The answer is not medically assisted suicide.

This article was published in the Quincy Sun on August 18, 2022.

John Kelly

By John Kelly, Director of the disability rights group Second Thoughts

38 years ago an accident left me paralyzed below my shoulders. My father was brokenhearted and wished I had died instead. His hopelessness about my life, however painful for me, was but a simple reflection of widespread prejudice against disabled people.

A few years after my injury, Jack Kevorkian became a sort of folk hero for “helping” terminally ill people die through his “self deliverance” machine. It later came out that more than two thirds of his clients were not terminal at all, but disabled people, primarily women, in psychological distress.

Over time, as medicine has focused increasingly on patient “quality-of-life” as a barometer of life-worthiness, death has been recharacterized as a benefit to an ill or disabled individual. Most physicians (82%, a Harvard study recently found) view our “quality-of-life” as worse. Disability advocates have raised concerns about the fate of disabled people like Oregonian Sarah McSweeney and Texan Michael Hickson. Both wanted to live, both were loved by family and caregivers, but they died after hospital personnel denied them treatment based on their disabilities.

Over the last 25 years first Oregon, then additional states and Washington DC established assisted suicide programs for people expected to die within six months. Proponent rhetoric has focused on compassion for people’s physical pain and suffering, and the hope of a choiceful, peaceful end.

The reality, as shown by the top five reported “end of life concerns” in Oregon, hinge not on pain, but on people’s “existential distress,” as one study termed it, in reaction to the disabling features of their illness: depending on and feeling like a burden on other people, losing abilities, losing the respect of self and others (“loss of dignity”), and shame over incontinence.

Prominent bioethicist Thaddeus Pope concedes that “Everybody who’s using medical aid in dying is disabled. And probably you could go to the next step and say the reason they want medical aid in dying is because of their disability.” To Pope, any disability a patient finds “personally intolerable” is sufficient reason to assist their suicide.

In Massachusetts, assisted suicide bills have been put forward every session for the last 20 years. Proponents proclaim strong public support for the measure, but that support is shallow. In the weeks leading up to the 2012 ballot question on assisted suicide, polls showed 64% support.* The ballot question lost, 51%-49%. Now supporters say that 77% of Massachusetts residents support the bill, based on a poll question seeking compassion for terminally ill people “to end their suffering,” with its implication of physical pain.

State House Speaker Ron Mariano declared “We have a very divided House of Representatives. There’s not a 77 percent affirmative vote in the House right now.”

With the end of the legislative session on July 31, the bill died.

Disability rights advocates appreciate the willingness of many legislators to take our concerns seriously. We worry, with death reframed as a benefit for severely disabled people, that increased legalization will bring expansion of eligibility. Pope points out that the US is unique in the world for limiting assisted suicide to terminal people, and that every other jurisdiction, including Canada, offers euthanasia on demand to non-dying disabled people. He predicts that non-terminal disabled people will become eligible in the US. In Canada, disabled people have been euthanized because they were denied needed care or couldn’t find safe housing for multiple chemical sensitivities.

There are unsolvable problems with all assisted suicide laws. First, real choice resides with insurers, whose bottom line favors delay or denial of treatment. Dr. Brian Callister reported trying to refer two patients for life-saving but expensive procedures in Oregon and California, only to hear that the insurers limited coverage to hospice and assisted suicide.

Second, when people feel they have lost their dignity and feel like a burden on others, they are vulnerable to pressure and outright coercion to sacrifice themselves for others benefit. Abuse yearly affects one in 10 elders, exacerbated by COVID-19 restrictions. A self-interested heir can push a patient to make the request, serve as a witness along with a “friend,” pick up the drugs and, because no disinterested witness is required at the death, administer the drugs themselves. The law grants immunity to anyone who assists in the death who say they acted “in good faith.” Deadly abuse goes unpunished and unnoticed.

Third, terminal prognoses are notoriously inaccurate. NPR reported a few years ago that nearly one in five people who enter hospice survive the six-month benefit. Oregon revealed last year that just 4% of patients live past six months, meaning that the difference between 4% and almost 20% represents the body count of people who weren’t really dying. People who oppose capital punishment because of the inevitability of executing an innocent person should take note.

The 2012 Massachusetts ballot results and the patient demographics in states like California show there is a social class, race, and ethnicity component in the use of and support for assisted suicide. A 2013 Pew Research Center study showed that Blacks oppose assisted suicide by 65%-29%, and Latinos by 65%-32%. Majority Latino Lawrence voted 69% against the 2012 question, while white working class towns like Taunton and Gardner also opposed. Wealthier, whiter Massachusetts towns voted heavily in favor. In California, 94% of reported assisted suicides have been by non-Hispanic whites, more than twice the group’s share of the state population. Almost no black people have used the program.

The answer is to address people’s real needs. That means a fully funded Medicare home care benefit to reduce burden and keep people out of nursing homes. It means more and better palliative care. And for people whose discomfort cannot be otherwise relieved, there is the option of palliative sedation, whereby a person is sedated to the point of comfort while the dying process takes place. The answer is not medically assisted suicide. We disabled people demand full civil and human rights, equal protection under the law, equal suicide prevention, and more respect throughout society.

John B. Kelly is the director of Second Thoughts MA.
*Note to readers: in the hardcopy version of this essay, John Kelly wrote that polls showed 68% support for the 2012 Ballot Question 2 weeks before the election. The relevant Suffolk University poll, however, taken September 17, 2012, shows that support at 64%. We made the change to the accurate number.

Assisted Suicide Is Not About Autonomy; It Is A Symptom of Systems Which Deny Autonomy To Sick And Disabled People

This article was published as a guest blog by the disability rights group Not Dead Yet on August 8, 2022

Kathleen Nicole O'Neal

By Kathleen Nicole O’Neal

On June 16, 2022, a forty-four-year-old Italian citizen named Federico Carboni became the first patient in the history of his country to die by medically assisted suicide. Twelve years ago, Carboni was working as a trucker when he found himself seriously injured in a traffic accident that put him into a coma. When he awakened from the coma, he was a quadriplegic.

What I find most haunting about Carboni’s death are some of his last words, statements that he made explaining his decision to seek medically assisted suicide. Said Carboni, “I do not deny that I am sorry to take leave of life. I would be false and a liar if I said the opposite because life is fantastic, and we only have one. But unfortunately, it went like this. I have done everything possible to be able to live as well as possible and try to recover the maximum from my disability, but by now I am both mentally and physically exhausted. I do not have a minimum of autonomy in daily life, I am at the mercy of events, I depend on others for everything, I am like a boat adrift in the ocean. I am aware of my physical condition and future prospects so I am totally calm and calm about what I will do.”

What I find haunting about this is that ultimately this is an indictment of a terrible personal care services (aka caregiving) system, a system that fails to pay workers enough to create a reliable workforce and a system that fails to grant disabled people sufficient authority to control their services. Even the most physically disabled people should feel independent and empowered by their attendant services and apparently this is not what was happening in Carboni’s life.

To take one well known example, Stephen Hawking was a severely physically disabled person who nonetheless exercised great autonomy in his life. Even after his diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Hawking would go on to get married, publish books, and lecture internationally. He was not “at the mercy of events”; he was a figure who actively shaped scientific history. And while Hawking’s genius is remarkable, the resources which he had at his disposal in order to live his life on his own terms should be available to all disabled people everywhere in the world.

When a disabled person says that they “do not have a minimum of autonomy in daily life,” then that is an indictment of a society and a system that disrespects their equality and civil rights. And the solution to this is not to push assisted suicide as the way to deal with medically complicated individuals – it is to seek to ensure the autonomy of the disabled person in the personal care services relationship. Simply put, assisted suicide is not a solution but an extension of the devaluation disabled people experience. It’s like saying, “Disability equals no autonomy so prepare to die.”

Those who support assisted suicide have attempted to frame the issue as one of personal choice. Hence, the once appropriately named Hemlock Society now euphemistically and misleadingly refers to itself as Compassion and Choices. But what happens to disabled people all too often involves a lack of both compassion and choices and assisted suicide is not the answer to this reality.

In reality, needing care need not be a horrible thing. Says UK disability advocate Lucy Webster, “The things that I have enjoyed and been most proud of would not have happened without good care. From experiencing university (the studying and the partying) to holidaying in far-flung places, my life has been made possible by the young women who help me.

Without them, I wouldn’t have the countless warm memories of nights spent at the theatre, or gossiping and dancing with pals. It is impossible to conceive of being able to work without my PAs – I certainly wouldn’t have had the opportunities that led to me writing this column. But I have, and you are reading it, and I cannot see anything to pity in that.”

All disabled people should have excellent personal care attendants of their choice on demand. These are the real choices which we need in our society, but these are not the choices that are being framed for us in reference to medical assistance in death. Instead we are presented with phony “choices” – live with absolutely appalling, or even non-existent, services or die.

Federico Carboni did not deserve the death penalty. He deserved what Lucy Webster has. He deserved attendant services that centered his autonomy, his needs, his wants, his wishes, and his will. His life would have been different had he had that opportunity. We as a culture need to get over this notion that needing help with physical bodily functions is an affront to one’s dignity. This is the logic of ableism.

Assisted suicide is so often framed as an autonomous choice, but when you listen to the words of those who choose it, their lack of autonomy in making any choices in their lives comes barreling to light. There are many ways in which this troubling reality plays out in the lives of those individuals who find themselves targeted by assisted suicide laws and policies. For instance, in a groundbreaking 2019 report by the National Council on Disability entitled The Danger of Assisted Suicide Laws, the report’s authors write, “When assisted suicide is legalized in the context of the US healthcare system, it immediately becomes the cheapest treatment. Direct coercion is not necessary. If insurers deny, or even simply delay, approval of expensive life-sustaining treatment, patients can be steered toward hastening their deaths – and sometimes insurers help them to do so.”

We need to get over the notion that it is “undignified” for people with disabilities to need help. That’s ableism. And we need to quit pretending that those dying by assisted suicide are authors of an autonomous act of personal liberty. Instead of providing resources for these individuals to live autonomous lives and for their caregivers to be justly compensated economically for their work, we as a society are taking the easy way out and leaving little choice but for sick and disabled people, old or young, to kill themselves.

Assisted suicide represents a failure of society and that is what we need to recognize first and foremost about this phenomenon. We do not need to cooperate with the reframing of capitalist genocide of people with disabilities as a personal choice. Disabled people with autonomy don’t kill themselves. And if they lack autonomy, that is an indictment of the systems and individuals around them. “Compassion and Choices” is about anything but.

Britain debates euthanasia based on the Canadian experience.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The issue of euthanasia is being debated in Britain, but what is interesting is how Canada's experience with euthanasia is affecting the British debate.

An article by Yuan Yi Zhu that was published by UnHerd.com on Monday August 22 challenged Matt Hancock, the former UK Health Minister, who recently stated that he supports euthanasia. Zhu points out that on the day Hancock announced his support for euthanasia, a story was published about a Canadian veteran with PTSD who was not asking for euthanasia, but was told by a Veterans Affairs officer that he should consider (MAiD) euthanasia. Zhu wrote:

On the very same day as Hancock’s declaration, it was reported in Canada that an injured veteran was casually asked if he wanted euthanasia when he was simply trying to obtain healthcare, without him ever having expressed an interest in ending his life. The week prior, the Associated Press reported cases where Canadian patients chose to die due to inadequate income support, and where disabled people who refused euthanasia were called “selfish” and accused of being a drain on resources, in one case by a hospital’s director of ethics.

Such reports have been legion ever since Canada legalised euthanasia in 2016, after its Supreme Court struck down the legal prohibition on assisted suicide because it infringed a constitutional right to life. Since then, many have chosen to die because, in the words of one who applied for it, they “simply cannot afford to keep on living”. Poverty itself is not a valid ground for euthanasia, but almost any chronic condition — including hearing loss in at least one case — can be. From 2023, mental illness will be a qualifying ground as well.

No doubt euthanasia’s proponents will dismiss Canada’s experience as an aberration and argue that it is possible to regulate away the moral hazards associated with the practice. The same argument was made by Canada’s judges, who brazenly dismissed the experience from the Netherlands, where children as young as 12 can now choose to die, and where a doctor was acquitted of murder even after admitting to euthanising an elderly woman despite her persistent protestations that she did not want to die.

This is not the first time that the UK has focused on Canada's experience in their euthanasia debate. During the British parliamentary euthanasia debate last July, Dr Gordon Macdonald, from Care Not Killing reported:

“Some MPs rightly expressed concern at the mission creep we see in countries like Canada, which legalised so called ‘medical assistance in dying’ in 2015. The law was originally limited to those whose natural deaths were ‘reasonably foreseeable’, but in September 2019 the Quebec Superior Court struck down that restriction. This followed the case of Alan Nichols, a former school caretaker who was physically healthy, but struggled with depression. His life was ended by lethal injection in July 2019. That same year also saw the chilling case of Roger Foley, who was repeatedly offered the drugs to kill himself, while being denied the social care to live a dignified life, due to the cost.

Canada's out-of-control euthanasia law is at least causing some jurisdictions to hesitate in following Canada's path. Too bad Australia already has followed Canada's lead.

Canada ignored warnings that its euthanasia law immediately went too far.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Tristan Hopper wrote an excellent article that was published in the National Post on August 19, 2022 concerning the many stories that have been published in the past few months concerning the many unexpected victims of Canada's euthanasia law. Hopper examines the law based on how the law went too far from its inception.

Hopper writes:

Barely a week now goes by without some new case emerging of a sick Canadian being offered assisted death in lieu of treatment. Most recently, it was a Canadian combat veteran who was casually offered the option of dying after he approached Veteran Affairs Canada for help with his PTSD.

It’s a nightmare scenario that was envisioned by no shortage of ethicists and health figures when assisted death was first written into Canadian law. But with few exceptions, these warnings were ignored by the various court rulings that ultimately forced Canada into adopting the world’s most permissive regime of legal euthanasia.

Hopper points out that the Supreme Court of Canada 1993 Rodriguez decision stated that:

“Given the concerns about abuse and the great difficulty in creating appropriate safeguards, the blanket prohibition on assisted suicide is not arbitrary or unfair”

Whereas the Supreme Court of Canada 2015 Carter decision that legalized euthanasia nearly ignored the concerns about abuse even though experts witnesses explained how the safeguards in Belgium and the Netherlands have become an illusion, the Supreme Court responded by stating that the Belgium experience was:

“the product of a very different medico-legal culture” and said it offered no lessons for Canada.

Hopper quotes from NDP MP Joe Comartin, who during the parliamentary debate warned that:

“mercy killings” becoming a regular component of an underfunded Canadian health-care system. “The risk we have is sending a message to the country that life is expendable, that we are prepared to say that we do not care enough for people to take care of them”

Conservative MP Joy Smith quoted from Theo Boer, a Dutch bioethicist and former member of the euthanasia commission who had supported euthanasia and then changed his mind:

“Once the genie is out of the bottle, it is not likely to ever go back in again"

Hopper quotes from John C. Wootten who was published in the CMAJ as stating:

MAID’s core issue was that it was a 100 per cent successful procedure, with no way of telling whether it was a mistake. “Because few other medical acts can be accomplished with such impunity, we are likely to become more and more comfortable with it, and more and more permissive as times goes by,” he wrote.

Hopper then points out that the 2019 Truchon and Gladu Quebec court decision continued the delusion that there are no fears of abuse. Hopper writes:

In the 2019 decision Truchon and Gladu v. Canada, the Quebec Superior Court ruled that extending assisted suicide only to Canadians with terminal illnesses was similarly a violation of the “security of the person.”

“The fact that doubts have been raised is one thing, but any possible ‘slippery slope’ remains theoretical,” it read.

Hopper explains that the Truchon decision led to the passing of Bill C-7 in March 2021 which allowed euthanasia for people with chronic but not terminal conditions, it eliminated the 10-day waiting period for people who are dying and it extended euthanasia to people with mental illness alone to be instituted in March 2023.

Alan Nichols (left side)

He concludes his article with one of the most egregious stories of euthanasia abuse in Canada by writing about the euthanasia death of Alan Nichols. Hopper writes:

Last June, the Medical Assistance in Dying Committee heard from Trish Nichols, whose suicidal and severely mentally ill brother Alan was given assisted death at a Chilliwack, B.C., hospital in 2019, at a time when MAID was still limited only to Canadians with a terminal illness.

Alan had been taken by his family to the hospital only days before to recover from a psychiatric episode, and in the minutes before he received a lethal injection, Trish described Alan screaming uncontrollably, despite the hospital’s assurances that he had opted for a medically assisted death while “of sound mind.”

“Would you feel safe now, bringing your suicidal loved one to seek medical care for recovery when there are no oversight or stringent safeguards surrounding a procedure that kills people?” Nichols told the committee.

Hopper only misses one point. The committee that Trish Nichols was speaking to is debating the expansion of Canada's euthanasia law to children - "mature minors" -to requests by advanced directive, and to determine the rules for killing people for mental illness alone.

Here are some links to more stories of abuse of euthanasia in Canada:

• Veterans affairs worker advocates euthanasia for PTSD (Link).
• Shopping for doctor death in Canada (Link).
• Gwen is seeking euthanasia because she can't access medical treatment (Link).
• Euthanasia for disability and poverty (Link).
• Euthanasia for Long Covid and poverty (Link).
• Canada's MAiD law is the most permissive in the world. (Link).

Will future Canadians apologize to people with disabilities for euthanasia?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Charles Lane

Charles Lane wrote an insightful opinion article that was published by the Washington Post on August 17, 2022 titled: Will future Canadians owe the disabled an apology for euthanasia? Lane bases his article on the recent apology by Pope Francis to Canada's Indigenous community and relates it to the recent cases of people with disabilities who are living in poverty or with mental illness dying by euthanasia.

Lane writes:

These permissive standards may be resulting in avoidable death or distress for vulnerable people, and disability rights advocates are expressing concern, as Maria Cheng of the Associated Press reported Aug. 11.

She told the story of 61-year-old Alan Nichols, who requested — and received — euthanasia less than a month after entering a British Columbia hospital in June 2019 suffering from suicidal thoughts, dehydration and malnutrition. The decision was apparently based on a medical history that included serious but typically non-life-threatening conditions such as depression and hearing loss.

His grief-stricken family has sought explanations as to how doctors could have found their loved one competent to “choose” death much less needful of it. “Somebody needs to take responsibility so that it never happens to another family,” Trish Nichols, Alan’s sister-in-law, told Cheng.

Cheng described the case of a man with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, who felt driven to seek euthanasia because British Columbia officials would not provide him adequate support to live at home. In a case separately reported by Canadian media this year, a 31-year-old Toronto woman with a disability sought and received approval for euthanasia after what she said was a futile search for safe housing — only to decide to continue living after private parties helped her find an appropriate dwelling.

Lane also reports Cheng as writing that Canada does not require people to attempt effective treatments before dying by euthanasia, which is likely to lead to euthanasia for people who could have got better. Lane also refers to Cheng stating that:

Last year, a top United Nations disability rights official wrote to Trudeau advising him that legalizing euthanasia for the non-terminally ill creates an implied negative judgment on “the value or quality of life of persons with disabilities.”

There have been more sad stories of people with disabilities or those with mental illness or poverty, being urged to consider, being approved for, and/or dying by euthanasia.

Here are some links to some of these stories:

• Veterans affairs worker advocates euthanasia for PTSD (Link).
• Shopping for doctor death in Canada (Link).
• Gwen is seeking euthanasia because she can't access medical treatment (Link).
• Euthanasia for disability and poverty (Link).
• Euthanasia for Long Covid and poverty (Link).
• Canada's MAiD law is the most permissive in the world. (Link).

Lane then writes that Canada is expanding euthanasia to people with mental illness alone which he says is "a practice that has led to controversy over alleged abuses in Belgium and the Netherlands." Lane concludes:

"One of the most haunting aspects of the Canadian Indian Residential School system was that one of Canada’s worst historical crimes was managed and defended by people who fervently believed they were doing the right thing for ‘the Indian,’” Tristin Hopper wrote in the National Post last year.

As they expand euthanasia today, Canadians should bear in mind that they, too, are subject to the law of unintended consequences and to the judgment of future generations.

Either future Canadians will apologize for euthanizing people with disabilities, mental illness, the poor and the chronically ill, or our culture will become hardened to the needs of others and the culture will expect people in these circumstances to die.

Ontario doctor charged with 4 counts of first degree murder. Canada needs to re-evaluate its euthanasia law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Brian Nadler (36) a doctor who practised medicine in Hawkesbury Ontario, was charged with one count of first degree murder in July 2021 and was charged today with three more counts of first degree murder.

According to a CBC News report:

Nadler was originally charged with one count of first-degree murder in the death of 89-year-old Albert Poidinger of Pointe-Claire, Que. Poidinger was a patient at the Hawkesbury and District General Hospital, which is located between Ottawa and Montreal.

The three most recent alleged victims are 80-year-old Claire Briere of Rigaud, Que., 79-year-old Lorraine Lalande of Hawkesbury and 93-year-old Judith Lungulescu of East Hawkesbury Township.

The Nadler case, and other cases of medical killings, should cause the Canadian government to re-evaluate its euthanasia (MAiD) law.

Canada's euthanasia law employs imprecise "safeguards" to regulate "MAiD." A person must request death but the safeguards only require a physician or nurse practitioner to be of the opinion that the person fits the criteria of the law.

When parliament passed Bill C-7 in March 2021, they eliminated the 10-day reflection period for terminally ill people, meaning a person can ask to die and be killed on the same day. Bill C-7 eliminated the requirement that a person be competent at the time of death and it permitted euthanasia for mental illness alone (with a 2-year-moratorium to provide time to develop regulations). The committee that was charged with developing regulations has suggested that no new regulations are needed for euthanasia for mental illness alone.

Further to that, a parliamentary committee is currently debating permitting euthanasia by advanced directive and euthanasia for children.

Why should Nadler's alleged deaths lead to changes to Canada's MAiD law?

With the loosening of regulations, combined with the imprecise language of the law, it will become very difficult, if not impossible, to differentiate between alleged acts of intentionally overdosing patients and killing patients outright by euthanasia based on the opinion that person fits the criteria of the law.

Nadler's lawyer, Brian Greenspan, told CBC news that:

Nadler will be "vigorously defended" by the law firm.

"All four patients died of COVID-19 and Dr. Nadler provided excellent palliative care. When the facts are fully presented, we are confident that he will be vindicated,"

The question is, based on the language of Canada's MAiD law, whether it is possible to differentiate between intentional medical murder and legal euthanasia.

Veterans Affairs Canada worker advocates euthanasia for PTSD.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Sean Boynton and Mercedes Stephenson reported for Global News on August 16 that a Veterans Affairs Canada employee advocated (MAiD) euthanasia for a veteran who is dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a traumatic brain injury. According to the report:

A Canadian Forces veteran seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury was shocked when he was unexpectedly and casually offered medical assistance in dying by a Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) employee, sources tell Global News.

Sources say a VAC service agent brought up medical assistance in dying, or MAID, unprompted in the conversation with the veteran. Global News is not identifying the veteran who was seeking treatment.

According to the report, the veteran did not bring up MAiD and was disturbed by the suggestion. The news report stated:

Sources close to the veteran say he and his family were disgusted by the conversation, and feel betrayed by the agency mandated to assist veterans. The sources said the veteran was seeking services to recover from injuries suffered in the line of duty, and had been experiencing positive improvements in his mental and physical health. They say the unprompted offer of MAID disrupted his progress and has been harmful to the veteran’s progress and his family’s wellbeing.

A further report by Boynton and Stephenson interviewed experts who care for veterans with PTSD and brain injuries, who stated that veterans living with these conditions often experience suicidal thoughts. The report quotes retired Sgt Tobias Miller, who was injured while serving in Afghanistan:

“(My fear is) can somebody who’s on a razor’s edge be pushed in the wrong direction or negatively impacted by a suggestion … of something like medical assistance in dying?”

“When you have to fight daily against your own brain telling you things that you don’t want to hear, I sort of question how a department whose sole job is to care for us and to help us heal would step in and … make an offering that could see veterans harm themselves.”

Boyton and Stephenson also interviewed Scott Maxwell, executive director of Wounded Warriors Canada, who said that advocating for MAiD among veterans living with PTSD is "flat out wrong."

Sgt Miller told the authors that he had sustained a traumatic brain injury from a roadside bomb in Afghanistan and suffers from PTSD. Miller said that: 

he personally experienced hearing negative and even suicidal “voices” in his head before learning how to “fight that voice and ignore it.”

Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay told Global News that this will never happen again.

This is one of many stories proving that euthanasia (MAiD) has grown out of control in Canada.

Canada is getting comfortable with killing people with disabilities.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Tristin Hopper wrote an insightful article that was published in the National Post on August 15 titled: Canada is getting comfortable with killing its disabled.

Roger Foley

Hopper focuses on several stories concerning people with disabilities who have been pressured to die or have died by euthanasia. Many of these people have disabilities and were also living in poverty.

Hopper writes about Roger Foley of London, Ontario, who did not ask for euthanasia but was urged to ask for it. Hopper writes:

This week, a feature by the Associated Press quoted secretly recorded audio from a London, Ont. hospital that appeared to show a medical ethicist raising the subject of euthanasia with a disabled patient, Roger Foley, after reminding him that he was costing the system “north of $1,500 a day.”

Foley told the AP that he had never previously expressed a desire for medically assisted death, and began recording the staff after they kept mentioning it to see if he had “an interest.”

There are people with MCS (Multiple Chemical Sensitivities) who were approved for euthanasia because they couldn't afford a clean place to live. Hopper writes:

There was “Sophia,” a 51-year-old Toronto woman with severe chemical sensitivities who took MAID after she was unable to find an affordable home free of the smell of smoke or chemical cleaners. “Denise,” a 31-year-old Toronto woman, similarly pursued euthanasia as a result of what she called “abject poverty” preventing her from securing appropriate accommodation for a variety of chronic conditions.

Alan Nichols

Alan Nichols died by euthanasia even though he was not terminally ill, but experiencing depression. Hopper wrote:

Alan Nichols, a severely depressed B.C. man, was administered MAID shortly after being taken to the hospital by his family for a psychiatric episode. “They killed our brother,” Nichols’ brother Wayne told the National Post.

Gwen (not her real name), a woman with chronic pain, says that euthanasia will remove patients like her. Hopper quotes Gwen, who said the The Tyee:

“It’s eugenics, because they don’t want us to be properly supported and be OK. And if we don’t have family to take care of us, it’s ‘Please just go and die,’”

Hopper also quotes from Mark Komrad, a psychiatrist at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, who argues that Canada's law:

“...will provide, not prevent, suicide for some psychiatric patients,”

Hopper also quotes from a report by a team of United Nations special rapporteurs, who warned that Canada’s liberalization of euthanasia posed dire threats to its elderly:

“There is a grave concern that, if assisted dying is made available for all persons with a health condition or impairment … a social assumption might follow (or be subtly reinforced) that it is better to be dead than to live with a disability.”

Hopper quotes from all of these news stories while acknowledging that the number of Canadian euthanasia deaths have increased significantly:

MAID has seen a dramatic upswing in recent years. In 2020, nearly 7,600 Canadians ended their lives via euthanasia, a 17 per cent increase over the year prior. In disproportionately elderly regions like Vancouver Island, MAID is now the cause of 7.5 per cent of all deaths.

Hopper does miss the recent federal report which indicated that there were more than 10,000 Canadian euthanasia deaths in 2021.

These human experiences, along with many others, provide no surprise that the world is wondering why Canada is euthanizing its poor. 

The real question is: Has the federal government recognized that their experiment with legalized euthanasia has failed and is now out-of-control?

‘Disturbing’: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Maria Cheng published an investigative report for the Associated Press on August 11 titled: 'Disturbing': Experts troubled by Canada's euthanasia laws.

Cheng interviews the family of Alan Nichols, Marie-Claude Landry, Tim Stainton, Theresia Degener, Trudo Lemmens, Heidi Janz, and others.

Cheng opens the article by writing about the euthanasia death of Alan Nichols. Cheng writes:

Alan Nichols had a history of depression and other medical issues, but none were life-threatening. When the 61-year-old Canadian was hospitalized in June 2019 over fears he might be suicidal, he asked his brother to “bust him out” as soon as possible.

Within a month, Nichols submitted a request to be euthanized and he was killed, despite concerns raised by his family and a nurse practitioner.

His application for euthanasia listed only one health condition as the reason for his request to die: hearing loss.

Nichols’ family reported the case to police and health authorities, arguing that he lacked the capacity to understand the process and was not suffering unbearably — among the requirements for euthanasia. They say he was not taking needed medication, wasn’t using the cochlear implant that helped him hear, and that hospital staffers improperly helped him request euthanasia.

“Alan was basically put to death,” his brother Gary Nichols said.

Alan & Gary Nichols

Trudo Lemmens, the chair of health law and policy at the University of Toronto, referred to the Nichols case as disturbing. Lemmen states:

“This case demonstrates that the rules are too loose and that even when people die who shouldn’t have died, there is almost no way to hold the doctors and hospitals responsible,”

Marie-Claude Landry, the head of Canada's Human Rights Commission tells Cheng that Nichols' euthanasia death is not unique. Landry states that:

she shares the “grave concern” voiced last year by three U.N. human rights experts, who wrote that Canada’s euthanasia law appeared to violate the agency’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They said the law had a “discriminatory impact” on disabled people and was inconsistent with Canada’s obligations to uphold international human rights standards.

Tim Stainton, director of the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship at the University of British Columbia, told Cheng that Canada's euthanasia law is

“probably the biggest existential threat to disabled people since the Nazis’ program in Germany in the 1930s.”

Cheng then tells the story of Sean Tagert, who died by euthanasia in August 2019. Cheng writes:

Some disabled Canadians have decided to be killed in the face of mounting bills.

Before being euthanized in August 2019 at age 41, Sean Tagert struggled to get the 24-hour-a-day care he needed. The government provided Tagert, who had Lou Gehrig’s disease, with 16 hours of daily care at his home in Powell River, British Columbia. He spent about 264 Canadian dollars ($206) a day to pay coverage during the other eight hours.

Health authorities proposed that Tagert move to an institution, but he refused, saying he would be too far from his young son. He called the suggestion “a death sentence” in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Before his death, Tagert had raised more than CA$16,000 ($12,400) to buy specialized medical equipment he needed to live at home with caretakers. But it still wasn’t enough.

“I know I’m asking for change,” Tagert wrote in a Facebook post before his death. “I just didn’t realize that was an unacceptable thing to do.”

Heidi Janz, an assistant adjunct professor in Disability Ethics at the University of Alberta, tells Cheng that: 

“a person with disabilities in Canada has to jump through so many hoops to get support that it can often be enough to tip the scales” and lead them to euthanasia.

Cheng continues by telling the story of Roger Foley, who was urged by hospital staff to request euthanasia:

Roger Foley, who has a degenerative brain disorder and is hospitalized in London, Ontario, was so alarmed by staffers mentioning euthanasia that he began secretly recording some of their conversations.

In one recording obtained by the AP, the hospital’s director of ethics told Foley that for him to remain in the hospital, it would cost “north of $1,500 a day.” Foley replied that mentioning fees felt like coercion and asked what plan there was for his long-term care.

“Roger, this is not my show,” the ethicist responded. “My piece of this was to talk to you, (to see) if you had an interest in assisted dying.”

Foley said he had never previously mentioned euthanasia. The hospital says there is no prohibition on staff raising the issue.

Catherine Frazee, a professor emerita at Toronto’s Ryerson University, referred to Roger Foley's case as a "tip of the iceberg. " Frazee told Cheng the story of Candice Lewis in Newfoundland:

Candice Lewis, a 25-year-old woman who has cerebral palsy and spina bifida. Lewis’ mother, Sheila Elson, took her to an emergency room in Newfoundland five years ago. During her hospital stay, a doctor said Lewis was a candidate for euthanasia and that if her mother chose not to pursue it, that would be “selfish,” Elson told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Cheng ends the article by quoting from Marie-Claude Landry who stated:

leaders should listen to the concerns of those facing hardships who believe euthanasia is their only option. She called for social and economic rights to be enshrined in Canadian law to ensure people can get adequate housing, health care and support.

“In an era where we recognize the right to die with dignity, we must do more to guarantee the right to live with dignity,” she said.

Canada's government has been committed to expanding its euthanasia law and is now debating expanding euthanasia to children ("mature minors"), incompetent people who requested it in their power of attorney for healthcare document, and for reasons of mental illness alone.

Canada needs to re-evaluate its euthanasia law and reverse its current permissive legal euthanasia law.

Links to more articles on Canada's euthanasia law:

• Shopping for a death doctor in Canada (Link).
• Canada: More than 10,000 euthanasia deaths in 2021 (Link).
• Canada's ever-expanding euthanasia law (Link).
• Euthanasia for disability and poverty (Link).
• Euthanasia for Long-Covid and poverty (Link).
• A message to the world. Don't legalize euthanasia (Link).
• Canada's euthanasia law is the most permissive in the world (Link).

Support Alex Schadenberg running a half marathon fund-raiser on September 24.

Support Compassionate Community Care (CCC) or the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) as Alex Schadenberg runs a half marathon (21.1 KM) at Hamilton Bay on Saturday September 24, 2022. 

This is the third year for Alex running a half-marathon fund-raiser for CCC and EPC. This run is organized for this purpose and is not combined with another event.

Similar to previous years, Alex will be running with Marcel Lemmen and a few others. If you are interested in joining the run email: alex@epcc.ca

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition informs, educates, and lobbies in opposition to killing by euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Donate to the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, which is not a charity, at: (Donation Link).

Compassionate Community Care is a charity that operates a help-line, it provides a training program for visiting seniors and others, it has developed an advocacy training program and it is currently doing a survey of seniors experiences with loneliness and isolation.

Charitable donations are made to Compassionate Community Care at: (Donation Link).

Ireland is establishing a committee to examine euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

In July 2021, an Irish euthanasia bill passed in the Irish Dáil ant then stopped by the Oireachtas Committee on Justice based on the language of the bill. The bill was sponsored by People before Profit TD Gino Kenny.

The Journal reported on July 15 that a special Oireachtas Committee will likely begin in October to examine the issue of euthanasia.

The Journal reported that:

The Oireachtas Justice Committee recommended the formation of a special committee on the issue earlier this year, after finding that the proposed legislation had “serious technical issues” and warranted more detailed examination.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition urges the Oireachtas Justice Committee to analyze the Canadian experience and then reject euthanasia. Legalizing euthanasia abandons people to death at a vulnerable time of their life.

Man who shot a Spanish police officer will avoid trial and die by euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article by Stephen Burgen for the Guardian reports that Marin Eugen Sabau, a 46-year-old Romanian man who is awaiting trial for injuring 5 people after shooting them at a Securitas office in Tarragona Spain last December will avoid his trial because he has been approved to die by euthanasia. Sabau was shot in the spine by a police sharp-shooter.

Burgen reports:

The national court in Tarragona upheld an earlier court ruling that, given his condition, Sabau had a right to euthanasia under a law passed last year. The court said the law had not anticipated a situation in which a person facing criminal charges might request assisted dying.

Sabau requested euthanasia based on the fact that his injury from being shot in the spine enabled him to qualify for euthanasia in Spain.

The lawyer for Jose Antonio Bitos, one of the injured officers, argued that Sabau should not avoid his trial or conviction by euthanasia. The lawyer appealed the lower court ruling permitting Sabau's death by euthanasia. The national court upheld the lower court decision.

I am very concerned with the direction of the Spanish euthanasia law. The court stated that euthanasia is a fundamental right. If euthanasia is a fundamental right, then all of the restrictions in the law will someday be removed from the law. You cannot limit a fundamental right.

Shopping for a death doctor in Canada.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A CBC news report suggests that Canadians who are turned down for MAiD (euthanasia) three times, just need to find another doctor or nurse who is willing to kill them.

Priscilla Ki Sun Hwang reported for CBC news on August 3, 2022 that Margaret Bristow was declared ineligible for (MAiD) euthanasia by assessors in Ottawa three times but then approved for euthanasia in Brampton. According to the report:

Bristow said she applied for medical assistance in dying, also called MAID, three times since the procedure was decriminalized in 2016 — twice prior and once after the recent legislative changes in 2021 broadened the eligibility criteria for patients.

All three times, she said, her Ottawa assessors declared her ineligible.

Bristow said that her family doctor got her in contact with (MAiD) euthanasia assessors in Toronto this Spring. The CBC report states that she is now scheduled to die by euthanasia on August 10 in Brampton and she chose to have it done in a hospital so that she could donate her organs.

Priscilla Ki Sun Hwang interviews Dr. Chantal Perrot, a Toronto family physician and (MAID) provider who explains that many people travel across Ontario or even to another province to die by euthanasia. Perrot states:

Each assessor comes to a clinical decision regarding a patient's eligibility on a case-by-case basis, based on their interpretation of the legislation, the patient's history and conditions, she explained.

"It happens not infrequently that a person will be found ineligible by one assessor, but found eligible by somebody else,"

Shopping for a death doctor is not uncommon in Canada. If one doctor or nurse decides that a person is ineligible another doctor might find them eligible for death.

The 2021 Health Canada euthanasia report stated that only 487 (4%) of the euthanasia requests were declared to be ineligible that year and yet Bristow was turned down three times. There may be more to this story.

When Canada was debating euthanasia legislation in 2016 I recognized that the law lacked clear standards or definitions and I predicted that people could shop for a death doctor. Sadly this CBC report will encourage other people who have been declared ineligible for euthanasia to seek an assessment from a doctor or nurse who will approve their death.

Ontario euthanasia deaths continue to rise in 2022.

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Yesterday I reported that Health Canada released the Third Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada (2021).  The report stated that there were: 10,064 assisted deaths in 2021 up from 7603 in 2020. Approximately 1740 euthanasia deaths were based on loneliness and isolation.

The 2021 federal report indicated that the number of reported assisted deaths increased by 32.4% and represented 3.3% of all Canadian deaths.

Euthanasia continues to increase.

The Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario released the June 2022 MAiD data which indicates that there were 1822 reported assisted deaths in the first six months of 2022 and 11,620 reported assisted deaths since euthanasia was legalized. The Ontario data is important because it is regularly released and Ontario represents 39% of Canada's population.

The June 2022 Ontario monthly data also showed a significant increase with 334 reported assisted deaths as compared to 281 in June 2021.

The growth in killing by lethal injection continues. According to the data: 

Jan 1 - June 30, 2022 (1822 reported assisted deaths),

July 1 - Dec 31, 2021 (1739 reported assised deaths),

Jan 1 - June 30, 2021 (1363 reported assisted deaths), 

July 1 - Dec 31, 2020 (1251 reported assisted deaths),

Jan 1 - June 30, 2020 (1127 reported assisted deaths).

 

Is there enough killing yet?

Canada's federal government established a committee to discuss further expansions of euthanasia in Canada. This committee is considering euthanasia for incompetent people who requested death in their advanced directive, euthanasia for children and the rules to implement euthanasia for people with mental illness alone. Bill C-7 already approved euthanasia for mental illness alone but the government has not established the killing guidelines yet.

Further to that recently there have been many media stories indicating that Canadians are now dying by euthanasia for reasons of poverty, disability, and mental illness. The world wonders why Canada is euthanizing the poor.

We need your help. Thousands of deaths means that there are thousands of stories. We need you to tell your story. Some of the people were depressed and had questionable competency. Some of these people were subtly coerced. Some of these stories are known by you. We can effectively challenge the culture but we need your stories. 

Contact Alex Schadenberg at the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at: info@epcc.ca or 1-877-439-3348.

Canada releases 2021 euthanasia report. More than 10,000 deaths representing 3.3% of all deaths.

"At least 1740 people died by euthanasia (2021) for loneliness and isolation"

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Health Canada recently released the Third Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada (2021). The data is gathered from the reports submitted by the medical or nurse practitioners who carried out the euthanasia death. There is no requirement that a third party or neutral person submit the reports to ensure their accuracy.

Canadian euthanasia data.

Comparing the Third Annual report (2021) to the Second Annual Report (2020), the report states that there were: 10,064 assisted deaths in 2021 up from 7603 in 2020, 5661 in 2019, 4480 in 2018, 2838 in 2017 and 1018 in 2016.

The report indicates that the number of assisted deaths increased by 32.4% representing 3.3% of all deaths in 2021.

When all data sources are considered, the total of number of euthanasia (MAiD) reported assisted deaths in Canada from legalization to December 31, 2021 is 31,664.

Regional differences.

The report indicates that euthanasia represented 3.3% of all deaths, which was up from 2.5% in 2021. The data indicates a big difference in the percentage of euthanasia deaths between provinces. According to the data the percentage of all deaths that were euthanasia increased in all provinces notably:

• British Columbia: 4.8% in 2021 up from 3.8% in 2020,
• Quebec: 4.7% in 2021 up from 3.0% in 2020. 
• Prince Edward Island 2.9% in 2021 up from 2.8% in 2020. 
• Ontario: 2.7% in 2021 up from 2.1% in 2020. 
• Newfoundland was the lowest with 1.2% in 2021 up from 0.9% in 2020.

The report indicated that due to the passing of Bill C-7 in March 2021, 2.2% of the assisted deaths were people whose natural death was not reasonably foreseeable.

How did Bill C-7 expand eligibility for euthanasia in Canada?

This is the first Health Canada MAiD report since the federal government expanded eligibility for euthanasia (MAiD) in March 2021 by passing Bill C-7.

1. Bill C-7 removed the requirement that a person’s natural death be reasonably foreseeable to qualify for assisted death. Therefore, people who are not terminally ill could die by euthanasia. 
2. Bill C-7 permitted a doctor or nurse practitioner to lethally inject a person who is incapable of consenting, if that person was previously approved for assisted death. Therefore, incompetent people can die by euthanasia in Canada. 
3. Bill C-7 waived the ten-day waiting period if a person's natural death is deemed to be reasonably foreseeable. Thus, a person could request euthanasia on a "bad day" and die the same day. 
4. Bill C-7 created a two-track law. A person whose natural death is deemed to be reasonably foreseeable has no waiting period, while a person whose natural death is not deemed to be reasonably foreseeable has a 90-day waiting period before being killed by lethal injection. 
5. Bill C-7 approved euthanasia for mental illness alone, but established a two-year moratorium on euthanasia for mental illness alone to create guidelines.
   

The data indicates that there were 12,286 written requests for MAID in 2021 representing an increase of 27.7% over the number of written requests in 2020. The majority of the written requests (9,950 or 81.0%) resulted in an assisted death. There must be some missing reports. The data states the 9,950 written requests resulted in euthanasia, but there were 10,064 reported euthanasia deaths.

There were 2,336 requests (19.0%) that resulted in an outcome other than MAID.

• 231 individuals withdrew their request (1.9% of written requests); 
• 487 individuals were deemed ineligible (4.0% of written requests); and  
• 1,618 individuals died prior to receiving MAID (13.2% of written requests).
  

It is concerning that only 4% of the written requests were deemed ineligible. The Netherlands and Belgium have higher rates of people being deemed ineligible.

Reasons for requesting euthanasia.

The main reasons for requesting euthanasia were

• the loss of ability to engage in meaningful activities (86.3%), 
• loss of ability to perform activities of daily living (83.4%), and 
• inadequate control of pain, or concern about controlling pain (57.6%).
  

It is concerning that approximately 1740 people (17.3%) died by euthanasia based on loneliness and isolation. Many people with significant medical conditions also live with loneliness and isolation. Social isolation and loneliness require a compassionate caring community, not death by lethal injection.

Inadequate control of pain or concern about controlling pain were reasons for 57.6% of the requests for euthanasia, and yet the report states that 80.7% of the people who requested euthanasia were "receiving palliative care." Being enrolled in palliative care and receiving palliative care are different. A study needs to be done to determine how many people who died by euthanasia were actually receiving palliative care.

The federal euthanasia report essentially provides basic data that is not analysed.

Québec is the only province that provides an analysis of the euthanasia reports, and has a multiple reporting system that may uncover discrepancies in the reports.

Amy Hasbrouck, the past President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, examined the Québec report data (April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021). Hasbrouck reported that since Québec has a multiple reporting system, the data indicates a discrepancy between the 2426 euthanasia reports submitted by doctors and the 2688 euthanasia reports submitted by hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities. A discrepancy of 262 deaths.

Since Québec reviews the euthanasia reports, the Québec report indicated that at least 7 of the euthanasia deaths did not fit the criteria of the law. Canada's federal report does not analyze the reports; it only provides data from the reports. Research needs to be done to ensure compliance with the law.

Sadly, Canada has quickly become the most permissive euthanasia regime in the world. Further to that, a Canadian government committee is examining expanding the law to include euthanasia for children, "mature minors," and euthanasia for incompetent people.

Recent stories indicate that Canadians are now dying by euthanasia for reasons of poverty, disability, and mental illness.

It appears that the horse has already left the barn, but I have hope that Canadians will recognize that the slope we have chosen is very slippery and the direction needs reversing, not accelerating.

We need a caring community, not a killing community.