased by approximately 7% in 2024.

Alberta had a 14% increase in euthanasia deaths in 2024, double Ontario's rate of increase.

We have hope that Alberta's euthanasia growth rate will slow down as Alberta considers changes to their rules for approving euthanasia.

On January 30, during an interview with the John Bachman Now show, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith indicated that her government plans to tighten the rules for approving Albertan's for euthanasia.

Alberta has had the case of the 27-year-old autistic woman, who was approved and scheduled to die by euthanasia on February 1, 2024 until her father challenged the euthanasia approval in court. There was also a case of a Calgary man who couldn't get experimental treatment for cluster headaches but could get approved for euthanasia.

Alberta's Justice Ministry held a consultation on changes to the application of euthanasia in their province. The final decision has not been released yet.

Similar to last year, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition will be trying to obtain the provincial euthanasia data to provide insight into Canada's experience with killing.


Monday, February 10, 2025

Montana Senate passes bill that will stop assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article by Darrell Ehrlick that was published in the Bozeman Daily Chronical on February 7 covered the debate on Montana Bill SB 136 that passed by a vote of 29 to 20 (one abstained) on February 7 in the Montana Senate.

Contact members of the Montana House and urge them to vote YES on SB 136. (List of legislative members). Bill SB 136 known as the doctor patient restoration act will restore the trust relationship between doctors and patients.

Article: Montana bill to stop assisted suicide passes in the Senate (Link)

Ehrlick reported what Senator Carl Glimm, the sponsor of SB 136 stated:
Senator Carl Glimm
“It will just keep growing and growing,” Glimm said, citing cases where a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder “was talked into suicide.”

Glimm said he worried that others with physical or intellectual disabilities would be targeted, a concerned shared by other members of his caucus.
Ehrlick reported the following comments by Senator Daniel Emrich:
“That this is a peaceful way to go out is a fallacy. The drug cocktails they give them contain paralytics and these, without other drugs, will make them suffocate and die,” said Sen. Daniel Emrich, R-Great Falls. “The reason they give them paralytics is to cover up these people would be flailing in place.”

He said the message the Legislature is sending is even more dangerous:

“We’re telling them they’re not worthy to be on this earth. That they should just go away because they’re inconvenient. That they have some disability or ailment or we just don’t want them any more because they’re wasting away.”
The comments by Senator Bob Phalen were also interesting. Ehrlick reported:
Sen. Bob Phalen, R-Lindsay, questioned how the Montana Legislature could halt lethal injections for death row inmates out of a fear that the drugs would cause suffering or prolong death, but support physician assisted death.

“It is inhumane then, but now it’s OK?” Phalen asked.

SB 136 prevents assisted suicide by clarifying that consent is not a defense for homicide or assisted suicide. SB 136 states:

(3) (a) For the purposes of subsection (2)(d), physician aid in dying is against public policy, and a patient's consent to physician aid in dying is not a defense to a charge of homicide against the aiding physician.  
(b) (i) For the purposes of this subsection (3), "physician aid in dying" means an act by a physician of prescribing a lethal dose of medication to a patient that the patient may self-administer to end the patient's life.  
(ii) The term does not include an act of withholding or withdrawing a life-sustaining treatment or procedure authorized pursuant to Title 50, chapter 9 or 10."

Contact Montana State Senators and urge them to vote YES on SB 136 at the third and final reading. (List of legislative members).

One notorious doctor admits to having a need for sex after euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition


Dr Philip Nitschke, also known as Australia's Dr Death, has built a business that promotes euthanasia and assisted suicide and sells items related to killing.

Nitschke recently carried out the first Sarco pod assisted suicide death in Switzerland that even the Swiss government had problems with.

Margaret Simons reported in August 2013 in the Sydney Morning Herald that in his autobiography, Damned If I Do, Nitschke wrote that:
"After performing my role in those deaths, I had an urgent and pressing need for sex," he wrote. He was having an affair with a journalist and the sex, he says, was "frantic and sometimes desperate".
Simons, who interviewed Nitschke about his autobiography was further reported that:
Nitschke says the partners of the dead sometimes have the same feelings. Why be so frank when it will doubtless be used against him? "I haven't seen anyone else even mention it, and I thought it was worth mentioning."
Simons then reports Nitschke as stating:
Leaving the houses in which he had presided over a death, he says he felt sadness and a heavy sense of responsibility. Then he would look into the sunlight. "There was this immense feeling of being alive. And then taking a deep breath ... and almost immediately, this sexual urge. It was a way I could demonstrate to myself that I was alive. It wasn't me that was dead."
Nitschke promises to bring his Sarco suicide pod to Britain and Scotland if they legalize assisted suicide.

Dr Ellen Wiebe may be the most notorious Canadian euthanasia doctor (Link to articles on Dr Wiebe) but she is not the only notorious euthanasia doctor.

Sign and share the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) petition demanding a review of Dr Ellen Wiebe's euthanasia practise. Link to the EPC Petition (Petition Link).

Links to articles concerning Philip Nitschke (Articles Link).

Friday, February 7, 2025

Montana bill to prohibit assisted suicide passes in the Senate.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Senator Carl Glimm
Great News. 

The Montana Senate voted 29 to 20, to pass Senate Bill 136. on February 7. SB 136 is sponsored by Montana State Senator, Carl Glimm to prevent assisted suicide.

Contact Montana State Senators and urge them to vote YES on SB 136 at the third and final reading. (List of legislative members).

Montanans have a confusing legal situation concerning assisted suicide. 

In 2009, the Baxter court decision declared that Montanans have a right to assisted suicide. The Baxter decision was appealed to the Montana Supreme Court where it was decided that there is not a right to assisted suicide in Montana but the Court found a "defense of consent" meaning a Montana physician who assists a suicide must prove that there was consent. Senate Bill 136 legislatively declares that there is no defense of consent.

Article: Physician-Assisted Suicide is not legal in Montana.

Since the Baxter decision, the assisted suicide lobby claims that assisted suicide is legal in Montana while assisted suicide remains technically prohibited. Montanans are dying by assisted suicide.

SB 136 will prevent assisted suicide by clarifying that consent is not a defense for homicide or assisted suicide. Among other things SB 136 states:

(3) (a) For the purposes of subsection (2)(d), physician aid in dying is against public policy, and a patient's consent to physician aid in dying is not a defense to a charge of homicide against the aiding physician.  
    (b) (i) For the purposes of this subsection (3), "physician aid in dying" means an act by a physician of prescribing a lethal dose of medication to a patient that the patient may self-administer to end the patient's life.  
    (ii) The term does not include an act of withholding or withdrawing a life-sustaining treatment or procedure authorized pursuant to Title 50, chapter 9 or 10."

Contact Montana State Senators and urge them to vote YES on SB 136 at the third and final reading. (List of legislative members).

Thursday, February 6, 2025

Medical assistance in dying and advance directives

Ruth Enns (disability rights leader and author)

Advance directives (AD) seduce us into believing that we can order up a beautifully scripted death like a latte-to-go.

However, in the July/August 2012 edition of Gray Matters, Jerome Groopman MD and Pamela Hartzband MD cited Muriel Gillick, MD, a geriatrician at Harvard Medical School and a researcher in end-of-life care, saying that “‘… the consensus … is that the directives have been a resounding failure.’” Nevertheless we are now to believe that we should be able to circumvent current euthanasia/ MAID restrictions by signing an AD even after a dementia diagnosis.

Groopman and Hartzband said the signatories “… cannot accurately imagine what they will want and how much they can endure in a condition they have not experienced.”

Caregivers tend to believe they know what care recipients experience, not understanding that their experience is of caregiving, not of receiving care. They can’t understand the recipient’s perspective any more than men who used to think they spoke for the women in their lives.

Secondly, many people change their minds after signing such a document. Would the authority figures interpreting the directive allow a change of mind or assume it is a product of the disease or disability, not to be taken seriously?

According to Richard Weikart, author of Unnatural Death: Medicine’s Descent from Healing to Killing, the first case of a physician being prosecuted in the Netherlands after euthanasia was legalized in 2001 involved a woman with an AD requesting euthanasia in the event of dementia.

But when her fears materialized, she changed her mind, rejecting the fatal injection three times. The doctor drugged her coffee. Still she struggled. Family members then restrained her to facilitate the euthanasia. Four years later, the doctor was acquitted.

In Canada, despite 428 breaches of current euthanasia/ MAID law in Ontario alone, no one has been prosecuted.

A third reason ADs don’t work is that the prevailing narrative views “disabled” people as lives not worth living.

In an American survey reported in Health Affairs in February 2021, more than 80 per cent of U.S. physicians perceived significantly disabled people’s lives as diminished, “… an attitude that may contribute to health-care disparities among people with disability.”

However, Lisa I. Iezzoni, a health-care policy researcher at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Studies of people with disability show that most don’t view their lives as tragic … and view their lives as good quality.”

But wouldn’t authority figures interpret an AD in the light of the ableist narrative reflected in the survey?

Current legislation targets people with disabilities. If the euthanasia/MAID practitioner sees disabled people as having low “quality of life,” wouldn’t that person be inclined, consciously or unconsciously, to interpret an AD differently than the signatory intended?

Since the majority of non-disabled Canadians perceive the ableist narrative as truth, anything else will be and is ignored.

Would any other marginalized group face the same legal discrimination?

A fourth strike against ADs is our current stressed health-care system. What about the interpreter’s level of fatigue, social and other pressures? Fatigue and stress make most of us less tolerant than stress-free environments.

A fifth strike, as Groopman and Hartzband said, is that ADs “cannot encompass every possible clinical scenario.”

A sixth strike is that interpreters, usually medical practitioners, may well be strangers relying on maybe a cursory examination and other people’s notes in the signatory’s medical chart. Wouldn’t a lack of familiarity with the person tilt interpretation toward prevailing biases?

A seventh strike asks: is the euthanasia/MAID provider qualified or willing to assess the reasons prompting the request?

For example, is Dr. Ellen Wiebe in B.C., an enthusiastic and vocal member of the euthanasia/ MAID advocacy organization, Dying With Dignity, qualified to assess the person’s mental health?

Does she bother addressing social and economic pressures?

She has said she determines the person’s eligibility on her assessment of their “quality of life” rather than medical assessments. “Quality of life” is a vague catch-all phrase encompassing anything from economics to end-of-life distress.

As of March 2023 she had “helped” 431 people into the nearest hearse and faces no legal consequences, although she is getting pushback from her own clinic and others.

But what then? How are these directives to be used? As a yes-no shortcut for medical end-oflife decision-making? As legal protection for the interpreters?

Instead of ensuring choice, doesn’t signing ADs actually abdicate choice? Who is really empowered by such directives? The signatory or the interpreter? Are they not simply a manifestation of ableism?

If ADs don’t deliver on their promises for anyone, how can they deliver those promises for those diagnosed with dementia? Doesn’t that make vulnerable people even more vulnerable?

Groopman and Hartzband said, “… there are no shortcuts around emotionally charged and time-consuming conversations that involve patients, families and physicians.”

But who has time, resources and patience for such conversations these days?

Ruth Enns writes from Winnipeg.

UK Assisted dying bill ‘is being rushed’

This article was published in The Times on February 4, 2025.

We are alarmed at the haste of the committee considering the bill for assisted dying. Three days of oral evidence seems insufficient to consider such a huge question as doctor-assisted suicide. We hope there will be much more consideration of the written evidence in the weeks to come.

A law on doctor-assisted suicide will undermine the daily efforts of psychiatrists across the United Kingdom to prevent suicide. Those who have suicidal thoughts at any time in life may be vulnerable to pressures to take their own life by the introduction of doctor-assisted suicide. Vulnerability can arise owing to external factors such as lack of decent palliative or social care; overt coercion or undue influence; and personal losses including bereavement, poor housing or financial hardship. Internal factors may include major depressive disorder, a sense of burdensomeness, loneliness and social isolation. Understanding and responding to these vulnerabilities is at the centre of suicide prevention.

The initial reluctance of the committee to see the need to call the Royal College of Psychiatrists to give evidence is in itself shocking and betrays a lacking understanding of the job that we do in understanding suicide and its prevention. This bill should be overwhelmingly rejected.

Prof Jonathan Cavanagh, consultant neuropsychiatrist, Glasgow; Prof Julian Hughes, professor of old age psychiatry, Bristol; Prof Alan Thomas, professor of old age psychiatry, Newcastle; Dr Mark Agius, retired associate specialist in psychiatry, Bedfordshire; Dr Agnes Ayton, consultant psychiatrist in eating disorders, Oxford; Dr Jenny Bryden, consultant psychiatrist in rehabilitation, Scottish Borders; Dr Elizabeth Corcoran, psychiatrist, East Sussex; Dr Larry Culliford, retired psychiatrist, South East Region; Dr Sebastian Desando, specialty registrar in forensic psychiatry, West Midlands; Dr Stefan Gleeson, consultant psychiatrist, Winchester; Dr Fiona Harrison, tribunal psychiatrist, South West; Dr Mirette Habib, consultant psychiatrist, London; Dr Mark S Komrad, faculty of psychiatry, Maryland, USA; Dr Vicki Ibbett, trainee psychiatrist, West Midlands; Dr Jessica Kirker, retired psychiatrist & psychoanalyst, London; Dr Mark Parry, consultant psychiatrist, Reading; Dr Sunil Raheja, consultant psychiatrist, London; Dr Hannah Reynolds, higher trainee, West Midlands; Dr Josie Rimmer, consultant psychiatrist, Bristol; Dr Jonathan Rogers, clinical lecturer in general adult psychiatry, London; Dr Musa Sami, consultant psychiatrist, Nottingham; Dr Carlo Thomas, consultant forensic psychiatrist, Nottinghamshire; Dr Andrea Tocca, consultant psychiatrist, Uxbridge; Dr Adrian Treloar, consultant in old age psychiatry, Bromley.

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Gordon Friesen on the euphemistic language of killing.

The following article is a response to the article by David Albert Jones: The Euphemistic Language of killing (Link).

Gordon Friesen
By Gordon Friesen
President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I agree 100% with calling a spade a spade. And yes, in public debate we are already at the point where using the word suicide is condemned to the point where speakers before government reviews, or the writers of serious articles will be entirely discounted for using it. Murder, is just impossible to use. However, we know the truth. And by speaking to the people, we may, I believe, eventually turn the tide on this. In the end, politicians and academics are paid by the people. They are not paid to insult and belittle our convictions.

We have their food bags in our hands.

That said, in academic debate, I think we should push this distinction of Lester's "medical killing", (Link read comments) because it is separate from a libertarian "right to die". Hard core right to die activists believe that anybody should be allowed to choose to die, for any reason, at any time.

I don't agree with that, of course, but (as we are learning in Canada) medical killing is even more pernicious, because the pretense in that case is that people suffering from medical conditions have a special, reasonable, motivation to die. It therefore becomes normal to suggest that such people die. To believe that they SHOULD die. And as we see in Canada, a medical system tooling up to do just that as efficiently as possible.

In fact, the basic right to die folks believe that mental competence is absolutely necessary to the proper exercise of such a right, but the medical killing folks are setting their sights on the incapable as well.

So let us agree among ourselves that this is homicide, and let us combat it in the most articulate way we can, in language that ordinary people understand, and also, at the government and academic level, using whatever terms we must (in order to get through the door).

The main thing is to continue our work of opposition. Bring ordinary people on board. Democratically move the goal posts on what our would-be rulers can get away with in suppressing ordinary language, ordinary feeling, and common sense.

Thank you for reminding us of that.

Friday, January 31, 2025

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is concerned about euthanasia in Canada.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

During a January 30, 2025 interview with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, on the John Bachman Now show, Bachman asked Premier Smith about her concerns with the increase in MAiD in Canada to almost 1 out of 20 deaths. Bachman suggested that to a lot of people the increase in assisted deaths in frightening. Premier Smith's comments on MAiD begin at the 6 minute point:

And it should be frightening.

One of the things that the federal government is allowing is the potential for people to seek MAiD because of mental illness. We've heard of people seeking MAiD because their poor and can't get on government supports. It's outragious.

The intention behind it was always that if death was reasonably foreseeable and imminent from a condition that you weren't going to recover from, like late stage cancer or something along those lines, that a person would have the choice. But it has broadened out to the point where its completely unreasonable.

We've resisted moving down that path. We are creating a separate oversight body to make sure that doctors have the oversight if they do make that determination, so that families can intervene in the event that somebody is just seeking it because they are having a bad patch in life. We don't want somebody feeling so desperate that they think that's the only answer.

We want people to recover, if they can and to get their lives back. So we are taking a little different approach on that.

On February 1, 2023, Alberta premier Danielle Smith objected to the expansion of euthanasia to include mental illness (link)

Alberta Health Services data states that there were 1116 reported assisted deaths in 2024, which was up by almost 15% from 977 in 2023, 836 in 2022 and 594 in 2021. 

Alberta has had the case of the 27-year-old autistic woman, who was approved and scheduled to die by euthanasia on February 1, 2024 until her father challenged the euthanasia approval in court. There was also a case of a Calgary man who couldn't get experimental treatment for cluster headaches but could get approved for euthanasia.

The Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario released a report from the Ontario MAiD Death review Committee outlining six representative stories of non-compliant euthanasia deaths in Ontario. The report indicated that there were at least 428 non-compliant Ontario euthanasia deaths from 2018 to 2023 with 25% of all euthanasia providing doctors, in Ontario, having at least one non-compliant death. We suspect that similar concerns exist with euthanasia in Alberta.

Alberta does not have a MAiD Death Review Committee therefore data about non-compliant euthanasia deaths in Alberta is unknown.

The euphemistic language for killing.

This article was published by the British Medical Journal blog on January 31, 2025.

David Albert Jones
By David Albert Jones
Director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
My article in the Journal of Medical Ethics is about the words ‘assisted dying’. I argue that the term is problematic not principally because it is euphemistic, which is true of many terms for controversial practices. The a key problem is that ‘assisted dying’ is ambiguous and hence the words are used inconsistently.

‘Assisted dying’ is best understood as an umbrella term for a doctor ending the life of a patient at the patient’s request (voluntary euthanasia) or a patient ending their own life with means provided by a doctor (physician-assisted suicide), for patients who may or may not be terminally ill.

In contrast, the term is also used, especially in the United Kingdom, with certain further stipulations, for example, only for physician-assisted suicide of adults with a terminal illness.

A good example of the confusion that follows is a BBC website article where it is stated that ‘assisted dying generally refers to a person who is terminally ill receiving lethal drugs from a medical practitioner, which they administer themselves.’

But later, in the same article, it is stated that more than 200 million people around the world have legal access to assisted dying. A link is provided to a map created by the British Medical Association, showing, ‘Physician-assisted dying legislation around the world (which is generally accurate except it mistakes France for Spain).

In most of the countries in this map, however, ‘physician-assisted dying’ is not limited to assisted suicide of someone with a terminally illness. Some countries also include euthanasia for those with terminal illness (as in Australia and New Zealand) or assisted suicide for those without terminal illness (as in Switzerland and Austria) or both assisted suicide and euthanasia for people without terminal illness (as in Canada, Belgium and the Netherlands).

In fact, only one country in the world, the United States, confines ‘assisted dying’ to assisted suicide for someone with a terminal illness, and this only in the 10 states (plus DC) where it is legal.

Contrast ‘medical aid in dying’ which was legalised in California in 2015, with ‘medical assistance in dying’ which was legalised in Canada in 2016. The first denotes assisted suicide by a patient who is expected to die within six months. The second, overwhelmingly, denotes euthanasia of someone whose death is ‘reasonably foreseeable’, without any specific timeframe. In 2021 the Canadian law was expanded to cover people whose death is not ‘reasonably foreseeable’, but already the law was very loose. The rate of assisted death in Canada is around ten times that in California. However, the great differences of practice in these two countries are obscured by the use of similar terminology.

In Australia, the law has expanded as successive states have legalised ‘voluntary assisted dying’. In 2017, Victoria permitted euthanasia only if someone was not physically capable of assisted suicide, and restricted eligibility to expectation of death within 6 months, except for people with neurodegenerative diseases. In 2021, Queensland allowed doctors to offer euthanasia at their discretion and set the time limit at 12 months. In 2024, the Australia Capital Territory gave patients a free choice of euthanasia or assisted suicide and gave no timeframe for expectation of death. The law in Australia has changed rapidly, coming to resemble that of Canada, but has kept the same language of ‘voluntary assisted dying’.

It may be that the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, currently in Committee Stage in the UK House of Commons is, at this stage, closer to Oregon than to Canada. However, the example of Oregon is not so reassuring as sometimes thought and the example of Australia shows how the language of ‘assisted dying’ can easily expand further to apply to a wider range of cases. Claiming that ‘assisted dying’ is only, or primarily, or generally, restricted to assisted suicide for terminal illness does not reflect the ordinary use of the term. What is more, such linguistic stipulations will not prevent the practice expanding over time under cover of this ambiguous term.

In my paper I show that, while the term ‘assisted dying’ is increasingly prevalent, ‘assisted suicide’ remains the more common term in the scholarly literature. It has the great virtue of clearly distinguishing this practice from euthanasia, with its higher rates of death and more serious abuses. The example of Australia shows how, once permitted, a shift can occur in ‘assisted dying’ from euthanasia being allowed only in exceptional circumstances to it becoming the norm. It is surely better to acknowledge that the practice being proposed is ‘assisted suicide’ than to obscure this with ambiguous language and, by doing so, perhaps open the door to euthanasia.

Who donates to the euthanasia lobby?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Bell, Google, Microsoft, Rogers and Telus all supporting Dying with Dignity, Canada's leading pro-euthanasia lobby group? Thank you to Patricia Maloney for providing the links.

Dying with Dignity states the following

"As a charitable organization, Dying With Dignity Canada would not exist nor have the impact it does were it not for the generous contributions of all our donors and supporters. We would like to acknowledge a group of supporters to whom we owe an enormous debt of gratitude."

Just some of the corporate donors. There are 65 pages of donors, most are individuals.

Bell, Google, Google Ad, Great Toronto Airport Authority, Alberta Gerontological Nurses Association, Healthcare Excellence Canada, Hospice Greater Saint John , MAiD Family Support Society, Microsoft, Rogers, Telus, United Way East Ontario, Vancouver Island Mental Health.

I am wondering about the many donations from estates. Dying with Dignity, through their network, facilitates euthanasia deaths. Some of the donations from estates may be directly related to providing a euthanasia death.

Several years ago the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition ran a successful campaign to have Dying with Dignity Canada's charitable number revoked based on "serious non-compliance issues." But under the current federal government they were able to once again obtain a charitable number.

The growth of Dying with Dignity Canada is closely related to a donation of $7 million from the late Vancouver entrepreneur David Jackson in 2018.

Sponsor Alex's March 2 run for EPC!

Alex Schadenberg will be running the Chilly Half Marathon on March 2 in Burlington.

Alex is running to raise money for the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Donations can be made online (Donation Link) or (Paypal Donation Link) or send E-transfer donations to info@epcc.ca or contact the EPC office at: 1-877-439-3348.

Research project: Experiences of medical professionals who have refused MAiD requests

Alexandra Beaudin
, a student member at the RQSPAL and a PhD candidate in population health at the University of Ottawa, is currently looking for participants for her research project!

If you are a physician or nurse practitioner who has previously refused requests for medical assistance in dying, your experience may be valuable to this study.

For any questions or participation, contact Alexandra Beaudin at: abeau194@uottawa.ca.


Duration: Approx. 60 minutes
Location: Video conference (Teams) or In-person (depending on location)
Languages: French or English
All your responses will remain strictly confidential.

 

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Euthanasia (MAiD) by advance request is euthanasia without consent.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The "National conversation" on advance requests for medical assistance in dying will be open until February 14, 2025. The online consultation link is found on the Consultation website below the words - Join in: How to participate  (Consultation Link).


The first principle for the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is that we oppose killing people. So why is euthanasia by advance request more egregious?

Euthanasia was originally legalized in Canada under the guise of being for mentally competent adults, who are capable of consenting and who freely "choose." Euthanasia by advanced request undermines these principles.

Euthanasia by advance request means that a person, while competent, legally declares their "wish" to be killed, and if the person becomes incompetent, the person would then be killed, even though the person is not capable of consenting. Therefore euthanasia by advance request is euthanasia without consent.

Further to that, once a person becomes incompetent, they are not legally able to change their mind, meaning that some other person will have the right to decide when the person dies, even if that person is living a happy life.

If euthanasia by advance request is approved, the law will discriminate against incompetent people who did not make an advance request. The law will be challenged and it will be argued that the person didn't make the advance request based on timing (the option didn't exist yet) or lack of knowledge that it was possible to make an advance request.

Once killing incompetent people is viewed as "compassionate" it will be considered cruel not to kill an incompetent person who is deemed to be suffering, because the person didn't make an advance request.

Every Canadian province has advanced directive laws. Therefore the federal government is debating an issue that is outside of their jurisdiction.

The "National conversation" on advance requests for medical assistance in dying will be open until February 14, 2025. The online consultation link is found on the Consultation website below the words - Join in: How to participate  (Consultation Link).

Vermont House Bill 75 to expand assisted suicide law again.

House Bill 75, if passed, would be the third expansion of Vermont's assisted suicide law.
Alex Schadenberg
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Vermont House Bill 75 (H 75) will expand the state assisted suicide law by allowing (non physicians) 
naturopathic physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants to participate in assisted suicide.

Are naturopathic physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants demanding the right to be involved with killing people?
Or is it that there are too few physicians who are willing to kill?

H 75 has been referred to the Committee on Health Care.

If passed, H 75 would be the third expansion of Vermont's assisted suicide law. 

Assisted suicide laws, once legal, inevitably expand (Article Link).

When writing about Vermont's continuous expansion of their assisted suicide law I ask the question, will there ever be enough killing?

On January 5, 2024 I reported that data from the Vermont Department of Health indicated that the number of assisted suicide deaths more than quadrupled in 2022/2023 from the previous two years.

The increase in Vermont assisted suicide deaths is partly due to the expansions of the Vermont assisted suicide law.

In 2022 Vermont passed assisted suicide bill S74 which expanded their assisted suicide law by allowing assisted suicide by telemedicine, (permitting lethal assisted suicide poison prescriptions to be written without meeting the person), eliminating the 48 hour waiting period before prescribing and defining assisted suicide as a "healthcare service."

On March 14, 2023 Vermont's Attorney General's Office  reached an agreement with the assisted suicide lobby to remove the residency requirement for assisted suicide in Vermont. That means residents form other states can die by assisted suicide in Vermont. A media report  indicated that a Connecticut woman died by assisted suicide in Vermont. 

Now Vermont wants to permit expand the law by permitting other medical professionals to also be legally capable of killing their patients.

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Urge Delaware Legislators to Vote NO to Assisted Suicide Bill HB 140

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Please contact every member of the Delaware State House and urge them to vote NO to assisted suicide Bill HB 140.

(Link to the list of Delaware State House members).


On September 20, 2024, Delaware Governor John Carney vetoed assisted suicide Bill HB 140 after HB 140 passed in the Delaware Senate by one vote.

Governor Carney served his term as Governor. The new Delaware Governor is Matt Meyer who has stated that he supports assisted suicide.

We require members of the House and the Senate to vote NO to defeat Delaware Assisted Suicide Bill HB 140 in 2025.

Please contact every member of the Delaware State House and urge them to vote NO to assisted suicide Bill HB 140. (Link to the list of Delaware State House members). (Link to the list of Delaware State Senators).

Some good arguements opposing HB 140 include:

People with eating disorders are dying by assisted suicide. 

An article by Jennifer Brown that was published in the Colorado Sun on March 14, 2022 reported that Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani, an internal medicine doctor who specializes in eating disorders published a paper on how she was prescribing assisted suicide for people with anorexia nervosa in Colorado. Gaudiani approves assisted suicide for Anorexia Nervosa by falsely defining the condition as terminal.

Nearly every state that has legalized assisted suicide, has expanded their law. 

HB 140 claims to be a "tightly worded" bill. The assisted suicide lobby uses a "bait and switch" technique where they sell assisted suicide with a "tightly worded bill" and if the bill passes they pressure states to expand their laws with expanded legislation or by forcing them with a court case. (Article Link).

Assisted suicide creates two tier medicine

Some suicidal people are offered suicide prevention while others are provided assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is inherently discriminatory.

We believe in caring for people not killing them.

Assisted suicide is an act of providing a poison cocktail to someone who is living wiht suicidal ideation, often related to their health concerns. Assisted suicide constitutes killing. We believe in caring for people at their time of need.

Assisted suicide is not about autonomy but rather it medically abandons a person to death.

A Call to Defeat Delaware House Bill 140 (an act to amend title 16 of the Delaware Code relating to end of life options)

By Gordon Friesen
President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

It is a widely shared principle that, as long as our actions cause no harm to others, we might all be allowed to do as we please.

And so it is that many principled people feel a visceral duty to support the right of others to choose the manner of their own passing. However, in presenting assisted death (AD) as "medical aid in dying", HB 140[1] does not merely create a liberty of permission for this purpose. Far from it!

Medical care is universally seen as a positive benefit and a human right. To define assisted death in this way is to automatically create entitlements, obligations and mandates which are entirely foreign to any fundamental notion of free choice.[2]


What is so confidently stated in the preamble to HB 140, for example, is perfectly false:

"(line 18) participation in the practice of medical aid in dying by willing medical providers (...) respects and honors each patient’s values and priorities for their own death...".
In reality, there is no equivalence. In promoting the positive good of AD as medical treatment, participating doctors simply ignore the "values and priorities" of that vastly larger group of patients who will never willingly consent to assisted death, regardless of medical circumstances.[3]

One particularly heated controversy, regarding the medical interpretation of AD, concerns the permission (and even the duty) of doctors to pro-actively raise this question with eligible patients. For to be clear: the normal rules of medical practice require physicians to themselves propose optimal care (with the full weight of professional authority) subject only to patient consent. If AD is indeed considered in this way: any patient medically eligible for AD may expect to become the target of such contextually powerful suggestions of suicide, at any time, depending solely upon the personal bias of particular professionals.


Nor does HB 140 leave us in any doubt about the reality of this threat:

"§ 2513C. (a) A person acting in good faith and in accordance with generally accepted health-care standards is not subject to civil or criminal liability or to discipline for unprofessional conduct for ... (3) Providing scientific and accurate information about medication to end life in a humane and dignified manner. "
On reflection, it is absurd to expect that participating physicians might be appropriate carers for the non-suicidal majority. For we are in the presence of two mutually exclusive clinical visions, as shown by the Hippocratic revolution 2500 years ago: Assisted death cannot be "added" to traditional medicine, any more than meat can be "added" to a vegetarian diet!

On this subject, HB 140 (again we believe falsely) states: (Preamble line 6) 

"in other jurisdictions, the integration of medical aid in dying into the standard for end of life care has improved quality of services by providing an additional palliative care option to terminally ill individuals".
But we do not have far to go in seeking contrary evidence. If we look to our Northern neighbor where the term "MAID" first appeared in legislation (Province of Quebec, Canada, 2014),[4] we see exactly how such a medically justified regime of assisted death is destined to unfold. Indeed, Canadian hospitals, and care teams have normalized AD, to such an extent, that eligible patients are now obliged to navigate a clinical environment which has become objectively indifferent (if not hostile) to their continued survival.[5]

Very obviously, no coherent system of individual liberty might ever have produced such a result.

Most certainly, also, a principled defense of death-by-choice does not require liberty-minded citizens to espouse this extreme theory of death-as-medical-care. Both Switzerland[6] and Germany[7], recognize a general right to suicide (including assisted suicide) but also refuse to accord such actions any objective validation (medical or otherwise), precisely to avoid the effects of entitlements, mandates and obligations as described above.[8]

In conclusion, therefore: Although I am personally opposed to any assisted death whatsoever, I also recognize that a sincere philosophy of "live-and-let-live" might indeed inspire principled support for death-by-choice. But not with just any Bill. And certainly not with this one! The naturally non-suicidal majority of eligible patients must not be confronted, in their moment of greatest need, with the promotion of assisted death as medical treatment. Normal medicine must be kept clear --by default-- of any AD related practice.

With the greatest respect, I request the defeat of this legislation.

Gordon Friesen, President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, January 27, 2025



[1]  Delaware House Bill 140, as of January 2025 (An Act to Amend Title 16 of the Delaware Code Relating to End of Life Options) https://www.legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=141725&legislationTypeId=1&docTypeId=2&legislationName=HB140

[2]  Constitution of the World Health Organization (1946) as amended (2005)    accessed April 17, 2024 https://apps.who.int/gb/bd/PDF/bd47/EN/constitution-en.pdf?ua=1    accessed April 17, 2024

[3]   Friesen, Gordon, The Medical Slope of Assisted Death: From "Who May" to "Who Should", Psychiatric Times, January 3, 2025 https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/the-medical-slope-of-assisted-death-from-who-may-to-who-should

[4]   "Act Respecting End-of-Life Care" Province of Quebec, Canada, 2014, as revised 2024   https://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/document/cs/s-32.0001   accessed April 17, 2024

[5]   Friesen, G.R., Lessons from the Canadian Euthanasia Experiment, EuthanasiaDiscussion.com    https://euthanasiadiscussion.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/lessons_from_the_canadian_euthanasia_experiment_april_4_2023_gordon_friesen.pdf    accessed April 17, 2024

[6]  Swiss criminal code art. 115 https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/54/757_781_799/en#art_115  accessed Nov 4, 2023

[7]  German High Court decision, Criminalisation of assisted suicide services unconstitutional  February 26, 2020 https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2020/bvg20-012.html  accessed Oct 28, 2023

[8]  Friesen, G.R., Fundamental Considerations in the Creation of a Minimally Intrusive Liberty of Assisted Death, EuthanasiaDiscussion.com (produced for the Irish Joint Committee on Assisted Dying), November 12, 2023, https://euthanasiadiscussion.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/minimally_intrusive_liberty_of_assisted_death_gordon_friesen_nov_12_2023.pdf      accessed April 17, 2024