Two-year old killed by euthanasia in the Netherlands.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The NL Times reported on September 9 that the first euthanasia death in the Netherlands of a child under the age of 12 was done at the end of 2025. The child was around 2 years old.

The Netherlands has allowed infant euthanasia (under the age of 1) for many years based on the Groningen Protocol. 

The recent article is a follow-up report to an article that was published in June, 2026 confirming that the first child euthanasia death happened.

The NL Times report stated that:

This child was born very prematurely, at only 26 weeks of gestation. It quickly became apparent that the child had suffered severe brain damage, resulting in severe cerebral palsy and a visual impairment. This was compounded by frequent and severe epileptic seizures, which were largely unresponsive to medication. This left the child restless and unable to sleep for long periods. They also had mucus in their lungs, which made breathing and swallowing very difficult.

The report justifies the killing based on the child being born prematurely and having significant disabilities. But the child had lived approximately 2-years-old, meaning, that the killing was actually based on the disabilities since the child had survived two years since birth.

This case reminds me of the first child euthanasia death that was on July 24, 1939. The Nazi euthanasia program was launched in 1939 after Adolf Hitler received a letter from Richard Kretschmar, the father of an infant (referred to as "Case K" or the 'Knauer child'). Historians now know that the child was Gerhard Herbert Kretschmar.

The letter stated that Gerhard was born on February 20, 1939, that he was blind, had one leg and part of one arm was missing and was described as "an idiot". Hitler sent Dr Karl Brant to see the child in a hospital in Leipzig. Brant testified at the Nurembourg trial that he had been instructed that if the father's letter was correct that the physicians at the hospital would be told that euthanasia could be carried out - in Hitler's name. Gerhard was euthanized on July 24, 1939.

History indicates that the German T4 euthanasia program, that followed, began with parental request for euthanasia and in the end resulted in the deaths of 250,000 to 275,000 people with disabilities.

Further to that, the technique in killing large numbers of people by gas was first developed in the psychiatric hospitals for the euthanasia program and later installed in the death camps for killing millions of people. According to the Holocaust Museum, T-4 staff were redeployed to the death camps. 

Canada is debating Child euthanasia.

A report by the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (AMAD) was tabled in the House of Commons on February 15, 2023 calling for a drastic expansion of euthanasia (MAiD) in Canada. Among other recommendations, the report recommends that euthanasia be expanded to include children "mature minors."

While presenting to the AMAD Committee on September 7, 2022 Dr Louis Roy from the Québec College of Physicians urged Canada's Federal government to adopt a protocol to permit infant euthanasia.

Dr Roy suggested that this should only be allowed in rare circumstances, such as a newborn who is unlikely to survive.

Infant euthanasia opens the door to a new justification for killing since the baby lacks competence and is not autonomously capable of choosing to be killed. Infant euthanasia is a form of eugenics whereby protocols will determine which lives are worth living.

While the AMAD committee didn't accept the recommendation from the Québec College of Physicians researchers at Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto have also considered the issue. 

Guidelines for child euthanasia. 

Article: Sick Kids Hospital Toronto will euthanize children with or without parental consent (Link). 

A report from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto (October 2018) stated that they are ready to do euthanasia on children but their policy states that a child should be able to die by euthanasia without the consent or knowledge of the parents. 

An article by Sharon Kirkey published by Sun Media, published on October 9, 2018; reported that "ethicists" at the Children's Hospital believe that there is no difference between killing someone and letting them die. Kirkey reported:

The working group said it wasn’t convinced that there is a meaningful difference for the patient “between being consensually assisted in dying (in the case of MAID) and being consensually allowed to die (in the case of refusing life-sustaining interventions).” 

Sick Children's hospital draft policy applied the same "ethics" for mature minors making medical decisions as making death decisions. Canadian provinces allow mature minors to make decisions about their own care, including withdrawing or withholding life support. In Ontario a minor can provide consent for treatment or withdrawal of treatment if they understand the “reasonably foreseeable consequences” of their decision. The Sick Kids' hospital policy stated that they encourage minors to involve their families in medical decisions.

Kirkey explained that the Hospitals for Sick Children draft policy would permit children to decide to be killed by euthanasia without the consent of the parents:

The draft policy argues the same rules should apply to MAID since there is no meaningful ethical or practical distinction from the patient’s perspective between assisted dying and other procedures that result in the end of a life, such as palliative sedation (where people sleep until they die) or withdrawing or withholding life-sustaining treatments. 

The draft policy by Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children set out what can be expected if Canada permits euthanasia for children (mature minors).

The child euthanasia issue is being promoted by the death lobby and medical "ethicists." The euthanasia death of a two-year old in the Netherlands is a very serious issue and has international overtones. 

We oppose killing people, we support better end-of-life care.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

We are incredibly thankful with the defeat of the assisted suicide bills in the UK and Scotland this year and the incredible victory in Slovenia in November 2025.

These victories are proof that there is not overwhelming support for the concepts surrounding medical homicide (euthanasia and assisted suicide). Nonetheless these victories also uncover significant cultural challenges, especially in the UK.

One of the major reasons that these assisted suicide bills were defeated was that the language of these bills lacked effective definition and adequate protections for people at a vulnerable time of their life. Would a bill with clear language and proper oversight have passed?

The problems with the language and definitions within the UK assisted suicide bills are the same problems that we have experienced in Canada with the lack of oversight and expansions of medical homicide based on undefined language in the law.

During the assisted suicide debates in the UK and Scotland, those who opposed and supported the assisted suicide bills recognized that it was necessary to improve end-of-life care. 

We agree. It is unacceptable that people do not get the care that they need as they approach the end of their life.

This is a significant challenge for the UK National Health Service (NHS) as the cost of care is significant and yet necessary. I hope that the UK and Scottish governments don't simply talk in platitudes but rather employ action.

We support caring for people and we oppose killing people.

There are many reasons to oppose medical homicide but the primary reason is the effect on the culture and every individual when the government gives medical professionals, or some other group (Swiss assisted suicide clinics) the right in law to be directly involved with killing people.

• Effective legislative language will not protect people once they are killed.
• Excellent end-of-life care will not safeguard people once they are killed.

Further to that, the incentive to kill is great.

• Dead people don't need medical treatment or pain control.
• Dead people don't collect retirement pensions.
• Dead people don't collect disability benefits.

The commitment to opposing medical homicide must come first and then jurisdictions must actually provide better end-of-life care, equality for people with disabilities, and support for people with chronic conditions.

This is similar to suicide prevention campaigns. A commitment to suicide prevention requires the resources to help people at their lowest point, but the commitment starts with recognizing that every suicide is tragic.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition celebrates the victories in the jurisdictions that have rejected medical homicide as we oppose killing people. We challenge these jurisdictions to improve end-of-life care, equality for people with disabilities and the care of people living with chronic and often painful conditions.

We oppose killing people, and we can, and must provide better care.

Assisted suicide, suicide - There is no mushy middle.

By Gordon Friesen
President: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Gordon Friesen

Those of us who are committed to the prevention of medical homicide have frequently felt betrayed by the unfortunate adoption of pro-death policies, by those very organizations whose natural mandate is to oppose such practice without reservation.

Our latest example involves the American Association of Suicidology, which has apparently reposted the following policy statement on its website: 

“the practice of physician aid in dying ... is distinct from the behavior that has been traditionally and ordinarily described as “suicide”.[1]

According to this incongruous theory: people blowing their brains out should be seen as an evil to be prevented; but achieving the same result by consulting a doctor, should not! Regardless of any possible subtleties, the blunt effect of such a doctrine would greatly limit the scope of suicide prevention, and potentially, render that effort irrelevant altogether.

In their own defense the authors of AAS policy embrace (or feign to embrace) political neutrality: 

"...The document does not speak for or against legalization of this practice..."

However, there can be no neutrality in such a case. For to cease opposition to medical homicide is to implicitly support its practice.

Indeed, Such pretended neutrality is strongly reminiscent of the false language offered by the Canadian Medical Association, in 2014, and the British Medical Association, in 2021. In these cases, also, the pretense of political neutrality was a complete refusal of fundamental duty.[2] [3] Both of these announcements significantly took the wind out of medical homicide resistance, and greased the pole for future acceptance.

To explain their own extraordinary self-destructive position, the authors of AAS policy (again like those of the CMA and BMA) claim pragmatic political necessity: 

“The final document accepted by the AAS Board is the product of an effort to try to resolve the tension, evident within the AAS over a period of many years, between commitment to suicide prevention and the recognition that medical aid in dying is now legal in multiple jurisdictions.” [4]

And yet why should legality dictate acquiescence? Mere legality does not make actions right; and that fact is even more certain in the realm of medical ethics. 

Personally, I do not credit this alleged motivation of pragmatic expedience. On the contrary, I believe that a more experienced reading reveals a carefully scripted process, apparently dominated by elements whose ideas are closely aligned with the death lobby itself; and where the reasons given to support their final position might well have been copy/pasted from generic death lobby websites.

And yet (however that may be) our most important concern should not be with those few States where medical homicide is legal. That concern should be with the effects of medical-homicide-enabling doctrine upon the majority of AAS members, in jurisdictions where that practice is still prohibited by law. For as Wesley J. Smith has recently described in detail: the legalization of medical homicide represents an absolute disaster-in-waiting for any effort at suicide prevention.[5]

In short: it is of no benefit, for anyone in such a State or Country, to belong to an Association whose ideology is aimed at undermining the very ground upon which they themselves are standing; an Association, in effect, which is preparing them for extinction.

On the contrary! What we require now is the formation of representative groups dedicated to the protection of basic principles; groups prepared to dispute every inch of ground; groups committed to providing a living model of conceptual integrity, even (and especially) in places where less positive visions have temporarily gained ascendance.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is proud to take an unambiguous stand on medical homicide (as do also: the World Medical Association, the American Medical Association, and many others).

Moreover, recent victories in Slovenia, Alberta and the UK, show that a proactive, morally repugnant submission, is not justifiable on grounds of pragmatic expedience. This fight has not been lost! We have barely yet begun! And the progress of our adversaries is visibly grinding to a halt. 


[1] American Association of Suicidology, Statement Clarifying the Distinction Between “Suicide” and “Physician Aid in Dying”, first posted October 2017, withdrawn 2023, reposted 2025 (Article Link).

[2] Somerville, Margaret, There’s no “mushy middle” on euthanasia, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, October 3, 2014 (Article Link).

[3] Macdonald, Gordon M.D., BMA goes Neutral on Assisted Suicide, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, September 21, 2021 (Article Link).

[4] Battin, Margaret P. Phd, Development of the AAS Statement on “Suicide” and “Physician Aid in Dying”, The American Association of Suicidology, June 2019 (Article Link).

[5] Smith, Wesley J., World Suicide Prevention Day Hypocrisy, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, September 10, 2026 (Article Link).

Bill C-218 is scheduled for a vote on October 7. Help prevent euthanasia for mental illness.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

In March 2021, the Canada's parliament expanded the euthanasia law by passing Bill C-7. One of the expansions in the law  permitted euthanasia for a mental illness alone. but, at that time, the government declared a two-year moratorium to provide time to prepare for the change.

The government has now delayed the implementation of euthanasia for mental illness, as a sole criteria, three times with implementation currently approved for March 17, 2027.

On June 20, 2025, Tamara Jansen (MP - Cloverdale - Langley City) introduced private members Bill C-218 to prevent euthanasia (MAiD) for mental illness as the sole criteria. 

Bill C-218 excludes mental illness from being defined as a "grievous and irremediable medical condition" for the purposes of MAiD. Bill C-218, if passed will prevent MAID for mental illness alone.

Bill C-218 had it's first hour of debate on December 5, 2025. It's second hour of debate is scheduled for Wednesday, September 23, 2026 with the vote scheduled for Wednesday October 7, 2026.

There are several ways that you can help Bill C-218 be 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 (MP) and share your story and your support for Bill C-218. Contact your Member of Parliament at: (Member of Parliament List).
5. It is easier to call your Member of Parliament. The phone number is 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. 

Mario Canseco, the President of Research Co, was published by Business Intelligence for BC on October 30 with new polling indicating that the majority of Canadians do not support (MAiD) euthanasia for mental illness. Conseco reported that:

At this point, only an adult with a grievous and irremediable medical condition can seek medical assistance in dying in Canada. An expansion that would cover mental illness is expected to come into place in March 2027. Just over two in five Canadians (42 per cent, down one point) believe mental illness is a good reason for a person to request medical assistance in dying.

To pass, Bill C-218 needs Member 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).

Ashley Dalton (Labour MP) speaks out against Britain's assisted suicide bill

Ashley Dalton UK (MP) L

This is the speech in the British parliament by Ashley Dalton (Labour MP) West Lancashire who is living with terminal cancer.

Dalton spoke out against the assisted suicide bill on Friday September 11, 2026. 

Dalton is not philosophically opposed to assisted suicide but she is concerned about it's effects and she was opposed to the bill which was defeated by a vote of 286 to 270. (Link to the speech) 

The last time this House considered this bill at Second Reading I was keeping a secret.

Whilst Honourable and Right Honourable members were debating the issue I was grappling with my own terminal diagnosis. I was told I have stage 4 incurable metastatic breast cancer.

I was overwhelmed with grief fear and anxiety. I was scared of what was to come and I was fearful of how it was to affect my family and my loved ones.

I was scared that I was going to get very poorly and thinking how will I cope, how will my family cope, I will I be cared for, how will I afford it, how badly will it hurt and how long will it last.

When you hear those words, depression anxiety, grief, shame and guilt come inbounds.

Suicide risk is highest immediately after diagnosis and it usually falls quickly within three to six months.

I would be lying if I said that when thinking about all that was to come I didn't consider that it might just be fairer and easier on everyone if I just got the dying done as soon as possible.

Having treatable depression however will not exclude anyone from an assisted death in this bill and depression is common among people with terminal illness but it is often treatable.

Clinicians are trained to prevent suicide in people suffering from depression, but where will the line be drawn. This bill makes no provision to support this difficult transition or to create safeguards around it.

A person can also be suicidal and have unmet mental health needs prior to developing a terminal illness and then ask the state to kill them without any assessment of their psychological health just their mental capacity. Because mental capacity and mental health are not the same thing.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends a holistic multi disciplinary assessment of every applicant. The three person panel at the end of the assessment process in this bill is not what most NHS clinicians recognize as a multi-disciplinary team. It certainly does not allow the meaningful multi-disciplinary decision making. The assessment needs to happen at the beginning of the process, not the end and each team member should be independently assessing the patient, in person, this is not what is being included in this bill.

Now I don't know how long I will live. I will be on treatment for life, however how long or short that may be. I at the moment live between scans in 9 to 12 weeks blocks of time. The last scan may show that the disease is stable but the next scan may show that it is growing again. If the disease is stable the drug is working and we can carry on. Eventually the drug will stop working, the cancer will grow and we will have to try another drug and see if that works.

At some point we'll either run out of drugs to try or I will be too poorly to tolerate them. Then I die. It could be months, it could be years, no one really knows.
Prognosis is notoriously difficult to predict. Palliative care professionals and oncologists tell me that whilst they can more or less give me an indication of when I'll die when I'm a few days or weeks off, anything beyond that is a flip of a coin.

But what the palliative care professionals have told me is that palliative care can help me when I die.

But in the campaign around this bill it seems to me that it is being implied that a person with a terminal illness will have a dreadful painful death unless they have access to assisted dying and it is simply not true.

Palliative care in the UK is excellent. Far to many people do not have access to palliative care that they need. But the idea that it is not possible to alleviate pain and discomfort is false.

People, I, have been terrorized with tales of people vomiting up their own feces as though this is common place during death. It is vanishingly rare. Bowel obstructions are more common but they are treatable, I know, I have had one.

It's nothing short of irresponsible to scare monger people like me into believing that our deaths will be horrific when all the evidence suggests that with access to good palliative care deaths are, on the whole, gentle.

The answer is not to terrify people and their families. It's to sort out palliative care and social care first because of this takes place in a vacuum.

Until we can say that everyone who needs it has access to high quality palliative care then we are offering nobody a choice. A terrible death or an assisted death is not a choice it's a threat.

Whilst I speak today from the position of someone with a terminal illness, I am acutely aware that this is not about me. This debate is also not about an abstract concept or a position of principle. The question that will be put at the end of this debate will not be that this House has considered the question of assisted dying it won't even be that this House agrees with the principle of assisted dying. The question will be that this House agrees that this bill be read for a second time. This bill. Not the bill it might have been, not the bill members might have hoped it would be, not the bill it could be. This bill. And it incidentally it says absolutely nothing about the House of Lords. That is not the question that we are being asked.

And whatever Honourable and Right Honourable Members think about the principle of assisted dying surely our first and foremost responsibility is to write law that is safe and workable.

Not one of the professional bodies that will be tasked with delivery of the bill will attest that it is either safe or workable. The Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Association of Palliative Medicine, the Royal College of Physicians all say the bill is seriously inadequate. They aren't opposed to assisted dying in principle, but they cannot support this bill.

Instead of bringing a bill identical to the last so the Parliament Acts could be used and it can be forced, un-amended on the statute books, why didn't the proposers spend the summer working with the Royal Medical Colleges, professional bodies and organizations to build a bill that they could also support. If they had done that it would have been very difficult for those opposed to principle to argue against the bill, but they didn't. This is not about sides, this House is not a debating society, it is about making the law.

Whilst we may be campaigners out there, in here we are all legislators. It is our responsibility not to pick a side and dig in but to work together to build the best laws that we can and that is never truer than with a private members bill on a matter of conscience.

This bill does not protect the most vulnerable, it does not protect the poor, the old, people with disabilities or black and minority and ethnic people being disproportionately affected. It does not protect people who are mentally ill, it does not recognize that not everyone has the same level of agency, control or influence over their decision making and what the clinicians who are asked to deliver the bill are saying is that it isn't even workable. That there is every expectation that it wouldn't even work for the terminally ill people who want an assisted death either.

And there is no stopping it. Auto commencement in the bill means that if it is passed by the commons and pushed through by the Parliament Act and even it the government and NHS is not ready it has to happen on the strike of four years from it being passed. Even if there is no funding, even if palliative care is still broken, even if it is known to be dangerous flawed or unworkable, it is happening - ready or not.

This is not a last chance saloon. This debate has been going on for years, it is not a once in a generation opportunity, it could come back again at the next parliament.

My days could be numbered but that doesn't mean that I want this Chamber to rush through bad law just so I might have a chance to see it or use it. It's of huge importance.

If Honourable and Right Honourable members have any doubt that the exact bill before us today is not the best it could be. Is anything less than excellent well thought out and robustly drafted legislation that protects the vulnerable and recognizes the expertise of our world class clinicians, and a bill that I and other terminally ill people deserve, then I urge them to vote NO or vote to abstain.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition agrees with nearly everything that Dalton said, but we, of course, oppose killing people in general, as much as we recognize that the British bill was completely flawed. 

Raised, Recontextualized, Retired, Then Reissued: The AAS’s “MAiD” Statement

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader
Meghan is a disability activists and a member of the EPC-USA board.

This blog post responds to the fact that the American Association of Suicidology’s 2017 statement saying that Oregon Model “MAiD” is not “suicide,” previously “retired” by the AAS Executive Committee in 2023, was reissued verbatim this year.

I may write follow-up blog posts about this development, but I will stick with this one for now.

Clearly the AAS is comprised of brilliant scholars who have done great good for suicide prevention. Yet AAS’s vacillation can be understood to suggest that the statement is not indisputably based entirely on whatever scientific method the AAS considers most useful for studying suicide, but is at least partly influenced by the individual perspectives and ideologies of which scholars are in charge of the AAS at a given time. Suicidologists in charge of the AAS in 2017 thought it would be good to create the statement, the suicidologists in charge of the 2023 AAS Executive Committee thought it would be good to retire it, and enough current AAS suicidologists thought it would be good to reissue it.

However, the AAS’ statement does not establish unanimity among suicide prevention experts. In 2025 the New Hampshire Coalition For Suicide Prevention opposed the New Hampshire End of Life Freedom Act, because “This bill will send the message that it is OK to take your own life “in certain circumstances,” and “While framed as a compassionate option, physician-assisted suicide often exacerbates existing inequities in healthcare systems.”

Moreover, the International Association For Suicide Prevention released a 2025 “IASP Position Statement on Assisted Suicide And Euthanasia” warning about an overlap between “MAiD” and “suicide.” While not as unequivocal as euthanasia opponents would like (despite recommending a ban on psychiatric euthanasia and expressing deep concerns about the systemic pressures that might coerce disabled people who aren’t dying to end their lives, the statement doesn’t say, “all ‘MAiD’ is suicide, don’t legalize it for anyone”), it also does not say that any particular form of “MAiD” is not suicide.

Despite the harms that the Oregon Model poses to marginalized people with terminal or potentially terminal conditions, I am glad that at least the AAS’ current webpage about “MAiD” indicates that the distinction it draws between “suicide” and “MAiD” is limited to people who are already dying.

But we know that the Oregon Model has been applied to situations that the AAS has historically worked to prevent. For instance, people with eating disorders have used Oregon model “MAiD” as a suicide method.

Moreover, the actual text of the re-posted statement acknowledges that in international jurisdictions, “MAiD” is allowed for “incurable” illnesses, without explicitly saying that this is bad. The equivocation in those passages makes it easier for expansionists to apply the AAS statement to their advocacy. This is especially true in paragraph 1, which acknowledges the existence of “MAiD” for people who aren’t dying, and paragraph 20, which makes the blanket statement that “a patient’s choice of PAD that satisfies legal criteria is not an appropriate target for ‘suicide’ prevention,” without reiterating that this criteria must include terminal illness. Even though the organization’s “MAiD” webpage, and other parts of the statement, indicate that the AAS’s statement is meant to apply specifically to terminal illness, there are passages that expansionists can cite to support their cause.

Perhaps this is why the resurrected 2017 statement helped redefine suicide in the 2019 Canadian Truchon court case. The judge in that case cited the AAS statement when ruling that the “MAiD” deaths of disabled people who were not dying would not be suicides, even though the United Nations and nearly every disability rights group in Canada say that that’s not true.

So the AAS’s statement has been used to effect what the majority of disability experts, and likely many people at the AAS, view as suicides, even if that wasn’t the AAS’s intention.

As I’ve said, I can respect the logic of well-intentioned people, even suicidologists, who draw a good-faith distinction between Oregon model “MAiD” and “regular” suicide. I also understand that the AAS’s scholars have done great good for suicide prevention, and they may have reissued the statement with the best of intentions. But that statement has harmed disabled people, especially when “MAiD” expansionists have used it to achieve their goals.

We can observe some of those expansionists beginning to acknowledge that their agenda does indeed involve suicide, such as when famous expansive “MAiD” advocate Thaddeus Mason Pope tweeted to me that the suicides of disabled people are good.

Moreover, the AAS’s 2023 decision to retire its 2017 statement indicates doubt about the content of that statement. It is not unreasonable to infer that whoever was in charge of the AAS Executive Committee at the time entertained the thought that there might not be such a strong distinction between ““MAiD” and “suicide” after all, or that the statement was undermining suicide prevention in some way; otherwise why retire the statement?

It will be valid for future discussions about the statement to note that the statement was created, then retired, then re-issued, which suggests disagreement among suicidologists as to its usefulness.

Moreover, as noted, the AAS’s statement has been celebrated by very aggressive extremists who believe in “MAiD” for disabled people who aren’t dying and for people with mental illnesses. Their position contradicts the position of the Canadian Association For Suicide Prevention, the International Association For Suicide Prevention, and the director of Canada’s 988 Suicide Prevention hotline, all of whom have said that “psychiatric MAiD” is suicide and should not be legalized.

Canada’s “MAiD” program encourages doctors to raise the possibility of “MAiD” with their patients-a practice that is now happening so regularly that disabled Canadians who find such suggestions offensive and disturbing have begun carrying cards telling doctors not to do this. I’m going to give the AAS the benefit of the doubt and assume that when they released their “MAiD” statement, that wasn’t what they had in mind.

Yet the AAS statement was cited in the 2019 Truchon court decision that expanded “MAiD” to disabled people without terminal illnesses and caused these scenarios.

I am sure that the AAS’s reissued statement will once again become one of the “MAiD” movement’s favorite talking points. But the statement must be assessed with respect to its impact, cultural context and inconsistency; it isn’t indisputably the rock-solid scientific consensus that “MAiD” proponents would like it to be.

Author Note 1: Here is an archived link to the retirement notice and a screenshot of that notice.

Author Note 2: Here is the complete text of the Truchon decision that cites the AAS statement.

Author Note 3: For a more in-depth response to the perspective of those who draw a good faith distinction between Oregon Model “MAiD” and “regular” suicide, see my blog post, “What Does Suicide Have To Do With the Oregon MAiD Model?".

Author Note 4: For peer-reviewed research on how “MAiD” intersects with the cultural trope that disabled people’s suicides are acceptable, see Professor Emily Lund’s 2016 article, “Is Suicide An Option? The Impact of Disability On Suicide Acceptability In the Context of Depression, Suicidality And Demographic Factors.”

Standing on the Shores of the Rubicon

This article was published by the Parliamentary news on Sept 10, 2026, the day before the British parliament defeated the assisted suicide bill.

Angelina Ireland

By Angelina Ireland
Executive Director, Delta Hospice Society

As Britain debates assisted dying, Canada’s experience offers a cautionary story about what can happen when a hospice seeks to preserve its founding philosophy.

When Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAiD) law came into effect, our hospice refused to provide it. Months later, a health authority official entered our hospice and handed letters to dying patients explaining that the hospice was closing and they would need to move elsewhere for their care. Because Delta Hospice Society declined to provide MAiD, our hospice patients were given six weeks to leave. They could make their own arrangements or be taken to another hospice in the region. We had to lay off all our staff and volunteers, and we were given 30 days to vacate the property.

That moment did not happen in isolation. It was the culmination of a journey that began years earlier, when I was a cancer patient myself. I never imagined cancer would change not only my life but also my understanding of what it means to care for another human being. Cancer took me through surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and years of hormone therapy. Along the way, I found the Delta Hospice Society. The care I received was built on a philosophy that began in Britain with Dame Cicely Saunders. It taught that suffering is more than physical pain. It is emotional, social and spiritual too. That philosophy changed my life. It is one of history’s ironies that the philosophy Britain gave the world was ultimately the philosophy we found ourselves defending in Canada.

Britain is now debating whether to legalize assisted dying. Before crossing that threshold, it should understand what happened to one hospice in Canada that believed its role was never to hasten death.

I later became the President of the Delta Hospice Society around the time medical assistance in dying (“M.A.i.D”) was legalized in Canada. Our hospice was built entirely through private fundraising. Like many Canadian hospices, its day-to-day operations were supported by public funding. We ran a very successful hospice and palliative care program for 10 years serving over 2,000 patients and their families. When MAiD became legal in Canada, there was no provision to “opt out” to protect our medical discipline. Ultimately, we were expected to provide MAiD in our hospice. We refused because we believed MAiD was incompatible with the philosophy of palliative care on which our hospice had been founded.

I received various registered letters from the Vice President of the health authority requiring us to implement MAiD and demanding we comply. I met him over coffee to explain why we resisted, but instead I was cut short and told that our position would not be tolerated and that the decision had been made at a higher level. Soon after, the official letter came, giving us notice that no further operating monies would be paid and our Hospice would cease operating under Delta Hospice Society. With 22 years left, our land lease was cancelled immediately. The buildings returned to the landowner and our charity received no compensation for the millions of dollars it had invested.

After 10 years of MAiD in Canada, my experience has convinced me that when hospice care is no longer permitted to remain distinct from assisted dying, something important is lost. I do not suggest that Britain will necessarily follow Canada’s path in every respect. But my experience shows how profoundly legal and policy changes can reshape the institutions and traditions that care for people at the end of life.

Hospice care was founded on accompanying people through dying rather than intentionally hastening death. Once intentionally ending life becomes part of end-of-life care, we risk losing something unique about the hospice tradition.

I have watched friends die in hospice. I have also watched cancer patients recover to good health – through good healthcare, and great doctors. That experience reinforced for me the importance of treating each person with hope as well as compassion. Hospice taught me that dignity is found not in choosing death, but in never abandoning those who are dying. That is the tradition I learned from Britain. That is the tradition Britain gave the world. It is the tradition I hope Britain chooses to preserve.

Great news: British parliament defeats assisted suicide bill.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have great news.

The British Parliament defeated the Edwards assisted suicide bill today (September 11) by a vote of 286 to 270. This is a great reason to celebrate.

We especially congratulate our friends at the Care Not Killing Alliance who have worked for so long to defeat this bill and previous bills. 

EPC letter sent to members of the British parliament (Link).

Some background

The Edwards assisted suicide bill was introduced on June 17, 2026 and was nearly identical to the Leadbeater bill that passed in the British parliament on November 29, 2024 by a vote of 330 to 275 at second reading and 313 to 291 in the final vote.

The Leadbeater assisted suicide bill was fatally flawed and timed-out in the British House of Lords earlier this year.

What changed between November 29, 2024 and September 11, 2026?

The Leadbeater bill passed in the House of Commons but stalled in the House of Lords. During the House of Lords debate multiple flaws and concerns with the bill were uncovered. Even though the Leadbeater bill was flawed, Edwards introduced a nearly identical bill in order to invoke the Parliaments Act which states that if two nearly identical bills are passed in the House of Commons in two consecutive parliaments then the bill is not required to be approved by the House of Lords.

Edwards was hoping to prevent the bill from having to be debated in the House of Lords.

Keir Starmer - Andy Burnham

Another change was that Keir Starmer was the British Prime Minister during the Leadbeater assisted suicide bill debate. Starmer was a long-time promoter of assisted suicide.

Due to his drop in popularity, Starmer resigned as Prime Minister and Andy Burnham became the new Prime Minister.

Unlike Starmer, Burnham is not a strong supporter of assisted suicide. In late July Burnham, while speaking with reporters after a speech at a Jewish Care facility about social care reform commented on the upcoming assisted suicide debate. Burnham stated at (11:34):

"I take the view that the debate, and I don't say that there shouldn't be a debate at some point about those issues, personally I think that there is something that needs to happen first and that's the fixing of the funding of palliative care and social care. 

I think it is very challenging to introduce that wider debate in a context of people not receiving that care and having the peace of mind about that care.”

Burnham did not say that he opposed assisted suicide but he did say that improvements to end-of-life care should come first, before Britain considers assisted suicide.

Burnham later stated that members of the governing Labour party were not going to be pressured to vote for the assisted suicide bill.

Finally, stories about Canada's euthanasia law continue to circulate in Britain. The assisted suicide lobby has tried to "undo" the damage from Canada's euthanasia reality but the multitude of stories make it impossible to negate the truth, that legalizing assisted suicide, even a law that is "tighter" than the Canadian law, will result in expansion over time.

In March 2026, Scotland's parliament rejected the McArthur assisted suicide bill by a vote of 69 to 57 and today, the British parliament rejected the Edwards assisted suicide bill by a vote of 286 to 270.

The battle is not over in Britain, but the victories are worth celebrating.

Letter to the British Parliament. Vote No to the assisted dying bill.

The Canadian experience proves that you should not legalize assisted dying.

By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and Dr Paul Saba, Co-Founder of Physicians Alliance Against Euthanasia and a Québec family physician.

Many people believe that the Edwards assisted dying bill will legalize a "limited" assisted dying law. In reality, the bill lacks effective definition to limit its application. Even so, the Canadian experience with legalizing assisted dying proves that the law will expand based on a lack of definition in the language of the law and the reality that, once legalized, restrictions in the law will be challenged based on equality. 

Canada’s original law (Bill C-14) appeared designed to limit assisted dying to people who were terminally ill by including the restriction that a person’s natural death must be reasonably foreseeable, a phrase that was never defined in the law. 

Even under the original law, which was more restrictive than Canada’s current law, Dr Paul Saba had a patient who wanted to die by euthanasia, but his patient had a wrong diagnosis. Dr Saba explains:

Dr Paul Saba

Let me share a personal experience. Eight years ago, one of my patients, Jim (a pseudonym), came to see me for a cough, thinking he had a cold. I ordered a Chest X-Ray. According to the radiologist’s report, Jim appeared to have lung cancer. I sat down with Jim and told him, “We need to do a CT scan immediately. You need to see a specialist. We need to do a bronchoscopy…”

Jim replied, “Dr Saba, I know you’re against assisted suicide, but you know what? I don’t necessarily agree with you.” I replied, "No, no. You need to go through all the steps of the diagnostic process, because this is only a preliminary diagnosis. Even if it is lung cancer, it’s a disease that can be treated today. There are new treatments available. It might not even be lung cancer.”

I spoke with the radiologist who had performed the lung CT scan; he told me, “We don’t know exactly what it is. It looks like lung cancer, but it could be lymphoma, which would be highly treatable. ”

Jim is an intelligent, well-informed man, an engineer, who thought he had a cold, only to be told he might have cancer. He could have resigned himself to an assisted death before even knowing 

what it was, since Canadian law allows a person to refuse all the testing necessary to confirm the diagnosis. He could have lost hope when the situation was still full of hope.

The power to move people to give up is one of the dangerous and misleading aspects of assisted dying. However, Jim is alive today because I was able to get his attention and persuade him that the situation was hopeful and that he should get more tests and undergo treatment. Today, eight years after diagnosis, investigations and treatment, he is happy to be alive with no further evidence of disease. 

Jim was finally diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which is a condition that is highly curable with targeted medical treatment.

Misdiagnosis is not uncommon. DP Medical reported in February 2025 that a 2023 study by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) estimated that misdiagnoses affect around one in 18 patients in primary and secondary care. The same study found that misdiagnosed cancers, strokes, and heart attacks were among the most serious cases, often leading to life-altering consequences or death.

Misdiagnosis is a strong reason to oppose assisted dying laws, but the biggest reason to oppose the Edwards bill is what it actually legalizes and what legalization will lead to over time.

Assisted dying is an act of killing a person, usually upon request, by prescribing a combination of lethal poison drugs to cause death. This is not a minor issue, as it requires medical professionals to be directly involved with the act of killing their patients.

Another issue is how these laws evolve over time. The Canadian experience shows how a law can move from assisted dying for the terminally ill, to assisted dying for the chronically ill to assisted dying for people with chronic mental illness as their sole criteria, to assisted dying by advanced request and to considerations of assisted dying for mature minors.

A recent parliamentary committee stated that the Canadian government should not extend assisted dying to people with chronic mental illnesses as their sole criteria. Dying with Dignity, an assisted dying lobby group, responded to the committee by launching a court case arguing that Canadians with mental illness as their sole criteria had a right to an assisted death.

Assisted dying is not what people think it is. It is about creating an avenue to kill people and legalizing assisted dying leads to extensions over time based on discrimination, as the restrictions in the law will be deemed to deny people equality under the law. 

Vote NO on the Edwards assisted dying bill while being committed to improving the care that everyone needs and deserves. 

Alex Schadenberg - Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr Paul Saba - Co-Founder of the Physicians Alliance Against Euthanasia

World Suicide Prevention Day Hypocrisy

This article was published by National Review online on September 10, 2026.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

You may not have heard, but today is the annual World Suicide Prevention Day. Usually, such efforts are almost invisible. We don’t put nearly as much emphasis on suicide prevention as we once did.

I am all for suicide prevention, of course. I just wish that those efforts included assisted suicide/euthanasia, which costs the lives of approximately 25,000 people annually around the world — with that toll increasing every year. But despite proliferating laws allowing doctors and nurse practitioners to assisted suicides — or, as in Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand, and other countries — actively kill suicidal people, prevention efforts are generally silent about this category of suicide.

I checked on the World Health Association link to Prevention Day for 2026. It has a four-tiered prevention strategy that goes by the acronym LIFE:

• L: Limit Access to Suicide;
• I: Interact with the media on responsible reporting;
• F: Foster life skills of young people;
• E: Early identity and support everyone affected.

That’s fine but assisted suicide/euthanasia directly violates three of those four prevention strategies. Let’s look at the “L”:

Limiting access to means of suicide is a universal evidence-based intervention for suicide prevention. Depending on the country, this may mean banning acutely toxic highly hazardous pesticides, restricting firearms, installing barriers in places where suicides are known to occur, limiting access to ligature points or taking other measures.

And yet, assisted suicide provides the means of self-termination to suicidal people.

Does the WHO oppose that — or even mention it? No, it does not.

What about the “I?”:

Interacting with the media for responsible reporting of suicide is significant because media reporting of suicide can lead to a rise in suicide due to imitation — especially if the report is about a celebrity or describes the method of suicide.

And yet, how many glowing media stories have we seen describing assisted suicides as “dying on his own terms,” or extolling suicide/euthanasia goodbye parties, and celebrating suicidal patients conjoining euthanasia with organ donation etc. Good grief, Brittany Maynard was declared by CNN to be an Extraordinary Person of the Year because she committed suicide after being diagnosed with brain cancer, and she was featured repeatedly on the cover of People.

Does WHO oppose that — or even mention it? No, it does not.

What about the “E?”:

Health services are often the entry point for people in distress or for those who have made a suicide attempt where early identification, assessment, management and follow-up care can be provided.

The health system is the “entry point” for all physician-assisted suicides. All are therefore identified. And virtually none receive suicide prevention services.

Does the WHO oppose that or even mention it? No, it does not.

With the exception of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, no suicide prevention associations of which I am aware ever mentions assisted suicide, much less explicitly opposes it. This despite studies demonstrating that legalizing and advocating for assisted suicide increase suicides generally.

One association shamefully says that it isn’t really suicide, but that suicide is a “what,” not a “why.” What an abdication of responsibility.

So, let’s stop the hypocrisy and rename it, “World Some Suicides Prevention Day.” At least that would have the virtue of honesty.

Judge refuses to block Illinois assisted suicide law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A federal judge, on September 10, denied the request from disability rights advocates’ to block the Illinois assisted suicide law from going into effect on September 12.

Jeremy Gorner reported for the Chicago Tribune on September 10 that:

The ruling came in a federal lawsuit filed earlier this year by two disabled patients, a doctor and several disability and patients’ rights organizations. They allege the state’s End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, which bars discrimination against people with disabilities; the Affordable Care Act, which regulates healthcare costs; and the plaintiffs’ equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

But in his 25-page decision, U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp rejected at least one of the plaintiffs’ arguments calling for a preliminary injunction to put the law on hold, disagreeing that doctors “will start inviting disabled patients to consider medical aid in dying” once the law takes effect.

On December 12, 2025 Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed assisted suicide bill SB 9 into law. The Illinois assisted suicide law is scheduled to go into effect later this week, on September 12, 2026.

We reported on September 9 that Hannah Meisel reported for Capital News Illinois on September 8 that disability rights organizations, on September 5, petitioned a federal judge to block the implementation of the Illinois assisted suicide law based on how the law contravenes the Americans with Disabilities Act, and is discriminatory against disabled people, who are more susceptible to physician bias and therefore coercion to end their life.

Gorner also reported that Tharp questioned the standing of the plaintiffs in the case.

As referenced in Tharp’s decision, one of the plaintiffs — a quadriplegic woman named Ebony Payne who is paralyzed from the neck down and has repeatedly been in serious life-threatening situations in hospitals — contended that for disabled people the law “removes the legal and ethical obligation of doctors” to act solely as healers by allowing them to respond to requests about procedures related to medical aid in dying. But the judge argued the plaintiff has not shown that she is a “qualified patient” under the law. 

The judge also noted Payne did not explain “why she is necessarily harmed” by the law if she does not seek a medical-aid-in-dying method “or the physician is in any event unwilling to provide such assistance.”

The Illinois assisted suicide law will go into effect on September 12. Tharp gave the plaintiffs 30 days to appeal the decision.

Assisted suicide laws give medical professionals the right in law to prescribe lethal poison for the purpose of suicide. The Illinois assisted suicide law is designed to make it impossible to prosecute a medical professional who assists a suicide, even in the most egregious cases.

Illinois Judge considers blocking assisted suicide law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On December 12, 2025 we reported that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed assisted suicide bill SB 9 into law. The Illinois assisted suicide law is scheduled to go into effect later this week, on September 12, 2026.

Hannah Meisel reported for Capital News Illinois on September 8 that disability rights organizations, on September 5, petitioned a federal judge to block the implementation of the Illinois assisted suicide law based on how the law contravenes the Americans with Disabilities Act, and is discriminatory against disabled people, who are more susceptible to physician bias and therefore coercion to end their lives.

Miesel reported that:

Thomas Geoghegan, who represents the disability rights groups, physician and disabled Illinoisans who brought the case, told U.S. District Judge John Tharp that the law upends the millennia-old tradition of the Hippocratic oath, a pledge doctors make to “first do no harm.” As a result, Geoghegan argued, EOLA will result in the “severe impairment” of the relationship a patient with disabilities has with his or her physician.

Miesel further reported that Geoghegan argued that:

“It’s our view, ultimately, this is authorizing a different standard of care,” he said.

Disability rights advocates fiercely opposed the two-year effort to pass the law, warning that physician bias in perceived quality of life may make doctors more inclined to encourage life-ending treatment over other options for people with disabilities.

Judge Sharp must decide if the Illinois assisted suicide law contravenes the Americans with Disabilities Act and is therefore discriminatory towards people with disabilities. Sharp said that he would make a decision before September 12.

On August 24, 2026 Molly Sweeney reported for WCIA news that Illinois agreed to a temporary order pausing assisted suicide law for certain hospitals and doctors.

On September 4, Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Blase Cupich and two orders of Catholic nuns launched a lawsuit seeking to block the Illinois assisted suicide law that is scheduled to to into effect on September 12, arguing that the law violates constitutional protections for free speech and religious freedom.