Life Worth Living. Winner at the Niagara International Film Festival.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I was talking with Frank Panico, who filmed and edited the Life Worth Living film, about the film festivals that we entered the Life Worth Living film. While going through the list we noticed that Life Worth Living was considered in several film festivals, it was screened in a few festivals and it won at the Niagara International Film Festival in June 2026.

This was a significant achievement and I wish we had known this earlier.

The Life Worth Living film was also a finalist at the Remember the Future World Film Festival in Cannes France.

You should screen the Life Worth Living film in your community. You can help change hearts and minds by screening the award winning Life Worth Living film. 

Purchase or rent the Life Worth Living film from the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at: https://lifeworthlivingfilm.com

Watch the Life Worth Living film trailer:

Reviews we received of the film:

I just watched Life Worth Living and I have to say I'm so incredibly impressed. I can't contain my enthusiasm for this film. It's one of the best film projects on the subject of medical killing ever. I'd expect awards to be forthcoming for best documentary film. Lester.

Another review:

I have purchased the film "Life Worth Living" a couple of weeks ago and have watched it. I feel that it's a film that everyone should watch because it shows what is happening in the system of "health" care in Canada and it opens our eyes to the reality of how far our government and the medical system has gone in the direction of killing people instead of healing people.

I would like to ask permission to show this film for our parish community. Eva

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition granted Eva permission to have the film shown in her community. Please arrange screenings of the film.

 

Life Worth Living features:

• Alicia Duncan, whose mother died by euthanasia with conditions based on mental health, 
• Kelsi Sheren, a Canadian military veteran who came back from combat with PTSD and other disabilities. Kelsi is a social media influencer and a life coach.
• Roger Foley, a Canadian man living with a significant disability who has been pressured by hospital staff to request euthanasia.
• Dr David D'Souza, an Ontario chronic pain specialist.
• Dr Catherine Ferrier, a Quebec Gerontologist and a leader of Physicians' Alliance against Euthanasia, 
• Dr Will Johnston, a Vancouver family physician and leader of Euthanasia Resistance BC
• Kathy Matusiak Costa, Executive Director of Compassionate Community Care,
• Alex Schadenberg, (myself), author, keynote speaker, International leader opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition needs your help.

1. Purchase the Life Worth Living Film (Life Worth Living film Link)
2. Arrange to have Life Worth Living shown in your community. Contact us at: info@epcc.ca
3. You may want a speaker at the event to lead a discussion. Contact us at: info@epcc.ca

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

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We support caring for people and we oppose killing people.

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

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

Further to that, the incentive to kill is great.

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

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

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

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

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

VSED is part of the assisted suicide agenda.

Gordon Friesen

By Gordon Friesen
President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

One of our great friends and allies, Wesley J. Smith, has recently written about the British Medical Association's newly minted policy and other bioethics articles which require doctors to collaborate with patients who are attempting to kill themselves through hunger and thirst.

This practice is commonly euphemized as ‘voluntarily stopping eating and drinking’, which ungainly expression is then replaced with the more slick-sounding acronym ‘VSED’. However we must unfortunately note (as usual) that the most important facts of this matter are absent from that deceptive formulation: first, the primary fact of suicide does not appear at all; and second, a misleading confusion is suggested between this specific method, of suicide, and traditionally familiar practices of fasting.

To be clear on this score, our subject has nothing to do with fasting (even to the point of death). For our bodies are well adapted to suffer the naturally frequent periods of famine to which we have been exposed throughout our evolution.

That is what makes fasting so comparatively easy (as long as fluid intake is properly maintained). For after a brief period of normal hunger (familiar to all occasional fasters), our bodies literally hunker down to wait out the interruption of nourishment.

Indeed, dying of hunger takes approximately one day for every pound of fat on our bodies, followed by another day for every three pounds of muscle. Hence, suicide by fasting is relatively painless, but takes a very long time, which generally provides plenty of opportunity for second thoughts.

Deprivation of fluids, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter. In this case, death follows in a few days only. And for that practical reason, our bodies are not adapted to quietly suffer thirst. Indeed, thirst is a biological emergency, and our bodies ring the alarm on this emergency through the communication of insufferable discomfort.

It is this unbearable discomfort, in turn, which death-friendly doctors happily propose to alleviate, through the provision of various medications (which also heavily impair critical thought). In other words: because suicide by dehydration is virtually impossible to endure, it is only the assistance of doctors which make such deaths possible, by numbing both the body and the brain.

For that reason, so-called ‘VSED’ is clearly an instance of assisted suicide, not mere comfort care and because doctors are professionally responsible for their acts in a way that ordinary people are not, it is also a form of medical homicide.

In truth, while so-called ‘VSED’ might appear very similar to terminal sedation, it is also much more problematic. For palliative sedation is only to be used in the most difficult of medical cases. But suicide by dehydration may be chosen, by any person, for any reason. It thus represents a truly radical departure from accepted norms, by providing suicidal persons with a voluntary entry point to the practical equivalent of palliative sedation, but without the need of medical justification. 

In reporting on the decision of the British Medical Association (to force the collaboration of doctors with this practice) the headline message has quite properly been centered upon the serious attack, thus produced, upon individual and institutional rights of conscience. For dissenting doctors, and institutions, are thus robbed of that crucial medical status, of independent moral agent, upon which all patients rely for proper care.

It is also worthwhile, however, to recall the importance of medically assisted suicide by dehydration, even in those jurisdictions where no such compulsion has yet been contemplated.

In the simplest of terms: so-called ‘VSED’ is definitely a form of medically assisted suicide, and yet its practice is legal in all States. Which means that even if you live in a State where assisted suicide is illegal, medically assisted suicide (VSED) is still being practised, in your State.

Furthermore, all of the terrible harms of medical homicide are enabled through this practice. For if there is nothing illegal about informing patients of the dehydration suicide option (and there is not) then there is similarly no check on any death-practitioner's ability to energetically market their product, and thus to professionally deliver as many people from the pains of human existence, as they possibly can.

In fact, unlike any other form of medical homicide (in the US or even in Canada) medically assisted suicide by dehydration is already available for dementia patients, through professionally solicited advance requests (similarly legal in all States).

Such, then, is the portrait of that formidable Trojan Horse, medically assisted suicide by dehydration (aka ‘VSED’).

Becoming aware of this practice, as yet another finger on the hand of medical homicide (and by no means the least of these) is a powerful first step in pushing back.

And while we may understand the zealous actions of fully devoted death-cult physicians, it is less easy to understand why our leaders, as in this latest British example, are so keenly committed to the promotion, and facilitation, of that extreme death agenda.

Sellling euthanasia (MAiD) at the bedside.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Do not ask me about euthanasia. I am not interested.

I was contacted by a woman who called us on behalf of her elderly Aunt who was receiving treatment in a hospital in London Ontario.

The Aunt wanted to know if there was anything that could be done to stop the MAiD team from asking her if she wanted MAiD.

The woman told me that her Aunt was asked, if she wanted euthanasia twice, in a pretty persuasive manner, and she said NO.

The woman told me that her Aunt was very upset because the person in the bed next to her was sold euthanasia at the bedside. Her Aunt told her that the MAiD team sold euthanasia as a beautiful death and made the person in the bed next to her, who was not asking for euthanasia, fear that she would otherwise have a terrible death.

The Aunt was concerned that the MAiD team might do the same to her, when she was going through a difficult time.

I told the woman to order the Life Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care for her Aunt.

The clear language in the EPC Life Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care is designed to protect her life.

EPC sells the Life Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care for $10 + taxes. Order the Life Protecting Power of Attorney (Order Link) or call EPC at: 1-877-439-3348 or info@epcc.ca

I asked if they wanted our new Do not ask me about euthanasia. I am not interested card.  

 

EPC will send this card with any donation amount (Donation Link) or by emailing us at info@epcc.ca.

EPC will also send you the Do Not Kill Me. I oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide card upon request. Just email us at: info@epcc.ca.

MAiD teams are selling euthanasia at the bedside. This is a form of coercion.

Euthanasia is medical homicide.

Support Alex's half-marathon fundraising run by donating to CCC and/or EPC

Alex Schadenberg and Marcel Lemmen are running a half-marathon on September 27, 2026 to raise money for the Compassionate Community Charity (CCC) and/or the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

This is the seventh consecutive year that Alex and Marcel are running the half-marathon fund-raiser for CCC and EPC.

The money raised for CCC from the previous 6 half-marathon runs combined is almost $90,000. 

Donations from the half-marathon (21.1 km) run are very much appreciated. 

 

The Compassionate Community Care (CCC) charity operates a help-line, a training program for visiting seniors, an advocacy training program and a calling service for lonely seniors.

Charitable donations can be made to Compassionate Community Care at: (Donation Link).

 

You may also consider donating to the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

 
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition informs, educates, and supports opposition to killing by euthanasia and assisted suicide and endorses proper care for people in need.

Donate to the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which is not a charity, at: (Donation Link).

Training and normalizing (MAiD) medical homicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I was speaking to an Ontario palliative care nurse who said that she recently participated in a required (MAiD) euthanasia training session. The training session didn't force her to participate in the act but the session promoted participation in euthanasia and explained how to do it.

Euthanasia (medical homicide) is the killing of a person upon request. It is done by injecting the person with poison drugs that paralyze and put the person into coma and then prevents the lungs from breathing, which causes death.

The nurse said that she was surprised to learn, at the session, that Canadians who are not terminally ill, could be killed by (MAiD) medical homicide.

The nurse stated that she completely opposes euthanasia and would not participate in euthanasia, nonetheless, she was required to attend the "MAiD" training session.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition opposes killing people.

Normalizing killing.

Normalization is a process that reduces the natural opposition to killing. Throughout human history when a society decides that it is OK to kill a certain class of people, that process starts with propaganda and is followed by a normalization process.

Medical homicide training sessions are designed to increase the number of willing killers as well as to normalize the act.

Selling euthanasia.

We have received many calls from supporters who are shocked when a doctor or nurse asks them if they want (MAiD) euthanasia, an act that they would never consider. 

Often the person is asked, many time, if they want to be killed. They are even asked after saying NO. One supporter called and said that her husband was asked 5 times.

Asking patients if they want to be killed by euthanasia is another normalization technique as it creates the impression that euthanasia is the same as any other medical procedure and it is a way of selling euthanasia.

What was sold to the culture as being a free choice, is now being sold to the public as the choice. But to sell killing to the public society avoids the reality, that euthanasia is about killing people. 

It is not compassionate, it is not about freedom, and for many it is not about choice, it is about killing and it is often an abandonment of a person in need.

Contact the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition if you have felt "pressured" or "coerced" to consider euthanasia or if you are a medical professional who has felt pressured to participate in killing.

Your story is important, not only to inform the public, but also to give others permission to also tell their story. Change will only come after

Free online film screening of Prescription Poison on August 27.

Register for the free online screening of Prescription Poison: Averting Assisted Suicide in America 

Thursday, August 27 at: 2 pm (Eastern Time) / 11 am (Pacific Time).

The Prescription Poison film is produced by Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and Frank Panico with Xs in the Sky films.  

Topic: Prescription Poison - Averting Assisted Suicide in America

Thursday Aug 27, 2026 2 PM Eastern Time/11 am Pacific 

Time. Register in advance for this meeting: (Registration Link). 

Prescription Poison is 43 minutes and will be followed by a discussion.

Prescription Poison is ground-breaking documentary exposing the expansion of assisted suicide in America.

Prescription Poison seeks to awaken America to the growth of assisted suicide and is a warning to Americans that, unless stopped, the Canadian system of killing will become a reality in America.

Purchase the Prescription Poison film for $10 US (download) or $15 DVD at: Prescriptionpoison.com

Watch the Prescription Poison Trailer:

Topic: Prescription Poison - Averting Assisted Suicide in America.

Thursday, Aug 27, 2026 2 pm Eastern Time/11 am Pacific Time.

Register in advance for this meeting: (Registration Link).

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition needs your support.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) exists to build a well-informed, broadly-based network of groups and individuals supporting measures that will create an effective social barrier to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Canada created the term (MAiD) - medical assistance in dying, to make us feel better about killing, but the reality is that Canada legalized euthanasia in 2016 and expanded the law in 2021 by removing the requirement that a person be terminally ill to be killed.

In January EPC released the Life Worth Living film that explains what has happened in Canada while featuring important personal stories related to euthanasia. This is a powerful award winning film. You can watch the trailer or purchase the film at: https://lifeworthlivingfilm.com/

Canada is currently scheduled to extend euthanasia to people with a mental illness alone in March 2027.

On May 5, 2026, we spoke to the Parliamentary Committee that was examining the extension of euthanasia to mental illness alone. The position of EPC is to demand that Canada fully review it's euthanasia law rather than further expand the law. On June 17, the parliamentary committee advised the federal government to not extend euthanasia to people with mental illness alone. We await the government's response.

EPC is intervening in a court case concerning euthanasia for mental illness alone. Claire Brosseau and the euthanasia lobby launched an emergency court case that would approve Brosseau for death by euthanasia based on mental illness alone. In essence, the euthanasia lobby want the court to legislate from the bench by approving death for Brosseau as the Canadian government continues to debate this issue.

The cost of intervening in the Brosseau case is excessive. We need your financial support to cover the legal costs. (EPC Donation Link).

EPC supports Bill C-218 which is a private members bill that will prevent euthanasia for mental illness alone in Canada. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition urges Canadians to sign our petition in support of Bill C-218. (Petition Link).

For more information you can read our newsletters (newsletters link) or you can read more of our blog articles (EPC Blog Link). The EPC blog has more than 6300 articles and has had more than 17 million pageviews.

EPC has many more activities. We need your support to continue our work. Donations can be made at: (credit card online Link) or (Paypal donation Link) or send an E-transfer to info@epcc.ca or call EPC at: 1-877-439-3348.

Alicia Duncan's Book Launch in Abbotsford and Vancouver BC - August 20/21.

Join Alex Schadenberg and attend the book launch for the powerful - The Other Side of the Straightjacket, by Alicia Duncan.

EPC is promoting the Book Launch Celebrations on: August 20 in Abbotsford and August 21 in Vancouver.

August 20, 2026 - The book launch is at: The Reach Gallery Museum, 32388 Veterans Way, Abbotsford BC V2T 0B3 from 6:30 - 9:00 pm (Link to register).

August 21, 2026 - Author presentation and book signing is at Suite Genius, 225 W 8th Ave Vancouver BC V5Y 1N3 from 6:30 - 8:00 pm (Link to register).

 

Purchase the book from the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition for $25 (plus shipping) (Purchase Link).

In 2021, Alicia’s mother, Donna Duncan, died by Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), a death that sparked national controversy and led to the first police investigation into a MAiD death in Canada. What began as a daughter’s search for answers became years of advocacy, legal action, and a mission to expose troubling gaps in the systems mean't to protect vulnerable people.

Donna’s story has been featured by major media outlets, including the BBC documentary Better Off Dead? and CBC’s The Fifth Estate. Alicia has since become a recognized voice in the national and international conversation around assisted dying, most recently providing testimony to Canada’s Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (AMAD).

More than anything, these events are about the story behind the book: why Alicia felt compelled to write it, what she learned in the process, and why these conversations matter now more than ever.

• Article: How the narrative control is narrowing Canada's MAiD debate (Read).
• Article: Alicia Duncan, History will remember the lives saved or lost (Read).

Event in Jordon Ontario - Exposing Assisted Suicide / Euthanasia in Canada (August 13)

Lessons on opposing MAiD in Canada

Rachel Parker Live and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition are sponsoring an important event in Jordan Ontario

Date: Thursday, August 13 at 7 pm.

Location: The Jordan Hotel

(Purchase tickets) 

Use discount code: RP FOLLOWER 

An evening with: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Executive Director, Alex Schadenberg, podcaster Rachel Parker and author / activist Jonathon Van Maren.

The evening provides excellent speakers and an incredible opportunity to focus-on and share what needs to be done to change Canada's future. 

(Purchase tickets) 

 

Is MAiD Medical Murder? A Podcast Discussion

Podcast exposes red flags regarding MAiD in Canada

Viviana Runstedler
Staff Writer, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr Christopher Shaw

*The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition refers to (MAiD) euthanasia as medical homicide.

We are pleased to share information on a podcast episode that exposes the truth about (MAiD) euthanasia in Canada that mainstream podcasts avoid discussing.

On an episode aired July 17th 2026, the Children’s Health Defense (Canada Chapter) interviewed two medical professionals about (MAiD) euthanasia in Canada. 

Dr Christopher Shaw is a neuroscientist and professor at the University of British Columbia as well as the co-chair of the scientific and medical advisory committee of the Canadian Citizens Care Alliance. Dr York N. Hsiang is a professor emeritus of surgery also at the University of British Columbia and a member of the scientific and medical advisory committee of the Canadian Citizens Care Alliance. Together, these two doctors presented a helpful overview of the current state of MAiD in Canada and shared eye-opening information concerning the ongoing execution of MAiD.

Dr York N. Hsiang

Dr Hsiang began by reminding listeners that MAiD is now the 5th leading cause of death in Canada and is an effective way to recoup healthcare costs. He briefly reviews recent discussions to expand Canadian MAiD approvals for mental illness and for minors. He went on to discuss issues within the current MAiD system.

One major issue presented by Dr Hsiang involves the misuse and misunderstanding of the drugs used in MAiD. The drugs used in Canada are essentially anesthetics used in very high doses to cause death. He referenced a 2022 article in the Canadian Medical Association journal that “only 21% of the physicians who are actively giving MAiD can be said to fully understand the drugs that they are giving for MAiD” (timestamp 8:30)

Dr Hsiang continues:

“about a quarter of patients took over an hour to die. And this is, clinically, this meaning you no longer have a heartbeat. Your brain could still be functioning, but you no longer have a heartbeat and so you are then deemed to be dead. The shocking thing is that when you actually look at the drugs that are being used, many of the drugs, in particular being the kill shot, the cardio-toxic drugs, in one quarter of those patients was not given. Why was that? Was that the reason why patients were taking over 1 hour to die? At the same time when MAiD is explained to be a painless procedure, less than one percent of the patients actually received a true medication for pain, in other words a narcotic. Very very surprising. And so, I have concerns that as the program gets expanded even more there’s going to be more practitioners that want to get on to this because it is lucrative and the majority of them don’t have any training. Nobody has training in how to kill a patient, our whole training is how to save a patient and keep them alive.” (timestamp 10:15)

Dr Hsiang is not the first doctor we have heard expressing concern about the administration of euthanasia and how the drugs may actually affect the person experiencing a euthanasia death. EPC has previously reported on euthanasia deaths which caused great distress to the deceased and family members present at the death. 

The National Post also covered this issue in 2022, recognizing that until euthanasia was legalized, doctors had never given doses this large of these particular drugs. The National Post article included a quote from Dr Joel Zivot suggesting that euthanasia could “feel like drowning” and that he “worries paralytics could mask an unpleasant death.” Zivot’s conclusions were based on his work studying capital punishment via lethal injection in the US which uses a common sedative to Canadian euthanasia protocol.

Another red flag that Dr Hsiang has identified in Canada is:

“physician zealots who contact family practitioner offices, and this I have heard from discussing this with family doctors, that they want to know on each family doctor’s list how many patients are eligible for MAiD. There is a financial incentive for these doctors since they are reimbursed quite well for a very short procedure.” (timestamp 9:08)

This quote highlights the pressure being placed on many Canadians to accept and utilize euthanasia. Discussion also turned to the Dying with Dignity Canada “Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Activity Book” created for children. This child-centric material is especially dark considering the context of possible expansion of MAiD eligibility to impressionable minors.

Dr Hsiang and Dr Shaw also speculate that since euthanasia is used to facilitate organ donation, the expansion of eligibility to minors would increase accessibility to “younger” organs for donation and this may be a contributing factor behind these criteria expansions. We have covered several of these issues on the blog over the years; our posts related to organ donation can be found here.

Drs Hsiang and Shaw are currently working on a book about euthanasia, expected to be published next year. The portion of the podcast regarding euthanasia ends at timestamp 16:40. We thank these doctors for working independently of mainstream discussions to bring these issues to light in an open forum.