Louisiana Judge temporarily prevents death by Nitrogen gas.

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Erik Ortiz reported for NBC news on March 11, 2025 that Chief U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick of the Middle Louisiana District temporarily blocked Louisiana's first execution in 15 years after lawyers for the condemned man argued a new method known as nitrogen hypoxia would violate his constitutional rights.

Jessie Hoffman Jr. who was convicted of rape and murder, was scheduled to die by execution on March 18 with the use of nitrogen gas. Hoffman stated that the use of a mask to deliver only nitrogen gas, depriving him of oxygen, "substantially burdens" his ability to engage in his Buddhist breathing practices and creates "superadded pain and suffering."

Dr. Philip Bickler, the chief of neuro-anesthesia at the University of California, San Francisco, testified that the sensation nitrogen hypoxia provides is "very similar to drowning."

"I think for someone like Mr. Hoffman, nitrogen asphyxiation would be a particularly horrible method, a really inhumane choice for an individual who has a history of PTSD," Bickler said.

Judge Dick decided that:

"The public has paramount interest in a legal process that enables thoughtful and well-informed deliberations, particularly when the ultimate fundamental right, the right to life, is placed in the government's hands," she wrote.

She said Hoffman cannot be executed until his claims are "decided after a trial on the merits and a final judgment is issued."

Why is this important to the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition?

Last September, long-time euthanasia activist, Philip Nitschke, carried out the first assisted suicide death using his Sarco Pod in Switzerland.

The Sarco Suicide Pod is sold to the public as an easy and pain free death. The Sarco is designed in a sleek manner to make it seem like a fashionable way to die. The Sarco pod causes death by releasing Nitrogen gas resulting in death within several minutes.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) , who support assisted suicide, described the death of Kenneth Smith, who died by Nitrogen gas, as a:

method that constitutes torture, violating international human rights treaties ratified by the U.S.

The ACLU then stated:

Veterinary scientists, who have carried out laboratory studies on animals, have even largely ruled nitrogen gas out as a euthanasia method due to ethical concerns. Authorities in the U.S. and Europe have issued guidelines discouraging its use for most mammals, citing potential distress, panic, and seizure-like behavior.

Death by Nitrogen gas is not acceptable for animals and is defined as a method that constitutes torture and yet Nitschke described the death as looking exactly as expected.

Death row inmate chooses death by firing squad rather than lethal injection.

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A few days ago an article that was written by James Liddell and published by the Independent explaining that a death row inmate convicted of the double murder of David and Gladys Larke has chosen to die by firing squad rather than the electric chair or lethal injection.

I must state that I oppose capital punishment.

Liddell explains that Brad Sigmon chose to be executed by firing squad and he rejected execution by electric chair over fears it would “burn and cook him alive,” and he rejected execution by lethal injection because three previous recipients of death by lethal injection in North Carolina were not declared dead for at least 20 minutes despite the expectation it would take a fraction of the time. 

A few days ago I published an article titled: Death by assisted suicide is not what you think it is. The article referred to the presentation I gave at the British parliament where I explained how death by assisted suicide occurs. I told the parliamentarians that:

• In 2023, one Oregon assisted suicide death took 137 hours.
• The assisted suicide poison cocktail causes a burning feeling in your throat,
• Dying by assisted suicide is not simply taking a few pills and then dying. It is more complicated than that.

Link to the video by Dr William Toffler of Oregon on this topic (Link).
Link to the article: Death by assisted suicide is not what you think it is. (Link)
What assisted suicide and the death penalty have in common (Link).

Connecticut Bill to prohibit drugs for capital punishment must also prohibit drugs for assisted suicide.

Testimony in opposition as proposed to Proposed SB 430 An Act Prohibiting Certain Conduct Concerning Drugs and Medical Devices Used to Execute the Death Penalty February 10, 2025

Stephen Mendolsohn press conference

By Stephen Mendelsohn

Senator Maroney, Rep. Lemar, and members of the General Law Committee:

Proposed SB 430 constitutes selective indignation with a vengeance. There is no moral reason to prohibit drugs and medical devices used for capital punishment while omitting what are often the exact same drugs and devices used for euthanasia and assisted suicide. I speak as a disability rights advocate who has repeatedly testified here in Connecticut and in other states opposing legislation that, no matter how well-meaning, constitutes lethal disability discrimination.

Medically assisted suicide and euthanasia constitute capital punishment for the “crime” of being old, ill, and/or disabled, with far less transparency or oversight. All of the legitimate arguments against the death penalty—opposition to state-sanctioned killing, the corruption of the medical profession by turning doctors into agents of death, the wrong people dying for the wrong reasons, racial and class inequities, the inability of medical science to guarantee a quick and painless death—apply all the more so to assisted suicide and euthanasia. If the state has any legitimate reason to take any life, it should be the lives of those like Linda Mai Lee (f/k/a Steven Hayes) 1 and Joshua Komisarjevsky who by their murderous actions have forfeited their moral right to live. Connecticut needs to take a strong stand against exposing vulnerable elders and disabled people to an ableist system of state-sanctioned medical killing.

One need not point to Canada’s extremely expansive euthanasia laws, where disabled people are routinely being denied lifesaving medical care and social supports while being offered euthanasia instead, and where euthanasia is now the fifth leading cause of death, to understand why we need to strongly push back. There are far too many documented problems and abuses in U.S. states that have laws permitting medically assisted suicide. People whose sole diagnosis is anorexia nervosa have been deemed terminal and prescribed the lethal dose in both Colorado and Oregon. A woman with early stage dementia, who did not qualify as six months terminal and may not have been mentally competent, died under Oregon’s law after using voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED) to be deemed terminal. If VSED qualifies one for medically assisted suicide, than every adult, and especially those with long-term disabilities, becomes eligible for state sanctioned death.

All three current sponsors of SB 430 are, unfortunately, leading proponents of assisted suicide in Connecticut. Indeed, one of them, Representative Josh Elliott, has openly admitted he wants to pass a “limited” assisted suicide bill only to expand it later. We are witnessing continuous expansion in the several states that have already legalized assisted suicide. In 2024, a state senator in California promoted a bill, SB 1196 to expand that state’s law to non-terminal patients and those with dementia, and to permit lethal injection. A leading sponsor of an earlier assisted suicide bill opposed that new bill merely on tactical grounds as “pushing for too much too soon.” Expansion is not merely a “slippery slope” but a paved road to what Canada now has.

Regarding the specific drugs used for assisted suicide, euthanasia, and capital punishment, it must be noted that historically we are often talking about the same drugs. Barbiturates like pentobarbital and secobarbital have been used for both assisted suicide and capital punishment. When these barbiturates became prohibitively expensive nearly ten years ago, in part due to opposition to their manufacture from opponents of capital punishment, assisted suicide proponents began experimenting with other lethal combinations of drugs. KFF Family News noted:

The first Seconal alternative turned out to be too harsh, burning patients’ mouths and throats, causing some to scream in pain. The second drug mix, used 67 times, has led to deaths that stretched out hours in some patients — and up to 31 hours in one case.

It gets worse. In an article titled “The Complicated Science of a Medically Assisted Death,” Quillette reports on one example of an agonizing death from assisted suicide in Oregon:

Jeff drank the lethal cocktail through a straw. Within 20 minutes he was asleep. Twelve hours later, Ada saw a shadow out of the corner of her eye and looked over. Jeff was sitting up and awake. Then, he started vomiting profusely….

After he awoke, scared and confused, Jeff was admitted to the hospital. When Ada visited Jeff the next day, she found him in the “comfort care” ward. Nurses had given him a mild tranquilizer to help with his nausea and vomiting. Over the next four days he declined rapidly. Ada was with Jeff when he died. As he lay flailing in his hospital bed, yanking at the sheets, she held his hand. “He didn’t die peacefully,” she said, her voice almost breaking. “It was a terrible death.”

The Oregon Death With Dignity Act 2023 Data Summary includes on page 18 one case of someone who took 137 hours—nearly six days—to die after ingesting a combination of digoxin, diazepam, morphine sulfate, amitriptyline, and phenobarbital (DDMAPh-1). I have yet to hear of a case of capital punishment where the condemned prisoner took an agonizing 137 hours to die. If we cannot guarantee a painless death from lethal injections used for capital punishment, how can we possibly claim orally ingested lethal concoctions can guarantee a peaceful death? And conversely, if ingesting these compounded drugs supposedly results in the painless death the assisted suicide lobby claims it does, then why has it never been used in states which retain the death penalty (in the manner that Socrates was forced to ingest hemlock when he was executed)?

Because of the self-administration requirement in U.S. assisted suicide laws, doctors are prohibited from directly hastening death to alleviate suffering when there are complications from the ingested lethal compound. This is a major reason why expansion to active euthanasia is inevitable. In foreign jurisdictions like Canada where there is a choice between lethal injection euthanasia and oral self-administration, doctor-administered euthanasia is nearly exclusive.

Moreover, when an execution is botched, there are witnesses, and we are likely to hear about it. With assisted suicide, there are no required witnesses. Prolonged and agonizing deaths, as well as coercion, are easily covered up. The death certificate is intentionally falsified by law or regulation to list the underlying terminal illness rather than the lethal dose as the cause of death, and natural causes as the manner of death. This last provision caused the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice to testify in opposition to bills seeking to legalize assisted suicide in our state in 2015, 2019, and 2021, as this provision covers up a potential murder prosecution.

Finally, Absolute Standards in Hamden, which Senator Anwar and Representative Elliott protested against last year, no longer produces pentobarbital for executions, and we know of no other company in Connecticut that does so. The threat is very real and immanent that these same legislators will work to legalize medically assisted suicide and invite Connecticut-based compound pharmacies to compound DDMAPh and other lethal cocktails whose sole purpose is to kill people. We in the disability community have been here at the Capitol nearly every year since 2013 to defend our lives from this menace. Help send a strong message that our lives matter at least as much as convicted murderers on death row.

In short, I request that this committee reconstruct SB 430 to prohibit the manufacture, compounding, sale, testing, distribution, dispensing or supply of any drug or medical device for the purpose of euthanasia or assisted suicide, and not just the death penalty. Unless and until the bill is so revised, it should not move forward.

1. I am cognizant of the transgender community’s opposition to deadnaming. However, when this person committed one of the most heinous crimes in Connecticut history, this is the name that appeared in the news and is what is most familiar to the public.

Stephen Mendelsohn 171 Hartford Road, #19 New Britain, CT 06053-1532

Published with permission.

Misdiagnosis exposes a key flaw with assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The UK is debating the legalization of assisted suicide. An article by Peter Sefton-Williams that was published in the Spectator on February 11, 2025 concerns him being misdiagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) in January 2024.

Sefton-Williams tells his own story. He states:

Perhaps the strongest argument against the reintroduction of capital punishment is the possibility that mistakes, once made, cannot be rectified. In the 20th century, such errors – even with legal safeguards in place – were not uncommon. Infamous cases, such as those of Timothy Evans and George Kelly, are a testament to that. It is ironic, therefore, that MPs who would strongly oppose capital punishment can, at the same time, enthusiastically support the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill brought before parliament by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

The same argument applies. If a mistake is made, and a person opts for assisted dying based on incorrect information, that mistake cannot later be rectified. Supporters of the Bill talk about the rigorous safeguards that would surround the decision-making process. But, as with the legal protections surrounding capital punishment, these can fail. It’s also deeply troubling to learn this morning that one of the key safeguards in the Assisted Dying Bill – that cases have to be signed off by the High Court – may no longer apply.

Sefton-Williams tells his personal story:

For me, this is no theoretical debate. In January 2024, I was diagnosed with suspected Motor Neurone Disease (MND). Three months later, this diagnosis was confirmed. I was suffering badly from fasciculations (or twitching and cramping) in my hands and arms, and I had noticeable weakness and muscle wastage in my right hand.

The first doctor who diagnosed my condition did so after a barrage of tests and said that, although he had written “suspected” in my report, he wanted me to know that there was no doubt about the diagnosis. He explained there was no single, definitive test for MND, so he would send me to a senior specialist at a London teaching hospital for a second opinion. He also told me there was no cure and that death usually came between eighteen months and four years after diagnosis, but that the end could come much more quickly. Finally, he advised me not to make any plans beyond six months.

The senior specialist to whom I was referred examined me at the start of April and confirmed the diagnosis. He told me that, while I could live for a further five years, he had known cases where people had died within two months of diagnosis. Both doctors also warned that the degree of muscle wastage in my hand suggested I had already lived with the condition for some considerable time. 

Upon first being diagnosed, I was struck by fear and panic. I knew broadly how the end would come with MND. Muscle strength gradually fades until speech, movement, swallowing and breathing become increasingly difficult. Although I have many good friends and a supportive family, I am single and live alone. I felt I was in an impossible position and would not be able to cope with such a decline. And so, on the day after my initial diagnosis, I filled in the forms to join the Swiss assisted suicide clinic, Dignitas. I also considered other ways of terminating my life, perhaps by throwing myself off a cliff.

The Dignitas literature stressed that patients needed to administer the fatal chemicals themselves. Where patients had conditions such as MND, I determined that the procedure could not be delayed until the disease had progressed to the point of debilitation. I therefore felt under pressure to act.

Sefton-Williams received good news when he learned that he had been misdiagnosed with MND and that he actually had a treatable condiiton:

Yet as spring turned into summer, it became clear that my health was not worsening as expected. I was sent for further nerve conduction studies. These revealed that my condition was much more likely to be Multifocal Motor Neuropathy, a mild condition that is not terminal and which, in most cases, is treatable.

If assisted suicide were legal, Sefton-Williams states that would have died needlessly. 

The Bill currently before Parliament requires that two doctors independently assess and confirm that a patient has a “terminal illness” and is “reasonably expected to die within six months”. It sounds fail-safe. But in my case, I was told by two eminent specialists that I had a terminal condition and that, in the worst scenario, death could come within months. If I had had a fixed intention to terminate my life, I would surely have been a candidate. After my suicide, friends and family would perhaps have talked about my bravery in opting for a dignified death. They would have known nothing of my misdiagnosis. They would have not been aware that my death had been needless.

The question is - how many people are being killed by euthanasia or assisted suicide who have been misdiagnosed or not diagnosed?

According to Brian Mastroianni who published an article in healthline.com on February 22, 2020 medical misdiagnosis is more common than you think. According to the data: 

• In the United States, 12 million people are affected by medical diagnostic errors each year.  
• An estimated 40,000 to 80,000 people die annually from complications related to misdiagnoses and a similar number of people will experience a permanent disability related to misdiagnosis.

In February 2022, Meredith Bond reported for CityTV news that:

After 17 years suffering from chronic pain, Jennifer Monaghan began researching medical assistance in dying (MAiD), but a miracle diagnosis saved her life.

Monaghan, a Canadian, was considering euthanasia but then learned after 17-years of chronic pain that she had “Small fiber sensory neuropathy,” which is a treatable condition. Monaghan is alive today because she was fortunate to have been diagnosed with a treatable condition.

The Sarco death method constitutes torture.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Sarco Suicide Pod is sold to the public as an easy and pain free death. The Sarco is also designed in a sleek manner to make it seem fashionable to die in this manner. But how does death by Nitrogen gas actually work?

The Sarco kills a person by releasing nitrogen gas into the pod causing the person to die of asphyxiation. The Guardian reported Nitscke, the inventor of the suicide pod, describing the first death in the Sarco suicide pod in this way:

He (Nitschke) said he thought she had lost consciousness “within two minutes” and had died after five minutes. “We saw jerky, small twitches of the muscles in her arms, but she was probably already unconscious by then. It looked exactly how we expected it to look,”

Ed Pilkington reported for The Guardian on September 27 concerning the recent capital punishment death of Alan Miller, the second person in Alabama to die by using Nitrogen gas. Pilkington reported:

Miller shook and trembled on the gurney for about two minutes with his body at times pulling against the restraints, followed by about six minutes of gasping, according to the Associated Press.

The lethal method involves being strapped down with a respirator mask applied to the face and pure nitrogen piped in. The resulting oxygen deprivation will cause death by asphyxia.

Pilkington also reported on the death of Kenneth Smith, who was the first one in Alabama to die by capital punishment using the Nitrogen method:

The first nitrogen execution was carried out, also by Alabama, in January.

“Smith began to shake and writhe violently, in thrashing spasms and seizure-like movements … The force of his movements caused the gurney to visibly move at least once. Smith’s arms pulled against the straps holding him to the gurney. He lifted his head off the gurney and then fell back.”

Even though Nitschke describes the death in a positive manner, the discription of the deaths seem similar with the only real difference being that the woman who died in the suicide pod was seeking death.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) , who support assisted suicide, described the death of Kenneth Smith as a:

method constitutes torture, violating international human rights treaties ratified by the U.S.

The ACLU then stated:

Veterinary scientists, who have carried out laboratory studies on animals, have even largely ruled nitrogen gas out as a euthanasia method due to ethical concerns. Authorities in the U.S. and Europe have issued guidelines discouraging its use for most mammals, citing potential distress, panic, and seizure-like behavior.

Death by Nitrogen gas is not acceptable for animals and is defined as a method that constitutes torture and yet Nitschke described the death as looking exactly as expected.

What assisted suicide and the death penalty have in common

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr Jacqueline Abernathy wrote an article this week titled: Civilized Societies Don't Execute or Euthanize Human Beings. Kevin Yuill, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Sunderland and CEO of Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (HAASE) also wrote an article that was published in Spiked titled: What assisted dying and the death penalty have in common.

Kevin Yuill

Yuill introduces his article by stating:

On 25 January, the US state of Alabama executed Kenneth Eugene Smith. Thirty-six years on from being convicted of the ‘murder for hire’ killing of Elizabeth Sennett, the 58-year-old finally ‘answered for his horrendous crimes’, as Alabama governor Kay Ivey put it.

The execution was rightly condemned by liberals of all stripes. Activists, campaigners, members of the US Supreme Court and even the United Nations re-stated their opposition to the death penalty.

Yuill explains that the method for killing Smith was ‘nitrogen hypoxia’. Yuill quotes many of the outraged groups that stated:

‘Just the idea of using gas for executions is an affront to our community’, said Mike Zoosman, the co-founder of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty. Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights joined in the condemnation of Smith’s execution. Four independent UN monitors accused the US government and Alabama of pushing ahead with an experimental execution technique that would ‘result in a painful and humiliating death’. Maya Foa, the joint executive director of human-rights campaign Reprieve, asked rhetorically: ‘How many more prisoners must die agonising deaths before we see executions for what they really are: the state violently taking a human life?’

Yuill states that all of these groups that condemned the capital punishment death of Smith support assisted death. Yuill then compares assisted death to capital punishment:

In fact, the methods of killing in cases of assisted suicide bare an uncanny resemblance to those used for state-ordered executions. In Canada alone, there were 13,000 assisted deaths by lethal injection last year. In the 2000s, Dignitas in Switzerland even experimented with helium hypoxia, a very similar method to that used to kill Smith. Dignitas’s efforts resulted in the botched killings of one man and three women, because of ill-fitting masks.

Even the length of time it takes to die is comparable between assisted suicide and the death penalty. But while critics have described the 22 minutes it took Smith to die in Alabama as ‘agonising’, they say nothing about the 40-plus minutes it takes individuals to die through assisted suicide in Oregon.

Yuill challenges those who oppose capital punishment but support euthanasia:

Those who oppose capital punishment but support euthanasia will say that there’s a vital difference between the two. People choose to die in cases of euthanasia, they say, whereas criminals don’t choose to be executed. But this is not the clincher they think it is. About 10 per cent of those who are executed in the US are what are known as ‘volunteers’, insofar as they choose not to appeal their sentences and accept their fate. According to the logic of pro-euthanasia advocates, executions would be more justified in these cases. This highlights the weakness of the ‘choice’ argument as a justification for state-approved killing.

If we are serious about opposing capital punishment, we need to oppose the premeditated killing of a human being by the state in all circumstances. That means opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide with just as much vehemence as opposing the death penalty.

Supporters of capital punishment and state-sponsored euthanasia share a similarly low view of human life. They both see certain lives as being devoid of all value. We need to stop being selective, and start opposing state-approved killing in all its forms.

Thank you Professor Yuill for your consistent position.

Civilized Societies Don't Execute or Euthanize Human Beings

Jacqueline Abernathy

By Dr Jacqueline Abernathy

On January 25th, 2024, the State of Alabama legally executed one of it's citizens, Kenneth Eugene Smith with nitrogen gas. The Alabama Department of Corrections concocted this novel method to kill, apparently due to its botched previous attempt to kill Smith by lethal injection and the shortage of lethal barbiturates (the same poisons prescribed for assisted suicide). The parallels between killing by assisted suicide and killing death row inmates does not end there. If anything, our society's tolerance and embrace of legal lethal violence toward our fellow humans can best be described with one word: uncivilized.

Whether it is misplaced and disordered compassion toward the terminally ill or a perverted view of justice for a convicted murderer, destroying human life is simply not what civilized societies do. These are just two sides of the same barbaric coin.

I have previously made the argument regarding lethal injection and its connection to self-imposed euthanasia. When I learned what Smith would endure while dying by nitrogen gas, it turned my stomach just the same as when I first learned how uncivilized capital punishment is while I was participating in anti-euthanasia activism nearly two decades ago. 

In August of 2004, I was a 23-year-old graduate student from Texas returning to Tampa, Florida solely to fight for Terri Schindler Schiavo to get a reprieve from execution by dehydration and starvation. I had been on her hospice’s lawn that prior September 2003 when Terri's Law passed through the Florida statehouse so then-Governor Jeb Bush would feel empowered to sign the executive order that restored her feeding tube (after it had been removed the second time). This executive order was a life-saving, emergency stopgap measure, rapidly winding its way through the courts, and was eventually vacated, leading to the third and final attempt on her life. We activists on Terri's behalf knew that we were on borrowed time, so we set out to unseat George Greer, the unrepentant elected judge who had repeatedly condemned Terri to an unfathomable, inhumane demise and would later, sadly succeed. Since 2004 was an election year, I went to Tampa to campaign for Jan Govan, an attorney who had stepped up to challenge Greer specifically because Greer kept signing Terri’s unjust death warrant.

I don't recall how we got to the topic of capital punishment, but I do remember distinctly being surprised and perplexed at how Mr. Govan started talking about executions via the electric chair. Mr. Govan told me what happens during electrocution, that executioners must plug up the condemned person's orifices with gauze because otherwise, they will ooze. I immediately recoiled and said that that is no way for a civilized society to treat a human being. At the time I was fighting to spare Terri an unthinkable death, but so was the atrocity described to me. Although intravenous poisoning is largely considered a more humane alternative to electrocution, being killed by Pentobarbital is not as sanitized as it sounds and certainly not quick (one execution took two hours). What Kenneth Smith endured lasted over 15 minutes, but could easily be deemed far more macabre, not to mention dangerous for those administering the gas and anyone in proximity to it. Nitrogen hypoxia is so rife with complications and dangers that veterinarians rebuke this method to put household pets to sleep. Hypoxia itself is a euphemism for suffocation and nitrogen is a poor palatable option to smothering with a pillow or gripping one’s hands on someone’s neck. Rather than choke Smith, he would die from asphyxiation as nitrogen restricts oxygen intake. This caused him to writhe for two minutes and gasp for seven before the executioners closed the curtain to the viewing room.

Nitrogen hypoxia is so rife with complications and dangers that veterinarians rebuke this method for use on household pets. Hypoxia itself is a euphemism for suffocation and nitrogen is merely a more palatable option for executioners than smothering with a pillow or gripping one’s hands on someone’s neck.

I once made earnest arguments to highlight how cruel the removal of feeding tubes is by drawing a parallel between Terri's fate and convicted murderers on death row. This was prior to learning how unthinkable capital punishment is. Back then, I drew an arbitrary distinction between guilty people and innocent people, saying quips such as "Dehydration and starvation would be unconstitutional to execute a serial killer and yet fine for an innocent woman with a disability." I may have said such a thing and been overheard by Mr. Govan, although he acted as if he was speaking to someone anti-death penalty like himself. I soon was. It was an education on the inhumanity of capital punishment that struck me as something no civilized society could do to another human being, regardless of what crimes that human may have committed. I was there to protect one human from being killed and my eyes were opened to how unfathomable killing of any human being is. My deep, concern for Terri was born of a heart that has always and will always ache at the thought of denying any human being food and water (or even denying this to an animal for that matter - any creature capable of enduring that pain). 

Experts and authorities at the United Nations called to cancel this execution and condemned this method as a form of torture. Reading about how Kenneth Smith would ultimately die struck the same part of my soul. The United States of America stands apart along with Japan as the only first-world nations that practice this crime against humanity. This puts our nation in the company of other human rights-abusing countries in the Middle East and Asia. Yet sadly, more and more developed countries are embracing euthanasia, ironically under the guise of poisoning as the humane alternative to a natural death.

Kenneth Smith’s last words were, “Tonight Alabama causes humanity to take a step backwards. I’m leaving with love, peace, and light." He was half right. He left thrashing and gasping, hardly a peaceful, loving demise. He was correct that humanity did regress into the inhumane. 

Each U.S. state that embraces assisted suicide also affronts and reverts our collective humanity. I hope beyond hope that this travesty opens others’ eyes as well and converts hearts on the death penalty like mine was, but likewise, I pray that it will inspire the same epiphany for those who oppose the death penalty yet support assisted suicide. 

It does not matter how we destroy a human life; it is always wrong. We must reject all forms of legal killing and take a step forward to reclaim our integrity; at least if we want to call ourselves civilized ever again.

Euthanasia of Canadian prisoners. Is it a form of capital punishment?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Tristan Hopper published an excellent article in the National Post on Thursday May 4, 2023 about Canadian prisoners who are dying by euthanasia. Hopper begins by stating that Canada's last capital punishment death occurred 61 years ago, but now euthanasia of Canadian prisoners eerily except that capital punishment usually has oversight.

Hopper writes that nine prisoners have died by euthanasia in Canada. The APTN network reported that the first three prisoners to die by euthanasia were indiginous Canadians who remained shackled during the killing.

Ivan Zinger

Ivan Zinger, Canada's Correctional Investigator, told Kathleen Martens reporting for the APTN network, that euthanasia should never be done in the prison. He stated:

“Under no circumstances should the procedure of MAiD be dealt with inside a penitentiary,”

“That is highly problematic, unethical and immoral in my view. I think we would be the only jurisdiction in the world who would do that.”Kim Beaudin, vice-chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and a member of corrections’ National Aboriginal Advisory Committee opposes (MAiD) euthanasia being done in prisons. 

Beaudin told Martens that 32% of Canadians in prison are indiginous and stated:

“I’m not in support of (the law) because I’ve always believed there should be hope for them to get out of there,” Beaudin says.

“But a lot of people have given up; a lot of Indigenous people have given up inside.”

Canada has the highest rate of euthanasia for prisoners. Hopper wrote:

Canada’s rate of in-custody MAID is well beyond that of any other jurisdiction in which assisted suicide is legal. Everywhere else, the procedure is either not done or has yielded no more than one instance that qualified under special circumstances.

Belgium — which legalized assisted suicide in 2002 — granted euthanasia to its first prisoner just this year. Geneviève Lhermitte, who murdered her five children in 2008, convinced authorities that she was so wracked by guilt and suicidality that she met the criteria for assisted death.

Notably, Belgium’s first instance of a prisoner requesting assisted suicide turned into a national legal controversy that ultimately ended with the prisoner — serial rapist and murderer Frank Van den Bleeken — being denied Belgium’s usual “right to die” in 2015.

In March 2021, Canada eliminated the "terminal illness" requirement for euthanasia. Some Canadian prisoners who are serving life sentences are considering euthanasia as a way out of prison. Hopper reports:

The University of Calgary’s Jessica Shaw is one of the only researchers to examine the phenomenon of MAID in Canadian prisons. In a 2021 study, she interviewed nine inmates about the topic, and while all of them dismissed concerns that prisoners would be pressured into MAID, half were open to the idea of assisted suicide as an alternative to serving a long sentence.

Hopper reported Shaw as saying:

“I’ve considered it already, because I’ve got (decades) in. I look at it, if they could say, ‘Okay, you’re never getting out,’ this is something that I would do. That I would consider,” said one.

A CTV news report by Avis Favaro, CTV News Medical Correspondent reported concerns with the extension of euthanasia to people with mental illness in relation to euthanasia of prisoners. Favaro reported:

Another concern looms for Zinger and Shaw, as the criteria for applying for MAID will likely expand in March of next year to include mental illness as a sole reason for requesting assisted death.

Zinger says data from CSC indicates 75 per cent of those imprisoned federally have a current mental health diagnosis, while other studies show prison life itself can worsen mental health.

"If the provisions are extended to include mental illness, there could be a lot more people that become eligible," Zinger said, calling for more transparency in discussing MAID among prisoners. "I believe that (CSC) should be reporting it in an open way...so that we can track it better and we can ensure that how it's being provided is in sync with the legislation and human dignity.”

Euthanasia in Canada is out-of-control for several reasons. The first is that the language of the law lacks any real definition. A second clear problem is that in Canada euthanasia is not viewed as a "last resort" but rather it is interpreted to be a medical act.

Canada must completely re-evaluate it's euthanasia law. Canada is heading towards a system of killing on demand.

How euthanasia has revived the death penalty

This article was published by Spiked online on March 8, 2023. It have republished it in full.

Kevin Yuill speaking at the EU

By Kevin Yuill

Now Belgium and Canada are euthanising prisoners. This is chilling.

The Belgian state has once again authorised the killing of a prisoner, 105 years after its last peacetime execution.

Geneviève Lhermitte was an infamous murderer. She killed her son and four daughters, aged between three and 14, in Nivelles, Belgium on 28 February 2007. On 28 February 2023, she was euthanised, after she successfully invoked her ‘right to die’.

Lhermitte’s crimes were horrifying. On that dreadful day 16 years ago, she locked the door to their home and slit the throat of each of her children. At her trial in 2008, Lhermitte explained how she invited her daughter, Myriam, into her office, telling her to put a blindfold on for a ‘surprise’. Lhermitte then hit her over the head with a marble plaque, knocking her out before killing her with a knife. She murdered all five of her children that night.

At her trial, Lhermitte’s lawyers argued that she was mentally disturbed and should not be sent to prison. But the jury found her guilty of premeditated murder and she was sentenced to life in jail. Having served 11 years, Lhermitte was moved to a psychiatric hospital in 2019.

Belgian law allows for people to choose to be euthanised if they are deemed to be experiencing ‘unbearable’ physical and / or psychological suffering. They must be conscious of their decision and be able to express their request in a reasoned and consistent manner. According to Lhermitte’s lawyer, she fulfilled all the criteria and received the approval of doctors.

This case exposes the logical and ethical problems of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Belgium and elsewhere. And, above all, it undermines one of assisted-suicide campaigners’ central claims – that euthanasia is an act of ‘autonomy and choice’.

After all, how can a prisoner – or someone in a psychiatric facility – make a free and uncoerced decision to die? A prisoner cannot even have a private consultation with a doctor, as guards must always be present. A prisoner is told when to get up, when to eat, when to go to bed. His or her entire life is coerced.

Belgium is not the only nation to euthanise prisoners. In Canada, where assisted suicide is also offered as a medical treatment, three prisoners have been euthanised to date. The story of one of them, known only as ‘patient one’, illustrates the key problem with this practice. He informed his parole officer that he wished to receive medical assistance in dying (MAID) and was advised to first apply for compassionate release. This was denied, at which point he submitted a request for MAID, which was accepted. He was shackled and guards were present during the assessment of his request.

Canada’s federal prison ombudsman was sufficiently disturbed by the three cases that he said in 2020 that MAID should no longer be accessible to prisoners, because incarceration compromises individuals’ ability to consent to euthanasia. Indeed, euthanasia in these circumstances essentially comes down to prison officials and doctors making a subjective judgement about the hopelessness of a prisoner’s continued existence.

Euthanasia for prisoners looks, in many ways, like a new death penalty. Last year, Belgium’s Office of Foreign Affairs ostentatiously announced that ‘fighting the death penalty is a priority of the Belgian human-rights policy’, calling the death penalty a ‘serious violation of… human dignity’. But Lhermitte’s death shows us that a de facto death penalty – so long as the prisoner desires it – is now operative in Belgium for the first time since 1950.

t seems likely that, following the case of Lhermitte, more prisoners will come forward with their own euthanasia requests. We’ve seen this happen before. Back in 2014, the Belgian authorities approved the euthanasia request of serial rapist and murderer Frank Van Den Bleeken. This prompted 15 other prisoners to submit their own requests. The decision to grant Van Den Bleeken euthanasia was subsequently overturned the following year by the then justice minister, who ruled that prisoners did not have a ‘right to die’.

Nearly a decade on, Belgian ministers have now reinstated the death penalty. They’ve just disguised it as compassionate, progressive, forward-thinking euthanasia, rather than the cold-blooded executions they otherwise condemn.

Euthanising prisoners is the inevitable consequence of legalising assisted suicide. Assisted suicide essentially redefines death as an acceptable medical treatment for suffering. In turn, denying someone that treatment is presented as cruel and inhumane. It is by this logic that euthanasia is now being extended to prisoners – on the grounds that they are suffering psychologically.

The result is capital punishment being resurrected in a faux-progressive guise.

Kevin Yuill is the author of Assisted Suicide: The Liberal, Humanist Case Against Legalisation.

Canadian government opposes capital punishment and promotes euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On October 10, 2022 Global Affairs Canada sent out a media release from Mélanie Joly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs on World Day Against the Death Penalty which stated:

“This year, we mark the 20th World Day Against the Death Penalty. Canada is proud to be part of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. Although we are encouraged by the progress made in abolishing capital punishment in certain countries, we continue to oppose the use of the death penalty in all cases everywhere.

“Capital punishment is an affront to human rights and dignity, an ineffective deterrent to crime, and it often compounds injustice by intersecting with other forms of discrimination. No system of justice is free from error, and the use of the death penalty can lead to irreversible injustice when those who are not guilty or who have been falsely accused are executed.

“A world without the death penalty is within our grasp. On this day, Canada joins with the global movement to abolish the death penalty in calling on the minority of countries where capital punishment still exists to ensure due process and fair trials, to pause any planned executions and, to completely end the use of the death penalty.”

I oppose killing people. Therefore I oppose killing people by euthanasia, assisted suicide and the death penalty. Similar to the death penalty, no system of justice or medical assessment is free from error and the use of euthanasia or assisted suicide can lead to irreversible injustice when someone is falsely killed by lethal injection.

Euthanasia results in irreversible deaths in the same way that capital punishment does.

In a recent interview with the Toronto Star, Canada's Justice Minister David Lametti stated that euthanasia for mental illness is more humane than suicide.

Lametti needs to resign for stating that euthanasia is justified based on it providing a more humane death than suicide. A just society prevents suicide, it does not facilitate it.

Euthanasia promoting doctor admits that safeguards fail.

When safeguards fail, in the case of euthanasia, it means that someone has wrongfully died.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Last week, the Psychiatric Times published Part 2 of his series of articles titled: The Case for Medical Aid in Dying. by Dr Douglas Heinrichs.

In Part 2 Hendrichs responds to the arguement against MAiD concerning the consequences of legalization. Hendricks, who supports euthanasia, doesn't actually analyse the opposition to killing based on consequences but rather he examines the issues of safeguards and whether or not euthanasia undermines other policy priorities.

For those who oppose euthanasia, among other things, we oppose giving government, or another groups, such as physicians and nurses, the right in law to kill. This is the same reason that many people oppose capital punishment. Essentially opposition to MAiD is based on the belief that no group or individual should have the right in law to kill people.

It is interesting that Hendrichs acknowledges that "safeguards" fail. Hendrichs states:

This is not to say that every effort should not be made, both in formulating MAID legislation and fine-tuning it once it is enacted, to optimize safeguards that are effective as well as practical. But such safeguards will never be perfect. All laws about anything result in some instances in which the outcome is other than what the law intends.

Hendrichs is correct, but unlike other circumstances, MAiD is the intentional killing of a person. If the "safeguard" fails, it doesn't mean, as one of his examples state, that a person who is not disabled collects disability benefits, but rather it means that the person is dead.

Hendrichs then states:

Models designed to project risk and harm can be useful to consider, but they are notoriously unreliable, given that they always involve a host of assumptions that are only approximately true in the real world. As fallible human beings, the best we are likely to do is to make reasonable attempts to provide sensible safeguards and be prepared to fine-tune over time as experience accumulates. This is the equivalent of post-marketing reports of adverse effects with a new therapeutic agent.

I think that Hendrichs is correct but once again, with MAiD, when fallible human beings wrongly kill someone, that person is now dead. This is precisely why drug companies are expected to spend millions of dollars on research to ensure that the public will not expericne adverse effects of a new therapeutic agent. Nonetheless, if the therapeutic agent caused the recipients to die, the agent would hopefully be stopped.

Hendrichs, in part 1, argues that people who oppose MAiD usually do so from a religious point of view. Many people come from many different points of view nonetheless what unifies people who oppose MAiD is the belief that the government or a group of people, must not have the right in law to kill.

My life became less safe after Canada has legalized euthanasia.

Two stories from two countries.

This article was published by National Review on August 25, 2022.

By Wesley Smith

Euthanasia is showing its fangs in places such as Canada and Spain.

First, in Spain, a criminal who shot four people and was, in turn, shot in the spine by police and paralyzed, was granted death by euthanasia. From the EuroNews story:

Since December, he has been bedridden at the Terrassa prison hospital near Barcelona and had demanded the right to die. A Tarragona court judge ruled in his favour earlier this month, ruling that he had a “fundamental right” to “dignity”.

Spain has no death penalty, so even if the victims had died, he would have faced no lethal consequence as the death penalty is considered cruel and unusual punishment. But death was deemed “dignified” because the criminal was paralyzed. So I guess we could call this cruel and unusual death with dignity that allowed a criminal to avoid the consequences of his attempted lethal action and a form of death penalty to be applied.

Meanwhile, our cousins in Canada are embroiled in an entirely predictable euthanasia scandal. Rather than properly treat a veteran with PTSD, a social worker suggested euthanasia. From the Daily Mail story:

A spokesperson confirmed that all frontline staff at the VAC are to be given ‘formal training, direction and advice’ on how to approach the issues surrounding MAiD.

The veteran, who has not been identified, claims the service agent they spoke to brought up the option repeatedly even after he asked them to stop. He also said that the service agent told him in the call about having helped another veteran access MAiD through VAC including supporting that person’s children.

The service agent reportedly said ‘ better than blowing his brains out all over the wall or driving his car into something’, when discussing the separate case.

But don’t worry. An investigation has been promised. The veteran’s case isn’t the first time that Canada offered death instead of proper caring, and it won’t be the last.

Maine inmate requests assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Larry Smith

Even though Maine abolished capital punishment in 1887, Larry Smith (52) an inmate in Maine, is being treated for throat cancer and has requested and will likely die by a lethal assisted suicide drug cocktail.

Smith is housed at the Hancock County Jail on charges of attempted murder and robbery. Smith allegedly shot two men at a Trenton residence on Dec. 20, 2020, according to Hancock County Sheriff’s Office investigators.

Jennifer Osborn reported for the Ellsworth American that Steven Juskewitch, the attorney representing Smith stated:

“Larry will be entering a plea later this week and will be sentenced,”

“I guess we’re going to test the Death with Dignity Act and the Department of Corrections’ policy with it.”

Osborn reported that Val Lovelace, the executive director of the assisted suicide lobby group, Death with Dignity, said that the law requires patients to be terminally ill with a six-month prognosis. Lovelace stated:

“There’s no reason he should not have access to this law, if and when that time comes for him,” ... “He can have this conversation with a physician at any time. In order to start it, he would need a six-month prognosis.”

Osborn reported that there may be an issue with funding the assisted suicide death. According to Lisa Haberzetti, deputy communications director for the Maine Senate Democratic Office:

The federal Social Security Act prohibits Medicaid coverage for inmates, so medical costs are the responsibility of the jails and prisons.

Prescribing a lethal assisted suicide drug cocktail to an inmate is counter to the prohibition of capital punishment and it is counter to the goal of preventing suicide deaths of inmates. Nonetheless, this is one of the many inconsistencies that occur when assisted suicide is legalized.

Why do death certificates list an assisted death as a natural death and capital punishment as homicide?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

When someone dies by lethal injection, referred to as MAiD and better known as euthanasia, the death certificate is to list the medical condition that the person had when requesting death by lethal injection and not state "MAiD" or euthanasia.

Most US states that have legalized assisted suicide (a self-administered death by a lethal drug cocktail) also require that the death certificate list the medical condition that the person had when requesting death by a lethal drug cocktail.

When someone dies by capital punishment in the US, which is often done by lethal injection, the death certificate will state homicide.

Why do death certificates list euthanasia and assisted suicide as a natural death and capital punishment is listed as homicide?

One reason might be that the person who dies by capital punishment does not request that death be inflicted upon them while with an assisted death, people request their death.

Nonetheless, this distinction is not always true.

When analyzing the acts, they are all done by the same or similar lethal drug cocktails. Death occurs in the same manner with the only real difference being the intention of the act.

Whether or not you support euthanasia, assisted suicide or capital punishment, I conclude that homicide is homicide and suicide is suicide. Euthanasia and capital punishment are homicide and assisting a suicide is a suicide. Any other distinction is based on symantics and not reality.

Assisted suicide is neither painless nor dignified.

Death by euthanasia or assisted suicide are similar to death by drowning.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have published several articles about the research by Dr Joel Zivot, concerning autopsy results from people who died by lethal injection. Dr Zivot is an assistant professor of anesthesiology/critical care at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. The Spectator published a great article by Dr Zivot on September 18 titled: Assisted Suicide is neither painless nor dignified. Zivot is challenging the upcoming assisted suicide bill.

Link to a podcast segment "Let's Find Out" between assisted suicide lobby leader Dr Jacky Davis and Dr Joel Zivot (Link to the podcast).

Zivot explains that he is an expert witness opposing lethal injection executions in America. Zivot opens his article by provacatively stating:

I am quite certain that assisted suicide is not painless or peaceful or dignified. In fact, in the majority of cases, it is a very painful death.

The death penalty is not the same as assisted dying, of course. Executions are meant to be punishment; euthanasia is about relief from suffering. Yet for both euthanasia and executions, paralytic drugs are used. These drugs, given in high enough doses, mean that a patient cannot move a muscle, cannot express any outward or visible sign of pain. But that doesn’t mean that he or she is free from suffering.

Zivot explains his experience with death by lethal injection:

In 2014, I watched the lethal injection of Marcus Wellons in a Georgia prison. The 59-year-old had been sentenced to death for the rape and murder of his 15-year-old neighbour India Roberts in 1989. ‘I’m going home to be with Jesus’ were his final words as the drugs entered his body.

I noticed that Wellons’s fingers were taped to the stretcher, which made little sense, given his body had already been restrained by heavy straps. I kept asking myself why. I read into the subject and came across a report of the lethal injection execution of another death row inmate, Dennis McGuire, five months earlier. During that 24-minute process at the Ohio jail, McGuire clenched his fists. Perhaps it was a final, futile show of defiance. Perhaps it was an outward display of pain. With his fingers secured, Wellons could not have made any such gesture.

Based on autopsies, Zivot proves that death by lethal injection, whether it be execution, euthanasia or assisted suicide are similar to death by drowning:

In 2017, I obtained a series of autopsies of inmates executed by lethal injection, which confirmed my worst fears. Wellons’s autopsy revealed that his lungs were profoundly congested with fluid, meaning they were around twice the normal weight of healthy lungs. He had suffered what is known as pulmonary oedema, which could only have occurred as he lay dying. Wellons had drowned in his secretions. Yet even my medical eye detected no sign of distress at his execution.

Wellons was executed with a chemical called pentobarbital, which caused his pulmonary oedema. In Oregon, four in five assisted suicides have employed pentobarbital or its close relatives. (The Assisted Dying Bill is based on the Oregon system.) If a post-mortem examination were to be performed on a body after assisted suicide, it’s very likely that similar pulmonary oedema would be found.

Zivot continues by explaining why the proposed British assisted suicide bill will likely result in deaths similar to drowning:

The proposals before the House of Lords would see sick patients prescribed a lethal dose of perhaps 100 barbiturate pills. Laws in Oregon, like those proposed in the UK, require patients to take the drugs themselves, which rules out any form of general anaesthetic. Often patients are handed anti-sickness and anti-seizure tablets but nothing more in preparation, meaning they’re very much awake as the assisted suicide process begins and they start ingesting fatal quantities of barbiturates. Without a general anaesthetic, many will be in great discomfort, even if outwardly they don’t appear to be suffering.

Zivot confirms his theory based on the assisted suicide death of Linda Van Zandt:

Indeed, there are countless examples of people who have discovered just how messy, painful and distressing it can be as they watched their loved ones go through the process. Take Linda Van Zandt, who helped her aunt, suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, die in California. She later described how she had to feed 100 crushed pills in a drink to her aunt ‘who could barely swallow water’, but ‘had to drink all of it in less than five minutes to “ensure success”’. She concludes: ‘The day was fraught and frightening… We had been forced to assist in the most bizarre fashion, jumping through seemingly random legal hoops and meeting arbitrary deadlines while my aunt suffered, and finally emptying capsules, making an elixir so vile I cried when I knew she had to drink it. This was death with dignity?’

Zivot states that, when given the information about how death by lethal injection occurs, three death-row inmates chose to die by the electric chair rather than die by lethal injection. Zivot concludes:

Advocates of assisted dying owe a duty to the public to be truthful about the details of killing and dying. People who want to die deserve to know that they may end up drowning, not just falling asleep.

When Dr Zivot made a similar presentation to the Canadian Senate Committee examining the euthanasia bill, they simply ignored his warnings based on some argument that executions and assisted death are different. In fact, Zivot acknowledges that they are different, but the drugs used are similar and result in the same outcome,

Death by euthanasia or assisted suicide are similar to death by drowning.