Dementia Advocacy Canada promotes euthanasia for people with dementia

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Euthanasia is abandonment.

Canada is debating expanding euthanasia to people who are not terminally ill, such as people with dementia. Recently a Québec court struck down the part of the criminal code that required that a person's "death be reasonably forseeable." The terminal illness restriction, in the law, prevented doctors and nurse practitioners from lethally injecting people who are not dying but experiencing psychological conditions, including dementia.

Dementia Advocacy Canada is also having an online Federal Forum on Dementia on Thursday September 19, 2019 (Link).

Dementia Advocacy Canada is promoting MAiD (euthanasia) for people with dementia. It is very disturbing that an organization claiming to be concerned with dementia advocacy is also promoting euthanasia. It is concerning that they link their position to a euthanasia lobby group. They stated:

Dementia Advocacy Canada affirms the rights of people living with dementia to benefit from all of Canada’s civic and legal rights including the right to choose medical assistance in dying (MAID).

Bill C-14, the current federal legislation permitting MAID, excludes most people living with dementia for three primary reasons:

1. The applicant must have, in the opinion of two accepting physicians, the cognitive capacity to understand and sign a request for MAID;

2. The applicant must be experiencing unendurable pain from a diagnosed disease or medical condition with death in the foreseeable future;

3. The applicant must be able to knowingly and willingly consent to an assisted death at the time of actual administration, which is a mandatory, minimum ten days after the initial application.
Dementia Advocacy Canada recognizes the efforts of those who endeavour to:

• Provide support to those who have chosen MAID and to their care partners.

• Educate & support those living with dementia who want to choose MAID before their window of giving informed and cogent consent is compromised.

• Legalize advance requests for those living with dementia who have clearly indicated their choice for MAID.

• Protect those with dementia from being pressured into a medically assisted death against their wishes.

• Protect those with dementia whose decision to choose MAID is not supported by family or support partners.

• Educate & support institutions responsible for training medical personnel, counselors and other community support workers about the complexities of MAID.

Source: Ron Posno, Dana Livingstone, Jule Briese
For more information please go to: www.dyingwithdignity.ca

Ron Posno, Dana Livingstone and Julie Briese are known euthanasia activists. Its hard to consider Dementia Advocacy Canada more than a front group for promoting euthanasia. It looks like DWD helped establish Dementia Advocacy Canada as a way to expand euthanasia in Canada.

The Council of Canadian Academies released a report in Demember 2018 concerning the expansion of euthanasia to psychological conditions alone. (Link to my article on the report).

I responded to the report by stating:

Considering the fact that Canada's euthanasia law is completely subjective as to whether a person's suffering is considered "intolerable" the extension of euthanasia to people with psychological conditions alone would be a disaster. It would be impossible to determine whether a person is suffering intolerably or experiencing suicidal ideation and seeking an "assisted death."

Once euthanasia is legalized, the only question remaining is who can be killed, and for what reason.