German doctor convicted of killing 15 patients but he likely killed many more.

The lethal poison drug combination was the same as used for euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Bethany Bell reported for BBC news on July 8, 2026 that a German doctor was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing at least 15 patients.

Bell reported that:

A court in Berlin found the 41-year-old man, named only as Johannes M. in line with German privacy rules, guilty of murdering 12 women and 3 men between September 2021 and July 2024.

The authorities believe these killings could be just the tip of the iceberg. Prosecutors are currently investigating dozens of other incidents involving the doctor.

His victims were between the ages of 25 and 94. The court heard how they were all critically ill, but that their deaths were not imminent.

Prosecutors said that during home visits, the doctor administered a lethal combination of various medicines without his patients' consent.

On several occasions, they said he set fires to cover his tracks.

In July 2024, shortly before his arrest, prosecutors said the doctor killed two patients in a single day - a 75-year-old man at his home in central Berlin and, a few hours later, a 76-year-old woman in a neighbouring district.

They said the doctor tried to set fire to the woman's house, but failed. 

CBS News reported on July 8 that:

Presiding judge Sylvia Busch said the conviction for 15 murders may well be only a glimpse of his many crimes.

Prosecutors said during the proceedings that he was suspected of having killed more than 70 other people.

An article by Emily Atkinson that was published by the BBC on April 16, 2025, suggests that he used the similar drugs as are used for euthanasia:

He is accused of administering an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant to his patients without their knowledge or consent.

The relaxant "paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes", the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Based on the way he killed his patients, they appear to have died in the same way as a euthanasia death. It is likely that the physician was trained by a euthanasia group. 

In 2019, Niels Högel, a nurse in Oldenburg, Germany, was convicted of murdering 85 patients from 2000 to 2005, and investigators suspect the true number of victims was far higher. Mr. Högel was found to have administered drug overdoses that caused cardiac arrest so that he could revive the patients and be celebrated as a hero.

Cases of medical homicide are not uncommon. Medical practitioners who have been convicted of murdering patients, include: Dr. Harold Shipman, Charles Cullen, Dr Virginia Soares de Souza, Aino Nykopp-Koski and Dr. Michael Swango.

Professor Christopher Lyon, who teaches at the University of York (UK) published a research paper on August 2, 2024 stating that Canada's (MAiD) euthanasia law enables healthcare serial killers (HSK).

It is not safe to give doctors, or others, the right in law to kill people.

When a nation legalizes euthanasia, it gives medical professionals, who were already killing their patients, the legal right to proceed.

Zoom event: Family members who died by (MAiD) euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Register for the Zoom event on Wednesday November 12 at 7 pm (Eastern Time) concerning family members who have died by (MAiD) euthanasia.

EPC has received many calls from family members or friends of people who have died by euthanasia. This is a very difficult topic for people and most people decide not to go public with their experience often based on complicated grief.

Please register for this Zoom event in advance (Registration Link).

The five participants are:

• Alicia Duncan is the daughter of Donna Duncan who died by euthanasia in October 2021 in British Columbia.
• Professor Christopher Lyon wrote a moving article about his father's death by euthanasia in British Columbia. Lyon has since done significant research into Canada's euthanasia experience.
• Colleen De Vos has just started speaking about her father's death by euthanasia.
• Sharon Danley lost her son to euthanasia in December 2021. Her was living with mental health issues.
  
• Rod & Louise McDonald published a book of poetry as a way to heal after their daughter (48) died by euthanasia.

Please register in advance for the November 12 Zoom event (Registration Link).

British Columbia lacks oversight of it's euthanasia regime.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An investigative report by Terry O'Neill that was published by the BC Catholic on July 21, 2025 uncovers a shocking lack of oversight of the euthanasia (MAiD) law in British Columbia (BC). The investigative report was carried-out by O'Neill who uncovered the information by filing multiple freedom of information applications.

O'Neill begins his article by pointing out a position of the BC MAiD "oversight" committee:

At the same time, oversight should provide opportunities for education or warning depending on the severity of an infraction, as overly strict or severe use of referrals to law enforcement or professional colleges may discourage physicians or nurse practitioners from providing MAiD despite the high demand.

O'Neill writes:

A B.C. Catholic investigation has uncovered systemic failures in the province’s euthanasia program, including thousands of paperwork errors among the 2,767 MAiD (medical assistance in dying) deaths recorded in 2023, a lack of public reporting of violations, and an oversight unit led by the same health official responsible for delivering MAiD in B.C.

Leading critics of Canada’s permissive legalized-euthanasia regime call the findings “staggering” and “stunning,” saying the newly disclosed British Columbia government documents show a lack of effective oversight of (MAiD) in the province.

O'Neill then quotes me (Alex Schadenberg) as saying:

“It’s an actual life-and-death issue,”

“And what we’re seeing in B.C. is evidence that the scales have been tipped in favour of death.

Trudo Lemmens

O'Neill explains how he obtained the information and points out that the BC MAiD oversight committee has not published any public reports. O'Neill questions the oversight of the committee:

The unit is led by social worker Sara Bergen, whose biography states that she also heads the overall administration of MAiD in British Columbia. This dual role is, in itself, cause for concern, says Trudo Lemmens, professor and Scholl Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Toronto. Lemmens also serves on Ontario’s independent MAiD-oversight body, which operates under the auspices of the province’s chief coroner.

Lemmens told O'Neill that

“Somebody combining the organization of a practice with the oversight of a practice is unhealthy,”

O'Neill reports on his exchange with the BC Ministry of Health.

The Ministry of Health said in an email reply that the province’s MAiD Oversight Unit does not investigate wrongdoing but reviews documentation submitted by practitioners to ensure compliance with federal and provincial safeguards. While the unit may follow up to clarify missing or incomplete information, it does not determine misconduct or impose disciplinary action.

In rare cases, the ministry said, the unit may refer concerns to a health professional’s regulatory college or to law enforcement. Such referrals, it emphasized, “do not represent allegations of misconduct.” Police referrals are reserved for “the most serious compliance issues,” including significant deviations from eligibility or safeguard requirements, or cases where a deliberate breach of statutory obligations is suspected. Practitioners are not notified of referrals to police to protect the integrity of potential investigations.

The ministry also confirmed that Sara Bergen, who leads the MAiD Oversight Unit, serves concurrently as the provincial Director of MAiD. In that role, she oversees the strategic direction of MAiD policy and its implementation across the health system, including coordination with regulators, care providers, and service delivery agencies.

Remaining questions about the outcome of past referrals and details of disciplinary action, the ministry said, would need to be submitted as Freedom of Information requests.

O'Neill explains the MAiD oversight committee's response to infractions of the law.

Among the problematic information contained in the 28-page FOI release is a “briefing decision note,” written by an unidentified bureaucrat, which argues that the oversight unit should not be overly strict in reporting infractions of MAiD-delivery protocols to professional colleges or the police.

“… Overly strict or severe use of referrals … may discourage physicians or nurse practitioners from providing MAiD despite high demand,” states the November 2023 memo, addressed to Stephen Brown, deputy minister of health.

Brown approved the note’s concluding recommendation to establish a new “weighted criteria model” for judging practitioner infractions.

Christopher Lyon

O'Neill asks Christopher Lyon, a Canadian who teaches at UK’s University of York to respond. Lyon's comments:

“This is staggering,”

He said the memo essentially gives permission to “Unlawfully kill someone, but we won’t enforce it because it might discourage practitioners from playing loose with the law.”

Lyon said the province should be “very concerned” about what’s driving an apparent high demand for euthanasia rather than working out ways to address it.

Trudo Lemmons also responded to O'Neill with shock.

Lemmens too was shocked by the bureaucrat’s reasoning that MAiD is too popular to worry about rules. “Indeed, [it’s] stunning to state that so explicitly.”

O'Neill outlines the data:

The FOI document also contains a spreadsheet showing that, in 2023 alone, the oversight unit found 2,833 “reporting issues” and “completion errors” in the paperwork for 2,767 MAiD deaths and for 1,041 cases in which MAiD was applied for but not completed.

Nevertheless, since 2018, the unit has made only 22 referrals to regulatory bodies for possible disciplinary action and just two referrals to law enforcement for potential criminal charges, according to an unattributed declaration appended to the end of the FOI document. The statement concludes by saying the referrals “represent less than 0.2 per cent of the total number of cases of MAiD reviewed by the unit.”

Isabel Grant

O'Neill spoke to Isabel Grant, a law professor at the University of British Columbia who responds:

“It was alarming to read about the error rate in MAiD assessments in B.C.,” Grant said in an emailed statement. “Looking at only one indicator—errors around the eligibility requirements—we see an error rate of 4.9 per cent. When we are talking about close to 3,000 deaths, that is a very high number.”

Grant said that when the cost of a mistake is a potential wrongful death, society should not tolerate such a high error rate. “Couple this with the concern raised in the report that we cannot have an ‘overly strict’ referral to law enforcement or professional colleges … [and] we can see the approach of the British Columbia government to MAiD deaths—err on the side of making MAiD accessible, not on the side of compliance with the Criminal Code,” she said.

The government’s approach is especially troubling, Grant said, considering “we are talking about exemptions from Canada’s murder and aiding-suicide laws.”

O'Neill examined public records and found no records related to concerns with MAiD in BC:

The B.C. Catholic examined seven years’ worth of public disciplinary records of the College of Pharmacists of B.C., the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C., and the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives and was unable to find any record of disciplinary action related to MAiD. Likewise, there are no public records of any criminal charges related to a professional’s handling of MAiD.

Curiously, there is no public record of the lone disciplinary case for which the FOI papers provided any detail. The case is described in a three-page “Ministry of Health Decision Briefing Note” drafted in January 2021. It outlines the case of a B.C. doctor, whose name is not disclosed, who filed a report to the oversight unit that “failed to include a second assessment concluding eligibility, as required under federal law.”

As well, the briefing note reported that the oversight unit “also identified additional issues with the physician’s documentation of this case, which contravene the College of Physicians and Surgeons MAiD Practice Standards.”

“… The absence of a second independent opinion is exacerbated by an apparent disregard of an assessment of ineligibility,” the note states. It concludes by recommending that the oversight unit refer the case to both police and the doctors’ college “for appropriate investigation.” It is not known whether Deputy Minister Brown acted on the recommendation.

A spokesperson for the doctors’ college said that privacy concerns prevent it from releasing information about any referrals from the MAiD Oversight Unit.

A spokesperson for the nurses’ college said a B.C. Catholic request for follow-up information on disciplinary matters would be treated as an FOI application and be answered by the end of August.

However, the B.C. government did make that very information available in 2023 in response to an FOI request by Dr. Deborah Cook, a Member of the Order of Canada inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame last month.

The government response lists two B.C. referrals to law enforcement—one in 2019 and the other in 2021—related to breaches of Section 241.2 of the Criminal Code of Canada, which sets out the eligibility criteria and safeguards for medical assistance for MAiD. The document does not say which professions were involved in the criminal referrals.

In addition, the single-page document to Cook listed three referrals to the pharmacists’ college, two to the nurses’ college in 2019, and 15 to the doctors’ college from 2019 to November of 2023. The unit found that in four of the doctors’ cases and in the two nurses’ cases, the medical assessor had concluded that a patient was eligible for MAiD even though the assessment “did not find they met all individual eligibility criteria.

Alex Schadenberg

O'Neill ends his article by quoting from his conversation with me:

Schadenberg said the apparent lack of disciplinary action or criminal charges is further evidence that B.C.’s MAiD oversight is ineffectual, despite the Supreme Court of Canada’s Carter decision, which led to the 2016 legalization of MAiD, carrying a requirement for stringent oversight.

Schadenberg remarked that prosecuting such crimes will always be frustratingly difficult because “any witness on the other side is dead.”

Indeed, “it’s like the perfect crime,” he said. “You don’t get into trouble, and anybody who could effectively complain about it is dead.”

O'Neill has opened up a can of worms that has forced him to seek more information through freedom of information requests. The story will continue.

In October 2024 the Ontario MAiD review committee released a report that uncovered 428 non-compliant MAiD deaths from 2018 - 2023.

German doctor charged with 15 murders between 2021 and 2024.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A palliative care doctor in Berlin has been charged with 15 murders of patients who died between September 2021 and July 2024. The doctor was originally charged with 4 murders in August 2024 but investigators have uncovered other deaths. More exhumations on potential victims have been planned.

According to the article by Emily Atkinson that was published by the BBC on April 16, 2025:

A German palliative care doctor has been charged with murdering 15 of his patients using a cocktail of lethal drugs.

Prosecutors in Berlin have accused the 40-year-old of setting fire to the homes of some of his suspected victims to cover his tracks.

He allegedly killed 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024, though prosecutors have said they believe that total could rise.

The doctor, who has not been named due to strict privacy laws in Germany, has not admitted to the charges, prosecutors said.

The article by Atkinson continued:

He is accused of administering an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant to his patients without their knowledge or consent.

The relaxant "paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest and death within minutes", the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

He worked in several German states, and the ages of those whose deaths are being treated as suspicious range from 25 to 94.

Notice how the deaths are described as:

administering an anaesthetic and a muscle relaxant, relaxant "paralysed the respiratory muscles, leading to respiratory arrest

Based on the way he killed, the physician likely received training from a euthanasia group.

The euthanasia lobby will claim that legalizing euthanasia prevents medical murders because euthanasia is an option and it is regulated.

In 2019, Niels Högel, a nurse in Oldenburg, Germany, was convicted of murdering 85 patients from 2000 to 2005, and investigators suspect the true number of victims is far higher. Mr. Högel was found to have administered drug overdoses that caused cardiac arrest so that he could revive the patients and be celebrated as a hero.

Cases of medical practitioners intentionally killing patients is not uncommon. Medical practitioners who have been convicted of murdering patients, include: Dr. Harold Shipman, Charles Cullen, Dr Virginia Soares de Souza, Aino Nykopp-Koski and Dr. Michael Swango.

Professor Christopher Lyon, who teaches at the University of York (UK) published a research paper on August 2, 2024 stating that Canada's (MAiD) euthanasia law enables healthcare serial killers (HSK).

It is not safe to give doctors, or others, the right in law to cause the death of others.

When a nation legalizes euthanasia, it gives medical professionals, who were already killing their patients, the legal right to proceed.

Euthanasia becomes the perfect cover-up for medical murder.

The Concentration of Canada's Euthanasia Providers Signals a Critical Juncture for Meaningful Policy Reform.

Yuriko Ryan

By Dr. Yuriko Ryan

A new article published on January 10, 2025 in The American Journal of Bioethics examines the rapid increase in Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) deaths in Canada. 

Dr. Lyon, the lead author witnessed a MAID death in BC; Dr. Lemmens is a member of the MAID Death Review Panel of the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario, and Dr. Kim along with Dr. Lemmens, were members of the Council of Canadian Academies Expert Panel on Medical Assistance in Dying.

The authors describe the rise of MAID deaths in Canada, suggesting it is influenced by policy rather than widespread societal acceptance. They argue that organizations such as the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers (CAMAP) and Dying with Dignity Canada (DWDC) have significantly influenced MAID policy, emphasizing access over patient safety and protection against premature death. This, according to the authors, has resulted in concerning cases and potential legal violations. They call for substantial reform, advocating for more transparent, evidence-based, and multi-perspective policymaking to ensure a safer and more ethical MAID system in Canada.

The key issues discussed in this article include:

Drivers for the Exponential increase in MAID deaths

Provider Concentration: A small group of clinicians are responsible for the majority of MAID deaths. The Fifth Annual Report on MAID 2023 (Canada, 2024) shows that practitioners who performed MAID 11 or more times in 2023 provided 66.4% of Track 1 (a requester’s natural death is reasonably foreseeable) cases and 58.4% of Track 2 (a requester's natural death is NOT reasonably foreseeable) cases. Some clinicians have made MAID their full-time practice, and the number of cases per provider has increased from 5.1 in 2019 to 7.2 in 2022.

Problematic Cases: There have been instances where individuals sought MAID due to lack of access to other resources, non-compliance with eligibility criteria, incomplete documentation, and clinicians refusing to cooperate with oversight bodies. A concerning number of unlawful MAID deaths have been reported.

Expansion of Eligibility: There is an active movement toward further expansions in MAID eligibility, including for mature minors and those with mental disorders. There are concerns that the focus is on facilitating access to MAID rather than protecting against premature death. Some cases suggest that individuals with mental illness, poverty, or lack of adequate support have received MAID.

Lack of Safeguards: The criteria for MAID, such as "serious and irremediable" conditions, have been interpreted flexibly, with heavy reliance on self-reporting. The MAID law does not require a high level of expertise for assessments.

Influence of Advocacy Groups: CAMAP and DWDC have played a disproportionate role in influencing MAID policy. CAMAP has close ties to DWDC, an expansionist advocacy group, and this has resulted in a conflict of interest that has been disregarded by the Canadian government.

CAMAP's Role and Influence:

Activist Ideology: CAMAP promotes an activist approach to MAID and has its origins in the leading global MAID advocacy organization, DWDC. CAMAP's bylaws require that more than half of its directors must be assessors or providers who have approved or provided MAID for at least five people each year.

Policy Influence: CAMAP has been consulted by Health Canada and has received public funds ($3M CAD) to develop a national training curriculum. CAMAP members’ expertise appears to be based on informal accumulation of patient requests and deaths rather than formal training.

Guidance Documents: CAMAP's guidance documents have been geared toward expansion, with advice on how to circumvent requirements for those not approaching natural death. CAMAP advises clinicians to mention MAID to potentially eligible patients, which some consider a risk of coercion. The organization also suggests that the imminent loss of capacity can be seen as an "advanced state of irreversible decline."

Flaws in Canadian MAID Law:

Subjective Preferences: The irremediability is reduced to the subjective preference of the requester. The law allows the co-opting of the healthcare system for the delivery of ideologically driven deaths.

Lack of Medical Expertise: The majority of MAID delivery is by non-specialist family practitioners and nurse practitioners. The law allows a person with "expertise in the condition" to be consulted rather than requiring a specialist, explicitly to avoid barriers to access.

Prioritizing Access over Safety: The Canadian MAID law prioritizes access to MAID over safety measures. Some providers construct MAID in ideological terms, as ‘social justice,' 'a crusade,' or 'empowering people.'

Conclusion:

The rapid increase in MAID deaths in Canada is not solely a reflection of widespread public support but is influenced by a small group of activists. The close relationship between CAMAP and DWDC, along with the government's reliance on these organizations, has led to an expansionist approach to MAID. There is a need for substantial review of MAID policy and practice. Reforms are urgently needed to insulate policy development from the influence of minority views. The government should establish an independent and transparent public body more representative of clinical specialties and other stakeholder groups, as well as a public meta-regulator to provide oversight and standardization. Increased transparency is necessary for public accountability and patient safety.

What Can We Learn?

These findings are relevant to ongoing debates about assisted suicide and euthanasia globally. The Canadian example highlights the need for safeguards and transparent processes to prevent similar issues elsewhere. Policymakers, medical professionals, and the public should be aware of these risks when considering end-of-life options.

Dr. Yuriko Ryan is a Canadian bioethicist and gerontologist who explores emerging topics including end-of-life care, mental health and addiction, and artificial intelligence. She is an ethicist with more than 25 years experience in health policy research and healthcare administration. She has a doctorate in bioethics and a Master's degree in gerontology from Simon Fraser University. 

Canadian doctor considers euthanasia the best work she has done.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

British actress, comedian and disability rights activist, Liz Carr, produced a BBC documentary titled - Better off Dead? that was first aired on May 14. Carr is best known for her role as Clarissa Mullery on the BBC series Silent Witness.

One of the scenes in the Better off Dead? documentary features Carr interviewing Canadian euthanasia doctor, Ellen Wiebe. (Link to the scene)

David Kraydon wrote an article that was published in The Post Millennial on October 9 concerning Carr's documentary. Carr asks her about euthanasia and Wiebe responds:

“I love my job. You know, I always loved being a doctor and I delivered over a thousand babies, and I took care of families, but this is the very best work I've ever done in the last seven years. And people ask me why? And I think, well, doctors like grateful patients, and nobody's more grateful than my patients now and their families.”

Ellen Wiebe laughing

Carr wonders if Wiebe is concerned that Canada’s euthanasia program will go too far. Kraydon writes that Wiebe shuts down that debate by stating:

“What you're saying is to protect what you consider vulnerable people. You are condemning others to unbearable suffering, unbearable suffering, and I am so glad, so glad that I'm Canadian and that we have this law so that people can choose that or not choose that, but to say that somebody has to suffer like that is simply cruel,”

Better off Dead? viewers were shocked when Wiebe giggled while talking about euthanasia.

Professor Christopher Lyon told National Post writer Sharon Kirkey that:

“Some providers have counts in the hundreds — this isn’t normal, for any occupation,” he said. “Even members of the military at war do not typically kill that frequently. I think that’s a question that we’ve not really ever asked.”

Lyon recently published an article concerning health-care serial killers and Canada's euthanasia law.

Ellen Wiebe may be Canada's most prolific euthanasia doctor having killed hundreds. 

Liz Carr's Better off Dead? is available for you to watch on youtube (youtube link).

Researcher argues health-care serial killer could take advantage of Canada's assisted dying program

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Christopher Lyon

Professor Christopher Lyon, who teaches at the University of York in the UK, recently published a research article concluding that Canada's (MAiD) euthanasia law enables healthcare serial killers (HSK).

(Read the research article with references (Link).

The National Post published an article by Sharon Kirkey on August 9, 2024. Kirkey interviews Lyon and tries to challenge his research.

Previous article: Does Canada's euthanasia law enable healthcare serial killing? (Link).

 Kirkey introduces her article by stating:

“Canada’s MAID (medical assistance in dying) system is criticized as the most permissive or least safeguarded in the world, raising the question of whether it could protect patients who fit the clinical profile of adult victims of HSK (health-care serial killers) from a killer working as a MAID provider,” Christopher Lyon, a Canadian social scientist who teaches at the University of York in the United Kingdom, wrote in a newly published paper.

Insufficient vetting of staff, poor surveillance and oversight, and a failure by authorities to act on concerns raised by suspicious colleagues or witnesses have allowed health-care serial killers to go undetected for considerable periods, Lyon wrote in the journal HEC (HealthCare Ethics Committee) Forum, a partner journal of the American Society for Humanities and Bioethics.

Canada’s MAID regime “has similar features,” Lyon wrote, “with added opportunities for killing” afforded by broad Criminal Code exemptions from homicide and suicide offences “amid broad patient eligibility criteria.”

MAID’s oversight and delivery needs a “radical restructuring” to help mitigate the possibility of abuses, he said.

Kirkey gives some insight into Lyon's concerns. Kirkey writes:

Lyon’s 77-year-old father died by MAID in 2021 in a Victoria hospital room, over the family’s objections that he had not been properly assessed. He’d had bouts of depression and suicidal thinking, but was approved for MAID nonetheless. In essays, Lyon has described his father’s MAID provider as “Death.”

Lyon explains to Kirkey that he is not saying that there are criminally culpable homicides occurring within Canada's MAiD regime, but rather he is saying that based on the law it could happen because the MAiD regime protects homicidal personalities and enables them to legally kill.

Kirkey quotes Lyon as stating:

“I want to be clear: I’m not calling anybody out there a murderer or a serial killer in a culpable sense,” Lyon said in an interview. No police investigations or criminal charges are known.

Euthanasia “is fundamentally homicide by lethal injection,” he said. “Whatever one’s views are on MAID, it should be foremost in our minds that, at a basic level, we are empowering a privileged class of people to poison disabled and distressed people to death.

“A key reference point is health-care serial killers,” Lyon said. “Patient safety and ethical and rigorous medical practice demands that we be extremely careful about who we let do this, but I don’t see that happening in Canada.”

“Disabled people have been raising the risks of MAID being attractive to ‘angel of death’ characters for a very long time,” he added.

Does Canada's euthanasia law enable healthcare serial killing.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Christopher Lyon

Professor Christopher Lyon, who teaches at the University of York in the UK, researches and concludes that Canada's (MAiD) euthanasia law enables healthcare serial killers (HSK).

Lyon's research was published by HEC Forum on August 2, 2024 under the title: Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying System can Enable Healthcare Serial Killing. 

(Read the research article with references (Link).

Healthcare serial killers (HSK) is not a new phenomenon. Lyon writes about several well known HSK's, and examines what enable them to remain undetected for long periods of time while killing their patients.

Lyon outlines his article by stating:

Criminal HSK appears globally. Offenders may kill fewer than ten to hundreds of people. They are often challenging to detect and stop due to job-related access to means of killing, responsibility for record-keeping, trusted role, professional insularity and protectionism, poor oversight, and victims whose deaths are less likely to attract suspicion due to age, illness, or existing likelihood of dying. Ambiguous or divergent legal and medical concepts and practices can make prosecuting HSK challenging.

He continues:

Canadian euthanasia doctor has killed hundreds.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Ellen Wiebe

Sharon Kirkey wrote a pro-euthanasia / pro-Ellen Wiebe article that was published in the National Post on Saturday July 6. 

Kirkey, who has written many pro-euthanasia articles, attempts to fix the perception of Wiebe after she was seen laughing in the film Better off Dead? by disability activist / actress Liz Carr while discussing euthanasia.

Elmira Tanatarova reported for the Daily Mail on May 15 that many of the viewers of the Better off Dead? documentary were uneasy with Wiebe as she giggled when discussing the number of her euthanasia deaths.

When asked by Kirkey about the number of euthanasia deaths Wiebe responds:

“I know the exact number,” the Vancouver doctor said, “but I don’t want to do that, no. It’s become a weird thing, people talking about their numbers, or criticizing people who talk about their numbers.”

“Hundreds is good,” she said. About 430 as of May 2022 alone, as she then testified before a special parliamentary committee on medical assistance in dying, or MAID.

When asked about laughing on camera during the filming of Better off Dead? Kirkey writes:

Wiebe can seem “oddly cheerful” when discussing MAID, viewers of the BBC documentary remarked. She grinned at peculiar moments during an interview with National Post, laughing as she described how, when getting final consent on the day of death, “I come in and say, ‘Are you sure this is what you want to do today?'”

Laughter can be a response to emotionally uncomfortable situations, like talking about death, said Helen Long, CEO of Dying with Dignity Canada. “You suddenly realize what you’re in the middle of discussing.”

“Laughing often is just part of my personality,” Wiebe told National Post.

I personally speak cheerfully about my work with the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition but I'm not killing people.

In response to her clients Kirkey reports Wiebe as stating:

“It’s hard to even be in the same room as somebody who’s suffering so severely,” Wiebe told the Post. “But then, of course, you know, I get to end that suffering, which is good.”

Wiebe misses the point. She is not ending suffering or even caring for the sufferer, she is killing the person.

Trudo Lemmens

Trudo Lemmens is bothered by the pseudo-spiritual language that euthanasia doctors apply to MAiD deaths. Kirkey reports:

But others like Trudo Lemmens are troubled by the small number of providers dominating the practice and the “pseudo-spiritual language” some use to describe doctor-administered death.

“When MAID was legalized, it was framed as a practice that was exceptionally required to ease the dying process or give some control at the end of life,” Lemmens, a University of Toronto professor of law and ethics, wrote in an email.

Christopher Lyon

Christopher Lyon, whose father died by MAiD in Victoria BC also reponds to Kirkey:

Others like Christopher Lyon, a Canadian social scientist at the University of York in the U.K. have remarked that pleasure from euthanasia is deeply disquieting, “because death is usually a deeply painful or difficult moment for the patients and their loved ones.”

Lyon’s 77-year-old father died by MAID in a Victoria hospital room in 2021, over the family’s objections. (Wiebe was not the provider.) His father had bouts of depression and suicidal thinking, but was approved for MAID nonetheless. Lyon wonders what draws some providers to MAID “and what happens to a person when killing becomes a daily or weekly event.”

“Some providers have counts in the hundreds — this isn’t normal, for any occupation,” he said. “Even members of the military at war do not typically kill that frequently. I think that’s a question that we’ve not really ever asked.”

Kirkey responds to criticisms of Wiebe by interviewing Dr James Downer, who was a founding doctor of the Physicians Advisory Council for Dying with Dignity. Downer who is introduced as a Ottawa palliative care and critical care specialist reportedly states:

“It’s absolutely not a celebration of the act of ending someone’s life. It’s a reflection of the intense emotional bond you form with families and patients.”

Kirkey also obtains a comment from Helen Long, the CEO of Dying with Dignity who said:

She’s also “warm and funny,” blunt and straightforward, a straight-shooter with a determined streak,

Wiebe when asked about natural death reportedly states:

“I know what the ends are like, and I’m not interested in that,” she told National Post. MAID means people can “skip out when you’re still you,” she said.

Wiebe expects that the law will expand to include children and the incompetent. Kirkey writes:

She fully anticipates that MAID will be extended to mature minors. “I’ve always been assuming for eight years that a 17-year-old with terminal cancer is going to say, ‘I have the right,’ and of course any judge in the country will say, ‘Yes, you do.’”

She also expects some form of advance requests for MAID in cases of dementia, which would allow a person to make a written request for euthanasia that could be honoured later, even if they lose their capacity to make medical decisions for themselves. Support for advance requests is strong, according to polls. But if someone is unable to express how they’re feeling, who decides if they are suffering unbearably — and what if they changed their minds? MAID doctors may be asked to “provide” for someone they have not met before, and with whom they will not be able to communicate, Wiebe said.

“That’s going to be hard for us as providers,” she said.

“This will be a new challenge. And I’m up for challenges.”

Much of this interview confirms the concerns that Trudo Lemmens has that there are a few insiders that are controlling the euthanasia practise and narrative in Canada.

Clearly this article is designed to improve the perception of Wiebe after the Better off Dead? film shows a crass and scary nature to Wiebe.

But, it doesn't matter where you stand on the issue, or on politics, Carr portrayed Wiebe for who she is in Better off Dead? Carr wasn't staging the interview and she wasn't using interviews with people who oppose euthanasia to make Wiebe look bad.

I will also challenge Sharon Kirkey who tries to sell herself as a neutral reporter. Clearly she tries to cover-up for the euthanasia lobby and seems committed to selling more euthanasia to Canadians.

Canada’s euthanasia programme flirting with eugenics

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Kevin Yuill

Kevin Yuill, former professor of American Studies at the University of Sunderland in the UK, was published by Spiked on October 25, 2023 about his concern that Canada's euthanasia program is eugenic.

Yuill, who recently visited Canada writes:

A few weeks ago, I accidentally toured one of the awful tent cities in Vancouver, Canada. At the corner of Main Street and Hastings Avenue, homeless drug addicts spread their few possessions out on blankets and cover the pavement for blocks on end. It is only a short distance from the restaurants and attractions of this fairly affluent city and is easy to stray into.

So long as they are not violent, homeless addicts are generally ignored across the city. Vancouverites, in that polite Canadian way, accept their presence and do what they can to be kind. Nonetheless, everyone I met spoke about the ‘crisis’ of addicts in Vancouver, where drugs have effectively been decriminalised.

Now, the Canadian authorities seem to have come up with a novel, frightening solution to the crisis: euthanasia.

Yuill explains: 

"Canadians are eligible for the medical assistance in dying (MAID) programme if they have a ‘grievous and irremediable medical condition’, such as a serious physical illness or disability. If their condition has put them in an advanced state of irreversible decline and caused enduring physical or psychological suffering, they may request to be allowed euthanasia."

Yuill states that this is horrific enough but in March 2024 "those suffering from mental illnesses – with no physical ailments necessary – will also be eligible for MAID. That includes people with substance-use disorders."

Yuill explains:

Last week, a framework for assessing people with substance-use disorders for MAID was discussed at the annual conference for the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine in British Columbia. Dr David Martell (ironically a winner of the Family Physician of the Year award) was one of the most vocal supporters of expanding MAID to drug addicts. Dr Martell declared that ‘it’s not fair to exclude people from eligibility purely because their mental disorder might either partly or in full be a substance-use disorder. It has to do with treating people equally.’

Dr Martell went on to explain that doctors will need to distinguish between somebody who has a ‘reasoned wish to die’ and someone who is merely suicidal. A person who is ‘thinking in a calm and measured way about wanting [their] suffering to end’, Martell said, might be considered for MAID. But he conceded that a person can exhibit signs of both suicidality and a calm and measured wish to die, and that it would be ‘fairly impossible’ to make the distinction if the person being assessed were intoxicated.

Yuill quotes from Christopher Lyons, whose suicidal father died by euthanasia, who stated:

The lines of informed consent are extremely blurred, especially when drugs and alcohol are involved.

Yuill explains that Canada's parliament recently defeated Bill C-314, a bill that would have reversed the law that will permit euthanasia for mental illness, even though a recent poll found that only 3 out of 10 Canadians support euthanasia for mental illness.

Yuill provides a history lesson on eugenics:

For instance, in the first few years of the 20th century, Dr Ella K Dearborn cheerfully called for ‘euthanasia for the incurably ill, insane, criminals and degenerates’. Similarly, in 1906, sociologist L Graham Crozier agreed with her medical compatriot: ‘I would personally rather administer chloroform to the poor, starving children of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and other American cities, than to see them living as they must in squalor and misery.’

In an echo of today’s advocates for legalised assisted dying, Dr Dearborn once thundered: ‘Do not let sentiment or superstition retard the wheels of worldwide progress.’ In Canada, this so-called progress shows no sign of stopping. In the eight years since MAID was legalised for the terminally ill, it has been expanded to disabled people, homeless people and prisoners. And soon drug addicts will be next.

Yuill states that the most humane solution is to provide treatment for addicts, not death, and asks:

Is that really such an unreasonable thing to ask for?

Previous articles by Kevin Yuill: (Link to articles)

Kevorkian's ghost

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Christopher Lyons

Christopher Lyons has written an excellent commentary on a recent article by two bioethicists who argue that poverty, homelessness and having problems receiving medical treatment, should not hinder decisions for euthanasia.

Wiebe and Mullin's argument for radical autonomy with respect to (MAiD) euthanasia are deeply troubling in their implications and flawed in their considerations. 

Lyon's summarizes the argument by Wiebe and Mullin in the following manner:

In a nutshell, Wiebe and Mullin argue that MAiD can be a ‘harm-reducing’ embrace of individual autonomy to avoid prolonging suffering in oppressed people who cannot access adequate socioeconomic resources... They argue that even though a person may be poor or have limited options, they can still hold and express autonomy to request and receive death. Death, in their formulation, is the least bad option for people suffering social inequality in an unjust world.

Wiebe and Mullin are not making a new argument. In fact Kevorkian used it, too.

Thirty years ago, the American murderer Dr MJ ‘Jack’ Kevorkian, a euthanasia and assisted suicide advocate and illicit provider, expressed cruder versions of the same positions, claiming that ‘autonomy always, always should be respected, even if it is absolutely contrary, the decision is contrary to best medical advice and what the physician wants…’ and that a mere request for death is justification alone for provision, regardless of circumstance.

Kevorkian death van

Lyons continues:

It is also worth noting that Kevorkian disproportionately killed or assisted death for women, many of whom may not have had any physical illness and claimed ‘that only medical men should decide’ on MAiD. Aside from his blatant and lethal misogyny, his statements highlight a central but unacknowledged problem in Wiebe and Mullin and similar individualistic formulations of MAiD: the tension between the patient's autonomy, the clinician's autonomy, and society.

Wiebe and Mullin consider it paternalism to prevent killing.

Wiebe and Mullin, however, call it ‘paternalistic’ to prevent people from accessing MAiD but make no comment on the brutal paternalism of a privileged and empowered actor representing the state who judges someone’s eligibility for death and then may kill them. Why is clinician autonomy discounted? The privilege and power of assessors and providers is a major persistently unaddressed flaw in the reasoning of these kinds of patient autonomy-based arguments.

Wiebe and Mullin are asserting a radical autonomy that is obsolete.

... their definition of autonomy appears to be a repackaging of the obsolete ‘homo economicus’ model human actor from neoclassical economic theory, where people are understood to be ‘unswervingly rational, completely selfish, and can effortlessly solve even the most difficult optimization problem’. Research in neuroscience, biology, psychology, public health, sociology, and other disciplines has long since established that our relative autonomy and agency are products of myriad internal and external biophysical and social experiences, relationships, circumstances, and systems. None of us exists in hermetic vacuums of rational reason.

Lyon challenges Wiebe and Mullin on their view of autonomy.

By voiding a person’s relational context, the impact of their death on others, and the autonomy of the people who must assess and approve death from consideration, Wiebe and Mullin and their ideological colleagues idealise patient autonomy. Like Kevorkian, they construct euthanasia or assisted suicide (non-culpable homicide and suicide assistance under Canadian MAiD law) as virtuous though ‘tragic’ expressions of self-determination and ‘harm reduction’. Do they consider the harm to others from MAiD deaths as illegitimate or irrelevant?

How euthanasia may lead to eliminating people with disabilities and those who are poor.

Societies that find intellectual reasons to euthanise or kill the poor, sick, disabled, or socially oppressed groups commit atrocities. A former MAiD provider has even sounded this alarm in the wake of eligibility expansions. Despite claims that a lack of support for people is a ‘deep injustice’, the vision of society painted by Wiebe and Mullin is dystopian, where injustice may be morally permitted to flourish so long as others with greater autonomy judge oppressed people to have enough autonomy and ‘engaged hope’ to kill themselves or have themselves killed. Indeed, they even argue that medically provided death-for-oppression is a suitable and just response ‘to a world that currently does not exist and is unlikely to emerge in the near future’. Thus, in addition to MAiD for both chronic and terminal physical illness and disability, and official consideration or arguments for mental illness, children (‘mature minors’) and infants, we now see Kevorkian’s liberty-or-death mantra re-emerge as a new slip on the expansionist slope as an argument for MAiD for people whose sole condition is the experience of forms of deprived liberty. Wiebe and Mullin’s and allied proposals, hopefully unwittingly, thus serve the construction of an intellectual foundation for eliminating rather than emancipating the poor and oppressed by an empowered (medical) elite. MAiD, in this way, is ultimately a political, not a medical, project. We have seen versions of this before and we know how it ends.

Christopher Lyons, a Canadian academic in York, UK who writes about euthanasia and assisted suicide.