Five Reasons to Oppose Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

There are many reasons to oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide (also known as assisted death). Here we focus on five key reasons. 

(Link to a printable PDF version of this article)

1. Assisted death should be opposed because it involves causing a person’s death (killing).

Laws permitting assisted death give doctors (and nurse practitioners in Canada) the right to cause a person’s death. Society should never allow one person to legally kill another.

In Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, assisted death is done by euthanasia.

Euthanasia is intentionally injecting a person with a combination of lethal drugs. In most countries euthanasia is prohibited under murder or homicide laws.

In the United States and Switzerland, assisted death is done by assisting a person’s suicide. This is when a doctor prescribes a combination of lethal drugs that the person self-ingests.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide involve another person, usually a doctor, who directly kills or is involved with causing the death of another person.

Those who promote assisted death focus on the difficult life conditions that pressure someone to request to die. They argue from a situational ethics’ standpoint to justify killing, an act which is normally considered to be universally wrong.

Assisted death is sold as healthcare. In an interview, psychiatrist and ethicist Mark Komrad said:

“If you were just to replace the image of the needle or the pill with a gun, I think that would make a much more vivid picture of something that would be transculturally wrong.”(1)

People go through difficult physical or psychological conditions, but these human experiences must not be exploited to justify killing. Providing proper care and support is the appropriate response.

2. Assisted death should be opposed because “safeguards” only protect the physician; they do not protect vulnerable people.

Assisted death laws are designed to protect the physician (or another) who is willing to participate. These laws do not provide effective oversight and protection for the person who is being killed. These “safeguards” are designed to sell the legalization of assisted death to politicians who have concerns about killing, but they include exceptions that are wide enough to drive a hearse through.

The State of Oregon was the first jurisdiction to legalize assisted death in 1997.(2) The assisted suicide lobby did not challenge the safeguards in the law because they wanted to convince other jurisdictions that there is no “slippery slope”. However, in 2019, the assisted suicide lobby announced that the problem with assisted suicide laws is the restrictions. That year the Oregon legislature removed the 15-day waiting period.(3)
 
The euthanasia lobby alleges that the Netherlands have not changed their euthanasia law since it was passed in 2002. This is inaccurate: the language of the Netherlands’ euthanasia law has not changed but the interpretation of the law has. The most recent example is the extension of euthanasia to include incompetent people with dementia.(4)

Canada is a prime example of a country where safeguards lack effective definition or meaning. For instance, Canada’s euthanasia law required that a person’s “natural death be reasonably foreseeable”. However, the meaning of this phrase was not defined(5) and, consequently, the application of the law varied. In September 2019, a Québec Superior Court decision struck this phrase from the law.(6)

Canada is also a prime example of how a euthanasia law can incrementally expand. Canada passed its assisted death law in June 2016. In February 2020, Parliament introduced Bill C-7 to expand the law by eliminating the waiting period, permitting euthanasia of an incompetent person who requested an assisted death in advance, and eliminating the terminal illness requirement.(7)

Safeguards in assisted death laws are designed to politically sell killing. These laws protect physicians who are willing to kill; they do not protect those who die from the lethal drugs. 

3. Assisted death should be opposed because it is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer.
 
The American Medical Association Code of Ethics Opinion 5.7 (Physician-Assisted Suicide) states that:

…permitting physicians to engage in assisted suicide would ultimately cause more harm than good.

Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.

Instead of engaging in assisted suicide, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life.(8)

Assisted death laws are designed to protect physicians who are willing to cause the death of a patient, usually upon request. When the role of a physician changes from healer to killer, it fundamentally changes the physician.

In August 2016, 25-year-old Candice Lewis, who had several medical conditions, was pressured by a doctor to “request” an assisted death while she was in the hospital. Candice’s mother Sheila Elson stated in a CBC News story:

“His words were ‘assisted suicide death was legal in Canada,’” she told CBC. “I was shocked, and said, ‘Well, I’m not really interested,’ and he told me I was being selfish.” 

According to Elson, Lewis was within earshot when the doctor made the comment – which she said was quite traumatic for her daughter to hear.(9)

Sheila said the following in the film Fatal Flaws:

Not once did Candice say to them, “I want to end my life.” The doctor came in the next day after he told me about assisted suicide, stuck his face down in Candice’s and said, “Do you know how sick you are?” When I got his eye contact, we went out in the hallway and I told him, “Don’t you ever pull something like that again.”(10)

The fact that Candice was a person with disabilities should not change the value of her life. How many people are pressured by a medical professional and, unlike Candice, die by assisted death? 

4. Assisted death should be opposed because doctors are fallible; they can make medical errors and misdiagnose conditions.
 
In his article, “Why Getting Medically Misdiagnosed Is More Common Than You May Think,” Brian Mastroianni states that 12 million Americans are affected by medical diagnostic errors each year and an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 people die annually from complications related to misdiagnoses, with a similar number of people experiencing a permanent disability related to misdiagnosis.(11)
 
In April 2013, Pietro D’Amico, a 62-year-old magistrate from Calabria, Italy, died by assisted suicide at a Swiss assisted suicide clinic. His autopsy revealed that he had been medically misdiagnosed.(12)
 
Assisted death is a permanent decision often done when a person fears a painful or difficult death or is experiencing depression or feelings of hopelessness. Once they are dead, it is too late to learn that they were misdiagnosed or living with a treatable condition.

5. Assisted death laws should be opposed because legalization pressures physicians who then pressure patients.
 
What begins as a choice to kill or a choice to die becomes a pressure to kill and a pressure to die.
 
During the debate to legalize euthanasia in Canada, the euthanasia lobby argued that the issue was about choice. The “freedom of choice”: to die by euthanasia, and for a doctor or nurse practitioner to participate.
 
Sadly, Candice Lewis’ story may not be rare.
 
In February 2018, less than two years after Canada legalized assisted death, the Delta Hospice Society (DHS), an independent charitable organization in British Columbia (BC), was ordered by the Fraser Health Authority (FHA) to provide euthanasia.(13) The DHS resisted and continued its good work. In December 2019, the FHA ordered them to provide euthanasia or lose their government funding.(14) The DHS refused to comply with the government’s edict saying that, 

“MAiD is not compatible with the DHS’s purposes stated in the society’s constitution, and therefore, will not be performed at the Irene Thomas Hospice.”(15)

The Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association and the Canadian Society of Palliative Physicians sent the BC Minister of Health a joint statement saying, 

“…MAiD is not part of hospice palliative care; it is not an ‘extension’ of palliative care nor is it one of the tools ‘in the palliative care basket’”(16) 

The BC Minister of Health responded by ordering the DHS to comply or be taken over by the province in February 2021.(17)
 
Some recent assisted suicide bills in the United States have included a “do or refer” provision.(18) This means that if assisted suicide is legalized, a doctor would not have to prescribe assisted suicide drugs; however, if they received a request for assisted suicide, they would be required to refer the patient to someone who will write the prescription.

In Canada, doctors in Ontario have been ordered by the College of Physicians and Surgeons to do an “effective referral”. This means that the College can punish doctors who refuse to kill and refuse to refer their patients to a doctor who will kill.(19)
 
Advocates of assisted death use the term “freedom of choice” to promote their ideology. This campaign slogan has resulted in medically condoned killing. This ideology has led to a persuasive pressure to die or an edict to kill and is the central part of a cultural campaign to normalize killing.
 
Society must maintain and build on its commitment to caring, not killing.

(Link to a printable PDF version of this article)

Endnotes
1. Dunn, K. (Director). (2018). Fatal Flaws: Legalizing Assisted Death. DunnMedia & Entertainment. [Trailer]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89YQubAyRrI (Dr. Komrad’s statements start at 0:27)
2. Norman-Eady, S. (2002). Office of Legislative Research (OLR) Research Report: Oregon’s Assisted Suicide Law (Report No. 2002-R-0077). Connecticut General Assembly. https://www.cga.ct.gov/2002/rpt/2002-r-0077.htm
3. Callinan, K. (2019, January 1). End-of-Life option laws should avoid needless red tape. McKnight’s LTC News. https://www.mcknights.com/blogs/guest-columns/end-of-life-option-laws-need-compassion/
4. Pieters, J. (2020, April 21). Euthanasia Allowed for Dementia Patients Who Gave Prior Consent: Supreme Court. Netherlands Times. https://nltimes.nl/2020/04/21/euthanasia-allowed-dementia-patients-gave-prior-consent-supremecourt
5. Schadenberg, A. (2016, June 17). Canadian Senate passes euthanasia bill in time for summer break. Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Blog. https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2016/06/canadas-senate-passes-euthanasia-bill.html
6. Marin, S. (2019, September 11). A Quebec court has invalidated parts of the medical aid in dying laws. The Canadian Press. https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/a-quebec-court-has-invalidated-parts-of-the-medical-aid-in-dying-laws-1.4588622
7. Bill C-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying), First Session, Forty-third Parliament, 68-69 Elizabeth II, 2019-2020. https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-1/bill/C-7/first-reading
8. Chapter 5: Opinions on Caring for Patients at the End of Life. American Medical Association (AMA) Code of Medical Ethics. https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/2019-06/code-of-medical-ethics-chapter-5.pdf
9. Bartlett, G. (2017, July 24). Mother says doctor brought up assisted suicide option as sick daughter was within earshot. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/doctor-suggested-assisted-suicide-daughter-mother-elson-1.4218669
10. Dunn, K. (Director). (2018). Fatal Flaws Film Clip: “They wanted me to do an assisted suicide death on her.” [Video file]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB6zt43iCs8
11. Mastroianni, B. (2020, February 22). Why Getting Medically Misdiagnosed Is More Common Than You May Think. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/healthnews/many-people-experience-getting-misdiagnosed
12. Aided suicide in question after botched diagnosis. (2013, July 11). The Local. https://www.thelocal.ch/20130711/assisted-suicide-in-question-after-botched-diagnosis
13. Fayerman, P. (2018, February 6). Delta hospice rebels against Fraser Health’s mandate to provide medical assistance in dying. Vancouver Sun. https://vancouversun.co/news/local-news/delta-hospice-rebels-against-fraser-healths-mandate-to-provide-medical-assistance-in-dying/
14. Gyarmati, S. (2019, December 7). Fraser Health gives Delta Hospice ‘formal notice of concerns’. Delta Optimist. https://www.delta-optimist.com/news/fraser-health-gives-delta-hospice-formal-notice-of-concerns-1.24029942
15. New Delta Hospice Society board reverses MAiD position. (2019, December 2). Delta Optimist. https://www.deltaoptimist.com/news/new-delta-hospice-society-board-reverses-maid-position-1.24024999
16. Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association (CHPCA) and Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians (CSPCP) Joint Call to Action. (2019, November 27). https://www.chpca.ca/news/chpca-and-cspcp-joint-call-to-action/
17. Gyarmati, S. (2019, December 24). Here’s the deadline given to Delta Hospice. Delta Optimist. https://www.delta-optimist.com/news/here-s-the-deadline-given-to-delta-hospice-1.24041440
18. Murphy, S. (Administrator). (2020, January 14). Indiana assisted suicide bill fails to protect objecting practitioners: Assisted suicide evolves from “assistance” to “medical care”. Protection of Conscience Project. https://www. consciencelaws.org/law/commentary/legal102.aspx
19. Advice to the Profession: Professional Obligations and Human Rights. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO). https://www.cpso.on.ca/Physicians/Policies-Guidance/Policies/Professional-Obligations-and-Human-Rights/Advice-to-the-Profession-Professional-Obligations

Switzerland approves assisted suicide for prisoners.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Swiss Cantonal Departments of Justice and Police have approved assisted suicide for prisoners after a Swiss prisoner convicted of sexual assault and rape of girls and woman was considered for death by assisted suicide.

Capital Punishment is illegal in Switzerland.

The Swiss media organization, Local.ch, reported that

Switzerland's cantons, which implement prison sentences, have agreed "on the principle that assisted suicide should be possible inside prisons," the Conference of Cantonal Departments of Justice and Police said. 

Conference director Roger Schneeberger told AFP that there were still differences between cantons on how assisted suicides could be carried out in prisons and a group of experts would issue recommendations by November.

Peter Vogt

An AFP news article by Agnès Pedrero reported that Peter Vogt (69) who was diagnosed with several psychological disorders and reportedly lives with health issues related to his kidney and heart, contacted the assisted suicide group Exit, and was being considered for assisted suicide. Vogt was declared a dangerous offender and is unlikely to be released from prison.

Vogt may have been the first Swiss prisoner to request death by assisted suicide but his request led to more prisoners requests.

Once a society accepts that killing is an acceptable response to human difficulties, then killing will become acceptable for other forms of human difficulty.

Swiss prisoner convicted of child rape is being considered for assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Peter Vogt

A Swiss prisoner convicted of sexual assault and rape of girls and woman ranging in age from 10 to 56 is being considered for death by assisted suicide.

An AFP news article by Agnès Pedrero reported that Peter Vogt (69) who has been diagnosed with several psychological disorders and reportedly lives with health issues related to his kidney and heart, contacted the assisted suicide group Exit, and is being considered for assisted suicide. Vogt has been declared a dangerous offender and is unlikely to be released from prison.

Pedrero reported that Vogt responded to his questions by writing:

"It is natural that one would rather commit suicide than be buried alive for years to come" 

"It would be better to be dead than to be left to vegetate behind these walls"

Switzerland outlawed capital punishment in 1942.

• What’s Cruel for the Incarcerated is Cruel for the Terminally Ill: The Connection between Lethal Injection and Assisted Suicide.

Pedrero reported that the Swiss Centre of Expertise in Prison and Probation Foundation studied the issue and responded by supporting assisted suicide for prisoners.

According to Pedrero, Barbara Rohner, lead author of the foundation's report, stated:

assisted suicide rights should apply to prisoners under certain conditions, noting that in cases of mental illness two independent specialists should be consulted. 

Any detainee possessing discernment should, in principle, have assisted suicide rights if they have "a physical or mental illness resulting in unbearable suffering,"

The foundation also recommended that authorities responsible for the prisoner's welfare must ensure the suicide request is not the result of a short-term emotional crisis.

Vogt told Pedrero that his "quality of life" is unbearable:

Vogt insisted that he wanted to die because of the "unbearable" deterioration in his quality of life, along with the fact that he can no longer see his gravely ill mother, who lives in Austria.

Vogt may be the first Swiss prisoner to request death by assisted suicide but his request is leading to more prisoners requests.

Once a society accepts that killing is an acceptable response to human difficulties, then killing will become acceptable for other forms of human difficulty.

Simon Stevens: Hospitals, eugenics and assisted suicide.

This article was written and published by Simon Stevens, disability consultant and activist, on January 2, 2020.

As an internationally recognised disability consultant, trainer and most importantly, activist, I have always strongly opposed all forms of eugenics.

In 1995, aged 21, I was endlessly watching about parents wanting to kill their young son with cerebral palsy and in frustration I rang the news service, ITN, demanding they interview me, and they did! So that evening the UK saw a young drooling spastic putting his foot down on an issue he remains passionate about.

I oppose infant euthanasia or ‘mercy killings’ as everyone has a place and purpose that has to be valued as it may be unpredictable in what is achieved.

I find the idea of someone with an impairment label who remains healthy requesting that state assists them on a date they chose to commit suicide as a selfish and immoral act. Dignitas in Switzerland is no better than a Nazi gas chamber.

Where my views become grey is in terms of true end of life care. I was always for ‘do not resuscitate’ until I understood the damage it can cause when I sat on a research committee.

End of life means to me people who are facing death where there is no hope of recovery. I believe in his situation, as activists, we should be respectful.

Background

I am 45 and have significant cerebral palsy that affects all my life, specifically my speech and mobility. I also have mild bipolar, nerve pain, asthma and likely stuff I forgotten.

My curse is being hyper intelligent in a spastic body. Imagine thinking like Sherlock Holmes and looking like you have severe learning difficulties. My master weapon is my words in emails and articles which I call my art.

I have been a disability consultant, trainer and activist most of my life, something that has been natural to me. I remain amazed at what I have achieved and the opportunities I had, like this article. But my best achievements have been helping others in small ways no one sees.

My highs have been matched with my lows. Abusive parents, bullying at normal school, periods of depression and very ill health.

At 45, in a body doctors do not understand, my health, which has included 2 times in critical care in 2019 with two comas, has led me to reflect.

Meeting Death

In this section, I am going to discuss death as a metaphoric man.

I first met death during my birth due to brain damage from a lack of oxygen. In another era I could easily be still born. The doctors told my mother I would only last 3 days or be a ‘cabbage’, yet here I am at 45 as someone who considered inspiring.

The second time I met death was when I was 33 when I had the symptoms of Gullian Barre Syndrome. Due to my cerebral palsy, which can a varied in severity for each person, it took a few weeks to understand, when I was now paralysed from the navel it was taken seriously, as I demanded the paramedics take me to hospital despite their protests.

When the appropriate doctor saw me, her jaw dropped as she understood the severity. That night I was constantly monitored by a nurse as I was administered life-saving medicine while death watched in the corner. It took 2 more weeks in hospital and six months intensive physio-terrorism until I was restored to myself as a drooling spastic.

I always understood as someone with now complex health issues that my lifespan would be shorter.

I do not fear death as I lived so well. I value the opportunities I had and the norms I have broke.

At 45, and during the past year, my health has involved talking to death I am unsure what is ahead.

I feel death has now confirmed when and how I will die and that’s fine because I really lived. I know he will never disclose the details to me, and I find my survival this year interesting.

I feel it is wrong to try to shorten or prolong your life from what death has in mind. As someone that has been close to death too many times and did not know until 2 weeks later when my personal assistant told me that I was in a 11 day coma followed by a 2 day coma, I remain confused to how I survived.

Hospitals

So now, we discuss the heart of the matter.

I will discuss my experiences of UK hospitals although I have been unwell in Nigeria (my first overnight admission due to gastroenteritis aged 20 and yes, wtf) and Prague (just food poisoning).

In recent years my visits have been more frequent and more worrying. My chest is constantly impaired although it is hit and miss as to how hospital treats it. One time it could result in a coma and intensive therapy, another time I am told at 4 am clinging on the trolley trying not to wet myself, knowing asking someone for help as ‘in a minute’ pointless, to go home.

Hospitals are the worst place to be unwell, which is ironic. The first problem is the paramedics refuse to take my manual wheelchair, let alone my electric chair, forcing me to bed bound and by default double incontinent which is unpleasant when staff have not earned your trust have to change you.

I find hospital a harsh environment where politeness is the only form of control I have to manage my situation as someone assumed to lack intelligence, any hostile behaviour will mean labels are placed on me. I need to just lie here and take mental pictures for the email complaint I will write when I am safely in my own home. I often stare at people quietly thinking to myself they have no idea what mistakes they have made and who they are addressing.

If you think as one friend recently put ‘you are the toughest person I know’, hospital must be hard work for different people with different situations. For myself, nappies/diapers/pads are a normality and employing personal assistants for 27 years allows me to accept a lack of privacy. For others, it will be the first time they have to experience such difficulties.

Therefore, their experiences or fears of hospitals may attract them to assisted dying to avoid the humiliation to themselves and their families. I have been in situations where a stiff upper lip was needed as four nurses were needed to change my dirty pad.

Summary

As activists, we should not berate those individuals asking for assisted suicide as they are often being used by specific charities to promote the cause. On the other hand. I am against senior disabled activists who claim to support our existence but reject a government committed who believe disabled people can make a contribution in society, openly preferring we were left on the scrapheap while the left wing organisations demanding to represent us drink champagne funded by the government.

It is interesting that during the last time the parliament had a vote on assisted suicide Cameron’s Conservative government’s cabinet, who many activists saw as the bad guys, were instructed to oppose the bill on a free vote. I was pleased my Labour local MP came and talked to me in a lobby (supposedly part of the good guys) at Parliament House until he refused to look at me in the face and tell me I had a right to exist. It still hurts as it was a simple request.

I leave this complex and personal article with two requests.

Firstly, lets accept everyone has a right to live and be fully contributing citizens regardless of their background or abilities. We need to focus on inclusion and accessibility in all aspects of society instead of rights and entitlements that are label based. Everyone deserves to have their personal needs and outcomes supported appropriately as their life changes to help avoid the frustrations that lead to suicidal desires.

Secondly, we need to all work together to make hospitals friendly and safer places that no one fears. This is a part of understanding their always forthcoming death and own it, without trying to bow out from the date set by a higher power planned.

I have felt suicidal a few times due to my environment at those times. While it may be strange to some, I don’t want to be ‘cured’ as it would be a distressing event where my identity would be lost, that may take months or years to recover from.

I hope my rumblings offers a very personal experience of eugenics to contribute to the discussions needed.

• Other articles by Simon Stevens. (Link).

Italian Assisted suicide activist acquitted in death of disabled man.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Reuters news reported that a Milan court acquitted Italian assisted suicide activist, Marco Cappato, today in the assisted suicide death of Fabiano Antoniani (known as DJ Fabo), in February 2017.

This decision is sad but not surprising considering Italy's constitutional court decision in September 2019, that opened the door to assisted suicide.

The outcome of the constitutional court decision is not clear. According to the Guardian, the court decided that:

Anyone who “facilitates the suicidal intention … of a patient kept alive by life-support treatments and suffering from an irreversible pathology” should not be punished under certain conditions, the top court ruled.

This statement appears to limit the extent of the decision to people being kept alive on life-support. Further reading suggests that the decision is much wider. The Guardian article stated:

The court said that a patient’s condition must be “causing physical and psychological suffering that he or she considers intolerable”.

Following approval of the decision by a local ethical committee, public health authorities should verify all conditions are met.

Since the court used the language “causing physical and psychological suffering that he or she considers intolerable” it may have opened assisted suicide to a much wider group of people.

The statement is completely subjective, hard to define and nearly impossible to regulate.

Based on Antoniani's injuries and the language of the court decision, the Italian constitutional court seems to have opened the door to assisted suicide based on killing people with disabilities.

I fear that the language of the decision may lead to wide open assisted suicide.

Reuters reported that Cappato faces another trial in February over a similar case to that of Antoniani, in which he assisted a 53-year-old living with motor neurone disease to die in a Swiss clinic.

Dark Anniversary: The State of Assisted Suicide 25 Years after Oregon Measure 16

This article was published by National Review online on November 19, 2019

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

Measure 16 in Oregon did not start the fire, but it added fuel.

Proponents of assisted suicide are celebrating the 25th anniversary of Measure 16, the Oregon referendum that, for the first time in the modern era, formally legalized doctor-prescribed death. To open the door to more suicide in a culture that is now roiled by an acute suicide crisis — about 45,000 Americans kill themselves annually, up from about 30,000 in 1999 — seems a bizarre event to cheer. But nihilism strikes a beat. Suicide to prevent suffering is seen by euthanasia supporters as not only acceptable but optimal, perhaps the best way to die.

After the passage of the Oregon referendum, assisted-suicide enthusiasts predicted that it would lead quickly to widespread public embrace of doctor-hastened death. That hasn’t happened, and resistance remains stiff. Still, Measure 16 did mark the beginning of an avalanche down the slippery slope. The District of Columbia and nine U.S. states, including that culture-driving behemoth California, have legalized assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Belgium, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and our closest cultural cousin, Canada, now permit doctors to give lethal injections to patients who ask to die. Switzerland’s once sleepy law allowing assisted suicide, passed back in the 1940s, came to the fore in the ’90s with the establishment of suicide clinics at which people from around the world pay about $10,000 to be made dead. Victoria, Australia, has also legalized assisted suicide, while the German supreme court conjured a limited legalization, permitting the practice so long as the motive for assisting isn’t venal. Energetic legalization efforts are continuing in countries as disparate as New Zealand, India, the United Kingdom, and Italy.

That’s a lot of radical cultural change — which, I hasten to note, is not a synonym for progress — in a quarter century. But it seems to me that, now that doctors have greater ability than ever before to relieve suffering, the current vitality of the euthanasia movement is more a symptom of growing nihilism than a cause of it. But it is also a reinforcing symptom. This milestone anniversary of Measure 16 seems a reasonable time to assess the cultural consequences that have accrued from redefining suicide as a medical treatment.

It is important to understand that the so-called right to die isn’t about terminal illness. Nor is it a safety valve to be used only to prevent irremediable suffering. Those are just sales pitches to persuade a still-wary public to swallow the hemlock. Even in jurisdictions that (currently) restrict the writing of lethal prescriptions to those deemed to have six months or less to live — a notoriously difficult and imprecise prognosis — there is no requirement that the suicidal patient’s purported suffering be objectively irremediable.

Besides, once a country popularly embraces euthanasia, most limitations are quickly abandoned. Both Belgium and the Netherlands legalized lethal-injection euthanasia commencing in 2002 and proceeded quickly, from allowing doctors to lethally inject terminally people who request it, to allowing chronically ill people who request it, to allowing people with disabilities who request it, to allowing the mentally ill who request it.

The mentally ill? Really?

Swiss doctor found guilty in the assisted suicide death of a woman who was not sick.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Finally a little sanity within the insanity.

Pierre Beck

A Swiss doctor was found guilty in the assisted suicide death of a woman who was not sick. 

According to Swissinfo news:

A court in Geneva has given a suspended sentence to the regional vice-president of EXIT, Pierre Beck, for helping an 86-year-old woman to die when she was not sick.

He was found guilty of breaking federal law on therapeutic substances and given a suspended 120-day jail sentence. The court thus confirmed a criminal order issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland.

Beck, a medical doctor who is vice-president of Exit in francophone Switzerland, provided a lethal dose of pentobarbital in April 2017 for the elderly woman. She wanted to die with her husband, who was very ill.

According to Swissinfo, Beck admitted to acting beyond the criteria, but he said that he didn't regret his action and faced with a similar situation he would likely do it again, but after seeking advice.

The good news is the judge decided that Swiss law does not permit assisted suicide for existential reasons.

The court dealt with Beck leniently when giving him a suspended sentence. The lenient sentence may be interpreted as a green light to kill because the court did not provide a deterrent.

Recently a physically healthy depressed man died by euthanasia in BC. Alan Nichols (61) died by euthanasia, even though he did not qualify for euthanasia since he was not sick. His family urged the doctor to stop the injection, but to no avail.

Hopefully the Nichols case can prevent other similar cases from occurring in Canada.

Targeting people with mental illness and dementia for euthanasia.

This article was published by The American Spectator on October 17, 2019

Several countries may be ahead of us in this area, but the U.S. is fast catching up.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

A few years ago, a Dutch doctor attended her elderly Alzheimer’s disease patient at a nursing home. The doctor’s purpose wasn’t to examine the patient or prescribe new medicines. Rather, she was there to kill.

While competent, the patient asked to be euthanized when incapacitated, but she also instructed that she be allowed to say when. But before she did that, the doctor and her family decided that her time had come. The doctor drugged the woman’s coffee and, once she was asleep, began the lethal injection procedure. But the patient awakened unexpectedly and fought against being killed. Rather than stopping, the doctor instructed the family to hold the struggling woman down while she completed the homicide.

This would seem to be a clear-cut case of murder. But a judge recently exonerated and praised the doctor for acting in the “best interests” of the patient by merely executing the woman’s previously stated wishes. In other words, the judge essentially ruled that the struggling patient was no longer competent to want to stay alive.

The only unusual aspect of the “Case of the Struggling Alzheimer’s Patient” was the struggle. Even when incompetent and unable to make their own decisions, the law of Netherlands and Belgium allows dementia patients to be killed by doctors if they so order in written advance directives.

Both countries also allow mentally ill patients who ask to die to be euthanized. Such procedures are not rare. According to government statistics, in 2017, Dutch psychiatrists and doctors euthanized 83 mentally ill patients. Sometimes these legal homicides are accompanied by consensual organ harvesting after death. One case — reported in an international transplant medical journal — involved a self-harmer (or “auto-mutilator”) for whom doctors applied the ultimate harm as a “treatment.” Without criticism — or even a moment’s reflection about the moral questions raised by such an act — the medical journal reported approvingly that the lungs of the deceased psychiatric patient were well accepted by their recipients.

The Supreme Court of Switzerland, a country that permits assisted suicide clinics — ruled several years ago that the mentally ill have a constitutional right to access death. Accordingly, there are many verified cases of the non-physically ill being assisted to kill themselves — including an elderly woman who wanted to die because she had lost her looks.

Canada, which recently legalized lethal injection euthanasia for those whose deaths are “reasonably foreseeable,” now is debating expanding the right to be killed to those whose lives are not in danger. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on record as favoring liberalization and has stated his government will not appeal a recent court ruling declaring the foreseeable death limitation to be unconstitutionally restrictive and discriminatory.

How far is the expansion likely to go? Many Canadian euthanasia advocates are pushing for revisions that would allow people with mental illnesses and dementia to be killed by doctors in the same manner as now allowed in the Netherlands and Belgium. And here’s some breaking news: the Alzheimer Society of Canada — which is supposed to advocate for the welfare of such patients — has officially endorsed allowing euthanasia by advance directive. This means that even if the incompetent patient is not suffering — perhaps even if he or she expresses no desire to die — their former self’s decision trumps the current self’s needs and desires.

Alan Nichols with his brother.

Meanwhile, there has already been at least one depressed Canadian apparently euthanized at his request even though his death was not foreseeable. The man’s family even begged doctors not to kill him, but to no avail.

What about the U.S.? Would we ever follow such a course? As of now, the nine states and the District of Columbia that have legalized assisted suicide limit access to patients who are terminally ill. But that’s more a political expediency than a principled limitation. Indeed, restricting assisted suicide to the dying is philosophically unsustainable.

Think about it. If the point of allowing suicide by doctor is to eliminate suffering — and if eliminating suffering can include eliminating the sufferer — how can facilitated death be forbidden to patients, such as those with dementia and mental illness, who may suffer far more extremely and for a much longer time than the already dying? It makes no sense.

Despite continuing disapproval of euthanasia for mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association, that point is increasingly being made in the media and professional journals. For example, an article just published in the American Journal of Bioethics argues that since “the suffering associated with mental illness can be as severe, intractable, and prolonged as the suffering due to physical illness,” as a matter of “parity,” in “severe” cases, “PAD” (physician-assisted death) should be made available to mentally ill patients with “decisional capacity” — even when they have “a relatively long expected natural lifespan.” The authors, University of Utah psychiatry professor Brent M. Kious and noted assisted suicide advocate and bioethicist Margaret (Peggy) Battin, go so far as to suggest that “psychiatrists and other mental health professionals” could one day become “gatekeepers for PAD” once “a metric for suffering in both mental and physical illness” is established.

Ponder this for a moment. Instead of being duty-bound to save the lives of all their suicidal patients, mental health professionals would become approvers for and facilitators of self-destruction. That should be unthinkable.

Alas, the first small legal steps toward permitting the demented and mentally ill to access suicide by doctor have already been taken. After California legalized assisted suicide for the terminally ill, the Department of State Hospitals promulgated a regulation requiring that patients who have been involuntarily committed — and who have become terminally ill — be provided access to assisted suicide despite their mental illness. By definition such people are not legally competent, or else why would they be involuntary hospitalized?

Meanwhile, Nevada just enacted a law that allows dementia patients to instruct caregivers to withhold “food and water” once they reach incapacity toward the end that they starve to death. Please note that this first-of-a-kind law isn’t about refusing a feeding tube or preventing force-feeding. Rather, the law (SB 121) permits patients to order their future selves to be refused “food and water” — even if they willingly eat, perhaps even if they ask caregivers for sustenance. That’s homicide by neglect.

Don’t take my word for it. The influential bioethicist Thaddeus Mason Pope wrote about the law:

Even after we stop offering food and fluids, other problems may arise. Most problematically, the patient may make gestures or utterances that seem to contradict her prior instructions [to be starved]. Does such communication revoke the advance directive? A recent court case from the Netherlands suggests the answer is “no.” Once the patient reaches late-stage dementia, she is unable to knowingly and voluntarily revoke decisions she made with capacity. But the answer remains uncertain in the United States.

In other words, Pope believes that a court could one day rule that an advanced dementia patient isn’t “competent” to want to eat.

Of course, the point of such advocacy isn’t really starvation but convincing people to allow intentional overdosing of these vulnerable patients by doctors. After all, if we are going to end their lives, the reasoning goes, we should at least do it humanely. If we accept the propriety of intentionally ending dementia patients’ lives based on their prior instructions, that argument certainly has emotional appeal.

Accelerating advocacy for legalizing euthanasia is pushing us toward making a stark choice. We can decide that assisted suicide is an acceptable response to human suffering, allowing people to die — but also unleashing gravitational forces of logic that will lead inexorably (over time) to a broader killing license, including of the killing of dementia and mentally ill patients as advocated by Kious and Battin. Or, we can focus instead on suicide prevention in all cases. Such caring takes more time, commitment, and resources, but better exemplifies true “compassion,” the root meaning of which, after all, is to “suffer with.”

Kious and Battin are on the mirror opposite side from me in the euthanasia debate, but we agree that there is no such thing as a “little” euthanasia: In for a penny is in for a dollar. Those with eyes to see, let them see.

Award-winning author Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism and a consultant to the Patients Rights Council.

Italian Court opens a wide door to assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Italy's constitutional court opened the door to assisted suicide in its decision in the case concerning Fabiano Antoniani, known as DJ Fabo.

In June 2014, Antoniani experienced a spinal cord injury in a serious car accident. His injuries caused him to become blind and live as person with a tetraplegic condition. 

In February 2017, Marco Cappato, a member of Italy’s Radical party, drove Antoniani to Switzerland where he died by assisted suicide.

The extent of the court decision is not clear. According to the Guardian, the court decided that:

Anyone who “facilitates the suicidal intention … of a patient kept alive by life-support treatments and suffering from an irreversible pathology” should not be punished under certain conditions, the top court ruled.

This statement appears to limit the extent of the decision to people being kept alive on life-support. Further reading suggests that the decision is much wider. The Guardian article stated:

The court said that a patient’s condition must be “causing physical and psychological suffering that he or she considers intolerable”. 

Following approval of the decision by a local ethical committee, public health authorities should verify all conditions are met.

By the court using the language “causing physical and psychological suffering that he or she considers intolerable” it actually opens assisted suicide to a much wider group of people.

The statement is completely subjective, and similar to the Canadian Carter court decision. This statement is hard to define and nearly impossible to regulate.

Based on Antoniani's injuries and the language of the court decision, clearly the Italian court opened the door to assisted suicide based on killing people with disabilities.

I fear that the language of the decision will lead to wide open assisted suicide, unless the government tightly defines the terms and Italian doctors refuse to kill their patients.

Propaganda promoting "assisted death" euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Australia is experiencing the promotion of euthanasia in a similar manner that Canada experienced death promotion before and after death by lethal injection (euthanasia) was legalized.

The first "assisted death" in Victoria Australia is being promoted. The death of Kerry Robertson (61) who was living with metastatic breast cancer is being promoted as the "perfect death" and Victoria's Health Minister called it an "historic moment."

The UK is also experiencing a steady stream of stories promoting the legalization of assisted suicide and the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic business in Switzerland. 

Janet Hughes, with Gloucestershirelive published a story  about a 72 year-old British man who died by assisted suicide in Switzerland. Hughes story is raw propaganda designed to promote assisted suicide and undermine the opposing arguments.

Another UK story is of a man who received a £10,000 donation to enable him to go to the Dignitas death clinic in Switzerland. Now he has time to enjoy his family and his hobbies before his scheduled death on September 6.

Canada was inundated with stories before and after the legalization of euthanasia, of people who "should" die by euthanasia. These stories were designed to promote and normalize death by lethal injection.

Promoting "assisted death" has two effects:

The first effect is to break down the resistance to the concept of killing people by euthanasia, which leads to the second part of the first effect, social acceptance.

The second effect is the increase in requests. This effect is not based on social acceptance, per se, but more so the fact that the euthanasia promotion stories emphasize avoiding the "inevitable" suffering that the person will experience, if they didn't die by euthanasia and the supposed "perfect death" as referenced in the Australian article.

Many people are asking why the number of Canadians who die by euthanasia has grown so fast? My response is that Canada was inundated with stories promoting euthanasia which caused a quick social acceptance of legal medical killing and it resulted many people to requesting death.
 
Euthanasia propaganda stories are also designed to create a fear of suffering. Nobody wants to suffer and these stories suggest that legalizing euthanasia is the only way to prevent suffering.
 
Pro-euthanasia people like to attack people, like myself, who oppose medical killing, as somehow wanting others to suffer. These accusations couldn't be further from reality but this is an effective propaganda ploy to promote the idea that euthanasia prevents suffering.

A society that upholds dignity, equality and caring does not evolve from a culture that promotes killing but rather it comes from a culture of caring. 

Caring not killing is not a slogan but a societal necessity to ensure true dignity and equality for every human person.

Once society accepts medical killing, the only questions that remains is who should be killed and for what reason?

Swiss suicide organization assists 18% more deaths in 2018.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Swiss Exit suicide organization has reported that they assisted 1204 suicide deaths in 2018, which is up by 18%.
 
The Swissinfo news report stated that Exit's German speaking division assisted 905 deaths, up from 733 deaths, and their French speaking division assisted 299 deaths, up from 286 deaths.

According to the Swissinfo report:

Of the deceased, 57% were women, with an average age of 78. The most common reason for wanting to die was terminal cancer (344 cases), followed by age-related health problems and chronic pain disorders.

In May 2014, the Exit suicide organization extended assisted suicide to healthy elderly people who live with physical or psychological pain. This decision has led to an increase in assisted deaths.

An article published by Swissinfo last November exposes that Swiss suicide organizations are lobbying world-wide for the legalization of assisted suicide.

All is not well with assisted suicide in Switzerland.
 

Pietro D'Amico

In April 2013, Pietro D’Amico, a 62-year-old magistrate from Calabria Italy, died by assisted suicide at a suicide clinic in Basel Switzerland. His autopsy showed that he had a wrong diagnosis.

In February 2014, Oriella Cazzanello, an 85 year-old healthy woman died at a Swiss suicide clinic. The letter she sent her family stated that she was unhappy about how she looked.

A Swiss assisted suicide study found that 16% of the people who died at Swiss assisted suicide clinics, in 2014, had no underlying illness.

The Swiss assisted suicide statistics prove that when assisted suicide becomes accepted, deaths by assisted suicide will increase and the reasons for assisted suicide expand.  

Link to the Australian Care Alliance Switzerland report.

Assisted dying is an ethical minefield and not just a matter of personal choice

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Charles Moore wrote an excellent article that was published in the Telegraph on February 9. 

Moore begins the article by responding to the story of Geoffrey Whaley (80) who died by assisted suicide at a suicide clinic in Switzerland. Whaley had a letter sent to the media and parliament, after his death, arguing that the law should change in the UK. Moore writes:

Mr Whaley’s story follows a familiar media pattern. It is one of a determined and suffering person, usually with a brave and supportive spouse and/or children, making a rational choice to die rather than suffer further. In this narrative, any public authority which tries to block the path is shown as cruel and, to use a word chosen by Mr Whaley, “hypocritical”

Moore responds to the letter by pointing out that Whaley isn't the only story. There are many more stories about people who live until they die. Moore writes:

MPs must (and do) think about the effect not only on the relatively few who decide to go to places like Dignitas, but also on everyone else, especially the vulnerable. It is not out of stupidity that Parliament has repeatedly, after much debate, declined to change the law in the way Mr Whaley demands. It is because this is a profoundly difficult subject.

In media terms, it is much harder to tell the story of those who have not sought the path of assisted suicide than that of those who have; yet there are hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of the former. They vastly outnumber the latter.

Moore tells us the personal story of his brother-in-law who died by cancer, three years ago. The death of his brother-in-law inspires him. He wrote:

Although entirely tolerant of those who thought otherwise, he had no belief in the existence of God. In soldiering on, he was not trying to uphold a religious tenet. He was simply brave and honest. This is what gave him, to coin a phrase, dignity in dying. The cancer duly killed him. It was a terrible thing to watch. But his last years of life were not worthless: they were inspiring. Nor were they unendurable: he endured them.

There are thousands of such examples every year. It is important that people hear about them. Otherwise, those facing terminal illness will receive only a message of despair. Despair is false – as false as false hope.

Moore concludes by explaining how many people are not treated with equality in society.

One must not forget that not everyone is enlightened about the vulnerable. A good many people believe in a sort of social hygiene. They see the lives of weak groups like the old, destitute, mad, mentally handicapped, autistic, disabled or the terminally ill as pointless. As well as them are the much smaller but not insignificant numbers who wish harm to their next of kin because they want their money or are simply fed up with them. In a public health system always short of cash, how safe would vulnerable people be if policy or financial pressures or personal malice told them to stop blocking the beds and choose to leave this life, and the law permitted professionals to help them on their way?

I agree with Moore that it is far more difficult to tell the story of a true death with dignity, living until one dies, there is also a relunctance among the media to tell the story of the personal effect that is had on families and individuals who are pressured to "choose" euthanasia and the effect upon the family that is left behind. The following are a few powerful stories.

Oregon doctor speaks out about his depressed patient who died by assisted suicide.

Belgian doctors charged after euthanizing autistic woman.

I'm dying of brain cancer. I prepared to end my life. Then I kept living.

Candice Lewis was pressured to die by assisted death.

Fatal Flaws film will change the way you view assisted death.

"No man is an island" but let's not be innocent. Assisted death is sold to the culture in a philosophically pure sense, meaning, it is about my body my choice. The reality of the act and decisions are in fact very different. The reality of giving the physician, the right in law to cause death, is not an easy topic. We would rather say that doctors and nurses wouldn't do those things. But in reality, choice is an illusion, and for many choice is only the banner that is waved to encourage legalization.