Court case (Day 2) to force all healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia.

The mother of Sam O'Neill, who is also the key plaintiff in the case, had not visited her daughter for more than a year, before her daughters death.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

St Paul's hospital Vancouver

The court case concerning the right of religiously affiliated healthcare institutions to refuse to participate in (MAiD) euthanasia began in a BC Court on Monday January 12 and will be heard for the next four weeks.

(Article on Day 1 of the trial)

Samantha O'Neill (34) died on April 4, 2023 by euthanasia (MAiD) was transferred from St Paul's hospital in Vancouver to a Hospice that was willing to do euthanasia. 

Suzanne Lazaruk reported on January 13 for the Vancouver Sun on day 2 of the trial. Lazaruk reports on the testimony by Sam O'Neill's mother.

Testifying at Day 2 of the trial before Chief Justice Ronald Skolrood, O’Neill was asked by her lawyer how the transfer made her feel.

“We believe our God is all loving and choosing to die from MAID isn’t a sin,” she said. “It makes us feel that she was made to feel less than she is.”

She likened it to watching a child being pushed down in the playground and seeking help from the principal and “they come over and kick them,” she said.

“That’s how appalling it is to me. And I’ve got to watch them beat them up. That’s how I feel.”

She also described how “horrible” it was to walk into Sam’s room at St. Paul’s the last time she spoke to her, just before her transfer to the hospice on April 4, 2023, the same day a doctor there helped her die.

When O’Neill saw her sitting on a commode in her room, “I was absolutely appalled and horrified and embarrassed for her,” she said.

Lazaruk then reports on the cross-examination of Sam O'Neill's mother:

Under cross-examination by a Providence lawyer, O’Neill agreed that she had never heard any hospital staff disrespect her daughter and she said Sam liked them and the feeling was mutual.

Despite her testimony that she felt the ban on assisted dying was an attack on Sam’s morality, “Nobody at the staff of Providence ever said anything that was disrespectful of your daughter’s morality, did they?” he asked.

“The doctors and the nurses were wonderful,” said O’Neill.

Lazaruk continued with the cross-examination of Sam O'Neill's mother.

But the lawyer suggested to her in questioning that Sam’s care was agreed upon by her and staff and that she wanted to keep short her visits with them until just before the transfer.

“Everything you saw, you understood to be the result of choices Sam had made?” he asked.

“I can’t answer that,” said O’Neill, who said Sam had chosen not to see her mother for the year before her death, until the last day.

In other words, Sam O'Neill refused to let her mother visit until the last day of her life. The mother may not have been involved with any of her daughters medical decisions.

On June 17, 2024; Dying with Dignity and the family of Sam O'Neill, who requested euthanasia at St Paul's Hospital in Vancouver but transferred to another facility to die by euthanasia, launched a Charter Challenge claiming that O'Neill's rights were infringed when she was transferred from St. Paul's Hospital to another facility for euthanasia.

One of the goals of the euthanasia lobby is to force all Canadian medical institutions to provide (MAiD) euthanasia.