Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
In 2023, an Autistic teenager was killed by euthanasia in the Netherlands. Some people might not care, but I have an autistic son.
This is not about
terminal illness or uncontrolled suffering, not that I would agree to
kill a person who is terminally ill or who needs pain and symptom
management. This was a young autistic person with sensory issues who
experiences the world in a different way. This killing of an
autistic person, is based on a eugenic ideology.
I oppose killing people but it is a eugenic ideology that allows a psychiatrist to kill an autistic person by lethal poison. To make a decision that life with autism is worse than death, and so much so that the psychiatrist kills the person is to believe that some lives are not worth living. This eugenic ideology is very dangerous.
For those who believe that this story cannot be true, Sharon Kirkey published an article in the National Post on March 23, 2026 titled: Dutch doctors euthanized an autistic teen. Why some say that should be a 'wake-up call' for Canada. Kirkey explains:
The boy, aged between 16 and 18, had described his life as “joyless.” He’d struggled with anxiety and mood-related problems, and where he fit in, in the world. Oversensitive to stimuli, “every day was an ordeal he had to get through,” according to the latest annual report from the Netherlands’ regional euthanasia death review committees. “In the final weeks before his death, he lay in bed the whole time.”Kirkey reports that young man's doctor was convinced that there was no prospect for improvement. As a father of a son with autism, I consider this statement to be ridiculous. Yes, the young man would always be autistic, but autism is based on his sensory perception. As a human, he would have difficult times, but with good care he would change.
In her July 2023 article, Meghan Schrader, an autistic woman who now works as a disability instructor in Texas, explains how she went through an incredibly difficult and psychotic time. We are fortunate that Meghan didn't live in the Netherlands and wasn't being treated by a eugenic psychiatrist who was willing to kill her.
Dr Sonu Gaind, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and a past president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association was interviewed by Kirkey. She reports:
The Dutch experience “should be taken as a wake-up call,” said Dr. Sonu Gaind, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and a past president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association.
“The threshold (for assisted death) in Canada is actually lower than the Netherlands,” Gaind said. “If MAID for sole mental illness is opened up in Canada, the numbers would significantly exceed what you see in the Netherlands.”
Charles Lane recently published an analysis, in the Atlantic, concerning the growth of euthanasia for psychiatric reasons. Kirkey explained:
While most euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands involve people with medical conditions such as cancer, 219 people whose suffering was largely due to one or more psychiatric illnesses died an assisted death in 2024, up from 88 in 2020.
Of the 2024 deaths, 111 involved people aged 30 to 60, 78 involved people 60 and over, and 30 deaths were among people aged 18 to 30. In 2023, two psychiatric euthanasia deaths involved a minor between the ages of 12 and 18. The teen with autism was one of them.
The Canadian parliament recently established another parliament (AMAD) euthanasia committee to once again examine the implementation of euthanasia for mental illness alone. I think that the Netherlands experience with euthanasia for mental illness alone is enough to tell us to reverse course and to not go there.
Gaind is sadly correct. There would be a higher percentage of euthanasia deaths for mental illness in Canada than in the Netherlands. The Netherlands define euthanasia as a "last resort" procedure, whereas in Canada, people can request and be killed by euthanasia without even try treatments that might result in the person getting better.
7 comments:
In Nazi concentration camps children who stood out were selected for special testing and then most were killed and examined post mortem, a lot of the testing was done by Dr. Asperger
Horrendous. Eugenics for sure.😢
This is horrible. The medical profession killing people in the name of health care is not only wrong it is becoming epidemic. I have an autistic grandson and he has challenges but he is not suffering. He is not terminally ill. He is living a full life with the love of his family and community and this young man should have received the very same. Killing is an easy out for governments who don't want to provide the resources necessary to treat and care for the sick. Shame shame
I believe all they need to do is change the environment the patient is in. Because of his sensory sensitivity, he could have been moved to an environment where he could have thrived.
This is the answer to many of these situations, even those who are in pain could benefit from a change in environment and find a reason to thrive.
Some may be stuck in their environment and see no way out except death. But if the money used to promote and market this nonsense was used to enrich lives instead of wiping them out, it could have success.
This article makes me so very sad. We live in a time of lack of care and lack of love.
Had he already signed an organ donation? This is going to be the catalyst to ensure donors are finished quickly and without interference.
Where are all the counsellors? This is a failure on the services that could help children live rather than offering them death.
This story makes me cry. I have a son with autism who went through a time of severe depression in his teens to the point of researching ways to commit suicide. Now he's in his late 20's and enjoying life. People with autism are easily coerced and it sounds like his so-called "doctor" convinced him this was the best way to go. Despicable.
Let's not forget the anonymous letter in Newcastle Ontario, slipped into the mailbox of a woman whose grandson was autistic. One line I still remember: "If he can't improve then euthenize him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" And that spelling error was there.
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