Canada had approximately 17,700 euthanasia deaths in 2025.

Canada has had more than 103,000 euthanasia deaths since legalization.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director,
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I predict that Canada had 17,700 reported euthanasia deaths in 2025 representing about 5.6% of all deaths and a 7.3% increase from 2024. 

I am researching the 2025 Canadian euthanasia data since Health Canada is slow to release data and Canadians have the right to know.

Health Canada's Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying was released on November 28, 2025 (2024 data). The 2024 data indicated that there were 16,499 reported (MAiD) Canadian euthanasia deaths representing 5.1% of all deaths which was up by 6.9% from 15,427 in 2023. 

I published an article on March 17, 2025 with preliminary predictions for 2025 and predicted that Canada would surpass 100,000 reported euthanasia deaths in April 2026.

Where do I get my data?  

The Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario 2025 (MAiD) euthanasia data indicates that there were 5303 reported euthanasia deaths in 2025 which was up by almost 7.3% from 4,944 reported euthanasia deaths in 2024. Ontario represents 38.9% of Canada's population. 

The British Columbia (BC) Health Authority released its 2025 euthanasia data indicating that there were 3189 reported euthanasia deaths in BC in 2025 which was up by 6.3% from 3000 in 2024. 

Based on the reported 43,223 total BC deaths in 2025, euthanasia represents almost 7.4% of all deaths. BC has 13.5% of Canada's population.

Alberta Health Services also released its 2025 (MAiD) euthanasia data indicating that there were 1,242 reported euthanasia deaths in Alberta in 2025 which was up by more than 11% from 1,117 in 2024. Alberta represents 12.7% of Canada's population.

Nova Scotia Health released its 2025 MAiD euthanasia data indicating that there were 462 reported euthanasia deaths in 2025 which was up by 5% from 440 in 2024. Nova Scotia represents 2.6% of Canada's population.

Based on the official euthanasia data from Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Nova Scotia, in those provinces, there were 10,196 reported euthanasia deaths in 2025 which was up from 9501 in 2024 representing a 7.3% increase. These provinces represent about 67.7% of Canada's population.

How many people have died by euthanasia in Canada? 

According to the Sixth Annual Report, from legalization until December 31, 2024 there were 76,475 reported euthanasia deaths in Canada. When adding approximately 17,700 reported euthanasia deaths in 2025 we can estimate that from legalization until December 31, 2025 there were approximately 94,175 reported euthanasia deaths.

Is the number of euthanasia deaths increasing, decreasing or stable in 2026?

The official Chief Coroner of Ontario data indicates that there were 1,283 reported euthanasia deaths in the first quarter of 2026 which is up by 2.5% from 1,252 in the first quarter of 2025. This is not conclusive information but it does suggest that the number of euthanasia deaths has continued to increase by approximately 2.5% in 2026.

Based on this data, I estimate that there have been approximately 1,500 reported Canadian euthanasia deaths every month in 2026 and as of June 30, 2026, that there have been approximately 103,175 Canadian reported euthanasia deaths since legalization. 

More articles on Canada's euthanasia deaths.

• Canada surpassed 100,000 euthanasia deaths since legalization (Read). 
• Canada: Euthanasia continued to rise in 2025 (Read).
• Canada will soon surpass 100,000 euthanasia deaths (Read). 
• Canada reports a record number of deaths in 2024 (Read). 
• Health Canada 2024 report states that 16,499 people died by euthanasia (Read)

Netherlands: Doctors are feeling pressured to approve euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Netherlands Times reported on March 26, 2026 that there were 10,341 reported euthanasia deaths in 2025 representing 6% of all deaths, an increase of 3.8% from 9,958 in 2024.

Last week, the Netherlands Minister of Public Health, Sophie Hermans, confirmed that at least one child has now died by euthanasia in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands Times published an article on July 3, 2026 concerning a study that has examined the cultural changes that are feeding the increase in euthanasia deaths. The article states:

Lead researcher and healthcare ethicist Els van Wijngaarden of Radboudumc observes that “the euthanasia law has not changed, but its application has.” Last year, cancer was the reason for euthanasia in only about half of all cases. In the late 1990s, this was still 90 percent. Other reasons, like dementia and mental disorders, increased.

Views on end-of-life suffering have changed significantly, the researchers note. Euthanasia is more frequently a topic of conversation, and religious views play an increasingly smaller role.

The report also studied changes in the Netherlands healthcare system.

The report also highlights the pressure on the healthcare system. According to the researchers, healthcare cutbacks, staff shortages in terminal and elderly care, and problems in mental healthcare can reinforce or encourage euthanasia requests. “For example, when patients notice that their quality of life is declining due to pressure on the healthcare system, this could influence their choice for euthanasia,” the researchers state.

Van Wijngaarden cannot say whether the pressure on the healthcare system directly leads to more euthanasia requests. According to her, more research is needed for that. However, she finds the shortcomings in the healthcare system alarming. "You do not want pressure on the healthcare system to go hand in hand with increasing acceptance of euthanasia." Researchers are therefore calling for further investigation into the role of that pressure.

The report also examined pressure on physicians to kill by euthanasia.

The report also notes that doctors are experiencing increasing pressure from patients and their loved ones because euthanasia is increasingly seen as a normal way of dying. Patients are increasingly reluctant to accept when a doctor rejects a request for euthanasia, which in turn can make doctors more reluctant to allow it. The Termination of Life Review Act, which allows people to apply for euthanasia, is based on the principles of “mercy, the protectability of life, and autonomy.”

According to the researchers, that balance is shifting, with autonomy becoming increasingly important to patients. People increasingly believe they are entitled to euthanasia, even though this is not the case. “Euthanasia continues to be considered a special medical act. Many doctors experience its execution as morally burdensome, emotionally stressful, and time-consuming,” Van Wijngaarden said.

The report found that doctors are feeling pressured to approve euthanasia.

The Netherlands Times reported that Mirjam Bikker (CU) who ahad requested that the government conduct the study, called it: 

"alarming" that "the shortage of care contributes to the rise in euthanasia." 

Researcher Van Wijngaarden thought that is "too simplistic."

The euthanasia report was presented to Minister of Public Health, Sophie Hermans (VVD) on Thursday July 2, 2026.

More articles on the Netherlands euthanasia law.

• Child euthanasia confirmed in the Netherlands (Read).
• Dutch psychiatrist warns Canada don't extend euthanasia to mental illness (Read).
• Psychiatric euthanasia and suicide prevention in the Netherlands (Read).
• Netherlands 2025 euthanasia report. Euthanasia deaths surpass 10,000 (Read).
• Autistic teenager euthanized in the Netherlands (Read).
• Euthanasia for young people and psychiatric reasons in the Netherlands (Read).

Maryland: A moral reckoning on assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Jonathon Alexandre

Several years ago I had the opportunity to do a speaking tour in the state of Maryland. Based on that experience I can really appreciate the article by Jonathan Alexandre that was published on June 20, 2026 in the Townhall on the assisted suicide debate in Maryland. Alexandre writes:

Assisted suicide in Maryland is stirring through this electoral season and will certainly be in the 2027 Maryland General Assembly. Regardless of how the issue is framed by proponents of physician-assisted suicide, the outcome is still death. They have given death a new wardrobe. They've dressed a lethal prescription in the language of compassion. But do not be deceived. Make no mistake: physician-assisted suicide is still suicide. The goal is still death. The poison is still poison. And the people who will be most exposed to it—the people who will feel its weight most brutally—are the same people who have always been asked to carry the heaviest burdens in this state: Black Marylanders and our brothers and sisters living with disabilities.

Alexandre comments on role of the Black legislative caucus who were the Firewall in defeating previous assisted suicide bills.

For years—the Black legislative caucus of Maryland stood as a firewall. At approximately 30 percent of the legislature, the African American delegation was more than a constituency. It was a conscience. They knew what their communities knew. They had heard the sermons. They understood, instinctively and historically, that when the government starts making death affordable and convenient, it is the poor and the brown and the disabled who get offered the off-ramp first. They voted no, no to Medical aid in dying (MAID) because they understood the stakes.

The members of the legislature representing the most Black-populated jurisdictions in this state consistently voted against the bill in 2019 with a simple, almost pastoral, reasoning: they feared medical centers, including nursing homes, would coerce vulnerable people into a decision they hadn't truly made for themselves. That is a lived reality for communities where medical trust has been seared in the furnace of Tuskegee and forced sterilizations.

Alexandre is concerned that the Firewall is crumbling.

Now, whispers inside the statehouse and on the campaign trail suggest the firewall is crumbling. Some who once stood firm are reconsidering. Some are being told this bill is different this time—that the safeguards are real, that the community's fears are overblown. Some, it appears, are being persuaded by lobbyists, by campaign coffers, and by the social currency of national progressive credentialing. But you are being sold a lie, and in accepting it, you are selling your people downriver.

Safeguards? Alexandre comments:

The proponents of physician-assisted suicide love their so-called "safeguards." But they are an imposter’s gesture of responsibility with no actual protection. The bill requires that a patient be evaluated for mental health impairment, but only if the attending physician thinks they might have impaired judgment. In any other context where a person expresses a desire to end their life, society mobilizes. Dial 988. Crisis counselors. Full intervention.

But under this bill, because the desire to die has been legally gambled away into "medical treatment," the system does not intervene. It complies. It prescribes. It sends them home—alone, often without witness, without medical supervision—with a lethal dose and a death certificate that lies and says "natural causes."

And what of coercion? The bill's answer to coercion is to ask the patient if they're being coerced. Think about that. Undue influence, by definition, operates by overcoming a person's free will without their immediate awareness. If they knew they were being coerced, it would not be coercion. “Safeguard,” therefore, is a legal fiction designed to check a compliance box while a vulnerable human being is ushered toward their death.

Alexandre comments on what Black Marylanders experience in the health care system.

Communities of color in Maryland face documented, persistent disparities in healthcare access. Black patients are more likely to receive inadequate pain management. They are more likely to be categorized as terminal without exhaustive exploration of alternatives. They face greater financial barriers to life-saving treatment. They navigate a healthcare system that has, in living memory, exploited their bodies for research, sterilized them without consent, and delivered inferior care as a matter of policy.

Now, into this same broken landscape, we are being asked to introduce legal suicide as a medical option. And when the penniless state and strained insurers are facing budget shortfalls, when the cost of keeping a terminally ill patient alive is weighed against the cost of a lethal prescription, do we honestly believe that the patient in the underserved community will receive the same calculus as the patient in an affluent area of the state? At this point, this is more than a slippery slope. This is digging the pit, and our most vulnerable neighbors are standing at the edge.

Alexandre also comments on the disability community.

The disability community has been sounding this alarm for decades. They have argued that assisted suicide laws endanger them. When society tells certain communities, directly or indirectly, that death is cheaper than treatment, then choice becomes expectation, and expectation becomes pressure. All this is packaged in a sinister opaque bill that in the past would almost guarantee a no vote from black legislators. Now we are not so certain we can count on them to do the right thing for our community.

Alexandre comments on the role of the Church.

I do not say this to shame anyone. I say this because the Black church—the institution that has been the backbone, the sanctuary, the war room of this community through slavery and Jim Crow and every assault that came after—has been nearly unanimous in its opposition. The Maryland Baptists have spoken. The faith leaders of Prince George's County have spoken. But when elected officials begin to drift away from the communities they represent and toward the interests of those who fund their campaigns, we have a word for that. It is called betrayal.

Alexandre challenges legislators who are wavering on opposing assisted suicide.

To any Black Maryland legislator who is wavering—who has been lobbied, who has been charmed, who has been offered some calculus of political benefit in exchange for this vote—I want to humbly appeal to you now.

The people who are pushing this bill have money. They have infrastructure. They attempted to wave poll numbers in your face. But they are not your misdiagnosed grandmother, your neighbor who cannot afford a life-saving specialist, your disabled cousin fighting to be seen as fully human. A vote to legalize physician-assisted suicide targets those who look into your eyes every day. It places a state-sanctioned death option before our people who, in many ways, have never had equal access to life-affirming care.

Alexandre completes his article by urging Maryland legislators to oppose assisted suicide.

Maryland's Black legislators were right the first time. They were right in 2019. They were right in 2024. And if they hold that line—if they choose their people over political expediency—they will be right again. History will vindicate them. Our communities will thank them. And in a generation where so many surrendered, they will be counted among the few who stood firm on solid ground for life when death was hoping to meet our people down river.

More articles on the Maryland assisted suicide debate.

• Maryland assisted suicide bill appears to be dead again (Read).
• Great news. Maryland assisted suicide bill is dead (Read).
• Assisted suicide, disability discrimination and racial disparities (Read). 
• Maryland assisted suicide bill may permit euthanasia (Read).

When death comes casually, Euthanasia is out of control in Canada.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Lorne Gunter, who is a columnist and an editorial board member with the National Post wrote an excellent article that was published in the Edmonton Journal on June 24, 2026 titled: When death comes casually, MAiD out of control.

Gunter begins his article by stating that Canada legalized euthanasia 10 years ago and since parliament legalized it:

...we have become the leading country in the world for having doctors speed the deaths of their patients with a suicidal cocktail of powerful drugs.

Gunter explains how euthanasia is done:

First, there is usually an IV of sedatives to ease the patient’s stress and anxiety. Then comes a high concentration of anesthetics that lead to deep unconsciousness or coma. Finally, death is induced through neuromuscular blockers that stop the heart and end breathing.

Gunter then discusses the number of euthanasia deaths that occur on a yearly basis, comparing Canada's euthanasia deaths (16,499 in 2024) to the Netherlands. He then comments on the rapid increase in euthanasia in Canada.

Another problem is the growing number of doctors who are prepared to sign off on just about anyone’s request.

When MAID began ... patients had to have a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” — an incurable illness, disease, or disability in an advanced state of irreversible decline. Death had to be expected within six months or patients often had to wait until they were nearing the end.

Gunter is nearly correct. The original law did not require a person to have a 6 month prognosis, it required that a person's - "natural death be reasonably foreseeable" which was never defined in the law, nonetheless, Canada's euthanasia law expanded in 2021 by removing the requirement that a person be terminally ill.

Gunter then writes about the recent story of the Tim Horton's approval.

Now a doctor will meet you in the parking lot of Tim Hortons and, in between ordering a double-double and some Timbits, sign off on your MAID request.

That’s not an example I made up for emphasis. It actually happened in Ontario.

A London, Ont. physician, Dr. James MacLean, met with a man who had inflammatory bowel disease outside a local Tims. Inflammatory bowel disease is often very painful and there is no cure, but there are surgeries and medications to control the symptoms. The man’s other complaint was a history of mental health issues, which are not supposed to be a basis for MAID. After meeting with the man outside Tims, MacLean personally drove him to the place MAID was performed.

Gunter then writes about the euthanasia death of Kiano Vafaeian:

Kiano Vafaeian, a 26-year-old Ontario man died by MAID last Dec. 30 in a Vancouver funeral home. He had tried several times in his home province to receive MAID for a painful nerve disorder and blindness, both resulting from his Type 1 diabetes.

But after calling a Vancouver-area clinic, he flew out unbeknownst to his family and was promptly euthanized.

It is important to note that on June 17 Canada's parliamentary euthanasia committee advised the government to reverse the part of the law that was to allow euthanasia for mental illness beginning on March 17, 2027. 

Canadian government gives $289,226 to euthanasia podcast.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has produced many excellent youtube video's that are available online.

Kathy Kortes-Miller

Thanks to researcher Patricia Maloney, who is an expert at filing government freedom of information (FOI) requests we have learned that Dr. Kathy M. Kortes-Miller, School of Social Work, at Lakehead University received $289,226 from the Canadian government for a series of podcasts titled: Disrupting Death; An examination of Canadian Experiences with Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).

Maloney wrote:

I listened to five episodes. It is a pro-euthanasia podcast, as one would expect. (Maybe other episodes will be more neutral and or against MAID but somehow I doubt it.)

$289,226 is not the only money given by the federal government to promote euthanasia.

Kortes-Miller has featured people who oppose euthanasia in her series.

In May 2023, Patricia Maloney uncovered that CAMAP, received $3,287,996 in funding from the Canadian government in 2021.

CAMAP is the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers which is the group that provides training and advocacy for doctors and nurse practitioners who are assessing and providing MAiD (euthanasia).

In September 2025, Kelsi Sheren pointed out that Health Canada was funding CAMAP's new Canadian Journal of MAiD, in their attempt to further normalize killing.

Kortes-Miller's podcast series was featured in the second issue of the Canadian Journal of MAiD.

The Canadian Journal of MAiD planning committee (Link).

Patricia Maloney will continue by researching:

1. What other grants that promote and celebrate MAID are likewise hidden in the Open Government database?
2. What are the chances that the government would also fund an anti-MAID podcast?

Thank you Patricia for you continual research. 

France's Senate may decide not to debate euthanasia bill.

France's Senate should debate the bill and once again reject it.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I reported on June 30 that France's National Assembly voted to pass the euthanasia bill by a vote of 295 to 232. 

 

In the article I explained that France's National Assembly has twice passed similar euthanasia bills and each time France's Senate defeated the bills. 

Even if France's Senate defeats the euthanasia bill again, the National Assembly can over-ride the vote and legalize euthanasia.

On May 11, 2026, France's Senate defeated the euthanasia bill by a vote of 151 to 118 and then passed, by a vote of 325 to 18, the section of the bill that improves access to palliative care.

President Emmanuel Macron and the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet both support legalizing euthanasia and they have pressured members of the National Assembly to support it.

France's Senate Social Affairs Committee has proposed to not debate the euthanasia bill. There is logic to this proposal based on the fact that the National Assembly can over-ride the decision of the Senate, nonetheless, the Senate should debate the bill and once again reject it.

From France's Senate Social Affairs Committee - Based on the different perspectives between France's National Assembly the Senate - Ms. BONFANTI-DOSSAT and Mr. MILON proposed on June 30 (google translated):

Pursuant to Article 44, paragraph 3, of the Rules of Procedure, the Senate decides that there is no need to continue the deliberation on the bill, adopted by the National Assembly on second reading, relating to the right to assisted dying (No. 814, 2025-2026).

The Senate proposal continues (google translated):

Noting the political impasse resulting from the Senate's rejection, on two occasions, of the bill relating to the right to assisted dying and the failure of the joint committee, this motion aims to oppose the preliminary question to the bill adopted by the National Assembly on second reading no. 814 (2025-2026).

The parliamentary back-and-forth revealed the extent of the divisions caused by the introduction of a form of assisted dying, both within each chamber and between the chambers.

The commission and the National Assembly have, in fact, defended diametrically opposed conceptions of end-of-life care.

Far from making assisted dying an exceptional measure, the National Assembly has stubbornly defended a particularly broad interpretation, establishing assisted suicide and euthanasia as widely accessible rights, based on criteria whose scope and imprecision pave the way for a certain expansion of the system. The beginnings of this dynamic have already been observed during parliamentary debates: the National Assembly came very close to authorizing recourse to euthanasia even in the absence of any incapacity on the part of the individual to self-administer the substance.

The Senate proposal outlined the attempt to find a compromise and reiterates how the bill passed in the National Assembly is wide in scope and lacks definition. The Senate proposal continued:

The Senate's rejection of the text on two occasions prevented the debate, which the commission nevertheless deemed necessary to initiate with the National Assembly, from flourishing, in order to restrict the scope of eligibility of persons and secure procedural guarantees.

In this context, it is clear that the National Assembly has paid little attention to the work of the commission.

The eligibility criteria remained unchanged. The repeated refusal to regulate the life expectancy of eligible individuals, which alone could have guaranteed that assisted dying would be reserved for genuine end-of-life situations, demonstrates the National Assembly's desire to make this text a law for those who want to die, and not a law for those who are going to die, contrary to the position defended by the committee.

The National Assembly also remained deaf to the committee's concerns regarding the strengthening of procedural safeguards. For example, assessing the free and informed nature of a patient's wishes, which cannot be duly verified by a single physician after a single consultation, would have required systematic psychiatric evaluation. The text submitted to the Senate does not provide for this.

While some specific initiatives from the commission were adopted—regarding the involvement of relatives, securing the system for protected adults, and regulating the locations where lethal substances are administered—the National Assembly remained unmoved by the most fundamental concerns, which the rapporteurs had nevertheless shared during the joint committee meeting. Neither strengthening the collegial nature of the decision-making process, nor the mandatory participation of a mental health professional within the panel, nor even the establishment of genuine mechanisms for ex-ante or in-depth oversight were adopted.

Therefore, the text submitted to the Senate would lead to France having one of the most permissive procedures in the world and, in any case, insufficiently rigorous to guarantee a robust assessment of eligibility criteria.

The rapporteurs can only note the irreconcilable divisions between the committee's vision and that defended by the National Assembly, which render any attempt at reaching a compromise futile at this stage of the procedure. The tabling of this preliminary motion reflects their refusal to endorse the illusion of a parliamentary dialogue whose outcome would be certain if the text were to be put to a final reading in the National Assembly.

It is now up to the Government to fully grasp the extent of this political impasse. While all attempts at reconciliation have failed, the executive branch cannot ignore the clear lack of parliamentary consensus surrounding this reform. This law is not like any other: because it involves some of the most fundamental anthropological, ethical, and societal choices, it cannot thrive in dissension and antagonism.

Faced with a similar situation, the United Kingdom chose to suspend the debate on introducing assisted dying. Wisdom would therefore dictate that the Government follow this example and end this fruitless back-and-forth, rather than using the constitutional means at its disposal to force through such a reform.

The Senate Social Affairs Committee points out that this bill is like no other, thus using constitional means to forcefully legalize euthanasia is simply wrong.

Sebastien Ostertag outlined the extent of France's euthanasia bill, that if passed would: 

• Catholic and otherwise Christian retirement homes and medical institutions will likely shut down since there is no conscience clause for religious institutions.
• Nurses and pharmacists can be forced to participate in euthanasia, since there is no conscience clause for them.
• Those who are poor and suffering may be pressured into death since access to palliative care isn't universal.
• The waiting/reflection period before death is only 48 hours.
• Estimates from France suggest that, based on France's population, 50,000 people could die every year from euthanasia.
• The family won't be able to ask the court to stop the decision to die.
• Proponents of the bill will likely push for further expansions, as in other jurisdictions, to allow children to be euthanized, people with mental illness and criminalizing those who try to dissuade someone from being killed.

Instead of competing with Canada's expansive and undefined killing by lethal poison law, France must examine Canada's experience with euthanasia and reject the bill. 

Québec legalized euthanasia in 2015 based on "exceptional circumstances". The French Canadian province now has the highest euthanasia rate in the world.

France National Assembly passes euthanasia bill. Final vote will be July 15.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have bad news.  

Sebastien Ostertag reported from France that the French National Assembly voted to support the euthanasia bill by a vote of 295 to 232 against.

The bill will go back to France's Senate but even if France's Senate defeats the euthanasia bill again, the National Assembly can over-ride the Senate if they vote to legalize on July 15, 2026.

On May 27, 2025, the French National Assembly passed the euthanasia bill by a vote of 305 to 199. On January 21, 2026, France's Senate defeated the bill by 181 to 122.

On February 25, 2026, the French National Assembly passed the euthanasia bill again. France's Senate once again defeated the bill on Monday May 11, 2026 by a vote of 151 to 118. The Senate then passed, by a vote of 325 to 18, the part of the law that improves access to palliative care.

Ostertag reported that the opposition has two weeks to change 32 votes before the final vote on July 15. Ostertag explains:

• If the bill passes: Catholic and otherwise Christian retirement homes and medical institutions will likely shut down since there is no conscience clause for religious institutions.
• Nurses and pharmacists can be forced to participate in euthanasia, since there is no conscience clause for them.
• Those who are poor and suffering may be pressured into death since access to palliative care isn't universal.
• The waiting/reflection period before death is only 48 hours.
• Estimates from France suggest that, based on France's population, 50,000 people could die every year from euthanasia.
• The family won't be able to ask the court to stop the decision to die.
• Proponents of the bill will likely push for further expansions, as in other jurisdictions, to allow children to be euthanized, people with mental illness and criminalizing those who try to dissuade someone from being killed.

Unfortunately, the effort to put the question of euthanasia on the ballot through a parliamentary and constitutional procedure was struck down by the Conseil Constitutionnel, (French Supreme Court) which means that the July 15th vote is the last say, at least until after the next presidential election.

France's government strongly supports the euthanasia bill and has pressured members of the National Assembly to support it. President Emmanuel Macron and the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet both support legalizing euthanasia.

France needs to examine the experience with euthanasia in Québec and completely reject the bill. Québec legalized euthanasia based on "exceptional circumstances" in 2015. The French Canadian province now has the highest euthanasia rate in the world.

The euthanasia committee got it right on mental illness. Parliament must go further.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr Ramona Coelho

The Globe and Mail published an article by Dr Ramona Coelho, on June 29, 2026. 

Dr Coelho is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an adjunct professor of family medicine at the University of Western Ontario's Schulich School of Medicine and a past member of the Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee.

Dr Coelho, who has written extensively on Canada's euthanasia law begins her article by explaining how the law is not protecting Canadians. She writes:

Thomas Dillon’s MAID assessment took place in 2023 outside a Tim Hortons in St. Thomas, Ont., after a psychiatrist had raised the option with him. He died at age 45, with his mental illness and addictions largely untreated. The MAID law was not precise enough to prevent cases like his – and that is a problem.

Dr Coelho continues by explaining the decision of Canada's parliamentary MAiD committee:

Canada’s parliamentary committee has recommended indefinitely pausing the 2027 planned expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAID) where mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition. I testified at the committee. The recommendation is necessary, but Parliament must go further. The mental illness debate has exposed a problem that runs through the whole MAID framework.

The debate over MAID for mental illness has focused on several concerns, including the impossibility of reliably determining whether mental illness is irremediable, and the significant role that community life and supports play in recovery. We also cannot distinguish a “reasoned MAID request” from suicidality, leaving assessments without an objective standard, and therefore allowing bias to shape who accesses MAID versus suicide prevention and care.

Euthanasia proponents believe that physical and psychological suffering should be viewed in the same manner. Coelho suggests that a deeper problem is how uncertainty is addressed across MAID decision-making. Coelho explains:

In my work as a family physician serving marginalized patients, and as a former member of Ontario’s MAID Death Review Committee (MDRC), I have seen similar uncertainty extend beyond MAID for solely psychiatric illness. In one MDRC case, a socially isolated woman with severe obesity and depression was deemed eligible for MAID after refusing any diagnostic workup or treatments that might have improved or reversed her condition. Eligibility was not shaped by a clear disease trajectory but by treatment refusal and disengagement from care, with neglect interpreted as irremediability.

In another, a man in his 70s with essential tremor, which is not typically considered to cause a serious decline in capability, was approved for MAID, despite his request being mainly driven by spousal bereavement.

In both these cases, a chronic, manageable condition became grounds for death once isolation, poverty or lack of care entered the clinical picture. That is structural ableism – the institutional assumption that living well with disability is impossible, leading clinicians to view death rather than support as the more appropriate response.

Dr Coelho then comments on the Track 2 euthanasia Ontario data:

Ontario data from Track 2 MAID – the option for those whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable – confirms these concerns extend beyond individual cases. Nearly 30 per cent of Track 2 recipients were living in poverty, were less likely to have family members listed as their next of kin, and most were not offered mental-health, disability, housing or income supports. These patterns point directly to problems with the architecture of the law itself.

Dr Coelho explains that determination of a Track 1 euthanasia death ranges from 6 month prognosis to a 5 year prognosis, which means that euthanasia assessments are very uncertain at best and applying the same level of uncertainty to mental health assessments would be incredibly problematic. She then makes some suggestions for future parliamentary sessions.

As Parliament considers the next phase of MAID legislation, it must confront whether the law’s central concepts are precise. Avoiding unnecessary deaths requires clear statutory definitions of “reasonably foreseeable natural death,” “grievous and irremediable,” and “intolerable suffering,” along with oversight to stop interpretive drift and doctor-shopping. It requires restoring minimum waiting periods under Track 1 and introducing a real-time mechanism to pause MAID assessments when concerns are raised by families or clinicians.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has called for changes, including repealing Track 2 MAID due to risks related to discrimination and social vulnerability. When a system cannot reliably protect those most likely to be harmed, it should not be allowed. Track 2 is exactly that.

Dr Coelho ends her article by reminding the readers that euthanasia was legalized in Canada as an exemption to homicide. She states: 

The least we owe Canadians is a law that makes wrongful deaths harder, not easier.

Previous articles by or related to Dr Ramona Coelho (Articles Link).

Is it a choice when a veteran with PTSD can’t see a way out?

This article was published by Kelsi Sheren her substack on June 24, 2026.

Kelsi Sheren rebuts Catherine Ford’s recent piece: Everyone should have the same or equal rights

Why would we deny him his right to suicide prevention?

Catherine Ford of the Calgary Herald wants equal rights. So do I.

But here’s the question she didn’t ask in her June 24th column: equal right to what, exactly? Because the right she’s describing the right to a medically assisted death when your pain is psychiatric is not the only right on the table. There’s another one. The right to be fought for. The right to have the system stand between you and the worst moment of your life instead of handing you a form.

That right is called suicide prevention and in Canada right now, it is not equally distributed.

I served in Afghanistan. I came home. I watched what the system did and didn’t do for the people I served with. I have testified before Parliament on veteran suicide, on MAID, and on the gap between what we promise the people who put on a uniform and what we actually deliver. So when Ford writes about choice, I need her to sit with something specific.

A veteran with PTSD who cannot see a way out is not making a free choice. He is making a choice inside a tunnel. His nervous system has been altered by what he witnessed. His access to quality psychiatric care has been inadequate because Veterans Affairs wait times are documented, the underfunding is documented, the failures are documented. The tunnel he is standing in was partly built by institutional neglect.

Ford calls the parliamentary committee’s recommendation to exclude mental illness as a sole criterion “cruelty.” I call it the first responsible thing a committee has done on this file in a decade. Not because people with mental illness don’t suffer. They do. Profoundly, but because “irremediable” is doing an enormous amount of work in that sentence, and we have not been honest about what it means.

Irremediable compared to what treatment? The treatment we haven’t provided yet? The therapy that has a two-year waitlist? The psychiatrist who isn’t available in the rural community where this person lives? We are declaring conditions irremediable in a system that has never fully tried to remediate them. That is not a medical standard. That is a budget decision dressed up as compassion.

Ford anchors her argument in autonomy. Fine. Then let’s apply that standard consistently and see where it takes us.

A thirteen-year-old girl is targeted by an algorithm. Instagram surfaces content specifically calibrated to deepen her body dysmorphia. She develops an eating disorder. She wants to harm herself. Her suffering is real. It is documented. By the logic Ford is advancing that mental pain is pain, that psychiatric suffering deserves the same access as physical suffering, that we cannot treat some Canadians as “dependent children incapable of making their own decisions” on what principled basis does that girl not qualify?

I already know the answer Ford would give. She would say that’s not what she meant. That there are safeguards. That minors are different.

But that’s the problem. Once you accept that the state’s role is to facilitate death for those whose psychiatric suffering is deemed irremediable, you need a bright, defensible line about who qualifies. Canada does not have one. Belgium and the Netherlands, which have had this framework longer, do. They’ve used it on minors. They’ve used it on people whose primary diagnosis was depression and social isolation. That is not a slippery slope argument. It is what the data shows actually happened.

Ford writes that forcing some Canadians to live is cruel. I’d ask her to consider the inverse. Is it not cruel to build a system where the answer to “I can’t go on” is “we can help with that” rather than “why not, and what haven’t we tried?”

The veteran with PTSD deserves every resource this country has. He deserves peer support workers who’ve been downrange. He deserves access to treatments including psychedelic-assisted therapy, which has shown significant clinical results for treatment-resistant PTSD and which Canada has been unconscionably slow to make accessible. He deserves a system that exhausts every option before it considers the last one.

What he does not deserve is a country that skips to the end because the beginning and the middle are expensive.

Ford is right that successive Canadian governments have punted this question down the road. But she has misidentified the punt. The failure wasn’t in delaying MAID expansion. The failure was in never building the mental health infrastructure that would make “irremediable” a meaningful word rather than a bureaucratic shortcut.

Equal rights. Yes. I’m for it.

Every Canadian equally deserves a system that fights for their life before it ends it. Every Canadian equally deserves a psychiatric care system funded at the same level as emergency cardiac care. Every Canadian equally deserves to have their crisis treated as a crisis — not a decision.

That is the equal right we are not having the conversation about and until we do, I am not prepared to call a death-first system compassionate.

Kelsi Sheren is a Canadian disabled combat veteran, Author of Do No Harm? and host of The Kelsi Sheren Perspective. She has testified before Parliament on veteran suicide, MAID, and psychedelic therapy.

France to vote on bill to legalize euthanasia tomorrow (June 30)

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

France's National Assembly will once again vote on a bill to legalize euthanasia on June 30 (tomorrow) even though this same bill has been twice overwhelmingly defeated by France's Senate. The June 30th vote will be a Third Reading vote, that if passed will likely lead to the legalization of euthanasia in France.

If the euthanasia bill passes in the National Assembly it will go to the Senate, but if the Senate defeats the bill a third time, the bill would be sent to the National Assembly for a final vote on July 15.

Even though France's Senate continues to defeat the euthanasia bill, the National Assembly can over-ride the vote of the Senate and legalize euthanasia.

On January 21, 2026, France's Senate defeated the euthanasia bill that had passed in the French National Assembly on May 27, 2025.

France's Senate once again defeated the euthanasia bill, on May 11, 2026 by a vote of 151 to 118. The Senate then passed, by a vote of 325 to 18, the part of the bill that improved access to palliative care.

France's government strongly supports the bill and has pressured members of the National Assembly to once again pass the bill. President Emmanuel Macron and the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet are both committed to legalizing euthanasia.

France's government is unlikely to extend the euthanasia debate as they lack parliamentary time. France's parliament take an August break and in September the National Assembly will focus on the national budget.

Groups opposing euthanasia have organized rallies across France. We have great hope for a miracle and we remind people that it is not over yet.

We believe in caring for people, not killing them.

The Anglican Church of Canada Publishes Pastoral Liturgies Blessing Euthanasia

This article was published by the National Review online on June 26, 2026

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

The Anglican Church of Canada has authorized clergy to bless people being euthanized just before, during, and after being lethally jabbed (when permitted by the bishop). From “Pastoral Liturgies at the Time of Death in Contexts of Medically Assisted Dying”:

It is not our intent to enter into the ethical arguments regarding MAiD, nor to provide a moral argument for or against MAiD. . . . No matter where people are in their life journey, we as a Christian community and Christian leaders in particular are called to respond pastorally to the needs and concerns of the people before us. Wherever the church serves, we are the Body of Christ reaching out to the suffering, the sick, and the dying. When someone reaches out for pastoral care, the church responds: there is a duty of pastoral care.

If the Anglican Church can’t enter into an ethical argument about euthanasia what is the point of being a church? And given that suicide has always been considered an egregious sin in Christianity from its very early days, wouldn’t “Christian” pastoral care be obligated to at least try and help the suicidal person decide not to be made dead?

Here is another justification for blessing a euthanasia killing in the document:

Death is a natural part of life, and in the spirit of the Church’s continued ministry, we are called to walk alongside health care agencies and practitioners to offer a pastoral response and presence to those who are dying. As the Book of Alternative Services notes, “if the sick could not get to church, then the Church [. . . should] come to them.”

Natural death is “a natural part of life.” Being killed is not. Moreover, is it really properly a Christian act to “walk alongside” a doctor or nurse practitioner who kills? The earliest Christian ethical writing dating from about 100 — the Didache — explicitly condemns “murder” as profoundly sinful. True, Canada has legalized this particular form of homicide, but the issue with regard to a church is not statutory legality, but rather, ethics and morality.

The document spouts false premises and shallow rationalizations for supporting being euthanized:

People who choose MAiD freely and without coercion may indeed be ready to go. They have been living with and suffering through complex health challenges and they want the pain to stop. They want to be able to sleep. They desperately do not want their families and loved ones to watch and wait, wondering how much longer? They have exhausted all medical options, and they know, everyone knows, that there is no cure. Some wish, most of all, not to be alone at the time of their death, and to die well. Some, who are Christian, also desire not to be alone at the time of their death, and to die well, and with the grace and blessing of God and with the presence of the Church at their side.

The law in Canada does not require that “all medical options” be exhausted. And how can putting oneself out of their loved ones’ misery be blessed? Moreover, every suicidal person is “ready to go.” If someone who is disabled or ill can be supported spiritually in having themselves made dead, why not also any other suicidal person?

The Netherlands is euthanizing children.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Kevin Yuill was published by Spiked on June 28, 2026 concerning the expansion of euthanasia in the Netherlands to now allow children to be euthanized.

Article: Child euthanasia confirmed in the Netherlands (Read).

Yuill, who is emeritus professor of history at the University of Sunderland and CEO of Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia explains:

For the first time in the history of the Netherlands, a child has been euthanised by the state. The Dutch health minister revealed this week that Sophie Hermans, a child under the age of 12, was given a lethal injection in late 2025.

This case follows another relaxation of the safeguards on euthanasia in the Netherlands. In 2002, the Dutch decriminalised euthanasia and assisted suicide for competent adults. The law expanded to cover 16- and 17-year-olds, with parental consultation, and 12- to 15-year-olds with parental consent. In 2023, another change in the law allowed children under the age of 12, according to Dutch MP Harry Bevers, to ‘die with dignity’ if there is no possibility of recovery and they faced unbearable pain and distress.

The Netherlands didn't technically change their euthanasia law but rather they extended the Groningen Protocol, which allowed euthanasia of newborns, to include children under the age of 12. Yuill continued:

Euthanasia in the Netherlands is officially only permitted if the request comes from the patient and if a doctor agrees that they are suffering unbearably. But how can a minor request something a child cannot possibly comprehend – namely, the end of his or her life? How can a young child understand the need to maintain his or her dignity? The age of consent for sex is 16 in the Netherlands, and those below the age of 18 cannot legally get married. The Dutch government advises that children under the age of 15 should not use social media. And yet, Dutch children now have the ‘right’ to request a lethal injection.

In fact, the Netherlands appears to be moving relentlessly and thoughtlessly towards a euthanasia model employed in Europe in the 1930s. Then, euthanasia proposals began as requests from patients. However, when Nazi Germany began its euthanasia programme in 1939, the ‘patients’ were generally children with physical and intellectual disabilities. They did not consent – let alone request – euthanasia.

Yuill states that doctors in the Netherlands are not the same as doctors in Nazi Germany, nonetheless child euthanasia suggests that some lives are not worth living.

Yuill shares some of the crazy euthanasia stories from the Netherlands and then states:

Similarly, the expansion of euthanasia to children was motivated – in the words of then health minister Ernst Kuipers – by the hope it would ‘end the “dilemma for doctors” to administer euthanasia to young children who can’t decide for themselves’. The voluntary part of ‘voluntary’ euthanasia seems to have disappeared.

Yuill explains that most Canadians were unaware that Canada had planned to expand euthanasia to mental illness alone in March 2027.

Yuill ends the article by stating:

All of this is why we in the UK must look very critically at the legislation recently brought forward by Labour MP Lauren Edwards. The bill – which supporters will not allow to be amended – is not safe in its current form. Indeed, that is why there were 1,200 amendments tabled when it was first introduced by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater. And the experience of every jurisdiction where euthanasia is legal would tell us that it would only get worse.

Belgium expanded euthanasia to children in February 2014.

In February 2023 a Canadian parliamentary committee decided that Canada should expand euthanasia to children (mature minors).

Euthanasia, once legal, always expands.