The human cost of medical homicide

Gordon Friesen

The following post is part of a structured, multi-week, simultaneously published exchange between Kim Carlson and Paul Magennis, authors of  MAiD in Canada, and Gordon Friesen, President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. These alternating messages will explore deeply divergent views on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), and no mutual endorsement is implied.

Previously published installments have been:

Gordon Friesen, Monday, January 12, 2026.
Maid in Canada (MIC)     January 19, 2026.
Gordon Friesen                January 26, 2026.
Maid in Canada (MIC)     February 2, 2026.

The human cost of medical homicide

By Gordon Friesen

In order to properly "concede" a point which I have never disputed (and also to correct misrepresentations of our common sources) I must first establish a larger context.

One stellar participant in our October EPC press conference was Gunner Kelsi Sheren. Kelsi is a Canadian combat veteran suffering from battlefield PTSD. She is also one of many persons who believe they would not be alive today, had psychiatric homicide existed in the past.[i]

The attempted Maid-in-Canada take-down of Kelsi Sheren is shameful and riddled with Orwellian doublespeak. I warn readers to beware of any statement, from MIC, regarding this outstanding individual whose personal sacrifice was made in our defense. In particular, the Maid-in-Canada suggestion that Kelsi Sheren's voice be silenced, is despicable.[ii]

That said, Kelsi and I have a natural connection, because we are both eligible for medical homicide --and thus both personally threatened by the Canadian system of managed death.

To be clear: judges and legislators (thus far) have only considered speculative harms, to the so-called "vulnerable", not those real and immediate harms inflicted on the entire eligible population.

Under Canadian law, Kelsi and I may be put to death with no consequences for the perpetrator.[iii] This is not speculative. It is perfectly real. Furthermore, this outrage is discriminatory. Eligibility is not a choice. We (of the eligible group) are deprived of protections enjoyed by all others; deprived of equal treatment before the law.

Worse still, thanks to homicide enthusiasts in the Province of Quebec, so-called "assistance in dying" has been authorized, not as a mere liberty of permission, but as a medical entitlement.[iv]

(Please note that I am against all killing. But the harms of homicide --defined as medical care-- are of a whole new order. In particular, talk of "autonomy" becomes absurd. For the allegedly objective benefit, of real medical treatment, is independent of patient choice.)

With homicide now incrementally imposed, as true medical care: all eligible persons are systematically targeted by a medical system re-tooling to that end. Those real, life-affirming doctors, hospitals, and nurses --who are required to support the survival-oriented majority-- are being phased-out just as quickly as legal repression and generational replacement can accomplish.[v] "Autonomy" becomes limited to the doubtful possibility of refusing homicidal "care".

Naturally, these facts are especially important to permanently eligible survivors like Kelsi and myself, but we are only the canaries in the coal mine. The struggle for life is common to all. And the danger of medical homicide is not choice-dependent like the one confronting alcoholics outside the tavern door. People do not have to go to taverns. But they all do, eventually, go to hospitals.

It is important, therefore, to understand how quantitatively marginal are the atypical desires which have been seized upon to determine standard medical care, and standard clinical culture.

Medical homicide is the final goal of death-lobby icons going back to Sue Rodriguez (1993).[vi] They do not seek a simple liberty to die. They demand that society validate their death. That society be complicit in its accomplishment. That society agree with them.

But the eligible part of society (at least) does not agree. There is no medical circumstance, whatsoever, in which consent to medical homicide is statistically typical.[vii] Hence, there is no circumstance in which medical homicide might be presented as normal medical care.

In psychiatric medicine this is particularly clear. There is no way to objectively predict, among comparable patients, which ones will actually die by suicide, and which will not. There is, therefore, no excuse for psychiatrists to professionally validate particular deaths. The great majority of patients, like Kelsi Sheren, need professionals who remain unconditionally committed to life, even (and especially) at times when no positive prognosis is obtainable.

For the protection of psychiatry, and that of psychiatric patients, any respectful suicidal death, whether assisted or not, must at least occur without medical validation (and without the participation of any medical professional).

Or more colorfully stated:

If someone wants to pee, that is fine. But they have no right to pee in the punch bowl from which all others must drink.

This is obviously a sensitive point for Maid-in-Canada. For it was in response, to the expression of these sentiments, that their criticism of Kelsi Sheren really went ballistic.[viii]

Forget the irony of Maid-in-Canada condemning anybody for trivializing suicide. What we realize is that the question of medical homicide has become a cage fight.

Society must decide: Is it more important to provide medically entitled access to poisoning by doctors... or to provide a general protection against that occurrence?

Clearly, the same professionals and institutions cannot do both.

No medical homicide for mental illness. Support Bill C-218.[ix]

Unfortunately, I have insufficient space (this time) to honor my promise of correcting Maid-in-Canada's misrepresentation of sources. But I would be glad to do so (and also, to critique their pet theory of Carter and "categorical exclusion") should they feel confident enough to continue this conversation.

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[i]      Sherin, Kelsi,MAID and the Cost of Abandonment, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, October 29, 2025  https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2025/10/kelsi-sheren-maid-and-cost-of.html

[ii]     Carlson, Kim Magennis, Paul, Misinformation at Parliament: What Happened on October 28th (Part II), Maid in Canada, Nov 29, 2025 https://maidincanada.substack.com/p/misinformation-at-parliament-what?open=false#%C2%A7part-ii-kelsi-sheren

[iii]   Criminal Code of Canada (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-46) (art. 214:227)  https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46

[iv]    Quebec bill 52 "An act respecting end of life care" (2014) https://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-52-40-1.html

[v]     Schadenberg, Alex, Court case (Day 2) to force all healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia; Euthanasia Prevention Coalition,January 15, 2026, https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2026/01/court-case-to-force-all-healthcare_15.html

[vi]    Rodriguez v. British Columbia 1993 https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1054/index.do  

[vii]  Friesen, Friesen, Quebec can tell us about the lack of social legitimacy for euthanasia and assisted suicide, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, April 2, 2025 https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2025/04/quebec-can-tell-us-about-lack-of-social.html

[viii] Carlson, Kim Magennis, Paul, Misinformation at Parliament: What Happened on October 28th (Part III,a), Maid in Canada, Nov 29, 2025 https://maidincanada.substack.com/p/misinformation-at-parliament-what?open=false#%C2%A7sherens-prior-statements-about-suicide

[ix]    Schadenberg, Alex, Bill C-218 introduced to prevent euthanasia for mental illness alone, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, June 25, 2025, https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2025/06/bill-c-218-introduced-to-prevent.html