Bioethicists: ‘Terminally Sedate’ People Committing Suicide by Self-Starvation

This article was published by National Review online on May 25, 2026.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

In a newly released paper in the prestigious journal Bioethics, three prominent bioethicists argue that when someone decides to commit suicide via self-starvation and dehydration — known in euthanasia movement parlance as “voluntary stop eating and drinking” (VSED) — doctors should be allowed to “terminally sedate” the person trying to die when necessary to prevent intractable suffering.

Patients who commit VSED are often not terminally ill. In fact, euthanasia organizations promote self-starvation to the elderly who are not dying and as a means of becoming eligible for assisted suicide where it is legal by making oneself “terminal” via lack of sustenance.

VSED must be distinguished from the common circumstance when actively dying people stop eating. That’s a natural process and often peaceful because the body cannot assimilate food as organs shut down. VSED, in contrast, deprives the body of sustenance it needs to remain alive toward the end of causing death, i.e., it is a suicide method.

Without palliation, many people attempting VSED would abandon the attempt. The bioethicists know this and claim that once the decision to commit suicide is made, doctors are duty-bound to medically ameliorate the suffering that inevitably results:

If a patient is adamant in their refusal of food and water, the same physician must respect the competent refusal by not force‐feeding the patient and should offer standard palliative care, as they would for any other dying patient. Medical support for patients undertaking VSED should be adequate and proportionate to their symptoms, as per any other form of palliative care. This is arguably not assisted suicide.

No, it is precisely that. First, but for the self-starvation, many people who undertake VSED would not be dying. Second, palliation permits the patient to complete the suicide that would otherwise be abandoned. Hence, the palliating doctor is facilitating the patient in becoming dead, i.e., it is a form of suicide assistance.

The authors acknowledge that if a doctor’s assurance of palliation factors into the decision to undertake VSED, that could be deemed assisted suicide:

We acknowledge that there may be some cases in which combining these two practices could amount to assistance in suicide. Jox et al. identify two key factors which, if present, arguably classify VSED cases as assisted suicide: (a) the promise of medical assistance is instrumental to the individual’s decision to pursue VSED, and (b) the physician shares, at least in part, in the individual’s decision to pursue VSED (amounting to some level of encouragement).

The authors next argue that VSED patients should be allowed to be rendered permanently unconsciousness if experiencing “refractory delirium”:

We propose the following criteria for VSED with TS in the setting of refractory delirium:
1. The patient is experiencing unbearable suffering.
2. The patient has lost decision‐making capacity.
3. The patient has previously stopped all fluids.
4. The patient has previously indicated that they would not wish for fluid to recommence if delirious.
5. Other measures to address confusion/distress have been attempted (or refused in advance), such as antipsychotics.

Ah, the old “strict guidelines protect against abuse” scenario.

Let’s discuss this in the real world. Strict restrictions rarely stay strict. For example, needle “exchange” to prevent the spread of HIV eventually slouched into outright needle give away, no used syringes required.

The same kind of slippage would happen if sedating people committing VSED were allowed. Eventually, such drugging would become a standard technique, its availability amplified by assisted suicide advocates.

The authors’ answer to this objection? Let doctors predetermine whether to facilitate the suicide with sedation:

We believe that this harm can be reasonably mitigated through a thorough pre‐assessment of individuals requesting VSED. Prior to initiating physician involvement in the VSED process, physicians should seek to confirm that the individual (a) has decision‐making capacity, and (b) expresses a genuine intention to end their life. This pre‐assessment should also seek to confirm that the individual is fully informed, their decision is voluntary, their decision is consistent with their known values, and that the individual is free from mental illness compromising their decision.

Wait: The authors wrote earlier that when “the promise of medical assistance is instrumental to the individual’s decision to pursue VSED, and “the physician shares, at least in part, in the individual’s decision to pursue VSED (amounting to some level of encouragement),” that it would amount to assisted suicide. Pre-assessment would fit those very criteria, no?

So, we see the slippery slope slip-sliding away in the very article calling for allowing sedation under strict guidelines to prevent abuse. If this proposal is implemented, the next step will be to quit beating around the bush and get on with the lethal jabs.

Why write about this, Wesley? Articles in professional journals are a means of constructing future public policy and people need to be warned about what is being planned before it is imposed from on high. Or to put it another way, these issues are too important to be left to the bioethicists.

Join Roger Foley & Alex Schadenberg (May 28) as they discuss Canadian euthanasia court decisions

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Roger Foley

Join Alex Schadenberg and Roger Foley as we discuss the Canadian euthanasia court decisions on Thursday May 28 at 2 pm (ET).

You will need to register ahead. Register online. (Zoom Registration Link).

Roger lives with a rare, progressive neurological disease called Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 14 (SCA14) along with other severe disabilities.

Alex Schadenberg

While working on a challenge to Canada's euthanasia law, a few years ago, Roger studied the background to the Carter case, that legalized euthanasia and the Truchon case, that led to removing the requirement that a person needs to be terminally ill to be killed by euthanasia in Canada.

Participate in the one hour zoom event.

Register online. (Zoom Registration Link).

Register: Compassionate Community Care Patient Advocacy Training program on May 27.

Register for the free online Patient Advocacy Training Program to effectively advocate for family, friends or people in your community who need help with medical care decisions.

Kathy Matusiak Costa

The Patient Advocacy Training Program zoom event will be: 

Wednesday May 27 from 7 to 9 pm (Eastern Time)

Register online (Zoom Registration Link).

Gain the confidence and skills to be an advocate for family, friends and others. Patient Advocates help others receive the care and services that they need.

The free online training will be done by With Kathy Matusiak Costa, Executive Director of Compassionate Community Care, and Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Register online now: (Zoom Registration Link).

The Advocacy Training Program is ideal for people who have already done the Compassionate Community Care Visitor Training program, but it is incredibly helpful for people who are already advocating for a family member or a friend

Compassionate Community Care: 

383 Horton St. E, London ON N6B 1L6
Office tel. 519-439-6445 

info@beingwith.org • www.beingwith.org

CCC Helpline: 1-855-675-8749

 

Charitable registration # 824667869RR0001

“The Final Rule, Death And Disability Exclusion: There Is Nothing New Under The Sun”

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader

Meghan is a disability instructor and a member of the EPC-USA board.

As I’ve said, the Final Rule, a 2024 update to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, especially Sections 84.56(a) and (b), contains some of the best regulations that the euthanasia prevention movement has had at its disposal in decades. Along with new opportunities for everything from home care to internet access, the Final Rule’s regulations elucidate what medical providers must do to make things like x-rays, mammograms, surgery suites, clinics, hospitals and other medical services accessible to disabled patients.

And in a substantial boost to euthanasia prevention, the Final Rule contains prohibitions on futile care laws, infanticide, and doctors “denying or limiting medical treatment based on the provider's belief that the life of a person with a disability has a lesser value than a person without a disability, or that life with a disability is not worth living.”

Yet, in the time since my last blog post about the Final Rule, there have been additional indications that these protections are at risk. As with the Final Rule’s protections for general internet access and better grievance system for disabled people struggling to access home care, the requirement that medical providers make their websites and apps accessible to disabled people has been delayed by the US Department of Health And Human Services.

The government has also indicated that it intends to “reconsider the substantive requirements” of the 2024 Final Rule more broadly. This suggests a risk that all of the Final Rule’s new healthcare accessibility requirements will be rescinded, just as HHS rescinded the Final Rule’s requirement that nursing homes maintain enough staff to prevent residents from experiencing bedsores and malnourishment.

This lackadaisical approach to healthcare accessibility is an absurd blow to euthanasia prevention.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has said that Canada’s euthanasia program is “abhorrent.” That’s great, but the government he serves seems happy to dismantle bulwarks against euthanasia.

This is not a partisan statement. Leaders from across the political spectrum make budget cuts and policy decisions that harm people with disabilities. I would write the same things about current disability policies regardless of who controlled the government.

Meanwhile, seven states continue to press ahead with the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit, which seeks to repeal the Final Rule, especially its community integration mandate. This mandate is intended to prevent the unnecessary institutionalization of persons with disabilities. It does not require states to close institutions, but it does require them to institute new supports for disabled people at risk of being institutionalized. The plaintiffs are hoping to have a federal judge grant their petition without a full trial.

Texas, Florida, Alaska, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Montana, the states that remain involved in the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit, base some of their argument on “states rights.” The states’ attorney generals contend that the Final Rule’s integration mandate encroaches on their “budgetary and policymaking discretion.” They decry the Final Rule's “mandate for states to redesign their Medicaid programs.”

This is an argument for convenience. Texas and Florida, for instance, have some of the highest numbers of institutions in the US; those two states would have to do a lot of work to implement the community integration mandate. Even if there are some people who require institutional care, these states lock disabled people in institutions who don’t need to be there so that the staff can keep their jobs. And the attorney generals in those states wish to export their states’ dysfunction to disabled people across the country, because in their opinion, the best policies serve what’s best for their states, not disabled Americans.

This is what moral theologian Charlie Camosy and Pope Francis call “throwaway culture.”

Euthanasia opponents come from all religions and no religion at all. But I am now going to draw on passages from the Bible because I know that a lot of euthanasia opponents view it as the guidebook for their lives.

In Ecclesiastes 3:16, Solomon writes: “And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment—wickedness was there. in the place of justice—wickedness was there.”

Ecclesiastes 3:16 is a statement about the reality of human injustice. It observes that corruption and wickedness frequently occur in places meant for fairness and righteousness.

That is what is happening when leaders say they oppose euthanasia while dismantling social structures that prevent euthanasia.

Before “MAID” supporters start congratulating themselves on how much more sensitive they think they are to injustice, allow me to direct them to my previous blog post “Many MAiD Proponents Want Credit For Fixing Problems They Ignored For Decades.” Often “MAiD” proponents shout that their cause is a “social justice issue,” yet they have a history of ignoring disability justice.

That’s why they’ve helped create a world where disabled people are offered “MAiD” instead of support.

As I ponder the actions of policymakers who view disabled people as acceptable collateral damage, I find myself reflecting on Ecclesiastes 1:9-“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done will be done again, there is nothing new under the sun.”

This pattern of regressive disability policy decisions is not new; disabled people have been experiencing the same ignominy for generations.

Of course there is a possibility that the Final Rule will not be repealed. Perhaps damage to the USA’s disability inclusion infrastructure can be prevented or repaired. I hope euthanasia opponents will work toward these efforts.

I urge readers to resist cruel policies that consign disabled people to what disability studies scholar Paul Longmore called a “social death.” Instead of allowing disabled people to be abused and ignored, society should base its disability policies on Isaiah 61:1-“He has chosen me and sent me to proclaim good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim release to captives and freedom to those in prison.”

Author Note:

It may still be possible to save the healthcare non discrimination regulations, and other parts of the Final Rule.

For information about how to contact your attorney general to ask them to drop out of the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit, see this link.

To write to the US Department of Justice, use this link

To write to the Department of Health and Hunan Services, use this link.

For a quick explanation of what Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is, see this Drunk History video about the history of the law.

For a compelling film about the harms of unnecessary institutionalization, watch the 2014 movie Love Land.

You can find a 2023 video of Pope Francis discussing the inclusion and dignity of people with disabilities at this link.

To read the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition’s statement against the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit, see this link.

The deeper meaning of an absurd demand

By Gordon Friesen
President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Gordon Friesen

On May 5, 2026, Helen Long, CEO of the oddly named Canadian death-lobby flagship ‘Dying with Dignity’, expressed her desire that the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (which is presently reconsidering the 2027 implementation of medical homicide for patients with psychiatric conditions alone) might usefully hear testimony from those persons who are most immediately impacted. In making this observation, she quoted Claire Brosseau, who used the iconic disabled-rights slogan, "Nothing about us without us", which vigorously affirms the principle that no decisions, affecting disabled persons, should be taken without disabled input.

Article: Should EPC apologize to Helen Long from Dying With Dignity? (Read).

On May 7, Ms. Long's wish was eloquently granted when the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition published a commentary by Amy Hasbrouck, past President of the Coalition, Founding Director of Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet, and a pillar of Canadian Disability activism for many years. This I believe, is precisely the sort of personal, informed, and directly affected testimony that Ms Long's call for disabled voices might most beneficially have elicited.

Unfortunately for the thesis of Ms. Long, however, Ms Habrouck's conclusion is unambiguously (and unapologetically) opposed to any medical homicide at all, much less that for persons afflicted with mental illness. Indeed, Amy made her argument by generously referencing both collective and personal experience, to examine the ways in which this now scheduled extension of medical homicide would negatively impact persons such as herself. In doing so, she rather colorfully condemned Ms. Long's use of the phrase "Nothing about us without us", observing that it is (in her opinion) grossly inappropriate to parrot words so clearly associated with those individuals, and organizations, which are most vehemently opposed to the objectives of death-lobby operatives such as Ms. Long.

As it turns out, Ms. Long has not seen proper to respond --herself-- to the comments of Amy Hasbrouck, and that, I believe, most wisely (although I would dearly love see her try). However, persons closely associated with Ms. Long have indeed flown to her defense, actually demanding apologies from both Amy Hasbrouck and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

It is perhaps best to ignore the ridiculous basis of such a request, but I do believe it is useful to examine the assumptions of entitlement which seem to have made it possible, since those same entitled assumptions are more widely (and most perniciously) weaponized throughout the underlying debate regarding medical homicide.

Briefly stated: it is widely assumed that the suffering of those people seeking recourse to medical homicide cannot be questioned. And from that first assumption spring several others. First, we tend to accept that such people may make any extreme statements that they like (including the most egregious attacks on other individuals); and second, that any criticism (whatsoever) of such individuals, of their behavior, or of their statements, is simply unacceptable.

However, that which might provide a reasonable standard in private conversation cannot be transported to the realm of discourse surrounding public policy. Unfortunately, in the present case, to accept that individuals seeking medical homicide might benefit from a special "sufferers" privilege --which places their beliefs beyond the reach of any rational criticism-- is also to concede the main point in contention (that acceptance of medical homicide is indeed justified as public policy). And that, in all conscience, we cannot do. For we must also remember the people whose defense we are espousing in opposing such a policy (which paradoxically includes Claire Brosseau, who we hope will achieve recovery from her condition).

It thus becomes necessary for us to confront the uncomfortable fact that what may be spontaneous, in individual communication, becomes strategic at the political level; that without reference to any individual, the exploitation of compassionate sentiment becomes a political tool, or as Polonius so shrewdly remarks in Shakespeare's Hamlet (Act 2, Scene 2) "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't".

Without the slightest nuance, when those associated with the death-lobby tell us that we "do not understand", they are crassly attempting to impose upon the best sentiments of good people who do not, indeed, have such experience. But in so doing, they are also ignoring --and attempting to suppress-- the experience and desires of the lion's share of those people who actually do.

When we read Claire Brosseau's passionate diatribe in support of Helen Long (while savagely attacking Amy Hasbrouck, M.P. Andrew Lawton, and by extension so many others) we must remember that Ms. Brosseau's "suffering" cannot reasonably trump that of Ms. Hasbrouck.

More generally, it is simply not true that those who would seek medical homicide are suffering any more than their surviving counterparts. For there is, in fact, no correlation in this regard. Quite to the contrary: the number of people persisting in their struggle to survive (in objectively similar medical circumstances) is vastly greater than those who seek assisted death. For there is no medical circumstance, whatsoever, in which consent to medical homicide might be represented as normal.

When we are told, therefore, that we do not “understand” the suffering of that small minority who would allegedly benefit from assisted death, we must reply that this is false. For we (or at least a great many of us) do indeed understand.

However, unlike the death-lobby we also understand the suffering of the overwhelming majority, whose access to real medical assistance in their own wilful quest to survive, will be significantly degraded by the institutional acceptance of that practice.

Given the need to protect the vital interests of this majority, it is my firm opinion that the suicidal (and their ideological supporters) should be fully satisfied with the simple decriminalization of suicide. It is enough, I believe (and indeed more than enough) that society might view their choice in a morally neutral fashion. It is not desirable that the conceptual ramifications of that choice should be permitted --through official validation-- to pollute the social and medical landscape for the non-suicidal majority.

And indeed, this principle is even more evident when we remember that the dead are truly gone, and that our validation of them has no meaning to themselves.

But those who are struggling --with the consequences of socially validated suicidal acts-- remain among us now, and must continue to live in the world which this ill-advised cult of suicidal adulation has poisoned.

Gordon Friesen,

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

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) seeks intervention standing in euthanasia for mental illness case.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) is seeking to intervene in the "emergency relief" court case that was launched by Dying with Dignity, Canada's leading pro-euthanasia lobby group, to have an Ontario court approve death by medical homicide for Claire Brosseau who is living with mental illness alone.

The May 4, 2026 Dying with Dignity press release stated that:

Ms. Brosseau, Dr. Patricia Smith, and Dying With Dignity Canada, filed a court challenge with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice arguing that the exclusion of individuals living with grievous and irremediable mental illness from MAID eligibility is discriminatory. It violates the rights to equality and liberty and security of the person protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

EPC legal counsel, Hugh Scher, submitted the court intervention application outlining our litigation experience that began in 2004 and includes interventions at every level in Carter, the case that legalized medical homicide in Canada. Scher stated:

EPC will tailor its intervention, if granted, so as to not duplicate submissions made by other parties to the litigation and will focus on the scope of its intervention on the public policy implications including people with mental health disabilities on the application of an exemption to the MAiD provisions of the Criminal Code that would allow for the application of MAiD to a person with a mental illness only.

When Canada passed Bill C-7 in March 2021, that expansion of the medical homicide law included extending killing to people with only a mental illness. At that time parliament declared a two-year moratorium on euthanasia for mental illness alone to provide time for parliament to establish guidelines. Parliament later extended the moratorium on euthanasia for mental illness alone until March 17, 2027.

Recently parliament reconvened the AMAD committee (Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying) to examine whether or not Canada was "ready" to permit medical homicide for mental illness alone. The committee will submit a report later this year.

At the same time, Tamara Jansen (MP - Cloverdale - Langley City) introduced private members Bill C-218 in the House of Commons to prevent euthanasia for mental illness by excluding mental illness from being defined as a "grievous and irremediable medical condition" for the purposes of MAiD. Bill C-218 will prevent MAID for mental illness alone.

Dying With Dignity, Ms. Brosseau, and Dr. Patricia Smith launched the current emergency relief court case in an attempt to get an Ontario court to legislate from the bench by giving Ms. Brosseau an exemption to be killed, even though parliament has a moratorium on euthanasia for mental illness alone.

We will not know immediately whether or not our intervention application is accepted but we will need your financial support. 

Please donate to the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition court intervention (online donation) (paypal donation) donate by e-transfer to info@epcc.ca or call our office at: 1-877-439-3348.

Should the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition apologize to Helen Long from Dying with Dignity?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On May 5, I had the opportunity to present to the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (AMAD). The AMAD committee is examining whether Canada was "ready" to begin euthanasia (MAiD) for mental illness alone, which is currently scheduled to begin on March 17, 2027.

My presentation time was shared with Helen Long, the CEO of Dying with Dignity, Canada's leading euthanasia lobby group and Alicia Duncan, the daughter of Donna Duncan, who died by euthanasia after experiencing a head injury from a car accident.

My presentation focused on Canada needing to conduct a complete review of it's euthanasia law which was required in the original legislation but has never been done. All of the reviews of Canada's euthanasia law were limited to examining further expansions of the law.

On May 4, the day before the AMAD committee hearing, Dying With Dignity filed an emergency relief in an Ontario court, urging the court to legislate from the bench and order the killing of Claire Elyse Brosseau who is living with mental illness as her sole underlying condition. The Dying with Dignity press release, explains that Brosseau, Dying With Dignity and Dr Patricia Smith filed the case.

During the question and answer session at the AMAD committee Helen Long claimed to represent the people who were demanding euthanasia for the sole underlying condition of mental illness. She then read a letter from Claire Brosseau whereby Brosseau complains that the AMAD committee did not bring witnesses from people who are seeking euthanasia, based on mental illness alone.

In concluding the Brosseau's letter, Long read: 

“We so often hear the expression ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’ and yet they have refused to hear from any people who are harmed from the exclusion…”

Amy Hasbrouck

Amy Hasbrouck, the director of Toujours Vivant - Not Dead Yet and a past-President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition responded to the use of the axiom "Nothing about us without us" with an article that essentially tells the euthanasia lobby to: Get our words out of your mouth.

Hasbrouck challenges Long and the euthanasia lobby based on the fact that people with disabilities experience the ultimate discrimination through euthanasia laws, that being death. Hasbrouck explains the long-standing opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide by the disability community and completes her article by stating:

When people’s livelihood and self-image depends on not understanding something, they probably won’t understand it. Apparently, Ms. Long’s personal, pecuniary and political interests depend on her not knowing that it is very uncool to appropriate a disability rights principle in advocating a position the disability rights movement strongly opposes.

Since then the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and Amy Hasbrouck have been lobbied by euthanasia lobbyists, Claire Brosseau and her family to apologize to Helen Long.

John Brosseau sent the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and Amy Hasbrouck this message:

I find myself compelled to respond to the words you published about Helen Long. 

Helen Long has sustained my daughter through circumstances of profound and unrelenting difficulty. She has offered her support with a constancy and grace that few possess. There is no ambiguity about her character or her commitment to Claire. You were cognizant of the fact that Helen spoke on my daughter’s behalf. You possessed this knowledge. You chose to publish your critique nonetheless, directing it at a woman whose sole purpose has been to advocate for my daughter’s dignity and her right to self-determination.

Claire Brosseau sent us a message, urging us to apologize to Helen Long.

So what did Amy Hasbrouck write that requires an apology? 

Hasbrouck, who practised law in Massachusetts, stated that she is a survivor of childhood trauma, she has lived with mental illness and she has been a long-time disability rights activist. Among other things, Hasbrouck wrote:

If she (Helen Long) knew the first thing about ableism, Ms. Long would know that MAiD discriminates against disabled people by definition; disability is among the eligibility criteria enumerated in the definition of a grievous and irremediable medical condition. She would also know that MAiD was provided to many non-terminal disabled people even before the 2019 Truchon decision and the 2021 adoption of Bill C-7, which created “track 2” eligibility for people whose deaths were not “reasonably foreseeable.” Even if Ms. Long didn’t have the advantage of the lived experience of disability discrimination to guide her in evaluating Bill C-14, and its early implementation, anyone who claimed the solidarity of “nothing about us, without us” should have noticed what’s happened in the ten years since legalization; the failure to improve access to palliative care, the reports of same-day euthanasia and MAiD requests linked to “external pressure” (poverty, inadequate and inaccessible housing, and treatment denials) the 100,000 euthanasia deaths and the transformation of an “exceptional” measure to an “expected” response.

Hasbrouck was angry about the use of the disability axiom, "Nothing about us without us" to promote euthanasia, especially since euthanasia was legalized in Canada without considering the concerns of the disability community. Considering her experience and Canada's reality I consider Hasbrouck's anger to be in it's proper place.

As for Brosseau, she is being used by the euthanasia lobby for the purpose of expanding euthanasia to people with mental illness. If she wants to be used by the euthanasia lobby, then that's her decision, but if she is granted death by the court, based on mental illness as the sole criteria, many more people will also be killed based on that precedent. Killing results in many more people being killed.

I oppose killing people and I support the best possible care being provided. But death is never a solution even when it becomes the final solution.

But if I am wrong and if the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition should apologize to Helen Long for publishing Amy's article, then let the readers tell us. Otherwise I will continue to support Amy Hasbrouck and the disability community.

Patient autonomy meets the ‘Groningen Protocol’ (euthanasia of newborns)

Killing of the incapable increases lethal pressure on capable patients.

Gordon Friesen

By Gordon Friesen

It has been repeatedly and fallaciously claimed that medical 'assistance in dying' is (and always shall be) an exercise of patient autonomy; that it poses no threat to incapable patients.

However, the legalization of medical homicide, in the alleged context of choice, has also sparked the rapid advancement of other variations, where autonomy is either limited, or impossible, and whose justification depends, not upon choice, but upon the objective judgment of medical circumstances.

This point is most emphatically illustrated by present Canadian consideration(1) of the Dutch ‘Groningen Protocol’,(2) which practice originally included the infanticide of babies up to 12 months, and is now being considered to include children up to 12 yrs (3). Clearly, no one might pretend that such deaths reflect autonomous choice.

Normalized infanticide, of course is extremely problematic on its own. For decisions which doctors (and parents) might previously have worried over, long and hard, will now become routine. Crucial enabling concepts which echo the worst phase of twentieth century eugenics, that is, concepts such as ‘incompatibility with life’,(4)  will become increasingly elastic.

From a situation analogous to the historically extreme (and exceedingly rare) destruction of clearly inedible food, prospective parents will inevitably pass to the capricious practice of modern shoppers at the supermarket, disdainfully rejecting any fruit with the slightest blemish.

However our present interest with legal infanticide most closely concerns its relation to the evolution of medical homicide more generally.

Unsurprisingly, our adversaries simply deny any connection. According to the mendacious sophistry thus employed: infanticide cannot be an extension of MAID, because MAID is legally defined to require an informed consent, of which infants are incapable!

However (as we must reply) infanticide by doctor is clearly a form and extension of medical homicide (of which MAID was only the first permitted instance). And this fact both underscores, once again, the importance of employing proper language; and irrefutably demonstrates the expansion of medical homicide beyond the capacity border.

But there is more. For just as the assumed legitimacy of poisoning capable patients suggests a similar legitimacy for the incapable, so also, this allegedly objective justification of medical homicide turns back upon itself: to increase the pressure upon non-compliant, capable patients, to more readily accept their proffered fate.

For once the principle is openly proclaimed --that imperfect life does not deserve to live-- how can people be expected to accept imperfection in others, or in themselves?

In other words: to protect the incapable is also to protect ourselves.

Gordon Friesen, May 19, 2026

       (1) Schadenberg, Alex, Is Euthanasia of Newborns with Disabilities next?, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, January 16, 2026 https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2026/01/is-euthanasia-of-newborns-with.html
    (2) Verhagen, Eduard, M.D., J.D., and Sauer, Pieter J.J. , M.D., Ph.D., The Groningen Protocol — Euthanasia in Severely Ill Newborns, N Engl J Med 2005;352:959-962, March 10, 2005 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp058026
    (3) Schadenberg, Alex, The Netherlands plans to extend euthanasia to children, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, April 14, 2023 https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-netherlands-to-extend-euthanasia-to.html
    (4) Zhuang, Zara, ‘Stop saying fetuses with disabilities are incompatible with life, The Irish Times, Nov 25 2014, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/stop-saying-fetuses-with-disabilities-are-incompatible-with-life-1.2014538

France's Senate rejects assisted suicide for the second time.

Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

France's Senate once again defeated a bill to legalize assisted suicide, 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.

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

Even though France's Senate has defeated the assisted suicide bill twice and both times overwhelmingly passed a bill to improve palliative care, based on France's system of government the assisted suicide bill may pass again in the National Assembly and still become law. Third reading on the bill in the National Assembly could still happen in June.

France needs to seriously consider the experience with euthanasia in Québec and completely reject killing people by poison. Québec legalized euthanasia based on "exceptional circumstances" in 2015. The French Canadian province now has the highest euthanasia rate in the world.

Previous articles on the French euthanasia debate.

• UN Committee launches investigation into France's euthanasia bill (Link).
• France's National Assembly votes to legalize euthanasia (Link).

MAiD (euthanasia). How does death actually occur?

So when they die, they're actually drowning in their own blood.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Bridge City News did an interview with Dr Joel Zivot, who is a Candian anesthesiologist and adjunct professor at Emory University in the United States. Zivot spoke to the Bridge City News about how euthanasia drugs cause death. I have edited the comments by Zivot for length. Zivot stated:

I'm an anesthesiologist and I also do intensive care medicine. I'm from Canada originally and I've been in the US for a number of years, and I'm always interested with what's happening in Canada. I have practised in Canada and I trained in Canada.

Zivot comments on the Supreme Court of Canada Carter decision that led to the legalization of euthanasia, which is known as MAiD in Canada. Zivot continued:

I was concerned that such an action would imperil medical professionalism in Canada because it seemed to be advocating a wholesale ethical change as to what physicians are supposed to be doing. Medicine is interested in saving life, not taking it.

...In my intensive care capacity I encounter a lot of patients who die and that's normal and natural but the idea that medicine could be transformed into a practice that I could actually kill someone and call it treatment. Now treatment can be killing. That, of course, to me is an anathema to the ethical practice of medicine.

In the US I am also involved with the area of the death penalty. The reason I got involved in the death penalty is the use of science and medicine as a method of punishing people. The most common method of execution in the US is lethal injection which takes certain types of chemicals that in my hands are medicine and in the state's hands are poison and repurposes them to kill prisoners.

Zivot comments on his beliefs related to the death penalty and then says:

It's not the job of the doctor to kill prisoners and it is not the job of the tools of medicine. So my protest is that if the state wants to executive people, it has to use a technique that isn't an impersonation of medicine.

Zivot then comments on Canada's euthanasia program:

Assistance in Dying in Canada is strikingly similar to the way that prisoners are executed in the United States. When I realized that was going on that caught my attention.

I have reviewed hundreds of autopsies of prisoners executed using lethal injection and found a strikingly common finding of bloody froth in their lungs. So when they die, they're actually drowning in their own blood.

You may have no sympathy for convicted murderers but the US Constitution makes it very clear that when a prisoner is punished that the punishment can't be cruel. I believe that the punishment of lethal injection creates a cruel death.

I brought those same concerns to Canada. My concern in the Canadian assisted dying system is that there's been a persistent dishonesty in exactly what is happening when people are being killed by MAiD.

Dr Zivot was asked about the drugs that are being used for euthanasia. Zivot responds:

No drug company is manufacturing a drug where the labelled indication is to kill. It's not made for that. ...In both the death penalty and assisted dying, it's recognized that these drugs can be repurposed and be converted into poison.

Zivot comments on medical politics in Canada. He then speaks about dying with dignity:

There's been little focus on is the killing part of being dead. To get from alive to dead, you have to be killed, you have to die, and that's not instantaneous. So there's a thing that has to be done to you that causes your death. And that can take some time. 

So words like dignity of course, what does it mean to be dignified, to die with dignity? ...

So to suggest somehow that the only dignity available to people who are suffering is to kill them feels to me to be a very sinister use of the word dignity.

You're basically saying that if you want to be alive and in pain that there is something wrong with you. So if your not dying with dignity then you're living with undignity.

That's branding, that's a false and pernicious claim about people who want to be alive.

Zivot was asked about euthanasia being extended to people with mental illness alone in March 2027. Zivot responds:

That's obviously very disconcerting. Let's hope that between now and then that clearer heads prevail.

I take care of a lot of people who are mentally ill. I have patients who've tried to kill themselves. 

When I encounter them, my assumption is that they want to live. Sure enough, in many cases once they have recovered from their attempted suicide, they live. Sometimes there's gratitude.

I think that you want your doctor to assume that you want to live. Mental illness leads to a series of bad decisions. I don't know how. if we say that a person has mental illness and loses capacity, that the capacity to request death, that capacity is preserved.

So why is a person who is mentally ill able to make that decision? 

Zivot then comments his experience with patients with mental illness and how they are cared for to help them live. Zivot states:

If there is some particular theoretical person who has thought about it, who's done every possible thing, who is not under resourced, who is not lonely, ... and you think that person should be allowed to die? I still don't think it's my job to do it. 

The problem is that once you make that available, you create opportunities and incentives for people to die and that's the worst possible thing.

Zivot was then asked, if lethal injection results in death by drowning, why aren't there more doctors screaming from the rooftops? Zivot responds:

I presented my concerns to the Senate of Canada and I was roundly criticized for it. When I was testifying, a person who was there waiting their turn to speak was an advocate of MAiD, when talking about MAiD he began to cry and said it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

When it came to my turn, I said to the chairperson, if you would like me to cry, I can do that too, if that would be effective.

I am not suggesting that this person was not sincere, but the sense that the only beauty lies in killing is a terrible, terrible idea. 

Zivot was then asked for his final comments. He said:

MAiD is basically saying that if you don't have MAiD then you're facing a terrible painful death. That is untrue.

Palliative care is a branch of medicine that is probably underfunded. Even without palliative care, I'm a physician in intensive care and I deal with people who are dying and I'm pretty comfortable in providing people with sedation or pain control to allow a natural death.

I don't need to kill them. They will die and they don't have to die in pain. 

What people really need is companionship.

Zivot spoke about a study on labour epidurals. The study found that when a woman has companionship and support that the pain she experienced was less. Zivot continued:

We should be there in support of people while they live. If death is going to occur, then we should provide something to ease the pain of natural dying but we don't need to kill them to do that. It's just not true. 

I think that MAiD has created this illusion that there's only two choices. It's either a miserable painful death or MAiD.

That has to stop and be challenged.

Zivot ended the interview by commenting on the effect of Canada's Charter on the euthanasia issue.

Previous articles concerning Dr Joel Zivot (Link to articles).