“Emotional Support Animals, Assisted Suicide And Suicide Prevention”

Content Warning: Discussion of A Disabled Person’s Death By "Suicide" 

 

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader
Disability activist and member of the EPC-USA Board

As I’ve said, I think it’s important for euthanasia opponents to understand how disability policy impacts disabled people’s lives, how euthanasia can relate to those policies, and do what they can to advocate for better disability supports. So I am going to comment on the USA Office of Housing and Urban Development’s decision to not enforce/eliminate the Fair Housing Act’s protections for Emotional Support Animals.

My cat, Lucy, is my Emotional Support Animal. She is one of the best things in my life. Every night when I go to sleep, she curls up on the pillow next to mine. I place my hand against her smooth, soft fur and listen to the gentle rumbling of her purr. Often the anxiety and insomnia I struggle with eases and I am able to drift off to sleep. Every morning Lucy wakes me up by tapping me with her paw and nuzzling my face, as she makes little grunts and trills.

Lucy

Lucy also greatly contributes to my understanding of myself as a fully functional adult: Yes, my mental illness and neurological disabilities sometimes cause independent living struggles, but my cat is still alive and doing well, so I must be doing some things right.

So, Lucy is essentially a furry antidepressant that compliments the effects of pharmaceutical intervention. Residual symptoms of depression would be much less controlled if I did not have Lucy.

Unfortunately for people like me, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has decided not to enforce the Fair Housing Act’s provision for emotional support animals.

In addition to no longer investigating ESA Fair Housing Act complaints, HUD has indicated that it intends to update the FHA’s 1989 assistance animal regulations to exclude ESAs.

HUD now only wants to enforce the part of the FHA requiring landlords to accommodate service animals who perform specific tasks.

Service animals and ESAs are not the same thing. Service animals are trained to do complex tasks to accommodate specific symptoms of a person’s impairment that inhibit independent living. ESAs do not perform specific tasks but have long been recognized as important tools for people with emotional disabilities.

HUD’s actions increase my risk of having to choose between housing and my precious Lucy.

For instance, my low income makes it difficult to afford the pet fees that are waived for ESAs. My landlord could decide that since HUD no longer recognizes ESAs, I could not have Lucy in my apartment. Limiting protections for ESAs means that if I wanted to move to a new apartment for an education or job opportunity, landlords could deny me housing because of Lucy.

According to HUD’s memo, it might still be possible for tenants to seek redress under Section 504 and the ADA. But, one of the flaws in those laws is that neither contains explicit protections for ESAs. The ADA restricts its definition of assistance animals to service animals. This is the template HUD will now base its policies on.

I think some readers may perceive a proliferation of spurious disability complaints, especially around ESAs. But I can tell you from experience that the process of resolving any legitimate disability discrimination complaint tends to be drawn out and burdensome for the filer. HUD’s new blanket policy striking the Fair Housing Act’s provisions for ESAs makes any remaining ESA protections even more difficult to invoke. HUD has removed an important tool for ensuring that vulnerable people who need ESAs can have them.

Perhaps the best way to explain how this policy change relates to euthanasia prevention is to tell the story of “Jane.” Jane was a disabled Canadian woman with autism and depression that I met on #DisabilityTwitter. Jane’s severe depression, autistic dysregulation and various traumas caused chronic housing instability. When I met Jane, she did have an apartment, but the environment wasn’t suitable for someone with her disabilities. Jane was isolated from her family and experiencing poverty. One of the only sources of joy in Jane’s life was her cat.

At first, Jane was angry that Canada had legalized “Track 2 MAiD” instead of funding disability supports; participating in viral hashtags like #AidNotMAiD. But Jane’s mental health and housing situation gradually became more precarious. As Jane’s anguish intensified, she evolved into one of the only disabled Canadians I met on X who thought “Track 2 MAiD” was a good idea.

Lack of accommodations for depression and autism gradually eroded Jane’s sanity, until her tweets became a combination of volatile despair and heartbreaking pleas for help. Jane tweeted about having loud autistic meltdowns.

Rather than show compassion, neighbors fought to have Jane evicted from her apartment.

Many of Jane’s panicked tweets about impending homelessness were about her fear that she wouldn’t be allowed to take her cat to a homeless shelter, and she would have to surrender her cat to an animal shelter, “And then I’ll never see her beautiful face again!”

So, once she had enough evidence that homelessness was inevitable, Jane killed herself “the old fashioned way.”

HUD’s new policy increases the risk of these kinds of scenarios. HUD’s decision to restrict disabled people’s access to beloved emotional support animals will cause the USA’s most marginalized disabled people to suffer more. And that suffering will be just as real as the suffering of disabled Canadians having “MAiD” suggested to them in emergency rooms. Policies like HUD’s recent decision will contribute to the high rate of suicide in the disabled community. And those “regular” suicides will be just as tragic and preventable as the coerced “MAiD” suicides in Canada.

It is important that euthanasia opponents not support policies like this. If you want to save disabled people’s lives, protect our access to the things we need and love.

Author Note 1: For another essay about what Lucy means to me, see my blog post, Society Should Treat Disabled People Like My Cousin Treats Me and “It.”

Author Note 2: Apparently HUD website's entire page about assistance animals, archived by the Wayback Machine as recently as May 23, 2026, has been removed.
 

Author Note 3: Here is HUD’s memo about the rule change.

Author Note 4: Here is the Disability Rights Education And Defense Fund’s briefing on the rule change.

A psychiatrist told parliament committee that depression qualifies for MAiD

This article was published by Kelsi Sheren on her substack on April 27, 2026.

April, in front of Canada’s Special Joint Parliamentary Committee on MAiD, a psychiatrist said the quiet part out loud.

Dr. Mona Gupta former chair of the federal Expert Panel on MAiD and Mental Illness testified before the committee between March 25 and April 2026. When Conservative MP Andrew Lawton asked directly whether depression or eating disorders could qualify someone for assisted death, she replied: “It depends on the circumstances of the person.” That’s it, that’s the answer.

Dr Mona Gupta

Not a no, not a “those conditions fall outside the eligibility framework.” Just it depends. Let me tell you what that answer means in practice, i means the most common mental health diagnoses in this country the ones your kids have, your coworkers have, the ones millions of Canadians are managing right now are being actively contemplated as qualifying conditions for state-assisted death and the federal government’s own hand-picked expert couldn’t rule it out.

This wasn’t a fringe voice. This was the person Ottawa chose to lead the expert panel reviewing whether Canada is ready to expand MAiD to mental illness and her testimony was effectively yes, maybe.

The law currently excludes MAiD where mental illness is the sole underlying condition. But only until March 17, 2027. That date has already been pushed back twice…... Not because the government changed its mind but because it needed more time to get ready.

A committee of 10 MPs and five Senators is currently studying the question. The expansion has been delayed twice in the last three years..they’re not studying whether to do it, they’re studying how.

Here’s what the psychiatric community has actually said the people who treat these patients, not the people who administer death. The Canadian Psychiatric Association, the Canadian Mental Health Association, and the Society of Canadian Psychiatry have all said irremediability cannot be reliably predicted in psychiatric conditions. Eating disorders show long-term remission rates of 50 to 70 percent with appropriate care. Fifty to seventy percent with care.

We’re not offering that care. Wait times for psychiatric services in this country are unconscionable. Beds don’t exist. Therapists are inaccessible. The system is broken and underfunded and everyone knows it, but we’re preparing to offer assisted death to the people falling through its cracks.

Official 2024 figures show 16,499 MAiD provisions across Canada 5.1 percent of all deaths. Track 2 cases for people whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable numbered 732, a 17 percent increase from the previous year. 17 percent increase, in one year, for people who weren’t dying and now the next frontier is people who are depressed, and let’s be very uncomfortably honest here. Have you seen the state of Canada?! Of course young people are depressed!

I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it, this isn’t about autonomy. Autonomy requires real options. You can’t call it a free choice when someone is suffering, broke, on a waiting list, and the system hands them a pamphlet for death. That’s not autonomy. That’s a system that decided their life wasn’t worth the cost of fixing.

The parliamentary committee has been asked to complete additional review steps before the 2027 expansion proceeds, reflecting concern about safeguards and implementation readiness.

“Implementation readiness.” That’s the language. Not “is this the right thing to do.” Just are we ready to do it.

They’re not asking the right question and nobody in that committee room is being asked to answer for the people who will die because of their non-answer.

I’m asking. Because someone has to and there is a reason why people like me are not asked to testify on this committee and it’s because myself and others have healed from the same issues their trying to kill you for.

Is Mental Illness Irremediable?

This article was published by Amy Hasbrouck on her substack on April 12, 2026.

Without adequate supports, MI under MAiD could be a death sentence.

Amy Hasbrouck

By Amy Hasbrouck

The central question when considering if Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide (E/AS) should be allowed for people whose requests arise solely from a psychiatric disability is whether mental illness is irremediable. The answer depends on many factors; the origins, causes and history of the mental illness, the infrastructure in place to support healing, whether the treatment approach is holistic or symptom-focused. Possibly the most important predictor of success is the ability to retain hope that recovery is possible. As a starting point, hope requires trust in the therapeutic relationship, but trust and the hope of recovery are both undermined by allowing E/AS for psychiatric disability alone.

While my physical and sensory disabilities might or might not qualify me for euthanasia under Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) regime, it is my psychiatric disabilities (mental illnesses) that are most likely to induce me to request euthanasia.

Evolving diagnoses

The day after I graduated from secondary school in 1979, I realized that the “childhood abuse” I had experienced might be connected to the exhaustion, low self-esteem, and depressed mood I had struggled with as far back as I could remember. Since then, I’ve had two hospitalizations, and a series of diagnoses – from depression, to PTSD, to dissociative identity disorder – and I’ve been prescribed at least 15 psychiatric medications. At the moment I’m taking five meds with (unofficial) diagnoses of Complex PTSD,1 Treatment Resistant Depression,2 along with the complicating and compounding effects of ableism.

My experience supports the conclusions reached by Mark Konrad and Catherine Ferrier in their recent article “MAID: No Evidence Base for Futility and Irremediability in Psychiatric Disorders”;3 that “diagnosis and prognosis of mental disorders are unreliable,” and there is an “enormous and nonspecific variety of treatments for mental disorders.”

Origins, Causes and History

Nearly 2/3 (63.9%) of adults report having at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) such as divorce or death of a parent, physical, emotional or sexual abuse or neglect, or substance abuse by family members.4 Studies have found “a strong relationship between exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and multiple health risk factors for the leading causes of death in adulthood.” The 17% of adults with an ACE score of four or more (of which I am one) have a “12 times higher prevalence of health risks such as alcoholism, drug use, depression, and suicide attempts,” chronic illness (such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue) and autoimmune disorders (such as Lupus or Crohn’s disease). Yet when I asked my primary care doctor about whether Québec used ACE scores to screen for physical and mental health risks, she didn’t know what I was talking about.

I have been unable to see a psychiatrist to adjust the medications I am prescribed for symptoms of my mental illnesses since I arrived in Canada more than 22 years ago. The meds are only partially effective in managing symptoms related to Complex PTSD and depression, but I don’t know what my official diagnosis is, and despite several referrals, I have never actually spoken to a psychiatrist. I have been referred for counseling twice to professionals who had no background in working with people who have experienced disability discrimination; in one case, the therapist’s insensitivity led me to abandon the sessions, while the other therapist left a few months into the treatment. I have had limited success finding qualified therapists on my own, and I must pay for my own therapy since I do not have insurance aside from the provincial health plan.

Infrastructure for Healing

Physical security promotes healing

For me, successful treatment of mental illness depends on diverse, often intangible elements, some of which I already have in place. I have physical security in that I am lucky enough to have a home, a loving and beloved spouse, and economic stability.5 I have some social support through Adult Survivors of Child Abuse (ASCA), an online community with a focus on recovery from the effects of complex trauma. I am looking for a well-matched, skilled and respectful therapist to work with me on managing my nervous system’s dysregulation and hypervigilance. I am hopeful that someday I may recover some self-esteem and lose some of the chronic depression that drains and immobilizes me. I am aware, however, that my situation is precarious; that I am one setback away from suicidal depression, and that I do not have the full range of supports I need to meet the inevitable hazards of life.

Emotional healing

Healing from complex PTSD is – not to put too fine a point on it – complicated when you also have a disability. The usual feelings of shame and self-blame that come from long-term emotional and sexual abuse were magnified by my parents’ profound discomfort with my blindness. The discovery of my cataracts during a hospital stay for pneumonia at four months precipitated a major domestic crisis (with accompanying violence); my father thought the condition was caused by (and was therefore the financial responsibility of) the treatment I received for pneumonia, while my mother believed that the cataract diagnosis while I was hospitalized precluded the possibility that the oxygen treatment was the causal factor. Regardless, I was expected to keep up with my siblings in household chores, academics and play, even as I was shamed for blindness-related behaviours (like rocking or turning my head from side to side). These “self-soothing” behaviours, and accompanying shame, metastasized with the sexual abuse which started when I was about three years old.6

When my mother told me the bullies at school were wrong to say I was “blind as a bat” I thought she must be right because I had usable vision. I figured comments about my vision problem meant that I was just too stupid to learn how to see, since “seeing” generally meant being able to predict events based on applying learned experience. My father’s insistence that I learn touch-typing at the age of 10 – though invaluable when I studied journalism and the Law – was a double-edged sword. He wanted to be sure I would have “something to fall back on” because, after all, “boys seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses;” the response of my classmates suggested I probably wouldn’t land a husband/provider/protector. My father’s plans for my security, while insulting, also seemed sensible, since I was too stupid to see and unworthy of being seen.

Validation in a world gone mad

I left the U.S. in 2003 because I experienced the collapsing democracy and military imperialism of that era as an existential threat and profound cognitive dissonance. My job (advocating for the rights of disabled people), was threatened by state budget cuts and the failure to recognize health care as a human right. I had also been harassed and assaulted by a stranger in what was clearly a disability and gender-based hate crime, yet was denied the opportunity to report it as such at the (state) police station where I fled after the event.

My first 20 years in Canada were taken up with (re)learning French, making a marriage work and following my spouse to foreign postings, bringing the disability rights-based opposition to E/AS to Canada and Québec, and observing the continued political and social deterioration in the United States.7

I was aware of the negative effect of the E/AS work on my mental health, and did what I could to mitigate the damage. The situation was aggravated with the pandemic (and its triage policies that threw disabled people under the bus) and the inauguration of Trump 2.0; I became unable to manage the writer’s block that had been getting worse for years. This substack has taken me more than two months to write. But as I said, I got no support from provincial health services for managing psych meds or getting effective treatment.8

Treatment approaches

Holistic v. symptom-based

Recently I was reminded of the importance of a holistic approach (in the realm of physical health), when I awoke on March 14 with a 50% loss of usable vision in my “good” eye. I took it easy that day, and (to my great relief) the problem cleared up after about 36 hours. (10% of normal vision is a lot better than 5%). I am at a loss as to how to address the underlying problem; I suspect I may have had a partially detached retina due to ocular pressure caused by Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) treatment I’ve used for 33 years to control obstructive sleep apnea. The ophthalmologist who prescribes the eyedrops for my glaucoma has never asked about the possible cause of the glaucoma, or whether it might be related to the CPAP, nor has my primary care doctor. So I don’t know which professional to consult, or how to raise my concerns, without giving the impression I am trying to tell the medical professionals how to do their job.

The same principle applies to mental health care; I believe that I probably need to do some sort of somatic-based therapy to bypass my tendency to intellectualize and avoid feeling, but am I asking too much by insisting on psychiatric support for medications specifically for Complex PTSD, or a therapist who can provide a treatment such as EMDR,9 and who understands my trauma history and experience of disability oppression?

The most appropriate therapies, the best-suited provider(s)

In November, the counsellor I had been working with for three years (who had the requisite expertise and background) abruptly terminated the therapy relationship. Since then I have interviewed several possible therapists, only to discover either that they do not provide the treatment I am looking for, or that they cannot work with me because of my location. I am searching for a therapist who is trauma informed and can work online, who is certified in EMDR and who works from a disability justice perspective.10

I have been sending the following introductory email to counsellors I find on therapist referral cites: “I’m a 64-year-old disabled, cis, white woman looking for a counsellor to work with me on complex PTSD from full-spectrum child abuse, medical trauma and ableism, as well as grown-up issues like lawyer recovery, expat status/second language self-expression, and burn out from 30 years of (draining and triggering) work opposing the legalization of assisted dying from a disability rights perspective. Specifically, I’m hoping to use adapted EMDR (I’m legally blind, so the EM part doesn’t work for me) to deal with the CPTSD; I’m open to suggestion on the other stuff.”

Hope and trust in the therapeutic relationship

Recently I got some feedback on the introductory email; I was told that it could be off-putting, or even intimidating to some potential therapists. I responded by saying “That’s kind of the point.” I don’t want to waste my time interviewing counsellors who do not understand complex trauma, or who hold medical-model views of disability, or who see assisted dying as a good idea for disabled people.11 I’m also not confident I could gain much insight in talk therapy when my nervous system reacts like a three-year-old kid who can’t see if my rampaging father is about to attack me, every time someone raises their voice. Each time I question myself about one of my criteria (“do I really need a therapist who understands ableism?” or “Do I really need to do nervous system regulation?”) I have to remind myself that I’m not asking for too much, and that I deserve to get the help I need.

Back to the question of irremediability

Is my mental illness irremediable? I hope not, and I don’t think so. I’m hoping I can cobble together the pieces of a treatment and support system into a coherent care plan for myself. But given the lack of support and help I have received from Québec’s health providers, I cannot feel assured that if I experience a sudden setback (major vision loss, death in the family) I will get the support I need without having my trauma exacerbated by the intervention of an ableist, paternalistic mental health system.

In 2022, Québec decided not to legalize euthanasia for mental illness alone, but what guarantee do I have that some well-meaning doctor or nurse practitioner might not decide that losing my remaining vision, combined with the effects of childhood trauma and any other crisis that pops up, isn’t enough to justify substituting euthanasia for suicide prevention?

Bill C-218

Disability rights activists oppose E/AS because we understand that, while cloaked in “good intentions” the state only intervenes to end disabled lives, because of the belief that disability is a fate worse than death. Bill C-218, which would prohibit MAiD for people whose request is based only on a mental illness, is a small step toward redressing the deadly, eugenic, ersatz form of “care” that is MAiD.

1 World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics, 11th Edition, (2022), 6B41 Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder https://icd.who.int/browse/2024-01/mms/en#585833559.

2 Oliveira-Maia AJ, Bobrowska A, Constant E, Ito T, Kambarov Y, Luedke H, Mulhern-Haughey S, von Holt C.; Treatment-Resistant Depression in Real-World Clinical Practice: A Systematic Literature Review of Data from 2012 to 2022. Adv Ther. 2024 Jan;41(1):34-64. doi: 10.1007/s12325-023-02700-0. Epub 2023 Oct 26. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10796703/.

3 Konrad, M., and Ferrier, C., “Commentary: MAID: No Evidence Base for Futility and Irremediability in Psychiatric Disorders,” Psychiatric Times, April 6, 2026, https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/maid-no-evidence-base-for-futility-and-irremediability-in-psychiatric-disorders.

4 The ACE survey is far from complete; it does not account for medical trauma, discrimination, bullying, witnessing domestic violence, or the effects of war, natural disasters, displacement and migration. The World Health Organization’s ACE International Questionnaire takes more factors (such as discrimination, bullying and collective violence) into account, but does not include medical trauma.

5 One fly in my security ointment comes from the fact that my husband, who can no longer work and is losing mobility, finds meaning in life through helping homeless and marginalized people (some of whom are active alcoholics and drug addicts), who come to the house for loans emotional support or to do odd jobs. We have agreed that, for my sense of safety, they will only come between 1 and 5 in the afternoon, and that people who are intoxicated may not come into the house.

6 In 1991, at a workshop I gave (along with colleagues in a support group of disabled women survivors of child sexual abuse) called “Adding Incest to Injury” we presented on the multiplier effects of ableism and child sexual abuse. We described how being trained to compliance and treated as objects of medical care increased our vulnerability to sexual abuse, while the loss of control during sexual violation made us more susceptible to shame and existential confusion caused by disability discrimination.

7 Forever wars, anti-immigrant policies, the #MeToo movement in response to the predator-in-chief and the Epstein files, the failure of democracy and the backlash against diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.

8 From what I can gather, the only way to get comprehensive mental health services in Québec is to be in crisis, which would precipitate a response from the system that would deprive me of control over what treatment I receive and where and how I received it. This is highly triggering for a person with Complex PTSD, as I learned when I was hospitalized in 1991 and 1997, and can do more harm than the beneficial effects of the treatment.

9 Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is an extensively researched, effective psychotherapy method in which the person focuses briefly on the traumatic memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation, which can reduce the vividness and emotion associated with the trauma memories. Ongoing research supports positive clinical outcomes, showing EMDR therapy as a helpful treatment for disorders such as anxiety, depression, OCD, chronic pain, addictions, and Complex PTSD (Maxfield, 2019). EMDR therapy has even been superior to Prozac in trauma treatment.)

10 Disability justice is an intersectional framework and movement, coined in 2005 by queer disabled people of color, that centers the lives and leadership of marginalized disabled people. It moves beyond legal rights to address how ableism, racism, colonialism, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy intersect to harm people, the biome, and the environment)

11 FN One therapist wondered why I was working so hard to prevent people from having euthanasia if they wanted to be dead. It made me wonder if she provided suicide prevention intervention to all clients who were suicidal, or just non-disabled ones.

Amy Hasbrouck is the director of Toujours Vivant - Not Dead Yet and a past-President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Belgium 2025 euthanasia report: a record number of euthanasia deaths.

Belgian 2025 report: There were 4,486 reported euthanasia deaths up by 12.4% in 2024.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The European Institute of Bioethics (IEB-EIB) reported that the 2025 Belgian euthanasia report indicated that there were 4,486 reported euthanasia deaths in 2025 representing a 12.4% increase from 2024. According the IEB-EIB (Google translated from French):

On March 20, the Belgian Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia (CFCEE) released figures on euthanasia cases reported for 2025. 

The number of officially recorded euthanasia deaths last year reached a new record: 4,486 were reported to the Commission. This represents a 12.4% increase compared to 2024, a 51% increase over three years, and almost a doubling in just five years. 

Euthanasia now accounts for 4% of all deaths registered in Belgium, and this upward trend could intensify, judging by the reasons given on euthanasia registration forms. 

Multiple pathologies, the second most frequently cited condition after cancer, have increased by 67% in two years and now represent nearly a third of all reported euthanasia cases. More specifically, the proportion of euthanasia done on individuals who were not terminally ill due to multiple chronic conditions has literally increased tenfold in five years, rising from 5.9% to 57.3%. 

These percentages, which have been steadily increasing since the decriminalization of this practice in Belgium, raising serious questions: has old age become a sufficient reason to resort to euthanasia? 

Multiple chronic conditions: a vague category akin to the weariness of living.

In its latest biennial report published in 2025, the Control Commission highlighted this continued rise in euthanasia based on the criterion of multiple chronic conditions and explained that:

"this percentage will continue to increase, as multiple chronic conditions are associated with the aging process that patients undergo." 

Indeed, multiple chronic conditions, according to the Commission, refer to "a combination of conditions caused by several chronic illnesses that are progressing towards a terminal stage." In practice, these conditions can include end-stage heart failure, hemiplegia due to a stroke, as well as cognitive impairment, vision or hearing loss, rheumatoid arthritis, or incontinence. 

While some of these conditions are life-threatening, they primarily affect quality of life, which explains why, in 2025, more than half of the euthanasia deaths in this category (57.3%) were done when death was not expected in the short term. Is the fear of dependency becoming sufficient to shorten life? 

To understand what justifies euthanasia based on these conditions, that do not directly threaten life, one must bear in mind the subjective logic followed by the Oversight Commission in its verification of the legality of euthanasia, according to which the patient's perception of suffering is considered authoritative. 

In cases of multiple chronic conditions, the chronic progression of illnesses extends over several years and can cause significant psychological suffering, according to the Commission. Based on the scientific research of Marianne Dees, the Commission reports that:

"feelings of hopelessness, dependence on care, fear of further deterioration, and fear of increased physical suffering are determining factors in requests for euthanasia." 

In this context, it is also understandable that in 86% of all reported cases of euthanasia, both physical and psychological suffering were mentioned simultaneously. This finding underscores the vital need for better support for the elderly and at the end of life in general, so that weariness of living and fear of dependency do not become sufficient reasons to shorten a person's life.

The IEB-EIB refer to reported euthanasia deaths since previous studies indicate that there is a significant number of euthanasia that are simply not reported. Therefore the actual number of euthanasia deaths is likely much higher.

Some recent articles on Belgium's experience with euthanasia.

• Belgian bioethics committee supports eugenic euthanasia (Read). 
• Belgium debates expanding euthanasia to people with dementia (Read). 
• Almost 4000 reported Belgian euthanasia deaths in 2024 (Read). 
• The President of Belgium's largest health insurance fund promotes euthanasia as an answer to healthcare funding. (Read). 
• Belgian doctor completes euthanasia with a pillow (Read).
  

Mental Illness is not Terminal.

This article was published by Kelsi Sheren on her substack on March 6, 2026.

By Kelsi Sheren

Canada may be the only country on earth where the healthcare system can sometimes help you die faster than it can help you heal. That should alarm people, but it doesn’t because our media its brainwashing you.

Instead, Canadians are being slowly conditioned to accept it and provinces like Quebec, Ontario and BC are drinking the kool aid, wiping their mouth and asking for more.

Here’s the the thing. This isn’t being done through legislation alone. It’s through the current government’s media push. Paid and bought by the Liberals.

A recent CTV story profiles a Canadian woman hoping to access Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) for mental illness. The headline reassures readers: “It won’t be violent. I won’t be alone.” The tone is soft. Compassionate. Almost comforting. At first glance it feels empathetic. Human. Gentle.

But look closer and something else is happening, this is what abandonment looks like and stories like this are not just reporting. They are preparation. This is the slow drip I’ve been writing about for years. The frog in the boiling pot.

This is how societies normalize radical ideas. You don’t push the public into a moral shift all at once. You soften the ground. You tell personal stories, tug at th heart strings. “But grandma, Kelsi!” You highlight suffering. You frame the decision as brave and dignified, when it’s anything but then slowly, the public begins to see assisted death not as a tragedy or a failure of care, but as compassion. Let me be very clear, this is nothing more than a form of modern eugenics.

The article walks readers through one person’s suffering in intimate detail, but it avoids asking the uncomfortable questions responsible journalism should raise. Instead, the language gently reassures the reader. It won’t be violent. She won’t be alone. The emphasis is on dignity, control, and compassion.

That framing matters, for several reason and when media coverage consistently presents assisted death through the lens of empathy and personal relief, the public begins to associate the act itself with kindness rather than consequence.

What’s missing is just as important as what’s included. There is little discussion about recovery rates for severe depression. Little exploration of how suicidal thinking fluctuates. Little examination of the long history of suicide prevention that treats these impulses as crises to intervene in—not requests to formalize.

There is almost no attention paid to the broader system failing people long before they reach this point, failed drugs, therapy, SSRI’s, community and support. When stories like this are told without that context, they do something subtle but powerful. They normalize the idea that some suffering lives may simply be beyond help.

That is not a neutral editorial choice.

It is narrative shaping, and CTV, CBC, GLOBAL and other “mainstream” media and Canada are known for this. Let’s say the part that too many people are afraid to say out loud.

MENTAL ILLNESS IS NOT TERMINAL.

Depression, PTSD, trauma, and suicidal thinking can be brutal. They can make people believe there is no way out. I know that reality personally. I’m a combat veteran. I’ve lived through PTSD, a traumatic brain injury, hearing loss, and major depressive disorder. There were periods where the darkness was overwhelming and the idea of continuing felt impossible. I thought of suicide for over a decade. Every waking minute.

Those are exactly the kinds of conditions people are now discussing as justification for assisted death.

And yet I HEALED, contrary to the death cult’s narrative and hope I’m sure. Not overnight. Not easily. But I rebuilt my life, day by day. Breath by breath, moment by moment. I never gave up, when quitting was the easy thing to do. That’s the part of the story that rarely gets told in these conversations.

Because if someone like me had been offered death during my lowest point, I am very certain I would NOT be here today. How many others would be gone too, coerced into an early death by sick people.

Recovery from mental illness is not theoretical. It happens every single day. People stabilize. They find treatment that works. They build purpose again. They reconnect to life in ways they never thought possible. I’ve not only seen people do, I’ve helped them get there because it truly takes a village.

But when a society begins offering death as a medical solution to psychological suffering, it risks cutting those futures short. What also rarely gets mentioned is the system surrounding this debate.

Canada is in the middle of a mental health crisis. Therapy is expensive and often inaccessible. Psychiatric care can take months, at a minimum to access. Veterans struggle to get consistent treatment, if any. Housing instability, addiction, trauma, and poverty compound mental illness across the country.

In other words, help is often difficult to find, to say the least but death is becoming easier.

Canadians can spend months trying to access psychiatric care. But once someone enters the MAID system, the machinery of the state can move with stunning efficiency. In some cases, the process can unfold in a matter of hours.

Think about that. SAME DAY DEATH CARE.

We have built a healthcare system where the bureaucracy can move faster for death than it does for treatment. Thats an uncomfortable fact the media and health cults don’t want you to realize.

For decades, if someone told a doctor they wanted to die because of mental suffering, the response was immediate intervention. Crisis teams. Hospitalization. Suicide prevention. The entire point of mental health care was to stop someone from acting on a moment of despair. Simply put a 72 hr hold to protect yourself, from yourself.

Now we are debating whether the same healthcare system should sometimes agree with that impulse and formalize it. That contradiction should stop this conversation cold yet it doesn’t.

Instead, the public is being slowly acclimatized to the idea. One sympathetic story at a time. One emotional narrative at a time. The tone softens. The language shifts. The moral boundary moves.

This is the slow drip, this is the psy op everyone seems to be missing. The deeper ethical questions rarely make the headlines.

Who decides when suffering is “irremediable”? I argue Dr’s who are just as sick.

How many treatments must someone try before society agrees their life is no longer worth living? Apparently days to weeks, we don’t give anyone a fighting chance.

What happens when someone’s despair is driven not by an untreatable illness, but by poverty, isolation, trauma, or lack of care? These are not philosophical hypotheticals. These are real decisions that will affect the most vulnerable people in this country.

There is also a deeper question that almost no one in this debate seems willing to ask. Who told us we were ever promised control over how we exit this world?

At some point we began to act as if death should be scheduled, managed, and optimized like any other life decision. But no one promised us that kind of control. Life has never worked that way and it shouldn’t now.

What we do know is this moments of despair do not define the entire arc of a human life regardless of what Dr’s are telling you now. Suicidality, depression, trauma, and mental illness can feel permanent when you are inside them. They lie to you. They convince you there is no future worth waiting for. They are the dark voice. But those conditions do not have to mean death.

I am living proof of that, and I'm damn proud of it too.

A country that cannot reliably provide treatment, housing, therapy, and long-term mental health care—but can reliably provide assisted death—is sending a message about which lives are worth fighting for.

I lived through PTSD, traumatic brain injury, hearing loss, and major depressive disorder. These are exactly the kinds of conditions people are getting ready to be killed for.

I healed. You can too.

Recent/Proposed Policy Changes Will Have Serious Consequences For People With Disabilities

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader

Meghan is an instructor at E4 - University of Texas (Austin) and is a member of the EPC-USA board.

As I’ve written, the government has made or attempted to make several major policy changes that weaken disability rights laws in the United States, and the people that I know who have defended disabled people’s dignity for decades would oppose these policies no matter who wanted to implement them.

I am not arguing that everyone who voted for this government or everyone who works with it is “evil,” constitutionally “hateful,” or intended for these policy changes to occur. I am not demanding that individuals have perfect disability rights literacy or agree with the mainstream disability rights movement on every nuance of every issue; I am offering education. I hope that this post can help other euthanasia opponents understand why these policies are not minor “cosmetic” changes, nor are they “culture war” issues, they are thoroughgoing policy shifts that will harm people with disabilities; and are generally things that all euthanasia opponents can oppose in good conscience. 

In order to constrain the length of this blog post, I will focus on the subjects of institutionalization, Special Education and efforts to weaken or repeal something called the Final Rule, which enhanced the protections afforded by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, one of the USA’s flagship disability rights laws. Lastly, I will discuss the implications of President Trump’s nomination of Justin R. Olson to be the United States District Judge for the Southern District of Indiana; because regardless of his qualifications or what kind of person he is, his past statements about disabled people exemplify stigmatizing cultural narratives about disability that I think all euthanasia opponents can work to remediate. 

As I’ve shared, I have experienced several bouts of refractory mental illness. I am doing pretty well now, but I have already experienced the consequences of society deprioritizing community support, and President Trump’s executive order increasing federal reliance on psychiatric hospitalization puts me at higher risk of being placed in a long-term, dysfunctional setting during a relapse. I encourage readers to imagine the terror and despair of someone unnecessarily confined in a psychiatric institution, wandering around a dingy, cold hallway listening to other people screaming, trying to get through some bureaucratic, dysfunctional process of being released and establishing support in the community for weeks, months or even years. I don’t think it’s fair for people like me to endure that Hell when other social structures and resources could be used to support us.

Furthermore, education is one of the most important tools that people have to attain jobs and all of the benefits that come from having a job. It’s also a critical component of people learning to socialize, learn critical thinking skills and form healthy relationships. Therefore, our Secretary of Education not knowing any details about The Individuals With Disabilities Act is harmful to students with disabilities and I hope that she learns more about it before making other decisions about Special Education. Dismissing the majority of the Department of Education’s Special Education and Rehabilitation Services staff during the government shutdown interrupted their ability to manage education and employment for vulnerable people. Radically shrinking programs and staff for post secondary transition and employment services for young people with disabilities while nixing plans to phase out subminimum wages will increase disabled Americans’ risk of the same poverty that is driving disabled Canadians to seek “MAiD.” Canceling Special Education grants that fund teacher training and deafblind students, and various proposed overhauls to the Special Education system are also likely to harm those students’ futures. These issues are personal to me, given that I teach young people with intellectual disabilities and was a Special Education student. 

Various moves related to the Final Rule also potentially undermine disabled people’s well-being. The Final Rule was an amazing legislative update to the flagship disability rights law Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. It established new moral guardrails for the treatment of disabled people, such as increased access to community supports that help prevent institutionalization, new opportunities for disabled parents and better internet access.

The Final Rule also set minimum nursing home staffing requirements to keep residents from being neglected. Nevertheless, the government recently rescinded the Final Rule’s minimum staffing requirements at institutions. The Final Rule’s staffing stipulation was meant to help prevent situations in which disabled and elderly people living in institutions were left to be hungry and sit in their own filth. The repeal of that staffing requirement will worsen the impact of assisted suicide on vulnerable people living in those institutions and is unjust whether “MAiD” is legal or not. 

Indeed, the Texas vs. Kennedy (formerly Texas vs. Becerra) lawsuit, which is often framed as solely seeking to repeal the Final Rule's classification of gender dysphoria as a disability, actually also seeks to repeal the entire Final Rule. (The lawsuit originally contained language asking to repeal Section 504 itself, but apparently that part of the lawsuit has been dropped.)

Regardless of what one believes about whether the Final Rule’s clause about gender dysphoria ought to exist, it’s a fact that the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit could be limited to the one clause about gender dysphoria. Instead, the Demand For Relief on page 42 of the lawsuit proposes to do away with all of the Final Rule, because it “creates regulatory burdens” and “imposes additional costs to the states.” 

Frustration with the “burdens” of caregiving that underlies assisted suicide ideology should not be allowed to find its way into other policies. One need not support the Final Rule’s clause about gender dysphoria to conclude that the rest of the provisions in the Final Rule are acts of compassion that the human community owes to all people with disabilities. 

For instance, the  Final Rule also stipulates that healthcare providers use accessible medical equipment. Bear in mind that one of the ways hospital staff have tried to bully disabled Canadian Roger Foley into assisted suicide is to withhold medical equipment and procedures needed to meet his basic needs, and that disabled Canadian Normand Meunier died by “MAiD” because a hospital didn’t  keep an accessible mattress on hand which resulted in him developing a festering bedsore. The government repealing the minimum nursing staff requirements in the Final Rule and the Texas vs. Kennedy lawsuit’s efforts to repeal it completely regresses US institution practices so that they are more like Canada’s. 

Most importantly for the assisted suicide fight, Section 84.56(a) of the Final Rule forbids doctors from making “quality of life” decisions that cause disabled people’s deaths. This provision is a huge help to our assisted suicide fight; I hate to see us loose that tool because the entire Final Rule was declared unconstitutional. (If you wish to write and ask the 17 attorney generals who filed Texas vs. Kennedy to drop the part of the lawsuit that challenges the entire Final Rule, and/or ask them to specifically preserve Section 84.56 (a), contact information is available here.) 

Finally, I think the possible judicial appointment of Justin R. Olson provides an opportunity for opponents to consider how they can help remediate harmful attitudes about disability. When Olson was an ordained elder in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, he gave a sermon saying that marriage was not intended for “our handicapped friends or our persons with physical disabilities that might prevent the robust marriage that we’re called to.” When Republican Senator John Kennedy asked Olson about that statement, he said, “I was explaining the meaning of Christ’s words that some are, um, to use Christ’s words, are eunuchs by birth, and explaining the meaning in the context of that verse of those who are called to singleness.” Olson then asserted, “I was using that statement as an illustration of why some don’t get married, not as a kind of reason why someone shouldn’t.” 

Regardless of context or intent, I think Olson’s statement naturally carries the implication, “Your marriages are inferior so God wants you to be single, disabled people.” I think it’s important for euthanasia opponents to know that such messages alienate disabled people from the support of our faith communities, reinforce the idea that disabled people are sexually and personally undesirable, and thematically constitute what has been called “Preaching Eugenics;” during the original American eugenics era a segment of the clergy promoted that movement’s message that God did not intend for disabled people to get married or procreate. I don’t want people who think like that to have power over disabled people’s lives, so regardless of whether he is confirmed, I hope Olson’s perspective on disability evolves to become more accurate and fair. 

Irrespective of anyone’s character or intentions, these attitudes and policies are not ethical, and I think that good-hearted euthanasia opponents from all over the political spectrum are able to understand that they are not ethical. I have faith that America and countries around the world can create better policies and attitudes because there is a long history of bipartisan support for sound disability policies. I have met people from all over the ideological spectrum who care about disabled people, so I hope that our current leaders will begin to make decisions that prioritize disabled people’s well-being. And, I hope that whichever leaders take the place of our current ones-whatever political party they are or wherever they stand on various “culture war” issues-will work with disability advocates to create creative policies that put disabled people’s well-being first. Part of fighting “MAiD” is correcting the pattern of circumstances that make killing disabled people seem acceptable and humane.