Victoria Australia suicide rate jumps 21.2% since legalizing euthanasia.

The following article was published by the Australian Care Alliance on March 6, 2021.

In 2017 there 694 cases of suicide in Victoria. In 2020 there were 842. This is an increase of 21.2%. What has led to this startling increase?

From 19 June 2019 Victorians wishing to commit suicide could arrange to have a lethal dose of pentobarbital delivered to them by the Statewide Pharmacy Service based at the Alfred Hospital. All they needed was a VADSAP - a suicide permit - issued by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

A VADSAP is a 'voluntary assisted dying self-administration permit".

When arguing for the legalisation of State-approved and funded assistance to suicide, the Minister for Health and Human Services, the Hon Jill Hennessy, claimed that:

Evidence from the coroner indicated that one terminally ill Victorian was taking their life each week.

The Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017, which she introduced on behalf of Dan Andrews' Government, excluded deaths by self-administration of a "voluntary assisted dying substance" [the substance is a 15 g lethal dose of pentobarbital] for the purpose of causing a person's death from being considered as caused by suicide.

By a legal fiction such deaths are recorded as caused by the disease, illness or medical condition cited by a doctor in the application for a VADAP.

On this basis we could have expected a decrease of around 50 deaths by suicide each year now that these terminally ill Victorians had a State-approved and State-funded way to intentionally cause their own deaths by ingesting a lethal poison.

However, according to the Coroners Court of Victoria there were 694 deaths by suicide in Victoria in 2017.

There were slightly more - 698 - 2020, the first full calendar year in which State issued suicide permits (VADSAPSs) and the State-funded uber poison service were in operation.

So no decrease of 50 deaths by suicide each year.

Moreover for those who resist the Humpty Dumpty approach of words meaning whatever Humpty Dumpty says they mean, there were an additional 144 suicides - officially recorded by the Voluntary Assisted Dying Board as "Confirmed deaths - Medication [sic] was self-administered".

Adding these 144 State-approved, State-funded suicides by the ingestion of State-supplied lethal poison to the 698 suicides without such State approval and facilitation gives a real total of 842 - an increase of 21.2% on 2017.

This confirms earlier evidence that legalising assistance to suicide increases the overall suicide rate

Additionally, 31 Victorians were killed by injection of State-funded and supplied lethal poisons by a doctor who had been issued a VADPAP, a voluntary assisted dying physician administered permit, by the Secretary of the Department for Health and Human Services, specifically authorising the doctor to administer the poisons in order to cause the death of the person.

If these are added to the count of suicides - insofar as they are at least purported to be performed at the request of the person with the intention of causing that person's death - then the total for 2020 would be 873 - a 25.8% rise since 2017.

Other jurisdictions considering legalising assistance to suicide and euthanasia should consider this evidence and not be fooled by claims that this will prevent suicides.

If you or anyone you know needs help contact Lifeline on 13 11 14

Government committee examining further expansions of Canada's euthanasia (MAiD) law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

When Canada legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide (MAiD) in June 2016, a section of the legislation required the government to conduct a full five-year review of the legislation, starting in June 2020.

Instead of conducting a full review of the law, the Canadian government decided to expand the euthanasia law and then do a limited review of the law.

On September 11, 2019 the Quebec Superior Court, in the Truchon decision, struck down the requirement that a person be terminally ill to qualify for euthanasia in Canada. In an unprecedented manner, the federal government did not appeal the decision.

Bill C-7 was introduced in February 2020 as the government's response to the Quebec Superior Court's Truchon decision. Bill C-7 went much further than what Truchon required. Bill C-7 became law on March 17, 2021.

The Canadian experience with legalizing euthanasia has been that there are never enough reasons to kill.

An article by Ryan Patrick Jones for CBC News examines the direction of the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying that is conducting the review of the law. 

Jones writes about three main areas of the review, that being: euthanasia for mental illness, euthanasia by advanced request and euthanasia of mature minors. 

None of these categories pertain to a full review of the law.

The review may not look deeply into the issue of euthanasia for mental illness since Bill C-7 already approved it but placed a 24 month "hold" on euthanasia for mental illness to devise protocols around the killing. Jones wrote:

The expansion of MAID to people suffering primarily from depression, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental illnesses left lawmakers with a number of unanswered questions.

For example — how can the doctors and nurse practitioners who assess patients' suitability for MAID determine whether a psychiatric condition is irremediable?

Many psychiatric conditions can be treated with drugs or other therapies, or can improve if life conditions that contribute to poor mental health — such as poverty, loneliness or lack of housing — are addressed.

"There is simply not enough evidence available in the mental health field … to ascertain whether a particular individual has an irremediable mental illness," the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto stated in 2017.

Jones quoted from long-time academic euthanasia activist Jocelyn Downie on the topic of euthanasia by advanced request who stated:

"You make much better decisions when you're not in a state of intolerable suffering," Downie said. "So we want people having conversations and coming to an agreement with their clinician about a future provision of MAID."

Downie left out the fact that euthanasia by advanced request will only be an issue when the person slated to be killed has become incompetent, meaning, euthanasia will be imposed on a person who is unable to legally change their mind.

Concerning the issue of euthanasia for mature minors, Jones also quoted from Downie who stated:

Downie said that if mature minors have the legal right to refuse life-saving treatments, they should have the right to choose assisted death.

The government is examining future expansions of euthanasia without regard for the problems and misuse of the law.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is producing a document outlining how the law is actually working. It is our hope to create a debate on how the law purposely enables doctors and nurse practitioners to kill their patients without providing effective oversight of the law.

Ontario euthanasia deaths increase, inspite of COVID lock-down. 24,000 estimated assisted deaths in Canada since legalization.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The April 2021 (MAiD) euthanasia data for Ontario indicates that even though the Province of Ontario has been under a strict COVID-19 "lock-down." April 2021 saw the highest number of euthanasia deaths since legalization.

Since the federal government has been slow in releasing euthanasia data, the death data from the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario, which represents 39% of Canada's population, provides us with a strong indication of the trend in euthanasia deaths in Canada.

The Ontario data indicates that in the first four months of 2021 there were 853 reported assisted deaths. April 2021 had the highest number of assisted deaths ever with 241.

As of April 30, 2021 there has been 7549 reported assisted deaths in Ontario since legalization. 7547 were euthanasia deaths (lethal injection) and 2 were assisted suicide deaths (lethal prescription).

The number of assisted deaths has been continually increasing in Ontario. There was a 33% increase in 2020 with 2378 reported assisted deaths, up from 1789 in 2019, 1499 in 2018, 841 in 2017, and 189 in 2016. Euthanasia was legalized in June 2016.

The number of cumulative assisted deaths in Ontario alone indicates a trend:

December 31, 2018 - 2529 deaths (30 months), 

First 6 months of 2019 - (774 deaths), 

Second 6 months of 2019 (1015 deaths),

First 6 months of 2020 - (1127 deaths), 

Second 6 months of 2020 (1251 deaths),

First 4 months of 2021 - (853 deaths).

In July, 2020, Health Canada released its first annual report on (MAiD). The data was gathered from the reports submitted by the physicians and nurse practitioners who assisted the deaths. There is no requirement that a third party or neutral person submit the euthanasia reports to ensure accuracy. We do not expect an update from Health Canada until July 2021.

The data from the report indicated that in 2019, there were 5,631 MAID deaths reported in Canada, up from 4467 in 2018, accounting for 2.0% of all deaths. When all data sources are considered, there were 13,946 medically assisted deaths reported in Canada from legalization until December 31, 2019.

Since we do not have national data, I can only estimate the number of assisted deaths since legalization. Based on a 33% increase in assisted deaths in Ontario in 2020 and based on the 5631 assisted deaths reported in Canada in 2019, I predict that there were approximately 7489 assisted deaths in Canada in 2020. Based on the current 10% increase in assisted deaths in the first four months of 2021, I predict that there were approximately 2745 assisted deaths in Canada in the first four months of 2021.

Since there were 13,946 reported assisted deaths (legalization to December 31, 2019) + approximately 7489 reported assisted deaths in 2020 + approximately 2745 assisted deaths in the first four months of 2021. I predict that there has been approximately 24,180 (or more than 24,000) assisted deaths in Canada from legalization to April 30, 2021.

When (MAiD) assisted death was legalized in Canada we were told that it would be rare, that the law had "stringent" safeguards, and that euthanasia death would be a "last resort."

Canada expanded its euthanasia law.

On March 17, 2021 parliament passed Bill C-7 expanding Canada's euthanasia law by:

1. Bill C-7 removed the requirement in the law that a person’s natural death be reasonably foreseeable in order to qualify for assisted death. Therefore, people who are not terminally ill could die by euthanasia. 
2.  Bill C-7 created a two track law whereby a person whose natural death is deemed to be reasonably foreseeable has no waiting period, and could die on the same day as their request, while a person whose natural death is not deemed to be reasonably foreseeable would have a 90 day waiting period before being killed by lethal injection. 
3. Bill C-7 permits a doctor or nurse practitioner to lethally inject a person who is incapable of consenting, if that person was previously approved for assisted death. This contravenes the Supreme Court of Canada Carter decision which stated that only competent people could die by euthanasia.
4. Bill C-7 approved euthanasia for people experiencing mental illness alone. Parliament placed a hold on this category of deaths for 24 months to enable the government to establish protocols for killing these people.

Recently ten Belgian medical care-givers participated in the publishing of a book titled: Euthanasia: Searching for the Full Story. This book represents a collection of essays and thought provoking stories from people with professional experience with euthanasia in Belgium. It is my hope that books, like this one, will re-open the debate on euthanasia in Belgium.

Similar stories and experiences need to be collected and published concerning Canada's euthanasia law. We will continue to stand against the euthanasia tide.  

Normalising euthanasia can be dangerous: A Belgian nurse explains some of his experiences.

This article was published by Mercatornet on May 17, 2021

By François Trufin

Euthanasia: Searching for the Full Story: Experiences and Insights of Belgian Doctors and Nurses would be a bargain at any price, but it is free to download from the website of Springer, the publisher of many medical journals.

Euthanasia, though legal in Belgium, is opposed by some healthcare professionals. This collection of essays contains insights and thought-provoking stories from the authors’ professional experience.

The authors are ten Belgian health care professionals, nurses, university professors and doctors specializing in palliative care and ethicists who fear that euthanasia has become normalised and trivial.

Far from being polemical, the perspectives in this book present another side to the narrative of patient autonomy. As Margaret Somerville, an Australian bioethicist and Wes Ely, an American critical care specialist, observe in their forward, there is a dearth of literature about the societal ramifications of legalising euthanasia. They write that: 

“The case against euthanasia is much more difficult to promote, not because it is weak—it is not—but because it is much more complex. This case requires looking not just to the present but also to our ‘collective human memory’—that is, history—for lessons from the past and to our ‘collective human imagination’ to try to anticipate the full and wider consequences of legalizing euthanasia.”

The following is a selection of reminiscences by François Trufin, a hospital emergency nurse in Belgium.

Euthanasia, a stage in accepting one’s illness

A request for euthanasia is not the end of the road. We need to look at it as a new phase, among the other stages of grief, on the way to acceptance. At the end of this process, we hope that the person, with the help of the palliative care team, will be able to die a natural death, having lived their life to the full till the end. A patient who requests euthanasia is usually in the thralls of dread: fear of suffering, of dying, of being a burden… Euthanising them in that distress deprives them of the time to ease their worries and find answers to their questions. Furthermore, it confirms a failure and denies them the hope to overcome it.  

The health professional who is aware of this possible care pathway will no longer feel apprehensive around a patient requesting euthanasia; they will take them by the hand and walk alongside them to the end of the road.

[Once] a patient arrived in our department accompanied by her husband. She was about 50 and had so far been living at home, taking 32 medications a day. Convinced that she was a burden to her husband and her two children, she repeated day in day out: ‘Let me go, I want to die, please don’t give me any more medication’.

She attempted suicide four times. On the fourth attempt, she pushed herself down the staircase in her wheelchair. Her husband, who loved her deeply, was totally overcome. He was devastated at the thought that he could not prevent her throwing herself down the staircase. To the GP it was clear that she wanted to die and he referred her to the hospital for euthanasia.

When she came in her husband shouted: ‘Don’t let anyone get in our way, she is to be euthanised’. The team started to panic. I went to see the patient and we had a 4-hour conversation with husband and wife. We argued and as I was not agreeing to go ahead with euthanasia, he wanted to take his wife back home and have her referred elsewhere.

I told him: ‘The choice is up to you, but right now, your wife cannot be transported; any movement is extremely painful and we need to take care of her pain first. I guarantee you we will do all we can to make her comfortable. When she is, you can still decide whether you want her to be transferred in order to be euthanised’. Thus, the situation calmed down, the husband decided to leave his wife in our department and we worked together.

Seeing how, with the combined use of painkillers and controlled sedation, his wife rested peacefully in bed, he became convinced that palliative care was effective. A very tactile man, he appreciated the massages with essential oils we gave his wife. We encouraged him to bring the CDs they listened to together.

The two children, both young adults, followed suit, even though they were ill at ease at the start. They feared they might betray their mother’s resolve who had been adamant from the start that she wanted euthanasia. We reassured them saying that she was receiving no more medical treatment and we did nothing to prolong her life, only to make her comfortable.

This lady died peacefully in her husband’s arms, listening to the music they had played at their wedding. After a week, her husband came back, asking to see me. He thanked me with a box of chocolates… and asked whether I could keep a place for him in our palliative care ward when his time came!

The sad thing is that it took 32 medications and four suicide attempts for this woman to be heard and cared for, rather than be the object of therapeutic obstinacy. 

Euthanasia as a wake-up call from indifference 

During the Christmas holiday, a 75-year-old lady, whose convalescence after hip surgery was difficult, suffered several falls at home. Feeling relatively well but no longer able to live alone, she was placed in a nursing home—which happened to be cruelly understaffed—by her overworked children.

In the home for a whole month, she witnessed people being left in bed—even for meals—three or four days running during long weekends, for instance, when the staff was reduced. Sometimes residents’ cry for help to go to the bathroom would go unnoticed, and the like.

Fearing she might end up in a similar situation, she preferred to end her life right away. She stated her wish to the GP, completed the documents in due form, and was given the all clear to be euthanised. The nursing home sent her to the hospital.

Since she was not imminently dying, there needed to be, by law, a month’s delay between acceptance of the request and the actual euthanasia. During this time, she was cared for by our palliative care team, even though her condition did not warrant it. The psychologist saw her regularly.

When I overheard the following sentence, it rang like thunder to my ears: ‘Did you notice? I had to request euthanasia for people to start taking an interest in me’. Indeed, she had several visits a day, received proper care, saw the psychologist, some people would bring chocolates… Even people from the nursing home came to visit the star she had become. And this all came about after she had volunteered for ‘death’s corridor’. It was a very unhealthy situation where it appeared that requesting euthanasia became an ‘open sesame’ to receiving proper care and support.

That patient caused a professional electroshock for me! She made me realise how important those moments at a patient’s bedside are, when we give them our time to talk or even play cards, and simply to be human. Her experience spurred me to call together a group of volunteers who give of their time to go and sit at a patient’s bedside. It also taught me that, whether a euthanasia request comes from the patient or a family member, it is worth checking whether they want to test the medical world. I have been positively surprised to realise that when we say calmly: ‘No, we do not practise euthanasia, but we have something better to offer you’, people are willing to listen. And when we explain that pain will be relieved and that their quality of life is our main concern, the euthanasia request quickly fades away. Relief from pain and being treated as a human being is what most patients and families long for. 

When trust meets professional integrity

But I do not despair. Even if today many are trained for euthanasia, believing it to be a part of patient care, I am convinced that there will always be enough people to look reality in the eye and not run away from life’s tragedy. And I hope that they may discover by themselves what I was brought to understand.

One day I was travelling home after having dealt with a particularly difficult situation. I was in total turmoil, at the end of my tether . Driving home from the hospital takes me about half an hour, across beautiful scenery. That evening, the sun was highlighting the autumnal colours, and suddenly it dawned on me: ‘Fortunately nature does not react like us humans… What if the leaves said at the end of the summer: “I want to die. Soon, there will be no more  tree sap, so better end my life right away”. If this were the case, we would miss out on the autumnal beauty. As early as July many still green leaves would litter the ground and there would be none left to display their colours in fall.

The richness of autumn lies in the time leaves take to let the vital juice dry out and die. In spring and even more in summer, all the leaves are green, but in fall an extraordinary variety of colours is displayed.

Similarly, a human being in the twilight of life lets go of their masks and reveals their true self. In everyday life, running after time, we all have green leaves and, sometimes, it is not until the end of our lives that we realise that, beneath the green, there is a wide array of warm and exquisite colours.

Palliative care is the autumn of our life; it is the time the leaf takes to gradually detach from the tree. Even though the sun is not always shining and there are difficult times of heavy showers and wind storms, the leaf holds on to the tree with all the colours it has left. Could we imagine a year with three seasons only? Could we go from 35 °C in summer to -10 °C winter without any period of transition? No!… However, that is what happens with euthanasia’.

I have met all sorts of people during my career, from the humblest to those who are used to being in the limelight. For each and all of them, masks come down at the end of life. No doubt this is very difficult for the person, but it is also very beautiful to watch. They reveal their deep inner self and remind us that they are unique and irreplaceable. We see a person readying themselves to leave this life. For sure, their body is often falling to pieces, and their mind is slowed down, but what is being said, what is being experienced, is of a beauty and intensity that remind me of the autumn leaves…

François Trufin is a hospital emergency nurse. He is secretary of the palliative care platform of the Belgian German-speaking Community and Vice-President of the Belgian Chamber of German-speaking Nurses.

Québec debating protocols for expanding euthanasia law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Québec debates euthanasia expansion

You may remember that Québec legalized euthanasia before Canada's federal government legalized euthanasia. The Québec National Assembly is now debating further expansions of the euthanasia law and pressure the federal government to further expand killing in Canada.

In December 2014, Andrew Coyne, a former editor of the National Post, in response to the Québec euthanasia law wrote - What begins in compassion seems to end in eugenics. In response to the same Québec euthanasia law I wrote the article - Euthanasia: Theory and Reality.

Steve Rukavina reported for CBC News that the Québec committee hearings on the Evolution of the Act respecting end-of-life care is discussing the protocols for expanding euthanasia to people with mental illness alone. Rukavina states:

Quebec's National Assembly committee will issue a final report this fall, which will likely have some influence on Ottawa.

The CAQ government also backed off its own plan to open up assisted dying to people with mental illness in 2020, a move which ultimately led to the creation of this committee.

For the next two weeks the committee will hear testimony from experts including doctors, professors and lawyers.

During a second round of hearings in the summer lobby groups and individuals will have their chance to weigh in.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition will keep you up-to-date on the workings of the Québec committee.

Another court hearing in the Belgian euthanasia death of Tine Nys

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Tine Nys (center) with her sisters

Alan Hope reported for the Brussels Times that a new trial has started in the death of Tine Nys, who died by euthanasia for psychological reasons in Belgium in April 2010.

On January 31, 2020 a Belgian court cleared three doctors in the euthanasia death of Tine Nys (38). The Tine's family continued to argue that Tine didn't qualify for euthanasia and that she was falsely diagnosed as autistic in order to qualify her for euthanasia.

A BBC news article from January 14, 2020 reported that:

Nys's family argue that her reason for seeking to end her life was because of a failed relationship, far short of the "serious and incurable disorder" as required under Belgian law.

Hope reported that the family challenged the January 31, 2020 verdict. 

That trial led to an acquittal of all three, but the family took the verdict to the Cassation Court, which ordered that Dr Van Hove should be tried again, as the court’s explanation for its verdict in his case was insufficiently argued.

Hope stated that since the public prosecutor did not appeal the court decision, this court case concerns the civil liability of the physician who euthanized Tine Nys.

When the three doctors were acquitted in January 2020, the public prosecutor declined to take the case to the Cassation Court, which means that the acquittal on criminal charges can no longer be overturned. So the court case currently underway in Dendermonde has to decide if Dr Van Hove is civilly liable, and therefore has to pay damages to Nys’ family.

Recently Belgium's euthanasia law was criticized at the UN Human Rights Committee.

Tom Mortier's case concerning the euthanasia death of his depressed mother in Belgium also continues.

The family of Tine Nys have battled the Belgian legal system for more than 10 years.

Similar to Canada, when a euthanasia death is approved, even if the assessments were wrong, the death has been considered lawful.

Belgium’s euthanasia law criticized at UN Human Rights Council

This update is was posted on May 7, 2021 by ADF International.

Geneva (7 May 2021) – Belgium has been challenged on the human rights implications of its euthanasia law at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland this week. Undergoing a “Universal Periodic Review”, during which states are scrutinized on their human rights record and called to consider reforms, various states urged the government to improve treatment of the elderly and of persons with disabilities. Since legalization in 2002, the country has experienced a hundredfold increase in registered euthanasia deaths. In February 2014, the law was expanded to enable doctors to end the lives of children of any age.

“A fair and just society cares for its most vulnerable. International law protects everyone’s inherent right to life and requires countries to protect the dignity and lives of all people, rather than help ending them. Sadly, over the years, we have seen Belgium’s euthanasia law spiral out of control. In one case, the life of a 23-year-old female was tragically ended by euthanasia due to her battle with mental health issues. There is nothing progressive about a government that refuses to provide care and support to those who need it most. We urge the Belgian government to accept the recommendations it has received on this matter: bring an end to euthanasia and redirect resources into improving palliative care for those reaching the natural end of their lives,” said Giorgio Mazzoli, UN legal officer for ADF International, Geneva.

Haiti, Egypt and Bangladesh amongst those to raise concerns for Belgium’s vulnerable

The World Medical Association has consistently and categorically rejected the practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide as being unethical. The act has long been associated with discriminatory attitudes against those who are elderly or disabled. In 2017, almost 20% of deaths by euthanasia in Belgium were carried out on patients displaying symptoms common with aging.

Bangladesh was among those to raise concerns, asking that the Belgian government commit to “protect and promote the right of life of all people until natural death, without discrimination on the basis of age, disability or any other grounds.”

Additionally, Haiti urged the government to “ensure that patients receive palliative care of high quality.”

Egypt, in its general remarks, noted specific concerns about the legality of euthanasia being in violation of human rights treaties which affirm and protect every human being’s inherent right to life.

Case against Belgium’s euthanasia law pending at Europe’s top court

Meanwhile, Belgium is being forced to defend its euthanasia law at the European Court of Human Rights. Human rights group ADF International is supporting the case of Tom Mortier, who is challenging the current legal situation after having lost his mother to the lethal procedure in 2012.

“The big problem in our society is that apparently we have lost the meaning of taking care of each other,” said Tom Mortier.

“My mother had a severe mental problem. She had to cope with depression throughout her life. She was treated for years by psychiatrists and eventually the contact between us was broken. A year later she received a lethal injection. Neither the oncologist who administered the injection nor the hospital had informed me or any of my siblings that our mother was even considering euthanasia. I found out a day later when I was contacted by the hospital, asking me to take care of the practicalities,” he continued.

Belgian law specifies that the person must be in a ‘medically futile condition of constant and unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated, resulting from a serious and incurable disorder caused by illness or accident.’ Tom’s mother was physically healthy, and her treating psychiatrist of more than 20 years did not believe that she satisfied the legal requirements of the Belgian euthanasia law. Nonetheless, she was euthanized in 2012 by an oncologist with no known psychiatric qualifications.

The same doctor who euthanized Tom’s mother co-chairs the Federal Commission which reviews euthanasia cases to ensure the law has been respected. He also leads a pro-euthanasia organization which received a payment from Tom Mortier’s mother in the weeks preceding her death. Despite all this, according to the Belgian government, the Federal Commission voted “unanimously” to approve the euthanasia in this case.

The case, which now sits before the top European court, has the potential to set a precedent for euthanasia laws across Europe. The Court’s decision could affect more than 820 million Europeans across the 47 Council of Europe Member States subject to its rulings.

“The slippery slope is on full public display in Belgium, and we see the tragic consequences in this case. According to the most recent government report, more than six people per day are euthanized in this way, and that may yet be the tip of the iceberg. The figures expose the truth that, once these laws are passed, the impact of euthanasia cannot be controlled. Belgium has set itself on a trajectory that, at best, implicitly tells the most vulnerable that their lives are not worth living,” said Robert Clarke, Deputy Director of Advocacy for ADF International, who represents Tom Mortier before the Court.

The White Rose - The symbol of our opposition to euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Many people have asked why the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition uses the white rose as its symbol. You may have heard about the White Rose campaign composed mainly of students in Munich who resisted the Nazi regime and whose leaders were killed on February 22, 1943.

Most of you will not be aware that opposition to the Nazi T-4 euthanasia program influenced the formation of the White Rose campaign

Hans & Sophie Scholl

Some research suggests that Hans and Sophie Scholl heard the sermon by Bishop von Galen, the Bishop of Muenster, who on August 3, 1941, challenged the killing of people with disabilities by euthanasia. Other sources state that they read the sermon, nonetheless the sermon was an inspiration for the Scholl's to act.

On May 9, 2021 Immanuel Marcus published an article in the Berlin Spectator commemorating the 100th birthday of Sophie Scholl, who died by the guillotine on February 22, 1943. Marcus writes:

Elisabeth Hartnagel-Scholl was a hundred years and one day old when she died on February 28th, 2020. In theory, her sister Sophie Magdalena Scholl could be alive today, had Nazi Germany not murdered her. At least she could and should have lived to become an old lady, just like others who resisted the Nazi regime, just like millions of victims of the Shoah and of the war.

Marcus tells us what happened:

Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans Scholl and others founded the underground organization The White Rose. At Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, they were caught distributing leaflets with texts that slammed the regime and Germans who just followed it. On February 18th, 1943, they were arrested by the Gestapo. Only four days later, on February 22nd, they were sentenced to death by judge Freisler and beheaded on the same day.

Sophie Scholl is recognized as a hero because she stood against the tyranny of her day. She was martyred for her heroism. Marcus states:

Sophie Scholl was born in Forchtenberg, a small town in the southwestern part of Germany, on May 9th, 1921, a hundred years ago today. She had four siblings. Early on, she was influenced by her parents’ liberal views and the Christian values that were held high in the family. In the case of Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie, their conscience forced them to do something against the regime, against the war and the genocide. This makes her one of Germany’s biggest heroines.

In 2013, I published an interview with Historian Götz Aly titled: The Victims of Nazi Euthanasia Have Been Forgotten. Götz wrote a book about the Nazi euthanasia program.

In 2014, I published an interview with Elizabeth, the sister of Hans and Sophie Scholl. Elizabeth lived to be 100 years old.

In 2016, I published a book review of the biography of Cardinal Clems von Galen titled: The Lion of Münster: The Bishop Who Roared Against the Nazis. This is a book that is worth reading.

Australia and 'assisted dying'

This article was published by Bioedge on May 8, 2021

Michael Cook

By Michael Cook
Editor of Bioedge

South Australia. SA’s Upper House voted for the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide this week. The bill will be debated in the Lower House in the coming weeks. If it succeeds, South Australia will become the fourth Australian state where “voluntary assisted dying” will be legal, after Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania.

The Health Minister, Stephen Wade, is backing the bill. Mr Wade said there was significant value in having national consistency of voluntary assisted dying legislation in Australia. "Consistency would support access, it would support quality and safe practice and it would reduce the pressure for what is sometimes called medical tourism," he said.

Victoria. Euthanasia became legal in the state of Victoria only about two years ago, but its supporters are already seeking a major amendment to broaden access. A Federal law currently prevents doctors from discussing euthanasia with their patients online or on a phone. It was originally passed to discourage the most vicious kind of cyberbullying. However, Justice Party MP Stuart Grimley wants to treat “voluntary assisted dying” advice as a kind of telehealth.

Canada's euthanasia lobby wants more death

Alex Schadenberg
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article published by Global News Edmonton is essentially promoting the fact that Bill C-7, which passed on March 17, allows more Canadians to die by euthanasia.

The article by Su-Ling Goh titled: Medical assistance in dying: Do doctors need to know more about Canada’s new law? follows the story of a woman who was not approved for euthanasia (MAiD) and then interviews Dr. Chantal Perrot, an advisor for a euthanasia lobby group.

The story concerns Shondra who was approved by one doctor to die by euthanasia but the second doctor decided that she wasn't sick enough.

Perrot who has not met Shondra, has assessed more than 100 people for "MAiD" in Ontario told Global News:

“I think a lot of people, including some MAID assessors and providers, mistakenly interpreted ‘reasonably foreseeable’ as you had to be terminal, within weeks or months of a natural death, and that’s not the case.”

The new law introduces a two-track approach — relaxing some rules for people whose death is relatively predictable, and adding safeguards for those whose death is not.

Bill C-7 removed the requirement that a person's natural death had to be reasonably foreseeable in order to die by lethal injection and it created a two-track law whereby people who are approaching death can be killed immediately while others who are not approaching death would be required to wait 90 days before being killed.

According to Goh, Shondra's reasons for wanting to die are not only based on her medical condition but also based on the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions. Goh reports Shondra as stating:

“I can’t go out. I’ve been secluded because of COVID(-19) for a year and a half, and it’s terrible when you’ve got to depend on strangers,” said Shondra.

The only people she sees are her home-care staff and grocery delivery people. She says she hasn’t left her apartment in over a year because she can’t get down the stairs with her walker.

The senior has considered jumping off her balcony, but would prefer to die peacefully.

“I want to get this pain over with. I want to rest in peace.”

Shondra is experiencing suicidal ideation related to loneliness and isolation. Shondra shouldn't be killed by lethal injection but rather Shondra needs a caring friend.

Sadly, if Perrot and the euthanasia lobby get involved, Shondra will not receive the care that she needs, but rather death.

German Medical Association changes their position on assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The German Medical Association have changed their charter by removing the statement: “A doctor may not provide any assistance for suicide.”

People may think that this is a normal reaction after Germany's high court decision, last February, that struck down the nations law prohibiting assisted suicide and stated in their court decision that people had the "right to a self-determined death"

In October 2019, the World Medical Association re-affirmed its position that euthanasia and assisted suicide are unethical acts. 

Just because the high court has ordered assisted suicide to be legalized does not make it ethical for doctors to participate.

According to an article by Derek Scally published on May 6 in the Irish Times:

The federation said it accepted its members’ “individual questions of conscience and no longer want to pursue this as breach of professional obligations”

German Doctors’ Federation president Klaus Reinhardt insisted that, even after the vote, assisted suicide would not become a standard service for his members – a position reflected in a second motion accepted by members.

According to Scally the German Patient Protection foundation  stated:

“It is no wonder that the support for death on demand is rising in a time of pandemic with suffering, loneliness and doubt,”

The German Bundestag next month will debate two assisted suicide legalization bills.

Euthanasia Advocate Once Again Reveals His Hand

The following article was published by HOPE Australia.

David Sandford is 84 years old, and describes himself as being “in pretty good health.”

Even so, he went online and ordered a copy of a book written by Australia’s most prominent euthanasia advocate, Philip Nitschke. He had to order it from overseas because the book – which provides information on a variety of ways a person may take their own life – is banned for sale in Australia.

The purchase flagged the possibility that Mr Sanford might be considering self-harm, and so two police officers knocked on his door to conduct a “wellness check.”

Instead of being grateful that the state’s suicide prevention systems seemed to be working, Mr Nitschke complained.

According to the Courier Mail:

Mr Nitschke described the seizure of the book as a “significant new and worrying development”.

“We’ve only seen wellness checks used in the past when people have attempted to purchase euthanasia drugs and had them intercepted,” he said.

“To carry out a wellness check on people simply ordering a book seems to be a total waste of police resources.”

In criticising the intervention from police, Mr Nitschke has once again revealed the real intention of euthanasia advocates: lethal drugs should be available to any adult who wants them; it doesn’t matter if – like Mr Sanford – they are “in pretty good health.”

If Mr Nitschke and his fellow euthanasia supporters label suicide prevention efforts for healthy people “a total waste of police resources,” how do you think they will respond to police resources being used to investigate the suicide deaths of terminally ill Queenslanders under a euthanasia regime?

Pressure to expand euthanasia and assisted suicide laws.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

As I have written before, the euthanasia lobby will promote "safeguards" or limits to assisted dying laws to sell its legalization to the public, but once legalized the death lobby will soon promote the expansion of the law.

For instance, the first legal challenge to Canada's euthanasia law was launched only 10 days after parliament passed Bill C-14. Canada's parliament introduced Bill C-7, to expand Canada's euthanasia law, on February 24, 2020, less than four years after legalizing euthanasia and without carrying out the required review of the euthanasia law. 

YES, Canada expanded its euthanasia law without first completing a review of the law that the legislation required.

Australian states are also being pressured to expand their euthanasia laws, even though they only recently legalized medical killing.

HOPE Australia reported that there is pressure to expand the Western Australian euthanasia law even before it has been implemented and an article published in The Age on May 3 reports that a bill will be debated in Victoria Australia to expand its euthanasia law, a law that has only been in place since 2019.

California is debating Bill SB 380 to expand its assisted suicide law and Washington State debated a bill to expand its assisted suicide law that thankfully failed to pass.

Jurisdictions that are considering the legalization of euthanasia need to be aware that the safeguards (that are usually written with imprecise language) are designed to sell the legalization of medical killing and not designed to protect people in vulnerable situations.

The assisted death lobby views these "safeguards" as creating a pathway to legalization and after legalizing the act they promote these same "safeguards" as barriers to access.

Negotiating the "safeguards" will not lead to a safer law, it only provides the death lobby with an ability to sell the law to the general public. Once legal, the death lobby will propose expansions.

Maine report: 30 people died by assisted suicide in 2020.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Maine assisted suicide law came into effect in September 2019. 

According to the 2020 Maine assisted suicide report, the first full year of the Maine regime there were: 

• 50 people were approved for death by lethal drugs, 
• 30 people died by assisted suicide, 
• 15 of the 50 people died a natural death and 
• one death, it was unknown whether the person died by assisted suicide or not.

When the death is unknown it may be an unreported assisted suicide death.

The data from the Maine assisted suicide report is sparse, at best.

The report does not indicate if anyone was sent for mental health or capacity assessment, or how often the doctor was present at the death, or even time-frame from ingestion to death.

In 2019, in Oregon, the time of death ranged from 1 minute to 47 hours, while in 2020 the time of death ranged from 6 minutes to 8 hours.

The report does indicate that 49 of the 50 people who were approved for assisted suicide were white, which is similar to other jurisdictions.

The majority of those approved for assisted suicide had cancer, but 6 people had "other illnesses." There is no indication what the other illnesses were. In Oregon people with diabetes have died by assisted suicide.

The language of the report.

It is insidious that the Maine report refers to assisted suicide deaths as dying by patient choice. Nothing in the report assures us that these deaths were by patient choice. The self-reporting system is designed to protect the doctor who participate in assisted suicide, it does not assure us that the law has been followed (a doctor that approves the death, is the same doctor who writes the lethal prescription, is the same doctor who sends the assisted suicide report to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, and does not provide a third-party independent system that assures us that the law has been followed). The doctor that is required to send in the report is not required to be present at the death.

Further to that referring to assisted suicide as death by patient choice suggests that natural deaths are not deaths by patient choice. The language in the assisted suicide debate is becoming ridiculous.

It is important to re-iterate what assisted suicide is. Assisted suicide is an act whereby a one person (usually a doctor) agrees that a person's qualifies to die by suicide and prescribes the lethal drugs for the act. The death ensues by lethal drugs.

We oppose assisted suicide because the law gives the power to a person (usually a doctor) to be involved with causing the death of another person.

It is not safe for the law to give anyone the right to be involved with causing the death of another person.

Australian Murder acquittal raises serious questions

This article was published by HOPE Australia on April 29, 2021.

By Branka van der Linden, Director, HOPE

New South Wales woman Barbara Eckersley has been found not guilty of murder, and guilty only of the lesser charge of manslaughter, after putting lethal drugs in the soup given to her mother.

92-year-old Botanist Mary White died in her nursing home in August 2018, after eating the soup into which her daughter, Barbara Eckersley, had laced with drugs that are used to euthanize animals, leftover from Eckersley’s time as a wildlife volunteer.

The drugs – which Eckersley had kept for many years – were slipped into her mother Mary’s food without Mary realizing. She died shortly after the meal.

Testifying in court last week, Eckersley denied intending to kill her mother. According to the ABC report, Eckersley said: "I was intending only to make her comfortable for the time she was in my care."

That Eckersley didn’t intend to kill her mother is obviously an explanation the jury accepted, hence the manslaughter conviction (rather than murder.)

But one is left to ask how they came to that conclusion.

After all, Eckersley had kept the euthanasia drugs for years after she ceased her voluntary position as a wildlife volunteer. She took them to the nursing home where her mother was living. She poured them into her soup and then allowed her mother to eat. She also failed to tell the police that she had done so when they interviewed her about her mother’s death.

How did the jury decide that Eckersley only intended to make her mother comfortable, or did they turn a blind eye because Mary was 92 and had suffered a stroke?

What challenges does Mary’s death and Eckersley’s acquittal of murder charges have to say about the impending euthanasia debate in NSW?

Proposed assisted suicide regimes allow for lethal drugs to be kept in a person’s home, until they are taken at a time of their own choosing. But the Eckersley case has exposed how easy it is for lethal drugs to be slipped into someone’s food without their knowledge or consent.

It also shows how juries are reluctant to convict on murder in these circumstances.

Alarmingly, a video of Mary “agitated and distressed, barely able to move, except to wipe her eyes” was played to the jury as part of Eckersley’s defense; as if somehow, Mary’s frail state was relevant to whether or not her daughter intended to kill her.

The outcome of this case is a foreshadowing of how juries might treat breaches of euthanasia and assisted suicide “safeguards” if these laws are introduced in NSW.

Attention now turns to the sentencing, which will reveal how the NSW judicial system views the involuntary death of the elderly at the hands of another.

Euthanasia: Lawyers authorizing medicine and silencing doctors who consider it bad medicine.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr Kiely Williams

Convivium published an excellent article by Kiely Williams, a Calgary physician and Faye Sonier, an Ottawa lawyer titled: Open Wide and Say Law.

Williams and Sonier point out how Bill C-7 expanded Canada's euthanasia law in ways that physicians would not dare to go, they stated:

Psychiatrist Dr. Mark Sinyor noted that the bill, which extends MAID to those with disabilities and mental illness, was not based on scientific study. As the disability community passionately stated, repeatedly and to no avail, C-7’s impetus was the conclusion of healthy, able-bodied people that the lives of those with disabilities and disease weren’t worth living. When they and the UN Human Rights Council's rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities argued for better care, supports, and housing, they got physician-assisted suicide.

Dr. Sinyor showed that arguments for C-7 could be examined to see if MAID is the best treatment for those suffering various conditions. For example, the new legal concept of "intolerable suffering," foundational in the MAID legislation, hasn’t been scientifically studied or defined. How often could high-quality mental health care alleviate such suffering? There’s no research to consult.

Faye Sonier

Williams and Sonier point out that politicians have decided that physicians would prescribe suicide in circumstances where there is no evidence to base these decisions. Bill C-7 not only expands the euthanasia parameters of the euthanasia law but it also changes medicine. They state:

What politicians wouldn’t acknowledge is that they have fundamentally changed the doctor-patient relationship. It’s been thousands of years since physicians have purposely ended the lives of their patients. Since Hippocrates, if a patient died as a direct result of a physician’s actions, this was the ultimate failure in patient care. Now it is a “treatment” option. While rates of physician burnout and suicide are on the rise, this additional expectation which cuts against everything we believe is unconscionable.

Williams and Sonier continue by showing how Bill C-268, the conscience rights bill from MP Kelly Block will once again enable physicians to make evidence based medical decisions. They state:

When your physician advises you on a course of care, you should expect them to rely on their education, experience, and judgment. And you should expect it whether you have a questionable cough, a permanent disability, or Stage 4 cancer. For this reason, we support MP Kelly Block's Bill C-268 on intimidation of health care professionals, which makes it an offence to coerce a medical professional into providing MAID or to fire them for refusing to participate in the procedure.

Block's bill ensures that physicians can practice medicine in a way that considers the patient as an individual facing unique circumstances, and that these same physicians cannot be sanctioned for refusing to parrot federal law or hospital policy that cannot possibly account for all the factors involved in high-quality, patient-centered care.

The article ends by reiterating how Bill C-7 has changed medicine.

When MAID was first introduced in Canada, doctors and patients were emphatically promised that there would be safeguards to prevent abuse. Five years later these safeguards are gone, despite pleas from the disability community, aboriginal leaders, and palliative care physicians. This is not medicine.

• Canada passed Bill C-7 permitting euthanasia for mental illness (Link).
• Lack of evidence surrounding euthanasia for mental illness (Link).
• Trudeau government agrees to permit euthanasia for mental illness (Link).
  

Euthanasia death: Were Canada's MAiD (protocols) ignored?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A situation that required basic treatment and care escalated to a death by lethal injection.

I received a phone call from a woman who was disgusted by the (MAiD) euthanasia death of her father.

Basically, the rules or protocols for MAiD were ignored, her father had agreed to die by euthanasia based on suffering caused by medical neglect and he was likely incompetent at the time of death.

Because of privacy, I cannot go into the issues, nonetheless her story was very upsetting. Her father went to the hospital because he had experienced a fall. While in the hospital he contracted an infection which led to conditions that caused him to experience humiliating side-effects.

The daughter explained that her father was living with depression and had physical issues that required him to receive pain medication, but at no time was he considering euthanasia until a nurse brought it up with him, even though he was not dying or terminally ill.

Because his daughter is weighing her options, all I can say is that this appears to be a case of medical neglect, where he received inadequate pain and symptom relief and he was not terminally ill. This was a completely preventable situation that got completely out-of-hand.

It is also very upsetting that once his euthanasia (MAiD) death was scheduled other medical treatment and care seemed to be considered unimportant since he was going to die by euthanasia anyway.

It is ridiculous that a situation that required basic treatment and care escalated to death by lethal injection.

Welcome to the world of MAiD.