UK court will not hear challenge to assisted suicide law.

Press release: CNK CEO responds to the High Court decision not to allow a new challenge in the name of Mr Phil Newby

Date: Tuesday 19th November 2019
Link to the Press Release

Care Not Killing welcomes the latest rejection of an unnecessary legal challenge to the UK's assisted suicide laws by the campaigner Phil Newby.

Dr Gordon Macdonald, Chief Executive of Care Not Killing, commented:

'We welcome this decision by the Courts to reject the attempt to change the 1961 Suicide Act and introduce assisted suicide via the backdoor. As the ruling points out this is a matter for Parliament, not for judges.
'This ruling recognises that Parliamentarians across the UK continue to reject attempts to introduce assisted suicide and euthanasia - more than a dozen times since 2003 - out of concern for public safety, including in 2015 when the House of Commons overwhelmingly voted against any change in the law by 330 votes to 118. The current laws prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia do not need changing.
'It recognises the significant dangers of ripping up long held universal protections, that ensures the law treats all people equally and evidence from around the world confirms removing these protections puts vulnerable people at risk of abuse and of coming under pressure to end their lives prematurely. 

'Just a few week ago a major US report from the National Council on Disability found the laws in the handful of States that had gone down this route, were ineffective and oversight of abuse and mistakes was absent. 

'This was a highly significant and important report as those championing assisted suicide, like DiD, (formally the Voluntary Euthanasia Society), hold up Oregon and Washington as the model for making the change in England and Wales. 

'These findings resonate with other official reports that show year after year, a majority of those ending their lives in both States cite fear of becoming a burden a reason. 

'There are also problem outside these US states. In 2016, Canada changed their law to allow terminally ill people to request assisted suicide and euthanasia. In just three years the numbers of those dying this way has dramatically risen, with one Canadian academic reported a four-fold increase between 2016 and 2018, from 1,010 - 4235.
'Then in September, the Quebec Superior Court struck down the requirement that a person be terminally ill before they qualify for euthanasia in Canada. 

'While in July a depressed, but otherwise healthy 61-year-old man, was euthanised in the province of British Columbia. Alan Nichols, a former school janitor who lived alone, had struggled with depression, was admitted to Chilliwack General Hospital, BC, in June after he was found dehydrated and malnourished. Despite not being terminally ill, he received a lethal injection. Alan's case is not isolated.
'There are a growing numbers of reports that terminally ill patients and those with chronic conditions are being denied care, but offered the drugs to kill themselves. In one such case, Roger Foley from Ontario who suffers from a neurological disease, recorded hospital staff offering him a 'medically assisted death', despite his repeated statements that he did not want to die and wanted to return to his home.
'No wonder not a single doctors group or major disability rights organisation supports changing the law, including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Physicians, the British Geriatric Society and the Association for Palliative Medicine.'

Ends

NB: the ruling issued by Lord Justice Irwin and Mrs Justice May can be read here. Mr Philippe Newby, a 49-year old with Motor Neurone Disease, had argued that the prohibition on assisted suicide interfered with his rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. An initial application was declined in September by Ms Justice Whipple, who was one of the judges in the case of Noel Conway, and this latest ruling finds that:

'despite minor distinctions to be made in the conditions of the claimants, Conway is an authoritative case for present purposes, and in our judgment is binding on this court in relation to this issue... Notwithstanding the forensic analysis of the opinions in Nicklinson, the court is not an appropriate forum for the discussion of the sanctity of life, or for resolution of such matters which go beyond analysis of evidence or judgment governed by legal principle.'

Editors Notes
For media inquiries, please contact Alistair Thompson on 07970 162225.

• Care Not Killing is a UK-based alliance bringing together human rights and disability rights organisations, health care and palliative care groups, faith-based organisations groups, and thousands of concerned individuals. We have three key aims:
• to promote more and better palliative care;
• to ensure that existing laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide are not weakened or repealed;
• to inform public opinion further against any weakening of the law.We seek to attract the broadest support among health care professionals, allied health services and others opposed to euthanasia by campaigning on the basis of powerful arguments underpinned by the latest, well-researched and credible evidence.

Dutch doctors pressured in euthanasia requests

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The British Medical Journal published a study "Pressure in dealing with requests for euthanasia or assisted suicide. Experiences of general practitioners." 

The study interviewed 22 General Practitioners and indepth interviews with 15 General Practitioners concluded that:

GPs experienced in dealing with EAS requests were revealed: (1) emotional blackmail, (2) control and direction by others, (3) doubts about fulfilling the criteria, (4) counterpressure by patient’s relatives, (5) time pressure around referred patients and (6) organisational pressure.

The Medical Bag reported:

The study researchers conclude that “the pressure experienced by [general practitioners] in dealing with EAS requests can be attributable to factors associated with the patient-physician relationship and/or the relationship between the physician and the patient’s relative(s), the inherent complexity of the decision itself and the circumstances under which they have to make the decision to (not) grant EAS requests or perform EAS.

A much larger Netherlands study interviewed 800 GP's in 2011 and concluded that half of the GP's felt pressured by relatives to do euthanasia. The study indicated that two-thirds of the GP's had done at least one euthanasia in the past 5 years.

Physicians being pressured to do euthanasia is not new, but patients also feel pressured to "ask" for euthanasia. 

I was recently contacted by a man living with quadriplegia who felt pressured by medical staff to "ask" for euthanasia. Candice Lewis and Roger Foley were also pressured to "request" euthanasia. The common denominator is that the person who is being pressured to death is living with a significant disability.

The studies concerning doctors being pressured to do euthanasia, likely share the same common denominator, that being the patient is significantly disabled and in this case, the family wants euthanasia. 

This survey also explains the incidence of euthanasia without request in the Netherlands.

According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2017, there were 431 terminations of life without request in the Netherlands in 2015.

Some physicians will agree that the person's life is not worth living while others are weak and will succumb to the pressure of the family.

Disabled man feeling pressured to "ask" for euthanasia

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I was contacted by man with a disability, who was telling me how he was feeling pressured to ask for euthanasia. After explaining his concerns he sent me this email comment:

I am living in the advanced stages of quadriplegia, now 33 years along. I am feeling the suggestive influence from my nursing care, regarding euthanasia. They use indirect pressure by speaking about other patients who have chosen the path of assisted death, unsolicited from me. I am worried about Canadian laws, so anti-life, and I don't ever want to end my life. I didn't choose when I was born, and I won't choose when I die. Another thing that concerns me is as these evil laws progress against the vulnerable like myself, when will this newfound right to die become the duty or obligation to die? I can see it coming...

People talk about "freedom, choice and autonomy" without realizing how these concepts only apply to euthanasia in theory. In reality, it is the doctor or nurse practitioner who decides if you should die by euthanasia and many doctors and nurse practitioners judge the equality of people with significant disabilities.

Candice Lewis with her mother.

Candice Lewis was also pressured to "ask" for assisted death (Link to the Candice Lewis story and interview) and Roger Foley also experienced the, not so subtle pressure, to ask for an assisted death (Link to the Roger Foley story).

Euthanasia is sold to the public based on theory. The lives of People with disabilities are often judged based on "quality of life" perceptions of the person who lives with disabilities. These perceptions of quality of life can be deadly.

This is why the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) sells the Life Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care for $10 + taxes.

The Life Protecting Power of Attorney requires the person you appoint to make medical decisions on your behalf that uphold your values. It protects you from euthanasia and assisted suicide and it defines the treatment/care decisions that you would want, in the event that you are unable to make medical decisions yourself.

Purchase the Life Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care (Link) by contacting EPC at: 1-877-439-3348  or info@epcc.ca

UN disability rights envoy urges changes to Canada's euthanasia law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Catalina Devandas Aguilar

Catalina Devandas Aguilar, the UN’s Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities met with Canadian government officials and disability rights advocates from April 2 - 12, 2019 investigating Canada's implementation of the United Nations rights of people with disabilities. (Link to the report).

• Candice Lewis was pressured to die by assisted death.

In her report, Devandas Aguilar challenged the Canadian government concerning the implementation of its euthanasia law. Her report stated:

I am extremely concerned about the implementation of the legislation on medical assistance in dying from a disability perspective. I have been informed that there is no protocol in place to demonstrate that persons with disabilities have been provided with viable alternatives when eligible for assistive dying. I have further received worrisome claims about persons with disabilities in institutions being pressured to seek medical assistance in dying, and practitioners not formally reporting cases involving persons with disabilities. I urge the federal government to investigate these complaints and put into place adequate safeguards to ensure that persons with disabilities do not request assistive dying simply because of the absence of community-based alternatives and palliative care.

CTV news reported Devandas Aguilar as stating:

Among her chief concerns were reports of patients allegedly pressured to undergo medically assisted deaths, a lack of community care that forces patients into nursing homes, and how the court system fails people with disabilities. 

Devandas Aguilar said she was “extremely concerned” about the implications of assisted dying legislation on people with disabilities after hearing multiple complaints. 

“I urge the federal government to investigate these complaints and put into place adequate safeguards to ensure that persons with disabilities do not request assistive dying simply because of the absence of community-based alternatives and palliative care,”

This is important news that must not stop with this report. The fact is that Canada's euthanasia law employs undefined language with no effective oversight.

• Canadian man releases tapes of hospital urging man with disabilities to die by euthanasia.

The Canadian visit and the report by Devandas Aguilar opens the door to pushing back Canada's euthanasia law.

• UN disability rights envoy demands protection for people with disabilities from euthanasia in Canada.

UN disability envoy demands protection for people with disabilities from euthanasia in Canada.

By Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Roger Foley was pressured
to request an assisted death

A United Nations disability advocate recently challenged Canada's federal and provincial governments to make systematic change to ensure that the rights of people with disabilities are upheld in Canada.

• Canadian man releases tapes of hospital urging man with disabilities to die by euthanasia.

One of the people with disabilities interviewed by the United Nations advocate was Roger Foley from London Ontario who was allegedly pressured by doctors to request euthanasia. Foley also launched a lawsuit after being denied self-directed home-care.

• Candice Lewis was pressured to die by assisted death.

Catalina Devandas Aguilar
UN Disability Advocate.

CTV news, Avis Favaro, reported that Catalina Devandas Aguilar, the UN’s first ever Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities met with Roger Foley and other disability advocates. According to Favaro:

Roger Foley suffers from cerebellar ataxia, a fatal neurological disorder that limits his ability to move his arms and legs. He launched a landmark lawsuit against a London, Ont., hospital, several health agencies, the Ontario government and the federal government, alleging that health officials would not provide him with an assisted home care team of his choosing. 

Instead, Foley alleges, he was offered, among other things, a medically assisted death.

Rhonda Wiebe

Favaro interviewed Rhonda Wiebe, the co-chair of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities Ending of Life Ethics Committee who stated:

“This is about ripping him from his home and family and community and sticking him far away in a place where he will die alone,”

Devandas Aguilar told Favaro that she was primarily concerned with the effect of medically assisted deaths on the disability community. She stated:

Among her chief concerns were reports of patients allegedly pressured to undergo medically assisted deaths, a lack of community care that forces patients into nursing homes, and how the court system fails people with disabilities. 

Devandas Aguilar said she was “extremely concerned” about the implications of assisted dying legislation on people with disabilities after hearing multiple complaints. 

“I urge the federal government to investigate these complaints and put into place adequate safeguards to ensure that persons with disabilities do not request assistive dying simply because of the absence of community-based alternatives and palliative care,”

People with disabilities are being pressured to die by euthanasia in Canada. The cases we have heard about are the ones where the person refused. How many people with disabilities, and others, were pressured to die by euthanasia and succumbed to the pressure?

Canada: Recent History of Euthanasia Legalisation

By Richard Egan (with the Australian Care Alliance)

On 21 April 2010 the Canadian House of Commons defeated Bill C-384 An Act to amend the Criminal Code (right to die with dignity) by 228-59.

The Quebec National Assembly passed an “An Act respecting end-of-life care” by a vote of 94-22. It came into effect on 10 December 2015. This Act permits euthanasia on the request of an adult who is “at the end of life; with a serious and incurable illness; and in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability”.

On 6 February 2015 the Supreme Court of Canada in Carter v Canada (Attorney General) declared that provisions in the Canadian Criminal Code making it an offence to aid or abet suicide “unjustifiably infringe” section 7 [“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”] of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms “and are of no force or effect to the extent that they prohibit physician-assisted death for a competent adult person who (1) clearly consents to the termination of life and (2) has a grievous and irremediable medical condition (including an illness, disease or disability) that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual in the circumstances of his or her condition.” The declaration was suspended for a year, giving the opportunity for the Parliament to amend the offending laws by providing a scheme for physician assisted suicide.

The core paragraph in the judgement reads that: “The right to life is engaged where the law or state action imposes death or an increased risk of death on a person, either directly or indirectly. Here, the prohibition deprives some individuals of life, as it has the effect of forcing some individuals to take their own lives prematurely, for fear that they would be incapable of doing so when they reached the point where suffering was intolerable. The rights to liberty and security of the person, which deal with concerns about autonomy and quality of life, are also engaged. An individual’s response to a grievous and irremediable medical condition is a matter critical to their dignity and autonomy. The prohibition denies people in this situation the right to make decisions concerning their bodily integrity and medical care and thus trenches on their liberty. And by leaving them to endure intolerable suffering, it impinges on their security of the person.”

The argument based on the right to life is specious as it takes no account of the inevitability that a law permitting euthanasia will result in wrongful deaths based on medical errors, coercion, discrimination against or differential treatment of the disabled and mentally ill and suicide contagion.

The argument from liberty, if pressed to its logical conclusion, would require a law permitting assisted suicide or euthanasia on request by any person, including a minor, with capacity.

The argument from security is based on a false claim that pain and other physical symptoms cannot be relieved by best practice palliative care.

In response to the Supreme Court judgment, the Canadian parliament passed Bill C-14 which came into effect on 17 June 2016 and legalised euthanasia and assisted suicide on request for any adult who has “a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability”; is in “an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability”; and whose “natural death has become reasonably foreseeable, taking into account all of their medical circumstances, without a prognosis necessarily having been made as to the specific length of time that they have remaining”.

Increase in numbers

There have been three interim reports providing national data on euthanasia as well as reports on the data from Quebec, the most recent of which covers 1 July 2017 to 31 March 2018.

First report.

Comparing the data for the three six month periods covered by the national data reports - 17 June 2016-31 December 2016; 1 January 2017-30 June 2017 and 1 July 2017-31 December 2017 – the number of deaths by euthanasia almost doubled (189%) between the first and third six month periods from 805 to 1525 increasing from 0.6% of all deaths in Canada to 1.07% of all deaths.

Similarly the data for Quebec shows that official reports of euthanasia almost doubled from an average of 46 per month for the six month period 1 July 2016-31 December 2016 to an average of 90 per month for the three month period 1 January 2018-31 March 2018.

Reported acts of euthanasia in Quebec accounted for 1.18% of all deaths in 2017.

Unreported cases

There is a discrepancy of 171 cases of euthanasia between the number of official reports received (1493) and the number of cases reported by institutions (1664) in Quebec suggesting a failure by physicians to report in 10.3% of euthanasia cases.

Failure to comply with the legal processes

Quebec euthanasia

Six per cent of all forms reporting euthanasia in Quebec are received late and 42% off all forms received have insufficient information and require follow up requests.

Even after repeated requests for further information there is insufficient information to conclude whether or not the act of euthanasia complies with the law in 5% of cases.

In a further 5% of cases (62 cases out of 1374 for which a final assessment has been made) there was a failure to comply with the law, including:

• 29 cases in which the consulting physician was not independent from the physician who carried out euthanasia. However, this has been addressed by officially slackening the interpretation of the requirements for independence! 
• 9 cases in which the physician who performed euthanasia did not ensure that the request for euthanasia was voluntary, informed and persistent  
• 6 cases in which the consulting physician examined the person before a request for euthanasia was formally made
•  5 cases in which the approval was countersigned by an unqualified person  
• 5 cases in which the person did not have a serious and incurable illness  
• 4 cases in which the person did not have the required Quebec health insurance  
• 2 cases in which the person was not at the end of life  
• 2 cases in which the physician failed to verify that all the conditions for euthanasia were met.
  

In summary of these 62 cases at least 23 could be characterised as possible wrongful deaths.

Underlying conditions

Very limited data is provided on the underlying condition for which euthanasia is performed. In the last reporting period 9% of cases involved either an unreported condition or a condition other than cancer related, neurodegenerative or circulatory/respiratory system.

Some of the “other” conditions have included osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and “age-related frailty”.

The Canadian law only requires that “death be reasonably foreseeable”. The decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in AB v Attorney General of Canada delivered on 19 June 2017, in paragraph 81, interpreted this requirement as not requiring any connection whatsoever between the underlying conditions for which euthanasia is sought and the reasonable foreseeability of death – which can be based simply on advanced age. The woman in this case was 79 years old.

Additionally there are the 5 cases from Quebec in which the person did not have a serious and incurable illness and the 2 cases from Quebec in which the person was not at the end of life.

Short time between initial request and euthanasia being performed

Section 29 (c) of the Quebec law requires that before performing euthanasia the physician must verify “the persistence of suffering and that the wish to obtain medical aid in dying remains unchanged, by talking with the patient at reasonably spaced intervals given the progress of the patient’s condition”.

Section 241.2 (3) (g) of the Canadian Criminal Code requires a physician to “ensure that there are at least 10 clear days between the day on which the request was signed by or on behalf of the person and the day on which the medical assistance in dying is provided or — if they and the other medical practitioner or nurse practitioner referred to in paragraph (e) are both of the opinion that the person’s death, or the loss of their capacity to provide informed consent, is imminent — any shorter period that the first medical practitioner or nurse practitioner considers appropriate in the circumstance”.

Nonetheless according to a recent study of euthanasia at three institutions in Quebec the median number of days between the request for euthanasia and the patient’s death was just 6 days.

This study also found that in 32% of cases a palliative care consultation only took place less than 7 days before euthanasia was requested and in a further 25% of cases it took place on the same day or AFTER euthanasia was requested. This suggests that euthanasia is being routinely provided to people before they have had a chance to experience the full effect of palliative care to relieve their suffering and concerns.

Reasons for requesting euthanasia

A study from an Ontario hospital reported that those who received euthanasia tended to be white and relatively affluent and 95% of them indicated that loss of autonomy was the primary reason for their request. Other common reasons included the wish to avoid burdening others or losing dignity and the intolerability of not being able to enjoy one’s life. Few patients cited inadequate control of pain or other symptoms.

Disability – the story of Candice Lewis

Candice Lewis with her mother.

Candice Lewis is a 25 year old Canadian woman who happens to have been born with cerebral palsy.

In September 2016 Candice went to the emergency room at Charles S. Curtis Memorial Hospital in St. Anthony after having seizures.

Dr. Aaron Heroux told her she was very sick and likely to die soon. He offered her assisted suicide. The doctor also proposed assisted suicide for Candice to her mother Sheila Elson.

This offer was repeated despite both Candice and her mother making it clear that this was not an option Candice would consider. Dr Heroux told Sheila she was being selfish by not encouraging her daughter to choose assisted suicide.

Candice describes how bad it made her feel that a doctor was offering her assisted suicide.

More than twelve months later Candice has recovered well and her health was much improved. Candice hasn’t been having any seizures, is now able to feed herself, walk with assistance, use her iPad. She is more alert, energetic and communicative. She was able to "walk" down the aisle as a bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding in August 2017. She is doing what she loves most, painting and being with her family.

Candice and her mother Sheila have been interviewed by Kevin Dunn, who produced a film on euthanasia and assisted suicide called Fatal Flaws. The film of the interview can be viewed here.

There are several take home lessons from Candice’s experience:

• Doctors can get the prognosis wrong. Candice was told she was dying but was flourishing twelve months later. A wrong prognosis can lead to assisted suicide or euthanasia. A life can be thrown away needlessly;
• People with a disability already suffer discrimination in health care. When assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal, people with a disability are more at risk of being offered death as a solution because doctors and others consider that they would be better off dead; 
• Once doctors are authorised by the law to provide assisted suicide and euthanasia some of them will feel empowered to offer it to anyone they think would be better off dead. This undermines patients’ trust in doctors and can cause great distress.

Roger Foley

Financial issues: Denied assisted living but offered assisted suicide
Roger Foley, who has a crippling brain disease, has been seeking support to live at home. He is currently in an Ontario hospital that is threatening to start charging him $1,800 a day. The hospital has told Roger that his other option is euthanasia or assisted suicide under Canada’s medical assistance in dying law.

Canada's Medical Aid in Dying law needs effective monitoring.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Catherine Frazee

Catherine Frazee, professor emeritas in disability studies at Ryerson University and a former Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, wrote an excellent article on the lack of effective monitoring concerning Medical Aid in Dying (euthanasia) in Canada that was published in the Toronto Star on August 29.

Frazee, who is a member of the Vulnerable Persons Standard, recounts how the legalization of euthanasia was seen, in 2016, as “no less than a sea change” to the ethos and culture of the medical profession, that even though the euthanasia became legal in June 2016, that the monitoring guidelines have yet to be put into place and the proposed guidelines will simply not suffice.

Frazee wrote:

As of year-end 2017, more than 3,700 Canadians have died as a result of our new medically assisted dying policy. Yet an appropriate monitoring system is not yet in place. 

On the surface, one might venture that this radical transformation to the Canadian health landscape has been made without a hitch. We have, it appears, moved on from moral angst and heated debate to second-tier concerns. 

Rules to protect “vulnerable persons” are etched into the federal law and professional authorities in each Canadian province and territory have issued practice directives and educational resources on MAID. A new professional body, the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers, has emerged and is focusing attention on refinements, such as whether practitioners are adequately compensated, or if MAID’s bureaucratic requirements need streamlining. 

But too little is known about how persons who are eligible for MAID actually experience this new “choice.” And nothing is known about how those of us who care for those persons may have begun to calculate the value of their lives differently. 

That is why the federal government’s new Regulations for the Monitoring of Medical Assistance in Dying, published mid-summer and scheduled to come into effect in November, are deeply disappointing. The regulations fall short of a good-faith effort to understand the role that social determinants of health, such as poverty, insecure housing, isolation or social stigma, may play in motivating a request to die. 

The monitoring promised to Canadians when the law was passed, remains elusive, failing to provide the needed assurance that MAID must never become a replacement for shortcomings in other care. 

There have been warning signs. 

When Archie Rolland requested and received a medically assisted death in Quebec in 2016, he made it clear that it was not his illness, but rather the distress and deprivations of inadequate care that had made his life intolerable. 

More recently in Ontario, Roger Foley has reported that although his claims for disability support arrangements of his choosing have been denied, he is free to pursue a medically assisted death. Assisted life, no. Assisted death, yes. 

Are these isolated cases? Or are they the tip of the iceberg? Genuine, comprehensive monitoring could help us know. But it’s not in place. 

Nor will it be, under the new regulations. The “Impact Assessment” report appended to the new regulations make clear that the government’s expectation is that “approximately 10 minutes are required to electronically file each report submitted by a practitioner familiar with the reporting requirements” for MAID. 

Because medically assisted dying is, in fact, a narrow exemption to the criminal prohibition of homicide, and represents a departure from the Hippocratic oath by which physicians are bound, assessing its impacts must be infinitely more thorough than an electronic form where boxes are checked and cases are reported in 10 minutes or less. 

MAID monitoring must be far more than an administrative exercise. 

The act of ending the life of another human being raises fundamental questions of human dignity and rights. How will the most vulnerable members of our community be protected from the ultimate harm? How will persons with authority and power be held accountable? How will the kindly but insidious forces of inducement to MAID be kept in check? 

How will we ensure that the cost effectiveness of MAID will not override our social commitment to shoulder the costs of care and to promote equity and human flourishing? How will we track and correct for any slippage in human rights norms and our collective notions of a life worth living? 

To monitor MAID responsibly, we must hear more voices, consider more perspectives, probe for more answers and be more fearless in the face of what those answers might reveal.

Please sign the petition: I support Roger Foley's plea for an assisted life not assisted death (Link). Candice Lewis, from Newfoundland, was also pressured to ask for an assisted death in August 2016. Candice and Roger deserve our support.

Canadian man releases tapes of hospital urging him to die by euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

In March CTV News reported that Roger Foley, who lives with cerebellar ataxia, a degenerative neurological condition, has launched a lawsuit naming the London Health Sciences Centre and the Southwest Regional LHIN, stating that they are offering him assisted death (MAiD) but they are not willing to provide him with an assisted life.

Sign the petition: I support Roger Foley's plea for an assisted life not assisted death (Link).

C

Roger Foley

TV News has reported that Roger Foley released two audio recordings of medical staff at London Health Sciences Centre urging him to die by assisted death (euthanasia) rather than enable him to receive assistance to live. CTV news reports:

In one audio recording from September 2017, Foley is heard speaking to a man about what he has described as attempts at a “forced discharge,” with threats of a hefty hospital bill.

When Foley asks the man how much he’d have to pay to remain in hospital, the man replies, “I don’t know what the exact number is, but it is north of $1,500 a day.” 

...The man is heard saying that the hospital does not use “this conversation in every situation.” 

“It is only in situations where somebody has a plan in the community that is feasible that they’re not going to accept and that’s OK,” the man says. 

Foley then says that he hasn’t been informed of a plan for his care and that his rights as a patient are being violated. 

“You have already violated my preferences…So what is the plan that you know of?” Foley asks the man. 

“Roger, this is not my show,” the man replies. “I told you my piece of this was to talk to you about if you had interest in assisted dying.”

The CTV news report also aired the conversation in a second recording from January 2018:

The man is then heard telling Foley that he can “just apply to get an assisted, if you want to end your life, like you know what I mean?” 

When Foley says that he is being forced to end his life, the man protests and says that’s not the case.

Candice Lewis

“Oh, no, no, no,” the man is heard saying. “I’m saying if you feel that way…You know what I mean? Don’t get me wrong. I’m saying I don’t want you to be in here and wanting to take your life.”

Please sign the petition: I support Roger Foley's plea for an assisted life not assisted death (Link).

Candice Lewis, from Newfoundland, was also pressured to ask for an assisted death in August 2016. Candice and Roger deserve our support.

MAiD (euthanasia) increases by 30% in Canada.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The experience with every jurisdiction that permits euthanasia or assisted suicide is that once it is legalized it expands in the number and situations whereby death by lethal drugs is considered a response to difficult human conditions.

In Canada, The Third Interim Report on Medical Assistance in Dying (euthanasia and assisted suicide) was recently released by health Canada indicating that the number of deaths by lethal drugs has increased by 30% in the second half of 2017 (July 1 - Dec 31, 2017)

The data indicates that there were 1525 reported assisted deaths in the last 6 months of 2017. There were 1179 reported assisted deaths in The Second Interim report for the first 6 months of 2017. There were 3714 reported assisted deaths since parliament legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide, up to December 31, 2017.

• Order the Fatal Flaws Film. It will change the way you view assisted dying.

The actual data provided in the Canadian report lacks any insight into why doctors decided to kill these patients.

Research from the data published in the Second Québec government report found:

• 37% of forms/reports from doctors, and an unnamed percentage of reports from institutions, needed more information. Some doctors openly refused to provide the additional information requested by the Commission.

• A 5% or 7% error rate (with 3% undetermined) would not be acceptable where lives depended on the effective application of safeguards (e.g. the airline industry).  
• The three cases in which the safeguards were clearly violated (two where the person did not have a “serious and incurable illness” and one where the person was not at the “end of life”) were not addressed as the crimes that they are. 

Quebec euthanasia data from the Commission on end-of-life care.

The promotion and expansion of euthanasia in Canada has been very concerning. 

Recently Roger Foley, of London Ontario, launched a court case based on the fact that he has been told that he qualifies for an assisted death, but he does not qualify for assisted living. 

Since the euthanasia lobby thinks that there is not enough killing. The euthanasia lobby recently announced that they are planning to establish a euthanasia clinic in Toronto.

Doctor and hospices are being pressured to participate in euthanasia. Doctors in Ontario are being told that they must refer for MAiD and a BC Health Authority has told hospices that they must participate in MAiD.

A Canadian bioethicist published an article promoting euthanasia / organ donation and a study was published stating that up to 138 million dollars can be saved by euthanasia.

A study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine finding that requests for euthanasia are often based on existential distress and not physical pain.

To make matters worse, in June 2017 an Ontario judge extended euthanasia to people who are not terminal ill. The judge redefined the phrase "natural death must be reasonably forseeable" to permit doctors to kill people who are not terminally ill.

There may be unreported assisted deaths.

The Canadian government established a similar self-reporting system, as exists in the Netherlands and Belgium. This means that the doctor who carries out the death is the same doctor who reports the death (no independent oversight of the law) therefore if under-reporting or abuse of the law occurs, no one will know. Based on the first Québec government's first euthanasia report 14% of the assisted deaths did not comply with the law.

The number of Canadian euthanasia deaths is high when compared to Belgium where there were 235 reported assisted deaths in the first year (2003) of legal euthanasia and 349 in the second year and 393 in its third year after legalization. In 2015, there were 2021 reported Belgian assisted deaths. Belgium has approximately 1/3 of Canada's population.

Data from a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (March 2015) indicated that more than 40% of the assisted deaths in Belgium were not reported in 2013.

Data from a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine indicates that 23% of the assisted deaths in the Netherlands were not reported in 2015.