Québec radio host: Assisted suicide is a 'solution' for the mentally ill.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Luc Ferrandez

Tristan Hopper reported for the National Post on May 21 that Luc Fernandez, who co-hosts a radio talk show on 98.5 Montreal told his audience, on May 15 in French that:

doctor-assisted suicide could be a form of “liberation” for the mentally ill.

Hopper reported that Fernandez also stated that:

Quebec should enshrine “comité de sages” (committees of experts) to authorize assisted suicide “in cases where, for example, someone no longer has any parents, people who were abandoned … people who no longer receive visits … no longer have any joy in life, they have no more interest in living, who live in permanent suffering.”

Montréal disability rights group RAPLIQ responded by accusing Ferrandez of promoting a eugenic ideology and stated:

“To speak of euthanasia with logistical calm, as if it were a measure of social efficiency, is to deny the value of different lives,”

“It is to slip down a eugenic slope, the very same that has led history into the abyss.”

This is not the first time Ferrandez has made comments about euthanasia. The Post Millennial reported on December 3, 2019 that Ferrandez wrote on his facebook page, concerning euthanasia for climate change that:

“Could we, for environmental, social and economic reasons, decide that we want to receive help to die so as not to be a burden for our family and society in general?”

Ferrandez's recent comments were madewhile discussing the story of "Florence" an intellectually disabled 24-year-old woman who was profiled in a story by Le Presse. Hopper reports:

Florence, not her real name, was held in solitary confinement for eight days at Quebec’s Leclerc Institution following a perennial failure by Quebec health authorities to place her in an institution that suited her needs.

Florence is described as having the mental capacity of a small child, and suffers from Prader–Willi syndrome, a rare genetic condition in which the sufferer always feels hungry.

Florence's story outlines the abusive care that she receives in Québec.

Hopper explains how Ferrandez responded to the "Florence" story:

Mid-way through Thursday’s segment on the case, Ferrandez suggests that Florence’s mother should have the right to end her daughter’s life via doctor-assisted suicide.

“How does the law have the right to say ‘no’? How does the state have the right to say ‘no’?” he said, to agreement from Normandeau.

He added that in extreme disability cases, the only medical solution is to “freeze” a patient in bed, and that death could be seen as “a way to end their pain.”

RAPLIQ responded by stating:

No to the trivialization of death as a “social solution.”
No to this false compassion that hides a deep contempt.
No to this morbid fantasy of liberation which is nothing but a shameful surrender.

Disability is part of the human condition.
It is not a virus to eradicate.
It is not a problem to be solved through erasure.

To reject disabled people is to reject one’s own humanity.

We choose, for Florence and for all the others:
Solidarity, not suppression.
Adaptation, not abandonment.
Dignity, not disappearance.

Quebec can do better. Quebec must do better.
Solutions exist — here and elsewhere. What’s lacking is courage.

Ferrandez is a former mayor of the Montreal borough of Le Plateau-Mont-Royal. He co-hosts a daily three-hour talk show with Nathalie Normandeau, a former deputy premier under the Quebec Liberal government of Jean Charest.

Canada approved euthanasia for mental illness alone and has scheduled to implement it on March 17, 2027. 

On March 21, 2025 the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Committee report urged Canada's federal government to:

• Repeal Track 2 Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), including the 2027 commencement of Track 2 MAiD for persons whose “sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness”;
• Not support proposals for the expansion of MAiD to include “mature minors” and through advance requests;

Québec has the highest euthanasia rate in Canada at 7.6% of all deaths in 2024. Recently a Québec coroner's inquest has investigated the death of Normand Meunier, a quadriplegic man who died by euthanasia on March 29, 2024 after developing bedsores from a lack of basic medical care. Québec expanded it's euthanasia regime on October 30, 2024 by permitting euthanasia by advance request.

Coroners inquest into the euthanasia death of man with a bed sore

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Normand Meunier

Rachel Watts reported for CBC News on April 12, 2024 that a quadriplegic man, Normand Meunier (66) died by (MAiD) euthanasia after developing a severe bedsore at a hospital in Saint-Jérôme, Québec. Meunier experienced a tragic spinal chord injury in 2022. Normand died by euthanasia on March 29, 2024.

Gordon Friesen, the President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition responded to the Meunier death by stating:

Gordon Friesen

In January, 2024, Normand Meunier visited the emergency department of a major regional hospital in the Province of Quebec, the jurisdiction with the highest euthanasia rate in the world.

Meunier was complaining of a potentially life-threatening respiratory infection which was successfully treated during his stay. And yet, before he was even formally admitted to hospital, this patient spent 95 hours on a stretcher in the emergency corridor, resulting in a severe pressure sore which ultimately decided him to end his own life through consent to Medical Assistance in Dying.

A Coroner's inquest in St-Jerome Québec is investigating the death of Normand Meunier. Steve Rukavina reported for CBC News on May 5 that:

Sylvie Brosseau, her voice breaking and her eyes moist, spoke of her husband's final days over a year after he sought medical assistance in dying following a hospital stay that left him with a severe and painful bedsore.

"His last two weeks…it was horror," she told reporters during a break in the public inquiry into his death that began Monday morning in Montreal.

"I hope this will change things, because even now nothing has changed."

Normand Meunier, 66, who was quadriplegic, was stuck on a stretcher in an emergency room at a hospital in Saint-Jérôme, Que., for four days in January of last year.

During his stay, Meunier didn't have access to a special mattress and developed a major pressure sore on his buttocks. It eventually worsened to the point where bone and muscle were exposed and visible — making his recovery and prognosis bleak.

He was told the sore — a gaping hole a few centimetres in diameter — would, at best, take several months to heal, according to the experts he consulted.

"It was horrible. He had no buttocks. There was nothing left," Brosseau said.

The day before his death, Meunier spoke to Radio-Canada and said he preferred putting an end to his physical and psychological suffering by opting for a medically assisted death.

Meunier died on March 29, 2024.

Steve Rukavina reported for CBC News on May 6 that:

Brigitte Guilbon, a licensed practical nurse who was part of Meunier's care team from 2022 until his death in March 2024, testified Tuesday at the coroner's inquiry looking into the 66-year-old's death. 

Guilbon testified she had never seen a wound like the one Meunier returned home with after being stuck on a stretcher for four days in the emergency room. 

"His morale was very, very low, and the sore was horrible," Guilbon testified, wiping her eyes as her voice broke. 

As Guilbon described the gaping, blackened wound on Meunier's buttocks a few centimetres in diameter, coroner Dave Kimpton requested a brief recess, noting the testimony was difficult for Meunier's partner, Sylvie Brosseau, to hear. 

When the hearing resumed, Kimpton said future witnesses would not be asked to describe the wound in detail, to spare Brosseau from having to hear the description repeatedly.
Meunier was quadriplegic and prone to bedsores. Guilbon testified he had to be turned every two hours in order to prevent them. 

She said before the hospital stay in late January 2024, she and other members of Meunier's care team were able to keep his recurring bedsores "stable" and "under control." 

Guilbon said before Meunier was admitted to hospital with a suspected virus on Jan. 18, 2024, his general state was good. 

During the hospital stay, Meunier didn't have access to a special pressure mattress that he normally used at home, despite Brosseau making repeated requests to hospital staff. 

Guilbon testified she was shocked when she first saw Meunier's bedsore on Feb. 1, 2024, after he returned home from hospital, saying she had never seen such a wound in her 15-year career. 

She said she questioned whether he should've even been released from hospital, and that she believed the bandage and treatment of the bedsore at the hospital were not appropriate. 

Guilbon said she and the home-care team did their best to care for the wound, but it continued to deteriorate in the weeks following Meunier's hospital stay. 

She said at the time, Meunier wasn't sleeping well and was very worried about his prognosis. 

Brigitte Cyr, the head of the home-care department for the CLSC that provided care to Meunier, also testified Tuesday. 

She said she first became aware of Meunier's case on Feb. 2, 2024, when his occupational therapist asked to meet with her. 

Cyr said the the occupational therapist was "a bit panicked" as she recounted what home-care nurses and Brosseau had said about Meunier's extended stay on a stretcher in the ER and the bedsore he developed. 

Then Cyr saw a photo of the bedsore. She said it defied imagination. 

"I said to myself, 'my god, what happened?'" she testified. 

Cyr said she immediately followed up with the hospital and arranged for Meunier to be readmitted for a treatment that can be painful, known as debridement, which involves removing damaged tissue from a wound to help it heal better. 

She says she also made inquiries to try to determine what went wrong during Meunier's hospital stay but had trouble getting clear answers.

Sylvie Brosseau, Normand Meunier's wife, was constantly at his side after his accident.

Gordon Friesen responded to the death of Normand Meunier by stating - In a word: Bad care produces more euthanasia. And more euthanasia enables more bad care.

Alberta Autistic woman approved for euthanasia again.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Unheard published an article on May 3, 2025 by Alexander Raikin telling the story with pseudonyms, of the Alberta family, who's autistic daughter has been approved for euthanasia. Due to a publication ban, it is impossible to share actual names. 

This story is of particular importance because Marge (MV is the name used by the court) has been approved for euthanasia again. Raikin writes:

On 31 January, 2024, Wade was running out of time. He had tried everything to persuade his 28-year-old daughter, Marge, that she could get better. But Marge had been scheduled to die by assisted suicide at 2 p.m. the next day at the family’s home in Alberta, Canada. He was horrified. Marge was autistic, vulnerable, and had no diagnosed physical illness. Her autism made her different from her peers — and lonely, no doubt — but Wade knew this was no reason to terminate a young life.

He had to do something. So he went to the courts. The legal claim he filed on that frigid winter day would put Wade on a quest no father should have to face: saving his daughter’s life from a Canadian health system that at times appears more committed to delivering death than protecting health. By taking legal action, he managed to delay Marge’s death for a while. But he may be set to lose the battle.

Raikin further explains the dilemma:

The last physician to assess her for assisted suicide, a family doctor practicing with the Alberta Health Services (AHS), took fewer than 24 hours to review and approve her application. And although the neurologist treating her for fatigue and pain assessed her as “normal”, another family doctor, unknown to her parents, declared her to be terminally ill.

The father tells Raikin that his daughter's only diagnosed conditions are autism and ADHD and yet she was approved for death. Raikin explains that the daughter first applied for euthanasia in 2021:

It was 2021 when Marge first filled out the form — without telling her parents — asking to die. AHS, the public health-care system, connected her with two physicians. Although one physician deemed her eligible without any diagnosed physical symptoms, according to Wade, the second denied her application, presumably because she had no terminal illness. She seems to have only met some of the requirements, although it is impossible to know for sure without access to her MAiD assessment. Alberta’s policy was that in the case of a tie, the suicide would not proceed.

Raikin explains that the daughter went doctor shopping with the intention of applying for euthanasia again:

In 2022, she went doctor-shopping. She found another physician, an Alberta family practitioner, who intervened and supported her (their clinic didn’t reply to UnHerd’s request for comment). Unknown to the family, this doctor signed a change in her “Goals of Care Designation”, which is the medical standard used in Alberta to indicate how severely ill someone is. The doctor switched it to the most extreme category, which in some Canadian provinces indicates the likelihood of imminent death; that was almost three years ago.

In 2023 the daughter was approved for death by euthanasia.

The following year, in 2023, she applied for assisted dying a second time. Once again, the two physicians consulted disagreed. (The clinics at which these two practice didn’t reply to UnHerd’s request for comment; AHS declined to comment, citing the court case.) This time, however, the so-called MAiD navigator, who sherpas patients through the process, connected Marge with a third doctor as a “tiebreaker”. The chosen physician was the same one who had approved Marge’s MAiD application the first time, and did so again, within 24 hours.

Rankin explains that the father launched a court case to save his daughters life.

Her father couldn’t understand how any doctor could think Marge was qualified to die. “I thought MAiD was for, like, you’re dying anyway. So, we’ll just speed it up because you’re suffering. That’s what I thought it was for”, he tells me. “And I’m thinking, well, how could this be for Marge?” So, the day before her “MAiD provider” was meant to pay a final house visit, when a physician and a nurse would bring the lethal but now routine injection of a sedative, a coma-inducting agent, and a neuromuscular tranquiliser, Wade filed a last-minute court challenge. He claimed that Marge did not have a “grievous and irremediable medical condition”, that her only diagnosed illnesses were mental, not physical, and that her second tie-breaking assessor was not independent.

The initial judge granted a temporary injunction that prevented the euthanasia death. The case went to court. Rankin reports that:

The judge, Justice Colin Feasby, of the Court of King’s Bench, Alberta, ruled that Marge’s father had a reasonable cause of action that the correct protocols around assisted dying weren’t followed. Marge had no terminal illness. Neither of the MAiD assessors appeared to be experts on Marge’s autism. And the independent assessor appointed as tiebreaker wasn’t, either.

The Canadian law provides no avenue for the judge to prevent a euthanasia death. Rankin reports:

Once it came to ruling on the substance of the dispute, however, the judge wouldn’t consider whether Marge qualified for assisted suicide; no evidence was accepted on even naming the condition for which she was approved. Any criminal prosecution, the judge ruled, could only happen after Marge is dead: “Parliament has put its trust in doctors and nurse practitioners, and it is not for this Court to second guess that choice.”

A court challenge was launched based on the part of the law that allows euthanasia for people who are not terminally ill. Rankin states:

In September, some of the largest Canadian disability groups launched a constitutional challenge against euthanasia based on non-terminal disabilities. The suit claimed it is an “appalling injustice” to offer suicide just on the grounds of disability. “It is not just wrong”, says Krista Carr, the executive vice president of Inclusion Canada, in an email to me. “It is discriminatory and violates our most fundamental rights.”

Rankin explains that even if the disability organizations are successful in their court challenge, that it won't happen in time to save the autistic woman. 

The father spent more than $150,000 on the court case and his daughter has been approved for euthanasia again.

Articles on this story:

• Euthanasia Prevention Coalition gains intervention standing in Calgary court case (Link).
• Calgary autistic woman is a victim of the "right to die" movement (Link).
  
• Great news: Judge prevents euthanasia death of Calgary autistic woman (Link). 
• Father of a 27-year-old autistic woman appeals court ruling in euthanasia decision (Link).
  

In Canada: Euthanasia is sometimes easier to access than medical treatment

This article was published by National Review online on April 23, 2025.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

The Canadian health care system is melting down — and yet the country still embraces radical euthanasia policies.

Here’s a current example: A woman injured in an auto accident has waited nearly two years for a consultation with a spinal surgeon — despite now having to use a wheelchair. So, she wants to come to the U.S. for a simple diagnosis, which will cost $40,000! From the CBC story:

A London woman injured in a car crash says she’s left with no choice but to pay to see a doctor in the United States after waiting almost two years for a diagnosis from an Ontario spine surgeon.

Sydney Gesualdi was rear-ended at a red light in July 2023, after which she was initially diagnosed with whiplash and tissue damage. In the weeks that followed, the 25-year-old lost the ability to walk, started having trouble swallowing and speaking, and had numbness in her face and limbs.

“None of these symptoms have gone away, and it’s been almost two years,” Gesualdi said. “I’m 25 and I can’t walk.”

She now has to use a wheelchair and wears a neck brace at all times. Gesualdi’s family physician has referred her to eight doctors at spinal clinics across the province, but so far, she’s been denied a consultation.

CBC News has seen the rejections from Toronto Western Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) and Trillium Spine Centre. Wait times and heavy caseloads are cited as the reason for not taking the patient, as well as the condition potentially being outside the scope of practice. 

What a bitter tragedy. Ill and disabled Canadians with non-life-threatening but serious conditions have no assurance of prompt medical care, and some people wait in agony for many months — or, as in this case, years — to receive proper clinical services.

At the same time, in Canada, disabled and non-terminally-ill patients are eligible for euthanasia, and the homicide can take place within 90 days of the patient’s being deemed qualified. For patients whose deaths are “reasonably foreseeable,” there is no waiting time required once eligibility has been established.

It may also be far less difficult to secure a death doctor than a treating physician, since the killing process is much faster. As a result, there have already been cases in which euthanasia was chosen by patients precisely because proper care was so long in coming. What a travesty.

The U.K. has some of the same access problems, and it is perilously close to legalizing assisted suicide anyway. Meanwhile, assisted suicide might become legal in Delaware and perhaps other blue states this year.

None are so blind as those who refuse to see.

United Nations MAID report raises important issues

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Toronto Sun Editorial on Sunday April 6, 2025 concerned the UN Committee on the Rights of People with Disabilities report that urged the Canadian government to repeal Track 2 euthanasia (MAiD), including the planned 2027 expansion to persons whose “sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness,” and reject proposals to expand MAiD to “mature minors” and through advance requests.

Article: United Nations Committee directs Canada to repeal Track 2 euthanasia deaths (Link).

The Toronto Sun Editorial stated:

Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) legislation for so-called “Track 2” patients — those people whose condition is not terminal and whose natural death cannot be reasonably seen as occurring in the foreseeable future. Track 2 is aimed mostly at the disabled. It has been criticized as a state-sanctioned escape hatch through which the government can offer MAID to those with disabilities instead of offering them the support they need to participate in society. The UN report suggests they have been failed by health care, housing and social services and are not receiving adequate welfare and mental health supports.

The Toronto Sun Editorial continues:

...When MAID was first introduced in 2016, it was seen as a humane way to help those who are terminally ill exit this world on their own terms, instead of prolonging their pain.

When “reasonably foreseeable” was taken out of the equation, it opened a can of worms that cannot easily be closed. The committee also proposed that the federal government not expand MAID eligibility, as planned in 2027, to those whose sole underlying condition is mental illness. It also called for a ban on a plan to allow advanced planning for MAID for those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.

The Toronto Sun Editorial questions Track 2 deaths.

Assisted death is not just a personal issue for the person who has decided to end his or her life. It raises issues for those in the health-care system who provide that service. It asks us to examine what kind of a society we are when we consider disabled people to be inconvenient and disposable rather than provide them with support and care. Mental illness need not be a death sentence. It can be treated.

The Toronto Sun completed their Editorial by stating that: The next government must proceed with caution as it moves forward with MAID, but I suggest that the next government needs to do a complete review of Canada's euthanasia law.

A complete review of Canada's euthanasia law has never happened.

 

Unstoppable: Award Winning 2025 Documentary, Disposable Humanity Scores at 31st Slamdance Festival.

The following article was published by Not Dead Yet on March 24, 2025.

By Ian McIntosh
Interim Executive Director

Out of nearly two thousand entries, 146 films were selected for the 2025 Slamdance Film Festival in Los Angeles. Disposable Humanity captured the Audience Award and received an Honorable Mention for the Slamdance Unstoppable Feature Grand Jury Prize.

In Disposable Humanity, a profound, unforgettable documentary of historic disability injustice, Cameron Mitchell and his family guide the viewer down corridors of Nazi era eugenical horror into a past that many of us think we know but don’t.

Tim Stainton, Director of the University of British Columbia’s Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship once called Canada’s eugenical descent into assisted suicide and euthanasia, “the biggest existential threat to disabled people since the Nazi’s program in Germany in the 1930s”.

For anyone engaged in fighting health disparities and disability discrimination today, it becomes plain by the end of the film that the present-day creep of assisted suicide laws in America has an essential part of its ancestry rooted in the international ideas, language and maps of Aktion T4 – the Euthanasia Program of yesterday.

In vivid sequence, Disposable Humanity bears witness to the philosophical underpinnings of The Final Solution through a primary disability lens. This moving, living memorial reminds us that without the initial unchallenged idea that disabled lives are lives worth less than others, over 300,000 lives might have been saved, and the Holocaust might have been just an exercise in exile, rather than extermination.

Disposable Humanity is a production about, by and for people with disabilities and their families and friends and is essential viewing.

Spanish courts will consider a second case challenging euthanasia approval.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Laia Galiá reported for the Spanish ARA news on April 3, 2025 that a second challenge to a euthanasia approval will be heard by a Spanish Court.

On March 17, 2025 I reported that a Spanish court rejected an appeal by a father to prevent the euthanasia death of his 24-year-old paraplegic daughter. The article reported that the woman, known as Noelia, who was injured in a suicide attempt, was scheduled to die by euthanasia in August 2024 when her father achieved a court injunction to prevent the death. The March 17 decision stated that the woman met the conditions for euthanasia.

Galiá reported that the first decision (Noelia) has been appealed by the Prosecutor's Office and her father. The case has been referred to the High Court of Justice (TSJC)

In the second case (Francisco case) the Judge has determined that the family has the right to challenge the euthanasia approval. Galiá reported:

The High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has issued its first ruling in the legal debate that in recent months has called into question the right to assisted dying. In the opinion of Catalonia's highest court, a patient's family may be entitled to bring a euthanasia procedure to court even if the applicant already has the approval of the committee of experts charged with studying and validating or rejecting these requests.

Unlike the first case, in the Francisco case it has only been determined that the father can challenge the euthanasia approval whereas in Noelia's case, a judge already decided that she met the requirements of the law. Galiá reported:

In contrast, in Francisco's case, the judge has so far only assessed the father's legitimacy to intercede, and the High Court of Justice (TSJC) is ordering her to assess all the evidence. In fact, the judges point out that their ruling does not imply that the family's requests must be accepted. They only rule, they say, on the parents' legitimacy to intervene judicially to request a halt to a euthanasia procedure.

The Spanish euthanasia law is similar to the Canadian euthanasia law since it only requires that a person has "a serious chronic and disabling illness."

Spain's euthanasia law should be challenged based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Euthanasia is out of control in Canada. 241 euthanasia deaths based on dementia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article that was written by Angelo Bottone and published by thinkspot.com on March 25, 2025 examining Canada's 2023 euthanasia statistics.

Article: Canada - 15,343 reported euthanasia deaths in 2023 (Link).

Bottone reports on Canada's basic euthanasia statistics. He writes:

In 2023, 15,343 Canadians died by euthanasia or assisted suicide, according to the ‘Fifth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying’. This marks a 15.8% increase over 2022 and represents 4.7% of all deaths in 2023. Since its legalisation in 2016, there have been 60,301 cases of assisted suicide and euthanasia cases in Canada that we know of.

Bottone writes about some of the contentious concerns such as:

Dementia was cited as a medical condition in 241 euthanasia recipients in 2023, and in 106 of these cases, dementia was their sole condition.

Euthanasia for dementia is significant because Canada's law permits euthanasia for people with dementia if the person is competent and if there are other co-morbities (another medical condition). The 106 euthanasia deaths where the sole condition was dementia should be investigated by the RCMP or the College's of Physicians.

Bottone points out that in 622 deaths, natural death was not deemed “reasonably foreseeable.” This category, called Track 2, allows euthanasia for non-terminal patients. Loneliness, as a reason for euthanasia, was far more common among Track 2 deaths than Track 1 (terminally ill) deaths.

Isabel Grant, a law professor at the University of British Columbia stated:

“When other people express loneliness or a loss of dignity or a desire to die, we usually respond with support or prevention. But with people with disabilities, we respond with an offer for MAID,”

Bottone notes that the percentage of people with disabilities among non-terminal euthanasia recipients was significantly higher: 58.3% compared to 33.5% for people with terminal conditions.

Bottone completes the article by explaining that the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) who brought the original euthanasia case (Carter case) to the court has changed their position. Bottone reports the BCCLA concerns:

However, the regime has become so permissive that even the BCCLA has raised concerns, particularly about euthanasia for prisoners and disabled individuals. The organisation has highlighted reports of people accessing MAID due to intolerable social circumstances or being offered it in cases that may not meet legal requirements.

“Of particular concern are reports of MAID being used in prisons while incarcerated individuals were shackled to their beds, the programme’s lack of legal oversight, disproportionate representation of impoverished people receiving assisted suicide, and healthcare practitioners offering MAID when patients sought support for living,” the BCCLA stated.

Previous articles on this topic:

• Article: Canada - 15,343 reported euthanasia deaths in 2023 (Link). 
• Euthanasia is a national tradgedy and only getting worse (Link). 
• Canada euthanasia: Unmasking health and social failure (Link) 
• Canada's euthanasia deaths continue to rise with an estimated 16,500 in 2024 (Link).

Spain court refuses to prevent young woman's euthansia death.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Agence France-Presse reported on March 17 that a Spanish court rejected an appeal by a father who tried to stop his 24-year-old paraplegic daughter's euthanasia death.

Decisions, like this one, emphasize how the euthanasia laws undermine the lives of people with disabilities.

According to the article, the 24-year-old woman, who was injured in a suicide attempt, was scheduled to die by euthanasia in August 2024 when her father achieved a court injunction to prevent the death. The article stated that:

The father argued that his daughter suffered from mental disorders that "could affect her ability to make a free and conscious decision" as required by law.

He also said there were indications his daughter had changed her mind and that her ailment did not entail "unbearable physical or psychological suffering".

The article reported that the court decision that was decided on Friday but released on Monday (March 17) stated:

the woman met the conditions for euthanasia, which was legalised in the European country in 2021.

"All the professionals who have intervened in the process agree that... she suffers a serious, chronic and disabling illness, without any contradictory tests having been performed," the judge wrote.

The Spanish euthanasia law is similar to the Canadian euthanasia law since it only requires that a person has "a serious chronic and disabling illness."

Spains euthanasia law should be challenged based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Canadian Human Rights Commission concerned about euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Canadian Human Rights Commission has brought their concerns about Canada's euthanasia law to the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

Meagan Gilmore reported on March 10, 2025 in an article that was published by Canadian Affairs that:

The Canadian Human Rights Commission and dozens of other organizations have brought concerns about Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) laws to the United Nations.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission “remains deeply concerned by ongoing reports that people with disabilities are turning to MAID because they cannot access the basic supports and services they need to live with dignity,” the commission wrote in a January submission to the UN. The submission was delivered to a UN committee studying Canada’s compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Gilmore explained the position of the Canadian Human Rights Commission:

In its submission to the UN, the commission said it “remains concerned about Canada’s lack of progress in implementing the recommendations that have come from the international human rights system.”

Many people with disabilities struggle to find adequate housing or medical care, or move to long-term care facilities to access needed supports, the submission says.

These factors may cause some people with disabilities to pursue MAID, the commission says.

“Accessing MAID should not be the result of this inequality, nor should it be the end result of the State’s failure to fulfill its human rights obligations,” the committee said, repeating concerns it has raised twice already in Canada.

Gilmore reported that:

A coalition of 49 organizations wrote one large submission criticizing Canada’s progress. Another 20 organizations — including the Canadian Human Rights Commission — wrote individual submissions.

A committee of disability experts reviews each country’s report and recommends how they can improve. Canada is scheduled to appear before this committee on March 10 and 11.

Several Canadian disability organizations believe that the Canadian government should abolish Track 2 euthanasia approvals, that being approvals for people who are not terminally ill. Gilmore reported:

Track 2 MAID violates several convention rights, including the right to life, these organizations say.

“Track 2 MAID is positioned as health care serving to end suffering; it is therefore promoted with great conviction,” the coalition wrote. “In practice, people with disabilities in Canada are being denied their right to life.” 

Track 2 MAID “normaliz[es] suicide,” the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action wrote in its submission. It is based on the belief that it is better for some people with disabilities to be dead, the alliance said, calling it  “a modern form of eugenics.” 

These organizations also argued that euthanasia should not be extended to people with mental illness in March 2027.

Gilmore reported that the UN Commission on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities have conducted two reports on Canada's euthanasia law. 

In 2017 the UN Commission recommended that people requesting MAID have access to a “dignified life” through palliative care, home care, disability support and “other measures that support human flourishing.” while in 2021 three UN UN human rights experts warned Ottawa that: 

Track 2 MAID would violate Canada’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by creating a “social assumption … that it is better to be dead than live with a disability.” 

Gilmore reported that The Canadian Human Rights Commission says it wants Canada's federal government to:

“conduct a thorough and critical review” of MAID in Canada before eligibility criteria is expanded. This review should include listening to and addressing concerns from people who are marginalized.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition recognizes that Track 2 euthanasia approvals (approvals based on an irremediable medical condition with no terminal condition) are particularly discriminatory towards people with disabilities but we also recognize that Track 1 euthanasia approvals (people with a terminal condition) are also discriminatory towards people with disabilities as these decisions are most often made based on disabling conditions that occur as a person approaches death.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition urges Canada's federal and provincial governments to also "conduct a thorough and critical review of euthanasia in Canada to assess the reality of Canada's euthanasia law rather than expand the eligibility of MAiD to people living with mental illness, to people who have made an advance request and to "mature minors."

Canada's euthanasia law was no slippery slope; it was a cliff.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Yuan Yi Zhu

An article by Yuan Yi Zhu, a Canadian academic, that was published as a Special to the National Post on February 18, 2025 explains that 10 years after the Supreme Court of Canada Carter decision (that legalized assisted death in Canada) that Canada's MAiD law was not a slippery slope; it was a cliff. 

Zhu writes that the Supreme Court of Canada Carter decision claimed that no slippery slop would happen, which is exactly the opposite of what has happened. Zhu wrote:

February marks the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), in which the court unanimously ruled, against both basic logic and its own precedents, that the right to life, guaranteed by the Constitution, included the right to a state-assisted suicide through what came to be known euphemistically as “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAiD).

At the time, the court dismissed evidence from other jurisdictions that the legalization of euthanasia inevitably led to its open-ended expansion as well as abuse against the vulnerable. Belgium’s disastrous euthanasia experiment, which saw children and people with psychiatric disorders dying at the hands of doctors, was, the court said, the “product of a very different medico-legal culture…. We should not lightly assume that the regulatory regime will function defectively, nor should we assume that other criminal sanctions against the taking of lives will prove impotent against abuse.” There would be no slippery slope, the court promised us.

Zhu examines his assertions about Canada's euthanasia law.

In 2016, Parliament legalized MAiD for people whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable.” A short five years later, unnoticed in the midst of the pandemic, Canada’s euthanasia regime was expanded to cover those with chronic conditions whose deaths were not imminent. At the same time, Parliament legalized euthanasia for mental illness alone to come into force in 2023 (it has since been postponed to 2027), making a mockery of our society’s commitment to mental health and suicide prevention.

Christine Gauthier

Zhu examines several of Canada's euthanasia horror stories, such as Paralympian, Chritine Gauthier:

The horror stories Canada’s euthanasia regime has generated — the Paralympian who was offered MAiD by a government employee when she asked for a wheelchair ramp, the disabled woman living on welfare who opted for MAiD because she could not secure adequate housing, the cancer patient who chose to kill himself because he could not access chemotherapy in time — have become so commonplace that they have blunted our sense of decency, of what is the minimum we owe to our fellow citizens. Meekly, we have accepted that such horrors, and many more unreported ones, are part and parcel of Canadian society.

We have no answers to the contradictions raised by the legalization of MAiD. The civil servant who suggested it to Christine Gauthier was fired; but why did she lose her job, when MAiD is healthcare and when Gauthier, who is confined to a wheelchair, is eligible for euthanasia under Canadian law because of her disability? Was she not simply doing her job, providing information to those who may need it?

Zhu then comments on Canada's euthanasia statistics:

When it was introduced, proponents claimed MAiD would only account for a small number of deaths. In 2023, almost one death out of 20 in Canada was due to MAiD. In Quebec, which has adopted the practice more enthusiastically than virtually any other human society, the figure is 7.3 per cent, the highest such figure anywhere in the world. Last year, Quebec unilaterally legalized MAiD by advance directive — which under the Criminal Code is murder. The federal government’s reaction was to hold a series of national roundtables to discuss the idea more.

What about the “regulatory regime” on which the learned judges of the Supreme Court rested their hopes to protect the vulnerable? In Ontario, the chief coroner’s office recorded at least 428 cases of non-compliance with Canadian law by MAiD providers over a five-year period, in what was described as “a pattern of not following legislation, a pattern of not following regulation.” Most cases led to nothing more than an email to the provider; only four cases were referred to professional regulators. Not a single law-breaker was referred to the police.

Jocelyn Downie

To confirm how Canada's euthanasia law is being widely interpreted, Zhu refers to comments by Canada's leading euthanasia academic:

In the words of Jocelyn Downie, who received the Order of Canada for her promotion of MAiD, when doctors or nurse practitioners are assessing a patient’s eligibility for MAiD, “you can ask as many clinicians as you want or need” for a second opinion, allowing them to shop around until they find a colleague who will sign off on a MAiD request. On another occasion, she told medical professionals that, when it came to signing off on MAiD requests, “There is no certainty or unanimity required. There is not perfection required.” Legally, she was right: Canadian law does not require medical professionals to be right when they authorize MAiD for someone; they must merely have reasonable belief. The MAiD assessor does not even need to meet the patient face-to-face: a Zoom meeting is sufficient.

Finally Zhu refers to the role of the courts in Canada's euthanasia horror:

As for the courts, which opened a Pandora’s box, they have largely washed their hands from it all. Last year, an Alberta judge ruled that an autistic woman with no apparent diagnosis of a physical illness could receive MAiD, even though the judge himself did not understand how she came to be approved for MAiD and even though at least one doctor had turned down her request.

Some judges are even proud of the role they played in ushering in MAiD: in 2018, Richard Wagner, the chief justice of Canada, agreed the Carter decision and other rulings of its kind made the Supreme Court, as one Vancouver lawyer had characterized, “the most progressive in the world,” and added that he was “very proud of that.”

A decade on, there was no slippery slope; it was a cliff. 

Recent articles on this topic:

• Canada euthanasia: Unmasking healthcare and social failures (Link).
• Euthanasia is a national tragedy and it's only getting worse (Link).
• Family sues after British Columbia man dies by euthanasia while on a psychiatric day pass (Link).
• Canada: 13,343 reported euthanasia deaths in 2023 (Link).
• Ontario: At least 428 non-compliant euthanasia deaths (Link).
  

Remembering the 14,000 euthanasia deaths at the Pirna Sonnenstein T-4 killing centre

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Pirna-Sonnerstein

An article published by Diesachsen News on January 26, for the January 27 Holocaust Remembrance Day concerned the victims of euthanasia at Pirna-Sonnerstein, a T-4 killing centre during the second world war.

Dieschsen news reported that Saxony's Minister President Michael Kretschmer (CDU) called on people to be vigilant on the occasion of the day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism. Kretschmer stated:

"We cannot undo history," he said today at the state's central commemoration ceremony in Pirna-Sonnenstein."But by remembering and mourning together, we can keep the memory of the victims alive and be vigilant against any trivialization of dictatorship and contempt for humanity."

Michael Kretschmer

With reference to the millions of people who died during the Holocaust and the 14,000 people who were killed by euthanasia at Pirna Sonnenstein, Kretschmer stated:

"There is no statute of limitations on this injustice," he said with a view to January 27, which is also the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp. "The path to the extermination camps began with the contempt for sick people, with the judgment of people as worthy of life and unworthy of life." On Sonnenstein and in Großschweidnitz, too, sanatoriums were turned into places where human lives were systematically extinguished.

The article continued with the laying of wreaths.

Kretschmer, President of the State Parliament Alexander Dierks, several ministers and representatives of the diplomatic corps, the Jewish communities and the churches honored those murdered together with some descendants with a wreath-laying ceremony at the Pirna memorial site. Between 1940 and 1941, almost 14,000 people fell victim to the Nazis' "euthanasia" crimes at the "sanatorium", which was converted into a killing center at the time.

The day of remembrance reminds us to "do everything we can to ensure that the dark chapters of history are not repeated", said Minister of Culture Conrad Clemens (CDU). Keeping the memory alive is part of historical-political education and part of learning at school. In the late afternoon, a memorial concert was planned in Pirna's St. Mary's Church, where the New Jewish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra would perform works by persecuted and ostracized composers.

January 27, the day on which Red Army units liberated the Auschwitz extermination camp in 1945, has been a nationwide day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism since 1996 and is also the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.

In May 2024, I visited the T-4 Killing centres in Grafeneck, Hartheim castle and Hadamar. I also visited the Berlin T-4 euthanasia memorial in Berlin in September 2023.

Links to more articles on this topic:

• The Hadamar T-4 euthanasia centre killed approximately 15,000 people (Link).
• The Hartheim castle T-4 euthanasia centre killed 30,000 people (Link).
• Grafeneck T-4 euthanasia complex killed more than 10,000 people (Link).
• Berlin memorial to the victims murdered by the T-4 Euthanasia Program (Link).
• Healthcare sector supported the Nazi euthanasia program (Link).
• Infant euthanasia. Is history repeating itself? (Link).