Even though Denmark's Ethics council, overwhelming rejected the legalization of euthanasia in October 2023, the majority of a Danish committee recently recommended the legalization of euthanasia.
An overwhelming majority of the Danish Council on Ethics have advised the country's parliament against voting to legalise euthanasia.
Fully sixteen out seventeen members of the committee concluded in a report that it was "in principle impossible to establish proper regulation of euthanasia", and as a result recommended that the law in Denmark should not be changed to allow people suffering mental or physical distress to receive help to end their own lives.
"The very existence of an offer of euthanasia will decisively change our ideas about old age, the coming of death, quality of life and what it means to take others into account,"
"If euthanasia becomes an option, there is too great a risk that it will become an expectation aimed at special groups in society."
A few days ago, the majority in the "Committee for a more dignified death", submitted its recommendations for what euthanasia could look like in Denmark.
An article by Anders Heissel that was published by DR news reported that:
Seven out of the committee's eight members propose as the first model that "self-selected and self-executed end of life for terminally ill persons" should be introduced.
This means that any person who has a maximum of six months left to live has the right to receive medication prescribed by a doctor with the aim of ending their life themselves.
As the second model, five of the members propose that it should be possible to receive help to end their life from a healthcare professional such as a doctor or a nurse. - This is to respect people's right to self-determination.
Heissel further reported that:
The 'Committee for a more dignified death' was established in September 2023 with 10 members, but two members later left because, according to them, the committee had an "invariable" focus on establishing models for the possible introduction of assisted suicide in Denmark.
Shortly after the committee was established, a clear recommendation came from the Ethics Council not to introduce active euthanasia, and this was the fourth time in 27 years that four different compositions of the Ethics Council have clearly distanced themselves from introducing active euthanasia.
Denmark's Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, is pushing for the legalization of euthanasia.
Based on the world-wide experience with euthanasia, the Danish Ethics Council was correct in October 2023 that it was impossible to properly regulate euthanasia.
Euthanasia is an act that intentionally causes the death of a person upon request. No one should have the right in law to kill another person.
Alex Schadenberg Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
The assisted suicide lobby plays word games to convince people that assisting a death by prescribing poison cocktails is not assisted suicide.
The latest word game concerns the phrase Medical Aid in Dying, also known as MAiD.
MAiD is a made in Canada term to describe euthanasia and assisted suicide by using language that is considered more acceptable. The Canadian euthanasia lobby needed a phrase that would make killing people, by euthanasia or assisted suicide, more palatable. They came up with the phrase Medical Aid in Dying also known as MAiD to achieve their goal.
Medical aid in Dying is fundamentally different from euthanasia.
Medical aid in dying is a practice by which a terminally ill, mentally capable person with a prognosis of six months or less chooses to request, obtain and take medication that brings about a peaceful death. In all authorized jurisdictions, only the dying person can request an aid-in-dying prescription under the law, and if and when they decide to ingest the medication, they must self-administer it. Therefore, control stays with the patient from beginning to end.
In contrast, euthanasia, sometimes called “mercy killing,” is an intentional act by which another person (not the dying person) acts to cause death. Euthanasia is illegal throughout the United States, and all medical aid-in-dying laws expressly prohibit euthanasia. Compassion & Choices does not support authorizing euthanasia because it would allow someone else — not the dying person — to cause the death of another.
In Canada, MAiD is the term defining the acts whereby a physician or nurse practitioner either prescribe or directly administer a poison cocktail for the purpose of intentionally causing death. In fact the term MAiD actually constitutes both euthanasia and/or assisted suicide.
So let's get this straight. A made in Canada term (MAiD) that was designed to replace the use of the terms euthanasia or assisted suicide is not euthanasia, assisted suicide. How is euthanasia or assisted suicide not euthanasia or assisted suicide?
C & C obviously likes the term MAiD but it doesn't want to admit that MAiD is euthanasia.
The assisted suicide lobby wants you to believe that prescribing a lethal poison for the purpose of death, is not assisted suicide, it is not suicide, it is not "mercy killing" but rather it is MAiD and by the way, MAiD is not euthanasia, even though in Canada MAiD is euthanasia and assisted suicide.
You can't make this stuff up. But even if you change the use of language the act remains the same.
Alex Schadenberg Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
I was cleaning up my emails and came across an excellent article that I remember reading, but that I had missed when blogging. Jeremy Bannon had an published by First Things on May 23, 2025 titled: I'm Sorry My Colleague Killed Your Sister. Bannon wrote:
A few weeks ago, while walking through the halls of the hospital where I work, I ran into the brother of a former patient. I asked him how his sister was doing, having positive memories of journeying alongside her as she recovered from a stroke. He proceeded to inform me that she was “gone.” Saddened, I offered my condolences and asked what had happened. “She went for MAiD,” he said, his gaze drifting into a thousand-yard stare just to my right. “We didn’t agree with her choice, but she said that if she was not able to walk on her own after a year, she was going to go for it.” Sure enough, a year went by and she still was not able to walk on her own. I replied: “I’m sorry my colleague killed your sister.”
As I said it, a wave of sadness hit me, not just for the despair this woman must have felt, but also that a doctor—one who had sworn an oath to “do no harm”—had affirmed her darkest thoughts.
Bannon then writes:
The brother seemed surprised at what I’d said. I told him it had been
a pleasure taking care of his sister and assured him that this was not
the “medicine” that I had signed up for. He thanked me, almost as if my
view of care was a unique approach to “the healing art.” In Canada, it
increasingly is.
The curious thing about my “unique” way of practicing medicine—where I
refuse to kill my patients—is that it’s actually not unique at all.
Historically, medical ethics has always maintained that doctors have no
business killing their patients, as evidenced by texts from ancient
China, India, and Greece, all the way up to modern times. It was not
until 2016 that it became legal in Canada for doctors to kill their
patients, and then only for cases that were “grievous,” “irremediable,”
and “terminal.” Physicians were assured that “their independent, professional judgment makes them uniquely capable of detecting a patient’s vulnerability.”
The normal medical practise of not killing patients has in a short period of time shifted to a the normalization of patient homicide.
Bannon compares Canada's euthanasia program to the California assisted suicide program. Both were legalized in 2016 but Canada, which has a similar population as California, had a little more than 60,000 deaths between legalization and 2023 and in the same time-frame California had almost 4300 assisted suicide deaths. Bannon continues:
The independent investigative panel
probing the reason for Canada’s rapid uptick in MAiD deaths found that
428 cases did not meet the criteria for euthanasia, making the deaths
legally homicides (and these are only the cases that we know about). But
there has been no referral to criminal authorities.
There have been a few instances where provincial police
have launched criminal investigations. One woman with an untreated
post-concussion syndrome was euthanized without her daughters’
knowledge. Another investigation and subsequent lawsuit found that a bipolar man received MAiD while on a day pass from a hospital stay without anyone’s knowledge.
Bannon then comments on the fact that the government has already approved euthanasia for mental illness alone, that it has agreed to implement in March 2027. Bannon then comments on the discriminatory nature of the law
The protocol for administering MAiD reveals a sinister view of anyone
who is not completely sound in body and mind. If I, in good health,
wanted to die and attempted to kill myself, physicians would have the
ability, by law, to restrain me against my will and ensure that I
receive treatment for this desire to die. But if I was handicapped or
ill, then the same physicians could help me end my life. The MAiD system
says that the healthy are worthy of suicide prevention, and the
disabled and ill are not. This is not just my opinion, but also that of
the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights. Furthermore, the U.N.’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
has formally recommended that Canada repeal its Track 2 MAiD program
due to such injustices. The bias doesn’t stop with the sick and
disabled: Many Canadian MAiD providers
are quietly struggling with euthanasia requests from vulnerable
populations, including the poor, homeless, and those living in long-term
care homes.
Bannon finishes his article with the axiom:
It is often said that the true measure of a society lies in how it
treats its most vulnerable members. By that standard, Canada is a
society that is headed down a very dark path.
Thank you Dr Bannon for being opposed to patient homicide.
Alex Schadenberg Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Ontario’s MAID Death Review Committee (MDRC) released it's fifth report on August 25, 2025. The MDRC is a body of the Ontario Coroner's Office that is composed of 16 people who are charged with examining Ontario euthanasia reports that may have concerns.
The reports from the MDRC committee concern people who have already died by euthanasia.
Gillmore begins her article with the story of Mr. C:
A widowed, elderly man with a body tremor was approved for medical assistance in dying (MAID) despite loneliness and poor self-esteem motivating his application, a new report from Ontario’s chief coroner’s office says.
The man, called Mr. C in the report, had an essential tremor, which causes uncontrollable shaking, often of the hands. Tremors are incurable neurological conditions, but not fatal.
Mr. C’s tremors had made it difficult for him to participate in hobbies and social activities. A widower in his 70s, he “did not perceive that he had much to offer in a new relationship” because of the tremor, the report says.
Mr. C said he “experienced profound hopelessness and loneliness” and could not find meaningful relationships or fulfillment after his spouse’s death. His MAID provider noted he applied because of bereavement and emotional suffering.
He was approved for Track 2 MAID, which is MAID for people whose deaths are not reasonably foreseeable.
Mr. C is one of three individuals profiled in a new report by Ontario’s MAID Death Review Committee, which examines how MAID assessors interpret the legal eligibility criteria for MAID.
Gillmore explains that:
Guidance released by Health Canada in 2023 says a patient and doctor must together decide if a patient’s condition is incurable, after considering available treatments and the patient’s overall health and values. Patients are not required to try treatments, but must be informed of means to relieve their suffering.
The guidance says a person cannot make themselves eligible for MAID by refusing all or most available treatments.
The most recent report from the MDRC raises concerns that people are being approved even when it is unclear why they refused all treatments. Gillmore then writes about Mrs A:
In one case, a woman in her 60s was approved for MAID after declining every treatment offered to treat her obesity and related chronic conditions, including type 2 diabetes and depression.
The woman, called Mrs. A, was approved for Track 1 MAID, which is MAID for people whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable.
In the years before her death, Mrs. A refused offers of health care and stopped taking her medications because she “no longer had the will to live,” the report says.
Her MAID assessors believed she would improve with proper health and home care. They offered her weight loss surgery, medication and disability supports. She declined everything, saying they would not help her.
The MDRC committee were divided on Mrs A. Gillmore reports:
Some committee members said Mrs. A should not have been eligible for MAID because she declined all treatments. Some also said it was not clear whether the MAID assessors had determined why she refused treatments.
“MAID legislation requires more than a respect for autonomy, it also mandates the application of clinical expertise to ensure that reasonable care options are considered,” they said.
Other members said Mrs. A’s MAID assessors respected her autonomy and that refusing treatment is a personal decision.
Gillmore states that the report uncovers "ableist concerns" concerning the term "irreversible decline in capability:
Health Canada’s guidance helps MAID assessors determine if a patient has an “irreversible decline in capability.”
According to the guidance, the decline in capability does not need to be related to symptoms of an illness or disability. It can include decreased job opportunities or ability to participate in meaningful activities.
Gillmore then reports on the case of Mr B.
The report tells the story of a man in his 60s, known as Mr. B, who had cerebral palsy and had lived in long-term care for several years.
Mr. B “expressed profound psychological suffering and loneliness,” the report says, which increased when he moved to long-term care.
He used a wheelchair, but was able to push it, transfer out of his chair and toilet himself. He was scared that he would lose those abilities as he aged.
Six to eight weeks before his MAID death, Mr. B voluntarily stopped eating and drinking. The report does not say why or whether MAID assessors tried to determine his reasons for doing so.
In approving him for Track 1 MAID, his assessors said Mr. B’s death was reasonably foreseeable because he had stopped eating and drinking and had signs of kidney failure. His dependency on others showed he was in an “irreversible state of functional decline,” the assessors said.
In other words, Mr. B. stopped eating and drinking to be approved for Track 1 MAiD. Track 1 MAiD is for people who have a terminal condition. There is no waiting period for Track 1 MAiD.
The MDRC committee were divided on Mr B. Gillmore reports:
A few members did not think Mr. B’s dependency and need for long-term care fulfilled that criteria. Needing help is part of many disabilities, including cerebral palsy, they said.
“Framing such dependency as evidence of an irreversible decline in capability potentially risks introducing an ableist perspective, wherein inherent disability-related needs are mischaracterized as functional decline that is aligned with an irreversible trajectory, rather than a person’s basic care needs,” these members said.
The report also raised concerns about unmet psychological needs influencing MAID requests. Gillmore explains:
Gillmore comments on the reports findings concerning psychological suffering.
Yet, Mr. B’s MAID assessors noted his suffering was “primarily psychosocial and existential.” Several committee members said he should have had a psychiatric assessment to determine whether he was suicidal.
Members also said a psychiatric assessment would have helped determine Mrs. A’s MAID eligibility. If she had declined, the MAID practitioner would have had to say that her eligibility could not be determined.
The Ontario’s ministry of the solicitor general told Gillmore:
MAID requests have become more complex since 2021 when the federal government removed the requirement that someone’s death be reasonably foreseeable to qualify for MAID.
“The interpretation of illness and function of decline are more challenging for MAID assessors and providers to evaluate,” the statement says.
The MDRC committee were divided MAiD for psychological reasons. Gillmore reports:
A few members of the committee said current MAID practices need to be re-evaluated.
They said clarity is needed about whether a person’s refusal of routine treatments or food and water qualifies them as being in an irreversible state of decline.
These members also said further guidance is needed about how to assess a decline in capability when a person’s disability means they always depend on others for some care.
Gillmore ended the article by stating:
There were 4,958 MAID deaths in Ontario in 2024; coroners’ investigations were started in 299 — or six per cent — of these cases, the office of the solicitor general said in its statement. Five investigations are ongoing.
Previous article: Canada euthanasia reports: Rushing to Death (Link).
Alex Schadenberg Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Alexander Raikin
Alexander Raikin wrote an excellent article: How America abandoned its suicide safeguards which explains how the US states that have legalized assisted suicide abandoned the "safeguards" in their assisted suicide laws. I have written several articles on this topic especially since nearly every assisted suicide law in America, once passed, was later expanded. Raikin explains:
In 2020, Jane, a 29-year-old Colorado woman with eating disorders, was “provided with lethal drugs … in the midst of a mental-health crisis”, according to a lawsuit filed this year by the Institute for Patients’ Rights, an advocacy group seeking to overturn Colorado’s assisted-suicide program. Jane qualified for assisted suicide, the lawsuit contends, yet she was discharged from a hospice because she no longer qualified for hospice care, and her hospice considered her no longer competent to consent to medical treatments. So how could she have consented to suicide-by-doctor?
Jane was fortunate: her parents successfully sued for guardianship, and a court ordered the medication to be destroyed. Jane “went on to recover from all of it, including her anorexia”, according to Matt Vallière, the executive director of the Institute for Patients’ Rights. Jane found work as an occupational therapist, went on vacation, and even purchased a home. Although she ultimately died two years later of complications from her history of eating disorders, she’d had an opportunity to “live her best life”, Vallière says. That any medical professional decided that Jane qualified for assisted suicide, he claims, was “absurd”.
Raikin states that Jane’s case isn’t unusual and violations of assisted-suicide laws are rampant with no known suspensions or revocations of clinician licenses, even when patients were endangered. Raikin explains how these laws are being violated:
Much of the issue is oversight. In each of the 11 states that have implemented suicide-by-doctor, regulations require clinicians to submit compliance forms, typically within days of a patient’s death. These forms document that the patient expressly consented to die through assisted suicide, and that the clinicians followed all necessary legal safeguards and eligibility criteria, including affirming that the patient is terminally ill and of sound mind.
Failure to submit this documentation isn’t just a statutory offense. Medical providers and pharmacists who fail to “make a good-faith effort to file required documentation in a complete and timely manner”, as Washington state law instructs, risk losing“immunity protection” for the criminal act of assisting someone’s suicide. Yet a Department of Health report found that physicians improperly reported compliance for a third of all assisted suicide deaths in the Evergreen State. Indeed, Washington is missing 515 compliance forms entirely for the period between 2009 to 2023, according to my calculations based on annual reports, and is also short of 293 “written request” documents that patients are required to sign attesting that they wish to die by suicide. In Colorado, my calculations find that almost 1,800 compliance forms have remained missing since 2017.
The actual number of assisted suicide deaths is unknown. Raikin writes:
States can’t answer the most basic question: how many physician-assisted suicides have been facilitated by clinicians in America? Across Colorado and California, state authorities have no record of the type of “aid-in-dying drugs” that were prescribed to more than 1,000 patients, according to my analysis of state reports, including the California End of Life Option Act 2024 Data Report. In Oregon, the health authority has records on 376 assisted suicides completed in 2024, but for another 178 cases in which medications were prescribed, authorities don’t know if the patient died by ingesting the drugs, or even died at all.
Washington State has decided to stop publishing the assisted suicide data.
In 2022, Washington state announced that its Department of Health is diverting “all available funding” for its assisted-suicide compliance-review program to “data entry of submitted forms”, due to lack of funding from the state. Data entry is commendable. But by law, the state is also required to “review” reporting compliance and issue an annual report. Instead, this summer, a pop-up appeared on the department’s website: “Important Note: Due to funding cuts, the Death with Dignity Program at the Department of Health is suspended. … A 2024 annual statistical report will not be released.”
Washington state’s decision surprised even assisted-suicide clinicians. Jessica Kaan, the medical director for End of Life Washington, an institution which facilitates assisted suicides in the state, warned on a forum for providers that “no one will even be monitoring or responding to emails or phone calls that come into the DOH [Department of Health] about the DWD [Dying With Dignity] program”. Kaan called it “a grim situation”. After this push back, the state announced that it will release the 2024 report after all — but it will be the last one ever to be released.
Raikin then explains that New Mexico does not publish an annual report, even though the assisted suicide law requires an annual report. States are also removing the "safeguards" in the law. Raikin explains:
This systematic disregard of safeguards is happening as the process is being fast-tracked: states are removing requirements that applicants reside in state; allowing less-credentialed providers, such as social workers, nurses, and physician associates,to perform assessments instead of psychiatrists and psychologists; and reducing minimum waiting periods. In Oregon, which waived waiting periods in 2020,clinicians have reported in Oregon’s annual Death with Dignity Act report that assisted suicides routinely occur on the same or next day the patient makes there quest. Since in some cases it takes up to five days for a patient to die from ingesting the death cocktail, it is possible that it will take a patient longer to die than to receive lethal prescriptions.
The proportion of vulnerable persons dying by assisted suicide has also increased. Raikin writes:
The proportion of deaths of vulnerable patients has also increased by magnitudes. In the first year of Washington state’s program, 16% of patients mentioned “the physical or emotional burden on family, friends, or caregivers” as a reason for their decision to die, and 2% were concerned about “the financial cost of treating or prolonging the patient’s terminal condition”. By 2023, according to the state’s reporting, the number concerned with “feeling like a burden” jumped to half of all assisted-suicide deaths, and a 10th were concerned about “financial implications of treatment”.
A similar trend is unfolding in Oregon. In 2009, the first year that the program was available, no patients told their assisted-suicide clinician that they were choosing to die because of financial concerns, and only 12% felt like a burden. By 2024, the state’s reporting revealed that it was 9% and 42% of all assisted suicide deaths, respectively. No other states even report this data. The “attending physician follow-up form” in California, which records patient concerns that contribute to the choice of “aid-in-dying”, doesn’t have “financial concerns” or “feeling like a burden” on its otherwise identical menu of options.
Compliance with the law from physicians and the government is lacking. Raikin interviewed Craig New who overseas the assisted suicide program in Oregon. Raikin reports:
Craig New, who told me on the telephone that he’s the sole employee of the Oregon Health Authority responsible for monitoring compliance reporting, says that “ultimately the things usually get resolved because we bug them until they finally send in the paperwork”,but even so, his office has reported around a dozen physicians to the Oregon Medical Board for violations of compliance reporting. Thanks to privacy laws regarding medical licensing, it is impossible to know whether the reported physicians faced repercussions, but my review of the Oregon Medical Board’s investigations reveals that few offenses are prosecuted.
Raikin reports that Dr Rose Jeanine Kenny, in Oregon, was reprimanded by the Oregon Medical Board for contravening the assisted suicide law:
One example is Rose Jeannine Kenny, a family doctor, who in 2016 was sentenced to five years probation by the Oregon Medical Board for dozens of alleged prescription violations. Later the board received “credible information” that Kenny may have again violated the same provisions she was previously reprimanded for, and may possibly have committed “violations of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act”, such as failure to ensure consent, follow the rules of written and oral assisted suicide requests, abide by the minimum waiting period, and file compliance records. Kenny once again kept her license, this time by agreeing to “participate in all physician steps” for 10 more assisted suicides, supervised by a mentoring physician from Compassion & Choices — the largest lobbying group for assisted suicide in the United States. (UnHerd was unable to reach Dr. Kenny at any of the medical practices with which she is associated online.)
Raikin states that no researchers or law enforcement are allowed to systematically review the assisted suicide records. He then tells the story of a person in Maryland with a eating distorder:
Recent court proceedings in Maryland eerily echo the lawsuit regarding Jane. Angela Guarda, the director of the Eating Disorders Program at Johns Hopkins Hospital, testified that she was contacted by an ex-patient of Jennifer Gaudiani, the physician who coined the term “terminal anorexia”, and who has prescribed assisted-suicide medication to at least one patient. The concept of terminal anorexia was meant to apply only to patients over age 30; for younger patients, Gaudiani stressed in a paper for the Journal of Eating Disorders that “every effort should be made to promote full recovery and continuation of life”.
The ex-patient reported that her assisted-suicide assessor told her “she would ‘make an exception’ for me and ‘allow’ me to die”. The patient reported feeling coerced. She eventually weaned herself off morphine and hospice drugs and, 18 months later, reports that she’s doing well, with a job, a group of friends and a new puppy.
Raikin ends the article by stating:
Patients like these, who need hope the most, are facing much more than their illnesses. They also confront an assisted-suicide regime that blatantly and routinely violates the legal safeguards that were meant to ensure their protection from a death they might not want.
Further articles on this topic:
Assisted suicide lobby launches court case to force Colorado to permit suicide tourism (Link).
The push to legalize and extend assisted suicide in America (Link).
The Gift of Life Act currently requires that consent be obtained before tissue can be removed from a human body and used for therapeutic purposes, medical education or scientific research. Under the proposed amendments, consent is no longer required except from parents or guardians on behalf of children under 16 years of age. A person may object to the removal and use of the tissue prior to the person’s death or a substitute may object on the person’s behalf after the death has occurred.
Bill 4 would change The Gift of Life Act (Ontario), which requires consent to obtain organs and tissues and replaces it with presumed consent. The Ontario government would consider you to be an organ donor unless you have stated otherwise.
Bill 4 also changes the Connecting Care Act 2019for the planning,
co-ordinating, undertaking, supporting and promoting of activities relating to
the removal, donation and use of human tissue, including the co-ordinating and
supporting of designated facilities in connection with the removal and use of
human tissue for transplant.
Please sign and share the following petition (Petition Link).
To the Hon Sylvia Jones, Ontario Minister of Health
As a citizen of Ontario I oppose Bill 4, Peter Kormos Memorial Act (Saving Organs to Save Lives). This bill that would institute a system of presumed consent for organ donation in Ontario.
A study by the US Department of Health and Human Services examined 351 organ donation approvals and determined that 103 of the cases may have violated the dead donor rule.
The government does not own my organs. I consider organ donation as a voluntary gift of life that is made after I have died.
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition supports the Dead Donor rule,
meaning, the person must be dead before organs can be removed from a
person. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition calls for a re-affirmation of the dead donor rule and rejects a presumed consent for organ donation.
On July 23we published an article about The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) media release concerning the American organ transplant system. The HHS examined 351 organ donation approvals and determined that in 103 cases their were concerns that either ethics or the dead donor rule was violated.
In 2023, an effort to legitimize harvesting organs from living people was prevented when The Uniform Law Commission stopped an effort to revise the UDDA. The revision to the UDDA would have redefined death to permit organ removal when a person, is not yet dead but has an irreversible condition.
Roger Foley needs to be able to leave the hospital and go home.
Alex Schadenberg Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has followed the plight of Roger Foley for a long time. In June, 2025; EPC promoted the online petition - Roger Foley needs to be fed (Petition Link).
Roger Foley, who lives with spino-cerebellar ataxia type 14, has been living at the London Health Sciences Centre for almost 10 years. Previously, Roger lived in his home and received attendant services from an agency that was contracted to provide care. Roger ended up in the hospital based on the substandard care that he received from the agency.
Roger applied for inclusion in the Self-Managed Attendant Services program that would give Roger direct funding to enabled him to hire his own care-givers. This is a program that exists in Ontario. Roger was turned down by the Ministry of Health for this program.
Hon Sylvia Jones, has been Ontario's Minister of Health and Deputy Premier since June 2022. In June, 2008; Sylvia Jones, as a member of the Conservative opposition, expressed strong support for self-managed home care funding.
Contact Hon Sylvia Jones at: sylvia.jones@pc.ola.organd state:
Roger Foley has been living at the London Health Sciences Centre for almost 10 years. Roger wants to leave the hospital and receive care in his home.
Now is the time to implement change and approve him for Self-Managed funding for Attendant Services.
Self-Managed direct funding will provide him the right resources for less money and enable him to leave the hospital and move home. Hospitals are the most
expensive setting for health care service delivery and, quite frankly,
not the best type of care for stable individuals with a disability. Allowing him to go home with self-managed funding for attendant services will enable him to fully participate in the community.
Here is the video of her June 2008 speech in the Ontario Legislature:
Here is what Sylvia Jones says in the (legislature) video:
Ms. Sylvia Jones: It's a pleasure to rise today to support the member for Wellington Halton Hills on this important resolution to add attendant services to the provincial wait time strategy.
For many years, experts in health care have told members of all three parties that our health system is too focused on hospital beds. Hospitals provide wonderful acute care for the citizens of this province, but it is the most expensive setting for health care service delivery and, quite frankly, not the best type of care for stable individuals with a disability.
As the Ontario Community Support Association highlighted in their August 13 press conference, people on the attendant services wait list put pressure on the health care system because they remain inappropriately stuck waiting in long-term-care homes, acute care beds, chronic care hospitals and rehabilitation facilities, all at a much higher cost to taxpayers. It's important that members in this House recognize that a failure to support today's resolution to make attendant services a priority by adding it to the provincial wait time strategy will result in higher costs to the taxpayer.
At the same news conference in August, the Ontario Community Support Association told us that the wait list for attendant services is four to 10 years. For four to 10 years, individuals with disabilities and their families are not getting the services they need. They remain in hospital or long-term-care beds, or their families, many with aging parents, struggle to continue to provide for their daily care needs. So even though we know that it is more cost-effective and more appropriate to have individuals cared for at home and even though we know attendant services allow people with physical disabilities to actively participate in their communities, go to school, get a job and contribute in other ways, we continue to focus our health care dollars in other areas.
This issue is most important across the province, but it also touches specific families in Dufferin Caledon. This summer, I met with a constituent from Honeywood who receives the Ministry of Health's direct funding for attendant services. I suppose you could call her one of the lucky ones. The program is administered by the Centre for Independent Living in Toronto. She tells me it took four years for her application to be approved, and this year, when she applied for a slight modification of her level of care because her health had changed, she was told that the Centre for Independent Living in Toronto was not even considering 2008 applications; they were still reviewing 2007 applications. Why is that? The Centre for Independent Living has a huge waiting list, and this Liberal government has not increased their funding since they were elected in 2003. So CILT is trying to serve as many Ontarians as it can with too few resources. In fact, my constituent believes that something needs to happen long-term care or worse for an individual with direct funding before the next person on the waiting list can receive funding for attendant services. My constituent wanted me to know that she feels this is a wonderful program that allows her to routinely participate in the community and live in her home. For example, I know that she is an active member of the Dufferin county accessibility advisory committee, and the Honeywood community. She came to see me because she wanted to brief me on this issue, and she believes that other people with a physical disability need to have the same opportunity that she has.
In addition to direct funding not being a priority for the Ministry of Health, my constituents are also having issues with funding from community care access centres. The boundary change introduced by the Liberal government has resulted in my constituents being asked to do with less service. Their disability has not changed, but the level of service being provided has.
An Orangeville resident who is a quadriplegic as a result of a car accident had been receiving home care since 1995. Under the former Waterloo-Wellington-Dufferin CCAC, he received morning and night visits, seven days a week, to assist with personal care. Under Central West CCAC, he was discharged from nursing and occupational therapy. Respite care was eliminated. His case is under review to determine what other services can be cut. The minister responded to us in correspondence by suggesting that he use the CCAC complaint process and to call the long-term-care action line.
Another constituent who happens to suffer from ALS has been told he was receiving too much care from the Waterloo-Wellington-Dufferin CCAC. He's been told his CCAC hours are being cut and a referral has been made to the March of Dimes to make up the care hour difference. That's right. The CCAC is referring people to a non-profit agency and expects them to provide front-line care, rather than our universal health care system. The March of Dimes also has a waiting list. So now the Central West CCAC has agreed to provide attendant care hours, but only until the March of Dimes can implement its services. He also needs respite care hours, but of course there's no support for his wife.
All three of these examples are alarming. I'm sure that members of all three parties have similar experiences from their own ridings. So what are we going to do about it? Now is the time to look at implementing the change that health care experts have been advocating for more than a decade. Now is the time to provide Ontarians with physical disabilities with the services they deserve. These citizens can either be taken care of at home with the right resources for less money or be forced into long-term care, or a hospital setting, which puts added strain on an already beleaguered health system and doesn't allow individuals with disabilities to fully participate in our communities.
I encourage all members to support the resolution of the member from Wellington Halton Hills. Let's make attendant care services a priority by adding it to the provincial wait time strategy.
Hon Sylvia Jones, has been Ontario's Minister of Health and Deputy Premier since June 2022. Why has she abandoned Roger Foley by forcing him to live at the London Health Sciences Centre rather than enabling him to be cared for at home?
One of the topics that Calabro tackles in are article is the question of further expansions of euthanasia in Canada. Calabro first tackles the topics euthanasia by advance request and euthanasia for children "mature minors" and writes:
Despite all of the questions surrounding Track 2, Canada is
proceeding with the expansion of MAID to additional categories of patients
while gauging public interest in even more. As early as 2016, the federal
government had agreed to launch exploratory investigations into the possible
future provision of MAID for people whose sole underlying medical condition is
a mental disorder, as well as to “mature minors,” people younger than 18 who
are “deemed to have requisite decision-making capacity.” The government also
pledged to consider “advance requests”—that is, allowing people to consent now
to receive MAID at some specified future point when their illness renders them
incapable of making or affirming the decision to die. Meanwhile, the Quebec
College of Physicians has raised the possibility of legalizing euthanasia for
infants born with “severe malformations,” a rare practice currently legal only
in the Netherlands, the first country to adopt it since Nazi Germany did so in
1939.
Calabro then focusses on euthanasia for mental illness alone, which is currently scheduled to go into practise in March 2027.
As part of Track 2 legislation in 2021, lawmakers extended
eligibility—to take effect at some point in the future—to Canadians suffering
from mental illness alone. This, despite the submissions of many of the
nation’s top psychiatric and mental-health organizations that no evidence-based
standard exists for determining whether a psychiatric condition is
irremediable. A number of experts also shared concerns about whether it was
possible to credibly distinguish between suicidal ideation and a desire for
MAID.
After several contentious delays, MAID for mental illness is
now set to take effect in 2027; authorities have been tasked in the meantime
with figuring out how MAID should actually be applied in such cases. The debate
has produced thousands of pages of special reports and parliamentary testimony.
What all sides do agree on is that, in practice, mental disorders are already a
regular feature of Canada’s MAID regime. At one hearing, Mona Gupta, a
psychiatrist and the chair of an expert panel charged with recommending
protocols and safeguards for psychiatric MAID, noted pointedly that “people
with mental disorders are requesting and accessing MAID now.” They include
patients whose requests are “largely motivated by their mental disorder but who
happen to have another qualifying condition,” as well as those with “long
histories of suicidality” or questionable decision-making capacity. They may
also be poor and homeless and have little interaction with the health-care
system. But whatever the case, Gupta said, when it comes to navigating the
complex intersection of MAID and mental illness, “assessors and health-care
providers already do this.”
Alan Nichols
The argument was meant to assuage concerns about clinical
readiness. For critics, however, it only reinforced a belief that, in some
cases, physical conditions are simply being used to bear the legal weight of a
different, ineligible basis for MAID, including mental disorders. In one of
Canada’s more controversial cases, a 61-year-old man named Alan Nichols, who
had a history of depression and other conditions, applied for MAID in 2019
while on suicide watch at a British Columbia hospital. A few weeks later, he
was euthanized on the basis of “hearing loss.”
Euthanasia for mental illness is already happening in Canada, but the person is required to have another medical condition to be approved. As Mona Gupta stated:
“people with mental disorders are requesting and accessing MAID now.” They include patients whose requests are “largely motivated by their mental disorder but who happen to have another qualifying condition,” as well as those with “long histories of suicidality” or questionable decision-making capacity. They may also be poor and homeless and have little interaction with the health-care system. But whatever the case, Gupta said, when it comes to navigating the complex intersection of MAID and mental illness, “assessors and health-care providers already do this.”
Calabro explains out how fast euthanasia has been normalized:
It is too soon to call euthanasia a lifestyle option in Canada, but from the outset it has proved a case study in momentum. MAID began as a practice limited to gravely ill patients who were already at the end of life. The law was then expanded to include people who were suffering from serious medical conditions but not facing imminent death. In two years, MAID will be made available to those suffering only from mental illness. Parliament has also recommended granting access to minors.
There are many problems with the implementation of Canada's euthanasia law. Calabro writes:
There have been unintended consequences: Some Canadians who cannot afford to manage their illness have sought doctors to end their life. In certain situations, clinicians have faced impossible ethical dilemmas. At the same time, medical professionals who decided early on to reorient their career toward assisted death no longer feel compelled to tiptoe around the full, energetic extent of their devotion to MAID. Some clinicians in Canada have euthanized hundreds of patients.
Calabro explains how Canada's euthanasia law is vague and undefined.
The law, in other words, was premised on the concept of patient autonomy, but within narrow boundaries. Rather than force someone with, say, late-stage cancer to suffer to the very end, MAID would allow patients to depart on their own terms: to experience a “dignified death,” as proponents called it. That the threshold of eligibility for MAID would be high—and stringent—was presented to the public as self-evident, although the criteria themselves were vague when you looked closely. For instance, what constituted “reasonably foreseeable”? Two months? Two years? Canada’s Department of Justice suggested only “a period of time that is not too remote.”
Madeline Li
Calabro interviews Madeline Li, an early euthanasia pioneer who had developed the euthanasia program at the University Health Network in Toronto in 2017. In 2018 Li started questioning the euthanasia program.
It was not long into her practice, however, that Li’s confidence in the direction of her country’s MAID program began to falter. For all of her expertise, not even Li was sure what to do about a patient in his 30s whom she encountered in 2018.
The man had gone to the emergency room complaining of excruciating pain and was eventually diagnosed with cancer. The prognosis was good, a surgeon assured him, with a 65 percent chance of a cure. But the man said he didn’t want treatment; he wanted MAID. Startled, the surgeon referred him to a medical oncologist to discuss chemo; perhaps the man just didn’t want surgery. The patient proceeded to tell the medical oncologist that he didn’t want treatment of any kind; he wanted MAID. He said the same thing to a radiation oncologist, a palliative-care physician, and a psychiatrist, before finally complaining to the patient-relations department that the hospital was barring his access to MAID. Li arranged to meet with him.
Li explained that the prevailing view was that:
A medical condition was incurable if it could not be cured by means acceptable to the patient.
In other words, the law was completely subjective. Someone who has a treatable condition can be killed by euthanasia. Li told Calabro that she agreed with this. Calabro continues:
This had made sense to Li. If an elderly woman with chronic myelogenous leukemia had no wish to endure a highly toxic course of chemo and radiation, why should she be compelled to? But here was a young man with a likely curable cancer who nevertheless was adamant about dying.
What was Li left with? According to prevailing standards, the man’s refusal to attempt treatment rendered his disease incurable and his natural death was reasonably foreseeable. He met the eligibility criteria as Li understood them. But the whole thing seemed wrong to her. Seeking advice, she described the basics of the case in a private email group for MAID practitioners under the heading “Eligible, but Reasonable?” “And what was very clear to me from the replies I got,” Li told me, “is that many people have no ethical or clinical qualms about this—that it’s all about a patient’s autonomy, and if a patient wants this, it’s not up to us to judge. We should provide.”
Li killed her patient but she regretted it:
And so she did. She regretted her decision almost as soon as the man’s heart stopped beating. “What I’ve learned since is: Eligible doesn’t mean you should provide MAID,” Li told me. “You can be eligible because the law is so full of holes, but that doesn’t mean it clinically makes sense.” Li no longer interprets “incurable” as at the sole discretion of the patient. The problem, she feels, is that the law permits such a wide spectrum of interpretations to begin with. Many decisions about life and death turn on the personal values of practitioners and patients rather than on any objective medical criteria.
Calabro explains that by 2020 Li had already participated in hundreds of euthanasia deaths.
Li then explains that the concept of a "completed life" is controversial in Europe but a reality in Canada. Calabro writes:
Li explained. “There’s no standard here; it’s just kind of up to you.” The concept of a “completed life, or being tired of life,” as sufficient for MAID is “controversial in Europe and theoretically not legal in Canada,” Li said. “But the truth is, it is legal in Canada. It always has been, and it’s happening in these frailty cases.”
Madeline Li explains why Canada's vague euthanasia law has become the most permissive killing law in the world. Even the controversial concept of a "completed life" is permitted in Canada based on lack of definition in the law.
Calabro first explains out how fast euthanasia has been normalized:
It is too soon to call euthanasia a lifestyle option in Canada, but from the outset it has proved a case study in momentum. MAID began as a practice limited to gravely ill patients who were already at the end of life. The law was then expanded to include people who were suffering from serious medical conditions but not facing imminent death. In two years, MAID will be made available to those suffering only from mental illness. Parliament has also recommended granting access to minors.
There are many problems with the implementation of Canada's euthanasia law. Calabro writes:
There have been unintended consequences: Some Canadians who cannot afford to manage their illness have sought doctors to end their life. In certain situations, clinicians have faced impossible ethical dilemmas. At the same time, medical professionals who decided early on to reorient their career toward assisted death no longer feel compelled to tiptoe around the full, energetic extent of their devotion to MAID. Some clinicians in Canada have euthanized hundreds of patients.
Calabro interviews several of the euthanasia doctors about their experiences. Some of the doctors consider euthanasia to be the "most meaningful work" of their career.
Stefanie Green compares her euthanasia deaths to baby deliveries. Calabro explains:
Stefanie Green, a physician on Vancouver Island and one of the organization’s founders, told me how her decades as a maternity doctor had helped equip her for this new chapter in her career. In both fields, she explained, she was guiding a patient through an “essentially natural event”—the emotional and medical choreography “of the most important days in their life.” She continued the analogy: “I thought, Well, one is like delivering life into the world, and the other feels like transitioning and delivering life out.” And so Green does not refer to her MAID deaths only as “provisions”—the term for euthanasia that most clinicians have adopted. She also calls them “deliveries.”
Gord Gubitz, a neurologist from Nova Scotia to Calabro that:
He finds euthanasia to be “energizing”—the “most meaningful work” of his career. “It’s a happy sad, right?” he explained. “It’s really sad that you were in so much pain. It is sad that your family is racked with grief. But we’re so happy you got what you wanted.”
'I love my job, I've always loved being a doctor and I delivered over a 1000 babies and I took care of families but this is the very best work I've ever done in the last seven years.'
There are many problems with Canada's euthanasia law. The first being that it gives doctors and nurse practitioners the right in law to kill people. Another is that some doctors and nurse practitioners actually enjoy killing people.
You are not 'safe' when somebody is happy to kill you.
Does Canada's euthanasia law enable healthcare seriel killers? (Link).
Alex Schadenberg Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
I receive daily updates from the Hospice News. Usually this news service provides updates about funding issues, legislative initiatives or it will report on the business of Hospice.
The article is written in a neutral manner and begins with information. The articles states that 11 US states have legalized assisted suicide, that Delaware is the most recent state to legalize assisted suicide and New York is considering assisted suicide. The article doesn't state that the New York bill passed in the legislature and is held up by Governor Kathy Hochel who is deliberating on whether or not to veto the bill.
Vossel quotes Jessica Empeño, national director for clinical engagement at Compassion & Choices, America's leading assisted suicide lobby group, who states:
Discussions about medically assisted deaths can allow for greater insight into some of the unmet patient needs, such as unmanageable symptoms and the sources of discomfort or distress, Empeño indicated. Even questions related to MAID can “open the door” to valuable conversations about what’s most important to patients and their families, which can improve goal-concordant care delivery, she stated.
From a neutral point of view Empeño is correct that discussions about assisted suicide can provide insight into unmet patient needs, such as unmanageable symptoms and the sources of discomfort or distress, but Empeño is wanting Hospices to discuss assisted suicide with patients to create greater demand for assisted suicide and normalize it as a Hospice "option."
Vossel then quotes Yelena Zatulovsky, vice president of patient experience at AccentCare who states:
“We have policies and protocols in place on how to have conversations related to MAID, and these have evolved a lot,” Zatulovsky said. “For questions related to medical aid in dying, it’s having a solid, very strong process so that our teams feel equipped and empowered to handle any kind of ethical dilemma. Ultimately, everything around these are nuanced cases — the complexities, the challenges, the discord, the stigmatization — is related to conversation. It’s about what their good death looks like.”
Essentially this article urges Hospices to contact Compassion & Choices for training related to discussions about assisted suicide.
The assisted suicide lobby wants to normalize assisted suicide and Compassion & Choices wants to be the go-to group for training people on assisted suicide.
Let's understand this.
The group that lobbies to legalize assisted suicide is also the group that would provide information to Hospices about assisted suicide.
Alex Schadenberg Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
On Saturday August 16, EPC sent out the following message:
EPC has followed the Roger Foley story since it began. In June, EPC launched the petition: Roger Foley needs to be fed. After launching the petition the hospital inserted an IV. Roger needs assistance to enable him to eat. After visiting Roger on August 6 and learning that he was only receiving water, we relaunched the petition. The hospital responded by feeding Roger. They then withdrew feeding and then reversed the decision and are feeding him again. It is ridiculous that an Ontario hospital has put a disabled man on a roller coaster ride over his basic right to eat.
Clarification of My Situation: LHSC is still not feeding me.
I only have limited access to fluids in order to stay off an IV. The Compleat 1.5 is not food — I am drinking it only to get by until my lighting accommodations are restored.
I remain blocked from eating and from accessing oral medications. Sometimes LHSC even restricts me to water alone.
To drink, I am forced to wear extremely heavy makeshift ski goggles that cause severe pain and further injury to my deformed cervical spine. With these goggles, I can only manage about 10 minutes of fluids three times a day, before my neck gives out. During that short window, I must bloat myself with as much fluid as possible to avoid dehydration. There will come a time when my neck can no longer tolerate the goggles, and then I will be forced back on an IV.
Roger is receiving Compleat 1.5, which is an improvement, but as he states, this is not food and since he is not being fed he is unable to receive oral medications, that are required to be taken with food.
Roger wears ski goggles to enable him to eat without reacting to the light, but as he states, he can only wear the goggles for 10 minutes because of his neck and his cervical spine.
The stand-off between the hospital and Roger concerns the level of lighting. The staff insist that it is not safe to feed Roger without more light but Roger insists that his reaction to the regular lighting is so intense that he requires special lighting. The CNIB confirmed that Roger has severe photo sensitivity.
The key issue is that London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) must accommodate Roger by changing the lighting. It is ridiculous that an Ontario hospital is not feeding a man with a degenerative neurological condition. Roger is capable of eating but he requires assistance.
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