Taquisha McKitty, who was declared brain dead in September 2017, died a natural death.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Taquisha McKitty with daughter.

Taquisha McKitty, of Brampton, who was declared brain dead in September 2017, after a cardiac arrest related to a drug overdose, died of natural causes on December 31, 2018.

In September 2017 CP 24 reported that Taquisha's father told them:

“if you are there with her and you touch her and you grab her feet, she will pull her feet from you” and “if you tickle her she will move her feet.”

McKitty's family argued that Taquisha was alive based on her movements and other signs of life and their religious beliefs. See video below.

The lawyer for the family, Hugh Scher, told CBC news in mid-December that in some jurisdictions Taquisha would be considered alive Scher stated to CBC news that:

"Taquisha remained alive in Nova Scotia, New York, New Jersey and elsewhere, but according to the [Ontario Superior Court] she is dead in Ontario."

Taquisha's family challenged the declaration of brain death and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition intervened in the case based on the arbitrary nature of brain death decisions in Ontario.

Hugh Scher, lawyer for the McKitty family

On June 26, 2018 Ontario Superior Court Justice, Lucille Shaw, disagreed with the family and ordered that Life-Support be withdrawn from Taquisha in 30 days.

Taquisha's family prevented the removal of life-support  by appealing the court decision.  According to Hugh Scher, the McKitty family lawyer:

...Justice Shaw erred “by applying a legal definition of death that fails to conform with a biological definition of death.” 

...the court erred by not allowing independent experts to videotape to assess McKitty’s movements, which “differ in nature, quality and duration from spinal cord reflexes.”

Shaw’s ruling stated that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms did not apply to McKitty, because it only protects “persons,” and because McKitty is clinically brain dead, is not legally a “person.” Scher argued in the appeal that:

This puts the cart before the horse, because McKitty’s Charter rights were breached in order to pronounce her dead. 

“The Court’s predetermination of Taquisha’s death to justify non-application of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms ... dehumanizes Taquisha as a non-person from the outset,” 

“Taquisha is an individual under the law deserving of Charter protection.” 

Justice Shaw also focused on financial reasons for withdrawing treatment from McKitty. 

Scher stated in a CBC news interview in May 2018 that:

"(the case) raises a serious question as to what is death in Ontario and in Canada. There is no statutory legal definition"

Scher and the McKitty family said that beyond breathing and having a heartbeat, Taquisha showed other signs of life — like moving her legs — that proved that she was still biologically alive. Scher told CBC news last May:

"She eats, she drinks, her organs function,"

Scher, compared her to "many other people with a severe neurological impairment."

CP 24 reported that Hugh Scher said that he is hopeful that the court of appeal will still render a ruling on the case, which he said represents an important opportunity to “clarify the legal definition of death in Ontario.”

Now that Taquisha has died a natural death, does that mean she has died twice?

• Brampton family is asking for more time to prove that their daughter is alive.
• Brampton family is appealing brain death decision.
• Is a Brampton woman dead or alive?

Contrary to media reports: an Israel court did not permit euthanasia for the first time.

By Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Alex Schadenberg

The language of the euthanasia debate continues to confuse people and much of the media. Recent opinion polls that ask: If you were suffering and terminally ill, should you be able to ask for a death with dignity have received a strong YES response. But what does the question actually mean?

In a similar way, the Israel media falsely reported that - for the first time in Israel, the court permitted euthanasia for a terminal patient. The article states:

The Tel Aviv District Court gave the verdict after the Attorney General reached an unprecedented decision to allow the patient to be disconnected from the life support machine he was connected to, according to the Israeli daily. 

The verdict was carried out and the patient died after the machine was switched off. The unique case was released for publication after a request from Ha'aretz.

Euthanasia causes death.

In the past, the withdrawal of medical treatment was falsely referred to as passive euthanasia. The withdrawal of medical treatment does not constitute euthanasia but rather it allows a natural death.

There is a clear distinction between euthanasia, which is the direct and intentional cause of death, and withdrawing treatment, which allows death to occur naturally. No one actually caused the death of this person in Israel, the person died of her medical condition.

Are Withdrawal of Therapeutic Support and Administering Lethal Substances Ethically Equivalent?

This article was published by Euthanasia Free New Zealand (PDF Link).

David Richmond

By Dr David Richmond

Advocates of legalising euthanasia are desperate to argue for the ethical equivalence of two acts: 

1. The withdrawal of life sustaining support from a patient at that patient’s request; and
2. The administration of a lethal dose of a toxic substance to a patient at that person’s request.

The reason for their insistence on the moral equivalence of the two acts is their desire to give ethical legitimacy to active voluntary euthanasia - a ‘therapeutic’ approach to managing the end of life that is almost everywhere condemned [1] - by its supposed similarity to the withdrawal of life support from a dying patient; an ethically acceptable medical approach under certain circumstances.

On the Natural Death of Brooke Hopkins

This article was written by Wesley Smith and published on August 24, 2013 on his blog.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley Smith

I have long known of the tragedy that struck vocal assisted suicide advocate Margaret Pabst Battin and her husband Brooke Hopkins. Hopkins was catastrophically injured in an accident and has spent years under Battin’s very good care. There were several prominent articles written about the situation over the years, most recently, a cover story in the New York Times Magazine.

I never commented publicly. Absent a compelling reason, I try not to personalize these things when people are going through very tough times.

Now Hopkins died after ordering that his respirator be turned off, that is, he refused unwanted medical treatment. From the New York Times story:

The hospice physician gave Brooke a sedative, and Brooke sat in his wheelchair for a while with his stepchildren, his friends, a few of his favorite caregivers and his wife. He said he was getting sleepy, and he was put into bed. Peggy got in beside him. A gospel song he had chosen for the occasion, Marion Williams’s “My Soul Looks Back,” played on the stereo… 

Later, Peggy told the Tribune reporter, Peggy Fletcher Stack, that “it was peaceful and painless, just as he wanted it” — close to the kind of ending he described to me earlier as a “generous death.”

Battin and Hopkins made his circumstance a very public matter, so with the denouement, I think it is acceptable for me to comment.

Note, that–contrary to the propaganda of some assisted suicide advocates–no one forced Hopkins to receive invasive medical treatment he no longer wanted. As a result, he died naturally, from his underlying condition, and was given proper medical care to ease the passing by hospice.

There is a bright line ethical (and usually) legal separation between dying naturally after refusing treatment and being killed by an intentional overdose of drugs. There is the factual distinction, of course. But as policy, the differences are profound, providing a dramatically contrasting impact on greater society and our perceived value of the lives of people going through terminal and disabling illnesses and injuries.

My sympathies to Battin and good on her for taking such good and loving care of her beloved.

Is euthanasia for the living or the dying?

This is a very interesting article that is written by Deborah Coddington and published yesterday in the New Zealand Herald under the title: Is euthanasia for the living or the dying? 

Coddington is writing about her personal experience with the recent death of her mother. This article is worth reading from the point of view of a personal experience.


It is interesting that Coddington appears to misunderstand what euthanasia is. She seems to be comparing the refusal of medical treatment as being the same as euthanasia.


The right to refuse treatment is not the same as euthanasia. Euthanasia is when one person, usually a physician, directly and intentionally causes the death of another person.


I will be speaking in New Zealand on Saturday June 30.


This is what Coddington wrote: 

Is euthanasia for the living or the dying? 

Deborah Coddington - June 5, 2012 - New Zealand Herald

It's all very well signing up to voluntary euthanasia, but who's going to administer all these lethal injections? 

Who's going to get them to sip the glass of water so they can swallow their "peaceful pills" so they can "quietly slip away", as Nelson Exit International member Yoka De Houwer, who has brain and spinal cancer, puts it. 

That's the question nobody wants to address. 

The NZ Medical Association is opposed to voluntary euthanasia, though supports the concept of death with dignity and access to appropriate palliative care.
So the chances are slim of finding a doctor to assist suicide. 

This highly contentious, deeply personal issue is back because Labour MP Maryan Street has a member's bill almost ready for the ballot. 

Street wants, among other things, to protect from prosecution family members and health professionals, who've been directed, by those who still have their wits about them, to put them out of their misery. To euthanise them, like we would a much-loved family dog or cat.

And there's much to be said for that argument. We don't watch our pets suffer pain. A vet, or animal owner is rightly prosecuted if they let animals die in agony, so why shouldn't we let our elderly parents, or terminally ill cancer patients, for example, die with dignity, without pain, with a quick injection while we hold them close? 

But with palliative care now at its most sophisticated, just how necessary is it for the dying to be in pain? 

I've learned a lot about death these past months - up close and personal. 

My mother, who was in her 91st year and was ready to say goodbye, died on Anzac Day, but she did not go gentle into that good night. My brothers and I sat by her bed for four days while she died the way she lived - fighting, obstinate, spirited. 

A devout Anglican, Mum chose to die in her time - one hour after receiving the last rites and forgiveness. 

We reckon she deliberately held on until Anzac Day because it was, for Patricia Coddington, NZAF Regt No. W3133, Women's Air Leader WWII 1939-1945, a particularly special day. 

But as I watched her, I saw that like birth, death is hard work. It's nothing like the Stella Artois advertisement. Cheyne-Stokes breathing, what the dying do near the end, is what my mother did for two days and a night. But she wasn't in pain, she was just dying. 

And even though she was deeply unconscious, I have no doubt she knew we were there. 

When it was time, she just stopped breathing, much like when a baby is born and starts breathing. Mum peacefully took a couple of last breaths. This was death with dignity. 

More than once we compared the waiting to sitting around dozing and waiting for a baby to be born. 

And why shouldn't it be? 

But now we want to sanitise death. Is this really for the person dying, or is it in truth for those still living? 

We want designer deaths, to go with designer births - just like the convenient caesareans busy women book in their diaries, so their schedules are not unduly interrupted. And so much cleaner - all those hours, sometimes days, of groaning and waiting for baby, eliminated with a quick injection which does away with the pain and fuss 

So it can be with death. 

I have Mum's "Advance Directive" on Auckland Voluntary Euthanasia Society letterhead, signed in 2003 and witnessed before a Rotorua Justice of the Peace. It states if she suffers from "one or more of the conditions mentioned in the schedule" she is not to be "subjected to any medical intervention or treatment aimed at prolonging or sustaining my life". 

One of the conditions listed in the schedule is "senile or pre-senile dementia".Do these people know what they're doing? Mum officially had dementia in 2007.In the five years after that she sold a house in Ngongotaha, moved to Martinborough and bought another house, created a beautiful garden, brought joy to 17 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, made hundreds of new friends and kept in touch with old ones. Sure, she degenerated markedly, and as her main carer, at times it was difficult for both of us. 

I was her enduring power of attorney and as such, if Street's legislation is passed, people like me could - should - follow her wishes and stop all medications which kept her able to keep mobile and enjoy life. 

That way, according to people like Mum, they wouldn't be a burden on the next generation. 

But who carries the burden of guilt for prematurely ending the life of someone like Mum, who decided they should die like a dog if they get to the stage where they can't remember their daughter's name? 

Who are you gonna call?

Is Argentina discussing the legalization of euthanasia?

The language of the euthanasia debate will often create confusion around what is euthanasia and what is not euthanasia. The confusion concerning the language of the debate is part of the recent debate in Argentina.

A recent news headline stated: Argentina mulls allowing euthanasia. When I linked to the full article in Spanish and then copied that text into a translator, I quickly learned that Argentina is discussing issues related to when it is acceptable to withhold or withdraw medical treatment.

The issue that has created the debate is a two-year old girl who was was born "dead" and revived and has been in a non-responsive condition since birth. The article is referring to the debate to withdraw treatment as being euthanasia.

Euthanasia is an action or omission of an action that directly and intentionally causes the death of a person, to eliminate suffering. Therefore, an act of euthanasia must be direct and intentional. Natural death or the withdrawal of treatment that is futile, burdensome or without benefit is not euthanasia. The proper use of large doses of pain killing drugs is not euthanasia. The proper use of sedation techniques is not euthanasia.

Ethically, it is euthanasia to withdraw fluids and food from a person, who is not otherwise dying, with the intention of causing death. The person in this case intentionally dies from dehydration and not a natural death.

But to withdraw medical treatment from a person and allowing them to die a natural death is not euthanasia and should not be referred to as euthanasia. The problem is that, in the past, the act of withdrawing medical treatment, even when it was futile, burdensome and without benefit, was referred to as passive euthanasia.

After reading the full translated article from Argentina, it appears that they are not debating the legalization of euthanasia but rather the ethical guidelines for withdrawing life-sustaining treatment.

I will require more information before further comments can be made.

‘Pulling the plug’ isn’t euthanasia

The Ottawa Citizen printed an excellent article by Margaret Somerville on Friday entitled: Pulling the plug isn't euthanasia.

I have been fighting a phantom ever since the Quebec College of Physicians decided that Canada needs to legalize euthanasia and then compared euthanasia to ending life-sustaining medical treatment.

The law clearly allows physicians to withdraw or withhold medical treatment that is futile, burdensome, inappropriate, etc. This is not euthanasia unless it is necessary care that is withheld or withdrawn against the consent of the person.

The important point in this article is that there is a difference between killing and letting die. The other natural difference between killing and letting die is that when you let someone die, sometimes (not often) they don't die and often they don't die immediately. When you give someone a lethal dose by euthanasia, that person will die from the lethal dose and usually within a short period of time.

Somerville wrote:
Recently, I saw an illustration that accompanied an article about euthanasia. It showed the silhouette of a patient lying on a bed. There was an electrical outlet on the wall behind the bed and an unplugged connecting cord hanging down over the side of the bed.

Except in very rare circumstances — for instance, if the treatment were withdrawn without the necessary consent or against the patient’s wishes — withdrawal of life-support treatment is not euthanasia. Yet many people, including the artist who penned this illustration and many health-care professionals, mistakenly believe that it is.

In my experience, they are confused with respect to the ethical and legal differences between withdrawal of treatment that results in death and euthanasia, and why the former can be ethically and legally acceptable, provided certain conditions are fulfilled, and the latter cannot be. This is a central and important distinction in the euthanasia debate, which needs to be understood.

Failure to understand it leads, among other problems, to physicians responding affirmatively to surveys that ask them whether they or their colleagues have carried out euthanasia, when in fact they have not, and members of the public saying they agree with euthanasia, because they agree with people’s rights to refuse medical treatment.

First, the primary intention is different in the two cases: In withdrawing life-support treatment the primary intention is to respect the patient’s right to refuse treatment; in euthanasia it is to kill the patient. The former intention is ethically and legally acceptable; the latter is not.

Patients have a right to refuse treatment, even if that means they will die. They have a right not to be touched, including through medical treatment, without their consent — a right to inviolability. This right protects a person’s physical integrity and can also function to protect physical and mental privacy. The right to inviolability is one aspect of every competent adult’s right to autonomy and self-determination.

Pro-euthanasia advocates use recognition of this right to refuse treatment even when it results in death to argue that, likewise, patients should be allowed to exercise their right to autonomy and self-determination to choose death through lethal injection. They say that there is no morally or ethically significant difference between these situations, and there ought to be no legal difference.

They found their argument by wrongly characterizing the right to refuse treatment as a “right to die,” and then generalize that right to include dying through euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. But the right to refuse treatment is not a “right to die” and does not establish any such right, although death results from respecting the patient’s right to inviolability. The right to refuse treatment can be validly characterized as a “right to be allowed to die,” but this is quite different from a right to be killed that euthanasia would establish.

Moreover, a “right to be allowed to die by refusing treatment,” is a “negative content” right — a right against one’s integrity being breached without one’s consent. In contrast, a “right to die” through access to euthanasia would be a “positive content” right — that is, a right to something. In general, the law is very much more reluctant to recognize positive content rights, than negative content ones.

This pro-euthanasia line of argument is yet one more example of promoting euthanasia through deliberate confusion between interventions, such as valid refusals of treatment, that are not euthanasia and those that are.

This brings us to the issue of legal causation, which also differentiates refusals-of-treatment-that-result-in-death from euthanasia. In the former, the person dies from their underlying disease — a natural death. The withdrawal of treatment is the occasion on which death occurs, but not its cause. If the person had no fatal illness, they would not die. We can see that when patients who refuse treatment and are expected to die, do not die. In contrast, in euthanasia death is certain and the cause of death is the lethal injection. Without that, the person would not die at that time from that cause.

The fact that the patient dies both in refusing treatment and in euthanasia is one of the sources of the confusion between the two. If we focus just on the fact that in both cases the outcome is death, we miss the real point of distinction between death resulting from refusing treatment and from euthanasia.

The issue in the euthanasia debate is not if we die — we all eventually die. The issue is how we die and whether some means of dying, such as euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, should remain legally prohibited. In order to maintain that they should, we need to be able to show how currently accepted practices, such as respect for patients’ refusals of treatment, are not euthanasia and differ from it and assisted suicide.

Margaret Somerville is director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, and author of The Ethical Imagination: Journeys of the Human Spirit.

Link to the article at: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Pulling+plug+euthanasia/2704966/story.html

Media incorrectly defines act by German doctors as euthanasia.

A recent article in the United Press (UPI.com) incorrectly defined euthanasia.

The article titled:German court clears euthanasia docs is wrong.

The article stated:

Paul Schoenle, the former head of neurology at a rehabilitation center in Magdeburg, Germany, and physician Frantisek Kovacic were cleared of charges Monday after a Hamburg court determined they had acted ethically in the case of Briton Timothy Sanders, the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported.

Schoenle had been charged with manslaughter while Kovacic was charged with being an accessory to manslaughter after they allowed the brother of the fatally ill and paralyzed Sanders to turn off his breathing apparatus in May 2004, the broadcaster said.

Sanders had been paralyzed since an accident in 2002 and could not breathe unaided. He died minutes after his brother Paul turned off the machines in a case of euthanasia, prosecutors said.

"The court found that the doctors behaved correctly both ethically and medically," a court spokeswoman said following the ruling, which determined that Sanders had already been terminally ill when his life was ended, Deutsche Welle reported.

According tot he article Dr. Paul Schoenle turned off the respirator that enabled Timothy Sanders to breath. But, turning off a breathing machine is not euthanasia.

Sanders died a natural death that resuled from his medical condition. Nobody denied Sanders oxygen, it was available, but due to his medical condition, he was unable to breath effectively. If Schoenle had put a bag over his head to deny him oxygen, then they would have caused his death.

There is a difference between killing and letting someone die. Sanders was not killed but let to die.

Euthanasia is the intentional cause of death, whereby the person dies from the action or omission that is done to cause death. When a person dies from a medical condition, then it cannot be euthanasia.

Since I do not know all the facts of the case I can only say that the charge of manslaughter was probably also incorrect.

UPI.com got the story wrong, the real question that the German court decided was whether or not their act was ethically correct or not. The court found that the doctors behaved correctly both ethically and medically. If there is any conflicting evidence in this case, I would certainly like to hear it.

Link to previous article about Killing or Letting Die:
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2008/07/killing-or-letting-die.html

Link to the article from the United Press International:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/12/23/German_court_clears_euthanasia_docs/UPI-46571230058513/