Canadia Man who sold suicide poison will plead guilty to aiding suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Kenneth Law

Kenneth Law, who may have sold a poison substance for suicide, online, to as many as 1200 people world-wide, will plead guilty to multiple counts of aiding suicide. 

Under a plea agreement, the Crown Prosecutor will drop the 14 counts of murder, that if convicted, would have resulted in 25 years in prison, for an agreement where Law pleads guilty to aiding the suicide of his victims, a charge that would likely result in a 14 year jail sentence.

In other words, Law may get off a 14 year sentence for knowingly selling a suicide substance to 1200 people that resulted in 100's of deaths. Since he has been in custody since May 2023, he may be free in 8 years.

On May 3, 2023; I reported that Law, had been arrested and charged with two counts of assisted suicide and was believed to have assisted the suicide of at least 7 people in the US and the UK.

Lucas Casaletto reported for City News that:

Peel Regional Police announced the arrest of a 57-year-old Ontario man stemming from the online distribution of ... across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) that resulted in two deaths.

Authorities in Peel Region opened an investigation following a report from the Times of London in the United Kingdom. It mentioned that a GTA resident named Kenneth Law had been selling ..., a legal but lethal drug, to people in the U.K. and the U.S., which resulted in seven suicides.

On March 31, officers in Peel Region began investigating the circumstances of a sudden death in Ontario. It is believed that Law distributed and marketed the substance online to target individuals at risk of self-harm.

Law was arrested by Peel police ... and charged with two counts of counselling or aiding in suicide. He appeared briefly in a Brampton court ... 

Neha Raju (23) and Tom Parfett (22)

On May 9, 2023 CTV News journalist, Jon Woodward reported that Law was facing two counts of aiding and abetting the deaths of two people in Peel Region, allegedly through the online sales of a legal substance that is lethal in high concentrations. Law sold the substance world-wide for the purposes of aiding suicide.

Woodward reported that 23-year-old Neha Raju and 22-year-old Tom Parfett died in the U.K., and 20-year-old Noelle Ramirez died in Colorado, and 17-year-old Anthony Jones died in Michigan and the police were investigating 1200 people who were sent the lethal substance online.

Imogen Nunn

Euronews reported on August 25, 2023 that Law was being investigated by UK authorities in the suicide deaths of 88 people and it was suspected that Law had shipped the suicide substance to at least 232 people in the UK.

On August 27, 2023 Jon Woodward further reported on  CP24 on the Law investigation that the death of Imogen Nunn was also connected to Law. Woodward stated that:

Louise Nunn

The British mom of a TikTok star is coming forward demanding justice after she found out her daughter died using a so-called suicide kit allegedly sold by a Canadian man, as deaths possibly tied to Kenneth Law rise to over 100.

Louise Nunn said it was sickening to learn that the death of her daughter Imogen, known as “Deaf Immy” to 710,000 TikTok followers, was one of 88 British people local police say died after ordering products from Law’s websites over a two-year period.

Nunn said it was heartbreaking to learn of other deaths months and years before Imogen’s, and believes many lives could have been saved if authorities had acted earlier.

“I can’t even say how angry it makes me feel. It’s sickening. Why did they let it go on for so long? They could have stopped this a long time ago,” Nunn said.

Imogen Nunn died suddenly in January, 2023 and the family didn't know how she died until the toxicology report confirmed that she died from the suicide substance.  Woodward also reported that the youngest victim connected to Kenneth Law was 17.

Many of those who died were in their 20s, according to family members. The youngest was 17-year-old Anthony Jones in Michigan. The earliest known case is a 21-year-old named Jaden, who died in February 2021 — his family said they went to police in B.C. almost two years before Imogen Nunn’s death.

Some of Kenneth Law's victims.

On December 12, 2023 CBC News Toronto reported that Law was charged with 14 counts of second-degree murder. The CBC news report stated:

Law was charged with 14 counts of second-degree murder, in addition to the 14 counts of counselling or aiding suicide that he was already facing. CBC News Toronto stated that York Regional Police Insp. Simon James, who heads up a multi-service task force investigating Law confirmed the charges at a news conference today. The new charges are related to the same alleged victims in multiple Ontario municipalities, from Toronto to Thunder Bay.

On October 7, 2024, Jon Woodward reported for CTV news that Law was challenging the second-degree murder charges to the Supreme Court of Canada. Woodward reported:

“Assisting suicide is not murder,” Law’s lawyers, Matthew Gourlay, Stephanie DiGuiseppe, and Taylor Wormington wrote in a brief filed Friday.

"Mr. Law is not alleged to have been present at any of the deaths. He is not alleged to have deceived the victims into unwittingly ending their own lives. It would impermissibly warp the language of the Code to assert that someone who mails a toxic substance that another person later voluntarily consumes in another location with suicidal intent has “actually committed” their murder," they write.

Woodward's report indicates that at least 130 people died after consuming the poison.

Charges against Law included a 16-year-old death in Ontario. CBC News reported on May 8 that 17-year-old Anthony Jones from Michigan allegedly died in connection to Law's suicide kit.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition will continue to report on this horrific case.

I live with Schizophrenia. I support Bill C-218.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

In March 2021, the Canadian government expanded the euthanasia law by passing Bill C-7. One of the expansions in the law permitted euthanasia for a mental illness alone. The government originally approved a two-year moratorium on euthanasia for mental illness alone to prepare for the change.

The government delayed the implementation and currently euthanasia for mental illness alone will begin on March 17, 2027.

Tamara Jansen (MP - Cloverdale - Langley City) introduced private members Bill C-218 in parliament to prevent euthanasia (MAiD) for mental illness alone. 

Bill C-218, if passed will prevent MAID for mental illness alone.

On April 17, 2026 the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition received the following message urging passage of Bill C-218 based on personal experience. The supporter stated:

Inability to Know Which Suicides to Prevent and Which to Provide is a good subject.

I live with the illness schizophrenia and at risk of developing dementia and I fear this future decision. 

I told family and friends that I am against euthanasia. My only hope is that in the future, not only for myself but for others, is that euthaanasia does not become legal for mentally people. 

How do you treat an illness with MAID when suicidal feelings are a symptom of the illness, where do we differentiate the difference?

There are several effective ways you can help get Bill C-218 passed:

1. Sign the petition in support of Bill C-218 (Link).
2. Share your story about living with mental illness, as Andrew Lawton (MP) did with his message: I got better. Support Bill C-218 prevent MAiD for Mental Illness (Link). 
3. Send your personal stories about living with mental illness to info@epcc.ca.
4. Contact your Member of Parliament and share your story or share your support for Bill C-218. Contact your Member of Parliament at: (Member of Parliament List).
5. Often it is easier and more efffective to call your Member of Parliament. The phone numbers are part of the MP contact information. (Member of Parliament List).
6. Refer to the information in the Bill C-218 handout for Members of Parliament (Link).

Remember. The majority of Canadians do not support MAiD for mental illness. 

 

To pass, Bill C-218 will need Members of Parliament from all political parties to support it. Keys to speaking to your Member of Parliament:

• Only comment on MAiD for mental illness alone. Bill C-218 only deals with that issue. There are many concerns, but mixing issues weakens your position.
• Contact your Member of Parliament, even if you know his/her position on MAiD.
• Ask others, including groups that you belong to, to contact the Member of Parliament.

More information on Bill C-218.

• Bill C-218 introduced to prevent MAiD for Mental Illness (Link). 
• Support Bill C-218. No to MAiD for Mental Illness (Link). 
• Supporting Bill C-218 - I am so thankful to be alive (Link). 
• I got better. Support Bill C-218 prevent MAiD for Mental Illness (Link). 
• My story: No to MAiD for Mental Illness (Link). 
• Patti's story. Support Bill C-218. (Link).
• The majority of Canadians do not support MAiD (euthanasia) for mental illness (Link).

At Last! A Fair Shake for Terri Schiavo’s Brother in the New York Times

This article was published by National Review online on April 13, 2026.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley Smith

My friend Bobby Schindler, the late Terri Schiavo’s brother, is one of the kindest, humblest, most decent people I know. And yet, because he dared to stand up for the inherent value of his sister’s life and against the injustice of her court-ordered dehydration — and has continued to fight on behalf of brain-injured people and their families — journalists and bioethicists often look down their noses at him as someone just beyond the pale of sophisticated society.

But in a story in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine reciting how many allegedly unconscious patients are actually aware — I refuse to use the term “vegetative” as it is a dehumanizing denigration of intrinsic human value — much to my delighted surprise, Bobby is treated fairly and with respect by journalist Katie Engelhart.

Bobby Schindler

As the head of the Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network, Bobby toils as a patient advocate for people who are being pressured to end the lives of their cognitively disabled loved ones. It is in this context that a woman fighting for her husband’s life meets Bobby:

One day, someone in the group told Tabitha that she should contact a man named Bobby Schindler, a patient advocate who helped people like Aaron.

Tabitha messaged Schindler through his website, and he called her the next day. He listened as if he really cared. Schindler told Tabitha that her hope for Aaron was right and just. That it was correct to resist the doctors’ appeals for “comfort care.” He offered to introduce Tabitha to a lawyer he knew, so that, in dealings with the hospital — for instance, if the hospital wanted to discharge Aaron to a nursing home before she felt he was ready — she could say, “My lawyer will handle this.” And Schindler seemed to understand everything that Tabitha was going through, because of what had happened to his sister, Terri Schiavo.

Bobby is not in it for himself, but to help:

In the 20 years since he established the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network, Schindler has never advertised his services. “I think just the fact of Terri’s name is enough for people to find us,” he says. Most of the time, people wanted his advice. Or the name of a good lawyer. Or money. Almost everyone wanted more time. They called from the I.C.U. to say that doctors had started talking about comfort care, about organs.

Schindler would tell the callers what he had come to believe in the years since his sister died one of the most litigated deaths in U.S. history: that there might be hope for their loved ones. That they could fight hospital administrators. That the persistent vegetative state diagnosis was “subjective.”

This is what he does. When Bobby stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Jahi McMath’s mother at a news conference when she was fighting against a brain death diagnosis for her daughter in Oakland, he saw a mother’s pain. Behind the scenes, to my shame, I counseled him against getting involved. Fighting brain death is not the policy hill to die on, I said. Nothing can prevent Jahi from being taken off life support.

I was doubly wrong. In the end, Jahi was not taken off life support but moved to New Jersey, and it turned out, she was catastrophically disabled but not dead. I witnessed it myself. (She later died of complications from intestinal surgery.)

In any event, one can disagree with Bobby’s beliefs and his family’s valiant struggle (in my view) to save Terri’s life. But I am pleased that — finally — a mainstream journalist treated Bobby with the respect and fairness he deserves. And in the New York Times, no less. Will wonders never cease.

Tamara Jansen (MP) Parliament hill speech on Bill C-218. Preventing euthanasia for mental illness.

This is the speech by Tamara Jansen on Monday April 13 on parliament hill at the EPC rally to almost 100 participants who attended in the pouring rain.

Tamara Jansen (MP)

My friends,

You know, when I first got involved in politics, it wasn’t because I had some grand plan to stand on Parliament Hill one day and speak about a bill like this.

It started much more simply. I got to know my local MP Mark Warawa and loved what he stood for.  I started helping him organize town halls, meet with people in the community, and make connections.  He was doing all this because he was passionate about the vulnerable citizens living among us.

And one of the things Mark cared deeply about was palliative care. He believed, in a very real and practical way, that when people are suffering, our job is to come alongside them—to care for them, to support them, to remind them that they are not alone.

Now, Mark also served on the original committee studying what would become MAiD, and I remember him saying—more than once—that we needed to be very careful because once you open a door like that, you don’t always get to decide how far it swings.

At the time, some people thought that was a bit of a stretch.

But I don’t think anyone would say that today.

Because here we are, just a few years later, and what began as something quite limited has been expanded, piece by piece, to the point where we are now planning to offer MAiD to those whose only condition is mental illness—people who are not at the end of life.

And somewhere along the way, I found myself thinking: this isn’t what people believed they were agreeing to.

That’s why I brought forward Bill C-218, building on the work of my colleague Ed Fast—because at some point, when you can see where a road is leading, you have to be willing to stop and say, “Let’s take another look at this before we go any further.”

Now, when you take the time to really look at what is being proposed here, and you listen carefully to the people who are working most closely with those who are suffering, you begin to understand that this issue is far more complex than it is often presented by organizations like Dying With Dignity. We have heard from psychiatrists across this country—highly trained, deeply experienced professionals—who are telling us, quite plainly, that when it comes to mental illness, there is no reliable way to determine that a condition is truly irremediable.

That word matters, because it is the very foundation upon which MAiD rests. It assumes that we can identify, with confidence, when suffering cannot be alleviated. But in the case of mental illness, the evidence simply does not support that level of certainty, and the doctors themselves are telling us so.

And if we pause for a moment and reflect on that, it raises a very serious concern. Because what we are being asked to accept is not a clear medical conclusion, but a judgment—one that carries permanent consequences. Mental illness does not follow a straight line. It shifts, it responds, it improves, sometimes in ways that surprise even those who have spent years studying it. People who once believed they could not go on have, with time and care, found their footing again. And yet, under this expansion, we are being asked to make life-ending decisions with no clear certainty that things couldn’t improve with time and care.

But there is another piece of this that Canadians often don’t realize. Under the current framework, there is no requirement that a person must have received every reasonable treatment—or even meaningful treatment at all—before being approved for MAiD. Just think about that for a moment. We are prepared to offer a permanent solution, even in situations where the path to care has not been fully pursued, or where access to that care may have been limited in the first place.

And when you place that reality alongside the circumstances many people are living in, it becomes much more serious. Because vulnerability is not just about a diagnosis—it is about the whole situation a person finds themselves in. It is about someone who feels isolated, someone who feels like a burden on their family, someone who looks around and quietly begins to wonder whether others might be better off without them. Those are not rare thoughts in moments of deep struggle—they are, in fact, painfully common.

So we have to ask ourselves what happens when a person in that state is presented with MAiD as an option. Are they making a free and fully unburdened choice, or are they responding to a set of pressures—emotional, social, even financial—that are shaping that decision in ways we cannot measure?

At the same time, experts who have spoken to us have raised another concern, one that is difficult to ignore. They are seeing individuals who are already struggling with suicidal thoughts becoming aware that there is now a system that can provide the outcome they want.

And in some cases, when one door closes, another can be found—because what has emerged is a form of doctor shopping, where individuals seek out assessors who are willing to say yes, even when others have urged caution or continued care. Some experts have described this as creating a kind of pull, where MAiD begins to appear not as a last resort after every avenue has been exhausted, but as an available alternative.

We have already seen the consequences of that. Kiano’s story is one that many of you here know well. He was a young man who was struggling, who needed support, who needed time, and whose mother fought for him—fought the system for him—because she believed, as any parent would, that her son’s life was worth fighting for. And yet, despite those efforts, he was eventually able to find a pathway that led to his death. How many more Kiano’s are out there that we have not heard about?

And that is where this becomes more than policy. Because when a system allows that kind of outcome, it raises a very serious question about whether we are truly protecting the vulnerable, or whether we are making it easier for them to give up at the very moment they most need someone to stand in the gap for them.

And so I want to close by simply saying thank you.

Thank you to every one of you who has taken the time to stand here today, and to so many others across this country who may not be on this hill, but who have picked up the phone, written an email, or had a conversation with their Member of Parliament because they know this matters.

These things are not always easy to do. They take time, they take courage, and they come from a place of deep concern—not just for ourselves, but for people we may never meet.

And that, more than anything, is what this bill represents.

It represents a decision, as a country, to stand with those who are struggling… especially when they cannot stand on their own. It represents a belief that vulnerability should never become a pathway to being overlooked, or worse, to being offered something final when what is still needed is care, time, and hope.

And I want you to know that your voices are being heard.

In Parliament, those calls, those letters, those conversations—they matter. They shape decisions, they influence outcomes. They remind every Member of Parliament that behind every vote are real people, real families, and real lives.

So please, keep going.

Keep speaking.

Keep standing for those who need someone to stand for them.

Together we will reaffirm the kind of country we want to be.  One that truly cares for those most vulnerable in communities across Canada.

Thank you.

• Tamara Jansen speech in the House of Commons on Bill C -218, preventing euthanasia for mental illness alone (Read).
  

Euthanasia: No Evidence Base for Futility and Irremediability in Psychiatric Disorders

This commentary was published by The Psychiatric Times on April 6, 2026.

By Dr's Mark Komrad and Catherine Ferrier

Dr Mark Komrad

As Canada approaches the planned implementation of their medical euthanasia program—or medical aid in dying (MAID)—for patients with sole psychiatric illnesses in March 2027, the Canadian Parliament is again studying the advisability of this decision. Here, we make an argument as to why these practices should remain closed to individuals with psychiatric disorders.

Unlike many other kinds of illnesses, futility or irremediability cannot be reliably resolved by clinicians in cases of psychiatric disorders, especially for any one particular individual. As Sonu Gaind, MD, past president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association and chair of the Toronto Expert Advisory Group on MAID for mental illness, wrote, “An extensive review of the literature shows that we cannot predict irremediability when it comes to mental illness. . . There is a big difference between being able to predict the declining course of a well-known medical ailment with understood biology, even if not with 100% certainty, versus making unpredictable assessments about the course of mental illnesses.”1 Some reasons for this follow.

Diagnosis and Prognosis of Mental Disorders Are Unreliable

Prognosis, the ability to predict the course of any illness—with or without treatment—depends on accurate identification of what the illness is, so that we can mine scientific evidence about the course of that illness. Because psychiatric conditions are based on patient’s history and clinical observation of the individual (rather than other kinds of validations, like blood tests, imaging studies, etc) the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis is limited. Studies have shown that clinicians agree on a patient’s formal psychiatric diagnosis between 66% to 75% of the time.2 Also, over time, psychiatric diagnoses are liable to be changed, much more than diagnoses of somatic illnesses. So, the unreliability and instability of psychiatric diagnoses mean that predicting the course of a patient’s condition, the prospect of its remission, and its response to any or all treatment, are too elusive to declare any one case “untreatable” or “futile.” The level of uncertainty in the science of psychiatric prognosis is very high.3

Inability to Know Which Suicides to Prevent and Which to Provide

Because of these unpredictable aspects, allowing MAID for some psychiatric patients, but not for all, poses a profound and irresolvable clinical conundrum—how to distinguish those patients for whom suicide should be prevented from those for whom it should be provided. The chairs of all 17 academic departments of psychiatry in Canada expressed profound concern about allowing MAID for mental disorders for this reason.4 Imagine a likely scenario if MAID were legalized for psychiatric disorders: a psychiatric inpatient ward where some patients are being treated for suicidal thinking or behavior, perhaps involuntarily, but others on the same ward might be deemed eligible to receive MAID. Besides the moral injury to the clinicians, how confusing it would be for the patients in that milieu! Now scale up this conundrum to the general population where, nationally, some suicides for mental disorders are not prevented, but provided. That will impact the taboo against suicide—a vital component of suicide prevention in general. A taboo (“it is not good to commit suicide”) is different than stigma (“you should be ashamed if you try it”). Indeed, because of MAID’s dampening taboo, there is growing evidence that the rates of “ordinary suicide” in jurisdictions that have MAID (specifically Oregon, Switzerland Netherlands, Belgium5 and Australia6) have risen much faster after it was legalized than before, strongly suggesting the emergence of “suicide contagion”—a well-known public health phenomenon. The mixed messages of the provided vs the prevented suicides are profoundly impactful, particularly on those with mental illness, who already struggle with impairment in rational reflection about suicide as an option.

Enormous and Nonspecific Variety of Treatments for Mental Disorders

The breadth of treatments for psychiatric illnesses is wider than for somatic treatments. There is much less specificity for any one medication, therapy, or procedure for a mental disorder. Treatments for psychiatric disorders are much less precise than for somatic disorders.7 For example, a medication that might be effective for schizophrenia will also be effective for bipolar disorder, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, insomnia, eating disorder, and others. Psychiatric treatments come in many modalities from over 100 pharmaceuticals of different actions to several hundred bona fide methods of talk therapy and physical treatments,8 like electroconvulsive therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and many others. The response of several patients with a similar psychiatric condition can be highly variable,9 more so than for nonpsychiatric conditions, requiring a much more robust trial-and-error approach. Patients typically require more than one kind of treatment for optimal benefit. There is not widespread availability for so many of these various treatments, particularly some cutting-edge treatments like psilocybin, clozapine, ketamine, and dialectical behavior therapy. Some are available only in academic centers and some are wielded primarily by subspecialists in a certain condition, who may be difficult to access, as they are scarce, with long waiting lists to see them. Waiting lists for such specialists in Canada can be far longer than the 90-day wait for Track 2 MAID.10 Off-label treatments are especially common in psychiatry, even when there is a good evidence base, so they may be difficult to get approved.11 Therefore, not every treatment is available to every psychiatrist, and indeed, not every psychiatrist is even aware of the full scope of treatment options, or is trained in them.12

The Challenge of Evaluating Capacity to Consent to MAID

Capacity to consent to treatment is more elusive in the setting of mental illness. The most respected bioethics textbook in the world, Principles of Biomedical Ethics, written by Beauchamp and Childress, defines autonomy as: “Self-rule that is free from both controlling interference by others and from inner limitations.”13 Mental illnesses and their associated cognitive and emotional distortions are the quintessential inner limitations. The state-of-the-art of capacity assessment is a highly complex one, which was developed for far less serious existential issues than to make the decision to end one’s life. It was developed for capacity to stand trial, write a will, consent to surgery, etc. Even at that level, capacity assessment requires specialized training that even most psychiatrists do not have. It is a skill that is provided mostly by certain psychiatric subspecialists—forensic psychiatrists and consultation-liaison psychiatrists who work on medical and surgical wards. Even in the Netherlands, a country that has had 2 decades to develop experience with psychiatric MAID, one study showed that 92% of psychiatric patients receiving euthanasia had inadequate capacity assessment,14 because there were no agreed upon standards for such an assessment for approving a suicidal wish in that cohort where suicidal feelings are particularly endemic.

Those With Mental Illness Are More Marginalized and More Vulnerable

Family physician Ramona Coelho has written: “When feeling like a burden, or when loneliness, depression, or fear of prolonged suffering are the factors driving the decision, the choices for MAID are not made in true freedom but are borne of anguish and desperation... Suffering can distort autonomy.”15 Mental illness can indeed cause severe suffering. One might even consider it the “most human” form of suffering. That marginalization makes individuals more vulnerable to requesting MAID, which has been widely documented in Canada. Those with chronic and severe mental illnesses are among the most marginalized citizens of all. They are overrepresented in the lowest socioeconomic quintile of the population.16 They are more likely to be underresourced, disabled, unhoused, and stigmatized than people with other medical conditions. Franklin Roosevelt famously said, “necessitous men are not free men.” Those with mental illness are disproportionally necessitous.

MAID Inverts the Fundamental Ethos of Mental Health Professions

It is already challenging for physicians to get out the way of death, and to refer patients for palliative care. Further, to administer the means to actively produce death is anathema to medical ethics, but particularly for psychiatrists, whose daily work and fundamental ethos is to prevent suicide. This is why the American Psychiatric Association is opposed to any intervention to produce death for those with mental illness.17 Mental health professionals typically have longer and more frequent encounters with individual patients than other physicians and health care professionals. Helping individuals deal with despair, demoralization, suffering, and hopelessness is a core mission in the mental health professions. Psychiatric clinicians address symptoms, but also build coping mechanisms, mobilize support systems, and even help people make meaning of unresolved suffering. Mental health experts are skilled at accompanying patients in their afflictions and have specific training and experience on how to avoid absorbing a patient’s hopelessness and nihilism, a skill set which is independent of any psychiatric diagnosis. To create a facilitated path to suicide by opening MAID in the setting of mental health treatment is a profound, indeed revolutionary, and perilous inversion of that professional ethos for individual patients, and for public mental health.

Dr Komrad is a psychiatrist on the teaching staff of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He is also a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland in Baltimore and on the teaching faculty of psychiatry at Tulane University and Louisiana State University in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is also a founding member of the international physicians’ organization Doctors Say No.

Dr Ferrier is a family physician working in the Division of Geriatric Medicine of the McGill University Health Centre. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and is the president of the Physicians’ Alliance Against Euthanasia.

References are attained by linking to the original article (Article Link).

Meghan Schader: Please Do Not Use the R Word: Part 2

Meagan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader

As I’ve written, some people have begun incorporating the words “retard” and “retarded” (known in disability circles as the R word) into their political identities; people are using the R word as a way to signal their frustrations with political correctness. Hence, public usage of the R word has increased significantly.

I want to help other euthanasia opponents understand why it’s important to resist this fad.

So I’m offering a more detailed account of a few of my experiences of being called the R word; I think they might help euthanasia opponents understand why participating in the R word craze trivializes the word’s connection to disabled people’s experiences of abuse, even if the people using the term as a badge of honor don’t mean it that way.

One day at church when I was eleven, another girl randomly walked up to me and said, “Meghan, you’re a retard and everyone hates you.” “That’s not a very Christian thing to say,” I answered. “I’m not Christian, I’m Episcopalian,” she said. (LOL).

This girl was not alone in using that term. During one Sunday School class when the teacher finally told an aggressive bully to stop calling me the R word, he said, “She’s like an animal, she has no feelings anyway.” This abusive behavior spread among other children in the class, until pretty much everyone was calling me the R word and saying that they hated me. The problem became so severe that my parents pulled me out of Sunday School.

In sixth grade there was one bully who not only called me the R word, but also taunted me with comments like, “Did your mother drink when she was pregnant with you?” “Did your parents lose a bet with God or something?” “I’m going to throw acid on you in science class.” Then he stole metal pellets from the science classroom and threw them at my head. After that, the principal ordered us to attend a peer mediation session with two peer mediators and a police officer. The bully had no compunction. He proudly admitted that he had, in fact, called me the R word, threatened my life, etc. “Yeah I hate her; everyone in the school hates her,” he said.

These are only a few examples; I could go on and on about all of the times that bullies did vicious things while calling me the R word.

In short, when you use the R word to prove how bravely politically incorrect you are, you are ignoring the term’s link to dehumanization and prejudice.

So, please: Don’t use the R word.

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

• Previous article by Meghan Schrader on this topic: (Read).
  

Euthanasia can allow structural coercive forces to push people toward death.

The following presentation was made by Dr Ramona Coelho to the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying on April 14, 2026. (Link to the meeting)

Dr Ramona Coelho

I am a family physician, Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and an adjunct research professor at Western University.

I served on Ontario’s MAiD Death Review Committee and have published extensively on MAiD, and I speak in an individual capacity.

For twenty years, I have cared for patients with complex disabilities, mental illness, chronic pain, and social vulnerability, many facing financial instability.

Suffering is complex, shaped by psychological distress, trauma, poverty, isolation, and lack of support. Addressing it requires careful assessment, time, and care.

Community life plays a large role in mitigating suffering.

Yet in Canada, some individuals receive MAiD where suffering is driven by these unmet needs.

In my practice, I observed troubling patterns in how MAiD is introduced and assessed.

Some patients were referred immediately after a new diagnosis, others were approached repeatedly during vulnerable hospitalizations, and some were assessed and approved quickly without meaningful exploration of suffering or supports.

Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee reports contain anonymized cases, which you should all have. Across these cases, there were individuals with untreated mental illness, suicidality, addiction, isolation, and unmet social needs, demonstrating premature eligibility, inadequate safeguards, and a failure to address suffering before ending lives.

In particular, Track 2 cases reflect social vulnerability and untreated mental illness. Statistics showed nearly 30 percent of recipients lived in poverty. More were women. Many listed a lawyer, physician, or friend, not family, as next of kin, indicating social isolation. Less than half received mental health or disability supports. Fewer than 10 percent were offered housing or income support.

Although framed as choice, MAiD can allow structural coercive forces to push people toward death.

With mental illness, it is not possible to reliably determine that someone will not recover. At the same time, many Canadians wait prolonged periods for specialized psychiatric care, extending suffering and delaying recovery.

Suicidality, lack of insight, and impaired judgment are symptoms of many psychiatric conditions. They fluctuate, and recovery often occurs with time and social support, with or without treatment.

Given the lack of evidence to guide MAiD assessments for mental illness, bias and discrimination will inevitably determine who receives MAiD and who receives suicide prevention.

I invite you to read my article: Discrimination-driven deaths – Analysing Ontario Coroner Reports on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.

In response to claims that MAiD professionals consistently follow guidelines and that CAMAP guidance is sufficient, review the Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee cases and read my article. They illustrate gaps between guidance and practice. Also consider the risks of expanding MAiD on suicide contagion; MAiD presents death as a solution to suffering and provides the means to achieve it, with clinician support.

One witness cited a documentary on MAiD for mental illness, noting that the individuals later died by suicide, and suggested that delaying MAiD contributed to these deaths.

But why might this have occurred? Repeated exposure to messaging that frames death as the best or “dignified” response to suffering can increase resolve to end one’s life and worsen suicidality.

Suicide prevention research shows that normalizing death as a response to life suffering, combined with access to lethal means, increases suicide risk.

Further, The CPA’s consensus statement on MAiD for mental illness reflects opinion, not evidence-based medicine.

It should not reassure us that we are ready for this, nor guide life-and-death decisions.

In contrast, the International Association for Suicide Prevention states that MAiD should not be provided solely for mental illness and that suicide prevention principles must continue to apply to those near death or living with disability.

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has advised repealing Track 2 MAiD, including expansion to mental illness.

There are good reasons why Quebec, Alberta, and other provinces are not moving forward with MAiD for mental illness.

We cannot continue to delay.

A government committed to protecting all Canadians must stop MAiD for mental illness.