Canadian woman pressured to "choose" euthanasia. She was told that she was selfish for living.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Heather Hancock

A few weeks ago I published a personal story by Heather Hancock, a woman who lives with spastic cerebral palsy, who stated that she was having medical difficulties she was pressured to "choose" euthanasia.

James Reinl, the Social Affairs Correspondent for the Daily Mail recently interviewed Hancock. The Daily Mail published the article on July 12. Reinl writes:

It was an odious encounter with a nurse in a remote Alberta hospital that persuaded Heather Hancock how Canada's euthanasia system was coming badly off the rails.

Hancock suffered from cerebral palsy since infancy and was used to bullying from her school days, but the treatment she got at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital was something else.

A nurse was helping her into the bathroom at night, during a lengthy bout of care for muscular spasms in 2019, when the carer crossed a line into the unthinkable.

'You should do the right thing and consider MAiD,' said the nurse, referring to the country's Medical Assistance in Dying program.

'You're being selfish. You're not living, you're merely existing.'

Hancock, now 56, says she was 'gobsmacked' but stood her ground, telling the nurse that her life had value, even if she spent four fifths of it in a wheelchair.

'You have no right to push me to accept MAiD,' she recalls saying to her sneering carer.

She later complained about the nurse, who was taken off her care team, but did not make an official complaint.

Health Alberta said the nurse's comments were 'entirely unacceptable.'

Reinl states that it was the most egregious, but not the only time her supposed carers advised her to end her discomfort with a lethal injection. Hancock told Reinl that she has been pressured on three different occasions to "choose" MAiD (euthanasia).

Since legalization in 2016, Canada's euthanasia law has expanded quickly. Reinl explains:

Last year, doctors helped 15,280 suffering people end their lives prematurely, according to estimates obtained by DailyMail.com — a 15 percent jump on 2022.

Some 60,000 people have died from MAiD since the program was launched, and it accounts for 4.6 percent of all fatalities.

Doctor-assisted suicides helps recipients escape the misery of cancer, heart disease and other terminal illnesses, but for Hancock and others with disabilities, its availability has changed the way they are seen by carers.

Hancock told Reinl that medical professionals 'just view me as a drain on the medical system and that my healthcare dollars could be spent on an able-bodied person,'

Tracy Polewczuk with her husband

As bad as Hancock's experience has been that she is not the only one. Reinl continues:

Another Canadian, Tracy Polewczuk, came forward this month about suffering similar problems in Quebec.

Polewczuk has spina bifida, a birth defect that can cause weak bones, and bemoans the worsening daily home care visits she gets in Pointe-Claire, Montreal.

'Pain sucks. We all agree. It's terrible. I'm in pain 24/7. It never stops. I can survive that,' she told CTV News.

'I cannot survive being treated like a sack of meat.'

On two separate occasions and without prompting, Polewczuk says she was told she was eligible for MAiD by members of her care team.

'It feels like we are being pushed towards the MAiD program instead of being given the help to live,' Polewczuk said.

'I want to survive. I want to thrive. I want my life back. I want the opposite of what they're trying to have us do.'

Reinl then provides a little bit of history around Canada's euthanasia law and emphasizes that euthanasia is not limited to terminally ill people in Canada and euthanasia for mental illness alone is now scheduled to become an option in March 2027.

Heather Hancock points out that Canada's euthanasia practise is at least 10 times worse than the assisted suicide regimes in 10 American states but she shows concerns about where the law is headed. Hancock also pointed out her concern that Delaware recently passed an assisted suicide bill, but she pointed out that it could still be stopped since Delaware Governor John Carney has not yet signed the bill.

Reinl reports on Hancock's concerns:

Legislation in Delaware cleared both houses, leaving Gov John Carney with the ultimate decision about whether to sign it into law.

'Take a look at what's going on in this country,' Hancock said in a warning to Americans.

'It's a Pandora's Box. Once the lid is off, you cannot control it. All the restrictions disappear really quickly and your freedoms are undermined.'

Every jurisdiction that is debating euthanasia or assisted suicide need to recognize what has happened in Canada and then reject it. Hancock is correct. Legalizing medical killing is a pandora's box. It is sold as a autonomy and it becomes abandonment.