Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Kevin Yuill
Kevin Yuill, who is an emeritus professor of history at the University of Sunderland and CEO of Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia (HAASE) was published in Spiked on April 18, 2024 is asking the question: Why are Dutch doctors euthanising healthy young women?

Yuill begins his article by telling the stories of Yolanda Fun and Zoraya ter Beek:

Alex Schadenberg
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have great news. The California assisted suicide expansion bill (SB 1196) has been pulled. 

This is great news, but let's be clear, the language of SB 1196 is the goal of the assisted suicide lobby but the bill was determined to have gone too far too fast.

Based on the summary of SB 1196 by Senator Blakespear I stated that the bill would have:

1. Allowed euthanasia by IV (intravenous), as in Canada. Currently, California permits assisted suicide (lethal poison that a person takes orally at the time and place of their own choosing, with or without witnesses). This bill allowed for death by IV. This constitutes euthanasia/homicide.
2. Changed the criteria from terminally ill (6 month prognosis) to the Canadian model: “a grievous and irremediable medical condition.” Thus, there would be no time limit  and no terminal illness requirement.
3. Allowed people with early to mid-stage dementia to consent to assisted suicide or euthanasia, even though they have a condition that impairs their capacity to consent.
4. Removed the California residency requirement. California would join Oregon and Vermont, dropping their residency requirements and allowing for suicide tourism.
5. Removed the 2031 sunset clause in the California assisted suicide law.

I published an article on March 18, 2024, stating that the California bill would legalize medical killing. After the language of SB 1196 was released I further explained how SB 1196 would have expanded medical killing in California.

SB 1196 would have changed the law from requiring ingesting of the lethal poison to utilizing the lethal poison. Utilize was not defined in the bill but it could be defined as: "to make practical and effective use of."

SB 1196 would have changed the law from requiring a terminal disease to a grievous and irremediable medical condition.

Terminal disease was based on a 6 month prognosis whereas grievous and irremediable medical condition had a long definition that essentially mean't that the person has a serious chronic condition that will continue to decline.

The bill stated:  

For purposes of this part, a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” includes a diagnosis of early to mid-stage dementia while the individual still has the capacity to make medical decisions. 

IV catheter
How would early to mid-state dementia have been defined in practise?

SB 1196 permitted non-doctors to participate in the law. SB 1196 added the following: nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and registered nurses.

SB 1196 removed the residency requirement in the California law by striking out the words - is a resident of California.

SB 1196 allowed the use of an IV (intravenous) catheter to "utilize" the poison. SB 1196 stated:  

death through ingestion, or through an intravenous pathway after a health care provider places an intravenous catheter if one was not already placed, to bring about the qualified individual’s own death. 

This statement did not limit the use of the IV catheter to assisted suicide and may have allowed for euthanasia/homicide.

Later SB 1196, stated:  

For purposes of this section, “assisting the qualified individual by preparing the aid-in-dying drug” includes a health care provider placing an intravenous catheter, so long as the health care provider does not assist the qualified individual in introducing the aid-in-dying drug into the qualified individual’s vein.

This statement inferred that the person must somehow utilize the IV catheter. The IV could be placed but the health care provider could not "assist". This was intentionally confusing. There may also have been circumstances, such as ALS, where the person has difficulty "utilizing" the IV catheter without assistance.

On June 22, 2022, a California federal judge rejected a case designed to permit euthanasia within California's assisted suicide act. Shavelson, a doctor that solely focuses on assisting suicide and Sandra Morris, who had ALS, argued that the state's assisted suicide law discriminated against people who had difficulty self-ingesting the lethal drugs and to remedy the situation the state needed to permit euthanasia in those cases.

In that case, Shavelson argued that allowing the administration of lethal drugs by IV catheter when a person has difficulty self-administering the lethal drugs was necessary. Justice Chhabria rejected the argument and stated:

Chhabria ruled the case could not proceed on the theory that it violates the ADA because the accommodation they seek would cross the boundary created by the End of Life Option Act, “from the ability to end your own life to the ability to have someone else end it for you.”Chhabria further ruled:
“Such an accommodation would ‘compromise' the essential nature of the act, and would therefore fundamentally alter the program.’”

The judge said the law’s self-administration requirement is the “final safeguard” to ensure the act remains voluntary.

“A person seeking to end their life pursuant to the act can opt out at any point — after requesting or receiving the prescription, after the drugs are in their hand, after the feeding tube has been installed, after saying goodbye,” he wrote. “The accommodation that the plaintiffs seek would significantly undermine these protections by opening a window during which there would be no way of knowing whether the patient had changed their mind.”

If SB 1196 would have changed the California law by removing self-administer, removing the terminal illness requirement and allowing the utilization of an IV catheter, these changes would make it impossible to distinguish between an act of assisted suicide and an act of euthanasia/homicide. 

Assisted suicide is receiving lethal poison and self-administer it for the purpose of causing death.

Euthanasia is when another person, usually a medical professional, administers the lethal poison for the purpose of causing death. Euthanasia is a form of homicide/murder.

Since SB 1196 did not require a "third/independent party" to witness the act, therefore SB 1196 would have enable euthanasia under the guise of assisted suicide and achieve for the euthanasia lobby what was denied to them by Justice Chhabria in 2022.

SB 1196 was a "Trojan horse" euthanasia bill.

SB 1196 is the end goal of the assisted suicide lobby.

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Meghan Schrader
Meghan is an autistic person who is an instructor at E4 - University of Texas (Austin) and an EPC-USA board member.

I am commenting on the cases of the young women with autism, ADHD, depression and Borderline Personality Disorder who are planning to have their lives ended in Canada and the Netherlands from the perspective of someone who also has autism, ADHD and depression. I am not a psychologist and I’ve never met either person, but I will do my best to share insights about those situations based on my own experiences.

The cases strike me as presenting a lot of issues so this article is long. The issues that stick out to me are the devastation a person might feel when they are told that their mental health conditions can never improve, the abusiveness of that advice, the right to die movement’s flippant attitude toward death, the nature of true friendship, the autistic tendency to fixate, and the complex experience of autonomy that occurs when a autistic adult lives with their parents.

I’ll start with the 28-year-old woman in Belgium with autism, BPD and depression. Ter Beek’s situation makes me think of two issues, one being the euthanasia movement’s flippant approach to death and the potential inaccuracy or hubris of doctors who dole out mental health diagnoses. Ter Beek was told that she could never get better, which is something I’ve been told during my struggles with treatment resistant depression, at my lowest moments after multiple futile hospitalizations and medication trials. Hearing those predictions was gutting, and I understand why some people who get that kind of prognosis might feel motivated to have their lives ended.

But just giving up on a patient and suggesting that they die is abusive. It’s common for clinicians to arrogantly dole out demoralizing predictions to disabled people that would make anyone fearful of the future; and that can certainly contribute to the conclusion that one should die. I’ll never forget one counsellor at a partial hospitalization program who barely knew me, but took it upon herself to announce to me that the combination of my learning disability, autism spectrum disorder and depression was so disabling that I would never work and would have to live in a group home for the rest of my life. (That’s not true; now I live in an apartment and work at a job I love.) A medical system or physician who tells people, “you’ll never get better; maybe you should kill yourself” is doling out an even more arrogant and abusive recommendation.

It’s worth noting that dark predictions of things never getting better fit into a pattern of people with Borderline Personality Disorder struggling to access adequate care. People with BPD are more likely to have clinicians give up on them because of stereotypes about people with BPD, because people with BPD have a higher incidence of suicide, and because the symptoms of BPD sometimes make the person difficult to interact with (Link to article). But, recovery from BPD is very possible; in fact, the woman who developed Dialectical Behavior Therapy, the gold standard treatment for BPD, had the disorder herself (Link to article). I have a colleague at my job who has BPD, and she’s now living her best life, doing wonderful work with our students. There’s also evidence that the symptoms of BPD, which can be very acute in a person’s twenties, decline with age. (Link to article) So, often clinicians assume that people with BPD are bad or unfixable people, but it’s just not true. People with BPD can effectively manage their condition and lead meaningful, happy lives (Link to a book on the topic).

Another thing that stood out to me when I looked at the article about Ter Beek is the euthanasia movement’s trivialization of death. Now, a mentor who provided feedback on this article pointed out to me that people have many different ways of processing what death is. He commented: 

“Many might argue that fear is not the only appropriate or even “reasonable” response. Many religious systems perceive death as a step toward eternal life, and other think of death as ‘not being,’ that is as potentially neutral as being, perhaps within the will/power of divine order that transcends us.” 

Zoraya ter Beek
Fair enough, but I still think that the right to die movement is trivializing the harm of death. In the interview she did for the Free Press, Ter Beek says that she’s a little scared to die, but the picture of her accompanying the article has her looking sanguine in a way that reminds me of someone who is modelling clothing; she refers to the urn her ashes will be kept in as “my new house;” as though being a pile of ashes kept in a urn on someone’s desk is the equivalent of buying a condo (Link to article). This description of death indicates an unverifiable certainty that death is a doorway to something good. The right to die movement’s current activities are as though many of the proponents have inured themselves to the concept that death is the great unknown and that dead people are lowered into graves where their bodies are eaten by worms. I think that if Canadian and Netherlands culture treated death with more reticence and a less like a trip to some amazing wonderland of delight, the choice to be dead might not seem so appealing to disabled people who are signing up for euthanasia.

Now I’ll move on to the the young woman in Canada with autism and ADHD, MV. The thing that sticks out to me the most is that she lives with her parents, and as someone who lived with my parents on and off in my twenties, I know that that can be a complex and potentially difficult experience for everyone involved, even when everyone is trying their best and loves each other very much. So, I’ll consider how I think that situation might be impacting MV’s “MAiD” request.

First of all, we live in a culture that highly prizes autonomy and expects adult children to move out of their parents house, and I’m wondering if that’s making the experience of living with her parents seem intolerable to MV (Link to an article). But, complete independence is not the only valuable or valid conception of autonomy to operate from. In the Latino culture (Link to article) it is common for multiple generations of a family to live in the same house far into adulthood. (Link to article).

Hence, I think it might help MV to consider that the Latino culture and disability justice culture emphasize interdependence-autonomy with help from others in the context of supportive relationships. Disability Studies professor Paul Longmore put the difference between mainstream Western conceptions of autonomy and the disability justice movement’s general approach to autonomy as follows:

“For example, some people with disabilities have been affirming the validity of values drawn from their own experience. Those values are markedly different from, and even opposed to, nondisabled majority values. They declare that they prize not self-sufficiency but self-determination, not independence but interdependence, not functional separateness but personal connection, not physical autonomy but human community. This values-formation takes disability as the starting point. It uses the disability experience as the source of values and norms. The affirmation of disabled values also leads to a broad-ranging critique of non- disabled values. American culture is in the throes of an alarming and dangerous moral and social crisis, a crisis of values. The disability movement can advance a much-needed perspective on this situation, It can offer a critique of the hyperindividualistic majority norms institutionalized in the medical model and at the heart of the contemporary American crisis.” (Link to article) So, if I could talk to MV, I would tell her that there’s no need to be ashamed that she lives with her family just because that’s not what most adults in Canada do; plenty of competent, fulfilled adults in this world do the same thing. In a way, those of us disabled adults who live with family are rebels living in a way that is counter-cultural, and that cultural deviance really isn’t a bad thing.

However, I also know that being a disabled adult child living in your parents house can sort of feel like you are stuck in a state of perpetual adolescence, and that this can cause a person to feel repressed. When I was living with my parents I was grateful for their support, but I wasn’t able to have the level of autonomy that I think most twenty-somethings want, and we sometimes struggled to communicate effectively about what each one of us needed. There were a lot of times when I found my parents well-meaning advice intensely grating or that they found various everyday behaviors of mine disruptive. That situation led to some very demoralizing conflict; being “roomates” with your parents can make some daily interactions start to feel like fingers on a blackboard, even if those family relationships are very loving.

My choice to move to Texas in my mid-thirties was also a good one. My parents and I are still very close, but they have more space to have time together as a couple and I have more room to say, “No, I don’t want to do that,” or, “I, Meghan Schrader the independent disabled adult, want help with thing A, but not thing B.”

Given my own experiences, I’m wondering if MV’s desire to die by “MAiD” is at least partially motivated by an attempt to assert autonomy in a situation where she isn’t experiencing autonomy in other domains of her life. Is there perhaps another family member or friend who she could live with for a while, who could provide support for her disability and would provide the same level of encouragement for her to live, but with whom she might feel a greater sense of autonomy? Would that make her feel as though she has better adult choices to look forward to? One thing that I think would’ve helped me in my 20s is going to a treatment facility for people with clinical depression; is that the kind of thing that MV might be willing to do that might give her a break from her environment? Perhaps MV could go on a long retreat somewhere? If a change in MV’s living situation isn’t possible right now, are there other ways that she could have more opportunities to make choices about her daily routine, establish clearer boundaries with others and direct the course of her life? (Link to a book on this topic). 

Of course, as I’ve said, I am not a member of this family and I don’t know what’s going on in their everyday lives; MV struggling to assert herself in a situation where she isn’t getting other opportunities to assert autonomy is just the kind of thing that I think might be going on based on my own experience.

However, although giving MV more autonomy in general strikes me as potentially helping to alleviate her desire to die, MV’s Dad’s statement that MV is “obsessed” with MAiD and that the obsession is related to her autism and ADHD strikes me as providing important insight into how she is experiencing the conclusion that she should die by “MAiD,” and that these dynamics complicate her experience of autonomy. An article on the situation reads:

“The wrinkle, and perhaps the tragedy, in this case is that the woman, identified only as MV, has autism and ADHD, lives with her parents and has never had an independent life. Her father, identified as WV, argued that her condition is mental, not physical, so she doesn’t qualify for MAID under current law. Her condition, he said, led to her being “obsessed” with MAID.” (Link to article). I think some people might read that statement as a parent erroneously and paternalistically painting an adult autistic child as lacking agency, but I can say from experience that the autistic tendency to fixate is a real thing. This hyper focus is even more intense in those of us who also have ADHD, and that hyper-focus can sometimes make it difficult to break out of irrational or destructive thinking patterns (Link to article). In that case the person is not “incompetent,” but the fixation distorts the person’s ability to think through all the facts about whatever they are fixated on, sort of like if the person were mildly intoxicated (Link to image). A family member’s efforts to prevent a loved one from making a choice based on those thinking patterns are not “paternalistic,” it’s the family member being loving and responsible. Or, that’s been my experience.

For instance, MV’s intent to die by “MAiD” reminds me a little bit of some of the decisions I’ve made in the context of symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder. I’m going to withhold the details, but a couple of times I’ve made choices related to perceptual distortions from that disorder that my parents strongly urged me not to make, and I could have saved us all a lot of suffering if I had listened to them, even though I’m an independent adult who can make her own choices. I also made some important vocational decisions in my late teens and early twenties that my parents strongly advised against, and in my thirties I came to deeply regret not following their advice.

But, at least I lived to regret those mistakes and move on with my life. This young woman is presumably fixated on the idea that killing herself isn’t really so bad. Unfortunately, the fact that she’s reached that conclusion is sort of understandable in the same way that some of the ways I’ve handled body dysmorphic disorder are understandable. Western culture inundates us with ideas about what is attractive in a similar way that Canadian & Netherlands culture romanticize “MAiD.” So, “MAiD” has been presented as just another choice, and that’s a sad combination with the fixation that is more typical for those of us on the spectrum.

I think I remember reading somewhere that someone urged MV to die by “MAiD,” and that makes me very sad. It reminds me of a terrible experience I had in my early 20s when a close friend of 20 years suddenly started treating me horribly because that’s what her new boyfriend urged her to do. It was deeply wounding to have one of my best childhood friends, with whom I had shared some of the happiest times of my life, turn on me in that way, and the eventual dissolution of that friendship caused desperate loneliness. The friend who is urging MV to kill herself is abusing MV in a similar way. Urging someone to end their life is not the mark of a true and caring friend, this is a mark of someone living out their appetite for destruction by pushing someone else toward destruction. In fact, a young woman in Massachusetts served time in jail for encouraging her boyfriend to end his life. (Link to article).

My hope for MV is that she is eventually able to find better friends who will truly love and support her, like a close mentor of mine who lives near my current apartment and generously serves as a listening ear, a lunch partner and problem-solver for me. I also found it helpful to get involved with the local chapter of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network; is there a Canadian chapter of ASAN or a similar group that MV could get involved with where she could experience comaraderie with other people who have disabilities, such as one of the groups that signed this letter opposing the extension of assisted suicide to people with disabilities in 2021? (Link to article)

The last thing MV’s situation causes me to reflect on is the euthanasia movement’s privileging of personal choice above all else. In respect to MV’s intent to die, the original trial judge wrote that: 

this choice “goes to the core of her being. An injunction would deny MV the right to choose between living and dying with dignity.” 

The judge’s logic shows just how cold the euthanasia agenda is; he was denying the woman’s father the opportunity to intervene to save their daughter because the impending suicide was a choice. Canada’s “MAiD” program’s operation from that logic shows that the right to die movement treats choice as something that can never be questioned, no matter the consequences: MV’s decision to kill herself with “MAiD” is a choice, so that choice must be carried out and MV’s parents should just stand there while someone injects poison into her arm.

A culture that privileges a “choice” facilitated by state-employed doctors over instincts of family and the efforts of parents to prevent their children from being killed is an empty one. Unfortunately, the politically powerful euthanasia movement values the right to be made dead more than the deepest bonds of love and care. My hope is that MV and Ter Beek will find the love and care that they need to move beyond the desire to die and achieve something much better for themselves.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A study was published on April 16, 2024 titled: The association between social connectedness and euthanasia and assisted suicide and related constructs. 

The concern with loneliness and isolation in relation to deaths by euthanasia and assisted suicide is real, but this study disagrees. The study concludes:

Our findings for all age groups are consistent with a those of a previous systematic review focused on older adults and suggest that poor social connectedness is not a clear risk factor for EAS or for measures more distally related to EAS.

The study acknowledges its weaknesses, nonetheless I found this study to be questionable because it was based on data from previous studies (no new research) and the data was not primarily based on interviews with people.

The best study on this topic was done by van der lee et al and published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in September 2005 titled: Euthanasia and Depression: A Prospective Cohort Study Among Terminally Ill Cancer Patients

van der lee is a Dutch researcher who supported euthanasia and indicates that the purpose of the study was to prove that there was not an association between euthanasia and depression. In her explanation of the study van der lee states:

Second, in our experience, requests for euthanasia are mostly well considered and commonly not associated with depression.We therefore expected that patients requesting euthanasia might be even less depressed.

The conclusion of the study was opposite to its premise:

Of 138 patients, 32 patients had depressed mood at inclusion. Thirty patients (22%) made an explicit request for euthanasia. The risk to request euthanasia for patients with depressed mood was 4.1 times higher than that of patients without depressed mood at inclusion (95% CI, 2.0 to 8.5).

Depression in cancer patients with an estimated life expectancy of less than 3 months is associated with a higher likelihood to request for euthanasia. The question of whether depressed mood can adequately be treated in this terminally ill population, and if so, whether it would lower the incidence of requests for euthanasia needs further investigation.

The significance of the van der lee study was that the conclusion was counter to the bias of the researchers. Therefore you can't argue that research bias led to the outcome of the study.

Another strength with the van der lee study is that the researchers interviewed the participants in the study. The data was based on actual people who were requesting death by euthanasia in a country where it was legal and accepted.

Another important study that was based on communication with the participants is the Irish longitudinal study that examined the wish to die (WTD) among 8174 patients who were over the age of 50. The study that was published in February 2021 followed the participants for 6 years and it determined that people who had a wish to die (WTD), almost three-quarters reported being lonely and 60% had clinically significant depressive symptoms. Other factors leading to a WTD was functional disability and chronic pain.

When the WTD was reassessed two year later, 72% of the people indicated that loneliness and depression had receded, re-affirming previous studies that prove that a WTD fluctuates.

Once again, the strength of this study was that the data came from actual communication with participants and there was no known bias associated with the researchers. 

I am convinced by the studies that obtain their data from actual participants and I am convinced from the anecdotal experience I have in personally speaking to many people who are seeking to request or who have actually been approved for MAiD.

As stated in the conclusion of the van der lee study:

Our findings suggest that depressed mood in the last months of life is associated with a higher risk for request for euthanasia.

There is a direct relationship between requests to have one's life ended by euthanasia or assisted suicide and one's feelings of hopelessness, depression and loneliness. 

I have also found through conversations with people who have been approved for euthanasia that suicidal ideation is also prevalent.

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The following message was from a Quebec nurse concerning the quadriplegic man who "chose" euthanasia after being left on a stretcher for 95 hours and subsequently developed a bed sore.

I am writing because I am a nurse who is having a hard time coping with the extended MAID criteria. I have worked with vulnerable populations and see that this is the governments way of “getting rid” of the problem. But really they are cornering and making the most vulnerable feel like burdens. I live in Quebec and the story of a Quebec man who was left for 95 hours in a stretcher and then subsequently sustained a bed sore has gained attention. He then was presented the option for MAID and took it due to feeling like a burden. This is directly a result of the failure of our healthcare system, and as a Canadian I no longer feel comfortable watching this happen. What can I do to help raise more awareness on this issue? I am becoming increasingly angry, and feel that there is not enough advocacy around this. I feel that this is the start of the “extinction” of the vulnerable rather than creating proper supports, infrastructure and safety nets.We need more people speaking out, but we also need more stories uncovering the reality of euthanasia in Canada. The political shift that prevented the federal government from instituting euthanasia for mental illness alone came about from the many stories of people with disabilities who were approved for euthanasia, but requested it based on poverty, homelessness, an inability to get the care that they needed and more.

Québec quadriplegic man "chooses" euthanasia after suffering horrific negligent care. (Link).

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Stefanie Green is Canada's leading MAiD (euthanasia) physician. She does not do the most MAiD deaths in Canada, but she is a MAiD practitioner, MAiD trainer and more. Her own euthanasia access and promoting website states:
Dr. Stefanie Green spent 10 years in general practice and another 12 years working exclusively in maternity and newborn care. She changed her focus in 2016 and now spends the great majority of her clinical time working in assisted dying.

Based in Victoria BC, Dr. Green is the Founding President of the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers (CAMAP). She is a co-lead for the Canadian MAiD Curriculum Project, is medical advisor to the BC Ministry of Health MAiD oversight committee, and moderator of CAMAP's national online forum.

Dr. Green enjoys speaking about MAiD to the public, to health care communities and to a wide range of audiences locally, nationally, and internationally. She is clinical faculty at UBC and UVic, and she is the author of the internationally bestselling "This Is Assisted Dying" (Scribner) about her first year providing assisted dying in Canada.

Without further investigation, it seems clear from the information on this site that Green does MAiD, regulates MAiD, teaches MAiD and is a medical advisor to the BC Ministry of Health oversight committee. How can a person who does the act and teaches people to do the act also be an advisor to the government when oversight is necessary?I am not privy to more information but a conflict of interest investigation is needed.

Swiss assisted suicide coffinBy Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Scottish ParliamentAn article by David Albert Jones was published in the Journal of Medical Ethics on April 15, 2024 explaining that support for assisted suicide in Scotland is weakening.
On 27 March 2024, Liam McArthur introduced his Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill. He said that he was “absolutely convinced” that the legislation would be passed as “there is growing public support for the policy”. Similarly, when the Bill was proposed in 2022 it was argued that public opinion “seems to be shifting in favour of a law change.” Again, a recent article in defence of the Bill appealed to the “increasing and now overwhelming” support in Scotland for a change in the law. This was based on “several polls” cited in the Policy Memorandum that accompanied the Bill.

The Memorandum cites four polls giving 87% (March 2019), 72% (June 2021), 77% (July 2023) and 71% (December 2023) support for “assisted dying”. In addition, a more recent poll (March 2024) of 4,132 adults in Scotland showed 78% in favour.

It is noteworthy that the three polls commissioned by Dignity in Dying Scotland (March 2019, July 2023 and March 2024), generated the highest figures for support. This is in part because the questions referred to terminal illness and included other reassurances. They also asked if people “strongly support[ed]” assisted dying or only “somewhat” or “tend[ed] to” support. Asking in this way ensures that people who are ambivalent but tend to be in favour on balance or in principle are included as supporters.Jones explains that strong support for assisted suicide is declining:Jones explains that the public is confused by the meaning of the term - assisted dying:
To measure change in support over time, it is important to use the same question and to conduct multiple repeated polling. YouGov provides a bimonthly “tracker” (August 2019 to April 2024) for the questions: “Do you think the law should or should not be changed to allow someone to assist in the suicide of someone suffering from a terminal illness?” and “Do you think the law should or should not be changed to allow someone to assist in the suicide of someone suffering from a painful, incurable but NOT terminal illness?”

Support in Scotland in April 2024, as measured by these questions, was 71% and 41% respectively. This is lower than the polls quoted above in part because of the reference to “assisted suicide” rather than “assisted dying”. There is evidence that many people are confused about what is included in “assisted dying”. A survey conducted in 2021 found that most people thought that this meant either “giving people who are dying the right to stop life-prolonging treatment” (42%) or “providing hospice-type care to people who are dying” (10%).

In any case, the usefulness of the tracker lies less in the snapshot of support and more in capturing change over time. These trackers, each repeated 31 times over five years, clearly show that support for assisted suicide in Scotland has declined measurably.Support for assisted suicide is less than 50% when it applies to people who are not terminally ill and yet Scotland's euthanasia bill permits people who are not terminally ill to be killed by euthanasia. Jones explains:
The second tracker also shows that support is well under 50% if assisted suicide would be provided to people who are not terminally ill. It might seem that the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill is indeed restricted to people who are terminally ill. However, unlike similar legislation in the United States, New Zealand or Australia, the Scottish Bill defines “terminal illness” with no reference to a person being close to death. The term is used to cover anyone with an advanced progressive condition that would be expected to shorten life if not treated. This would include conditions such as type 1 diabetes. It is unclear if this is what the public understands by the term “terminal illness”.Jones ends his article by stating that support for assisted suicide is not overwhelming and it is not growing:
Public support for legalisation of assisted suicide in Scotland is thus neither “overwhelming” nor “growing”. Less than half strongly support a change in the law. Less than half want their MP to vote to change in the law. Less than half support assisted suicide for non-terminal conditions (as the proposed Bill seems to include). Few if any regard assisted dying / assisted suicide as being among the most important issues facing Scotland and all indications are that Scottish support for its legalisation has declined markedly in recent years.

MSPs should assess for themselves the merits and/or dangers of the proposed Bill without fearing that they will be out of step with public opinion. Indeed, if they feel ambivalent or hesitant on this issue then they are probably reflecting the views of most people in Scotland.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Normand Meunier
Rachel Watts reported for CBC News on April 12, 2024 that a quadriplegic man, Normand Meunier (66) "choose" to die by (MAiD) after developing a severe bedsore at a hospital in Saint-Jérôme, Québec. Meunier experienced a tragic spinal chord injury in 2022.

Sylvie Brosseau told CBC news that:

Before being admitted to an intensive care bed for his third respiratory virus in three months this winter, Meunier was stuck on a stretcher in the emergency room for four days.

His partner, Sylvie Brosseau, says without having access to a special mattress, Meunier developed a major pressure sore on his buttocks that eventually worsened to the point where bone and muscle were exposed and visible — making his recovery and prognosis bleak.

"Ninety-five hours on a stretcher, unacceptable," Brosseau told Radio-Canada in an interview.

"Every time we go to the hospital, it's my duty to tell them that Normand is quadriplegic and needs an alternating pressure mattress … I don't understand how this can happen, because a mattress is the most basic thing."

Meunier's death by euthanasia is one of many stories of people who "choose" to die after receiving negligent medical care.

Jean-Pierre Beauchemin, a retired geriatrician and professor at Université Laval's faculty of medicine tod CBC news:

"When you're lying down, always in the same position, there's hyper-pressure between the bone and the skin,"

"A pressure sore can open in less than 24 hours, and then take a very long time to close."

The buttocks, heels, elbows and knees are particularly vulnerable.

A rotation schedule every two hours is generally necessary for a person confined to bed, according to a Quebec Health Ministry reference sheet.

Steven Laperrière, the director general of the Regroupement des activistes pour l'inclusion au Québec (RAPLIQ), which supports people with disabilities told CBC news:

"That whole story is a crying shame,"

"It's really a case of disbelief … What are we doing in order to help disabled persons or sick people to live in dignity prior to dying in dignity?"

He says the health-care institution was "negligent to say the least" and that getting a proper mattress is not like "trying to get a space shuttle into orbit."

"It's pretty basic … Nobody will convince me that within a few hours the proper mattress could not have been found," said Laperrière.

"To me, that's totally a lack of professionalism," said Laperrière, who says Meunier "would probably still be alive today" if staff had "been really professional about it."

Trudo Lemmens
Trudo Lemmens, The Scholl Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Toronto said that this case is "an illustration of problems in our health-care system." Lemmens told CBC news:

"Then the system responds by saying: 'well, you have access to medical assistance and dying,'"

"Medical assistance in dying is more easily available and on a more regular basis than some of the most basic care."

He says he is increasingly hearing stories of people who are struggling in the system and turn to MAID.

"It's deeply troubling,"

Watts reported that along with Brosseau, Moelle épinière et motricité Québec (MÉMO-Qc), an advocacy group for people with disabilities, is now demanding the Quebec government launch an independent inquest into Meunier's death. They believe the health authority's internal investigation is insufficient.

The disability group is seeking a meeting with Christian Dubé, Quebec's health minister, concerning the circumstances and lack of care that people with disabilities are experiencing in Québec.

By the way, euthanasia is all about "choice", "freedom" and "autonomy."

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Luc Van GorpThe Belga News Agency reported on April 8, 2024 that Luc Van Gorp, the President of Belgiums largest health insurance fund, Christian Mutualities (CM) is suggesting that Belgium cannot fund its healthcare needs and requires more deaths by euthanasia.

Van Gorp commented on the increasing financial pressure related to Belgium's aging population and healthcare funding.  He stated:
"No matter how much you end up investing, it will still not be enough"A Times of London article reported that Van Gorp's response is to promote euthanasia for those who are "tired of living":
Belgium’s euthanasia laws should cover elderly people who are “tired of life” or who feel they are a burden on the public purse, a health insurance chief has urged. Luc Van Gorp, 57, the president of the CM health fund, a Christian mutual insurance provider, said that the number of Belgians over 80 would double to 1.2 million by 2050.

“Many elderly people are tired of life. Why would you necessarily want to prolong such a life? Those people don’t want that themselves, and when it comes to budgets: it only costs the government money,” he told the Nieuwsblad newspaper. “We must remove the stigma.”Essentially Van Gorp is advocating for euthanasia for those who "tired of living." 

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Mary Fahey
Mary Fahey has written a powerful op-ed that was published in the Manchester Union Leader on April 10, 2024 in response to New Hampshire assisted suicide legalization bill HB 1283.

Fahey opposes assisted suicide based on her personal experience. She writes:

At 23 years old, I have more chronic, incurable, and life-altering diseases than I can count on one hand. I am also a survivor of a suicide attempt and have dealt with strong suicidal ideation as I’ve faced daily suffering and the loss of my health as I knew it. While I have gotten the help I need to learn to live happily with my near constant illness, it has been one of the hardest tasks of my life, a task further burdened by the countless doctors I saw who knew little to nothing of my conditions or how to treat them.Fahey states that she has found happiness, in her struggles from her friends and family in her life. Fahey continues:
This legislation fails to reinforce the value of New Hampshire citizens. Rather, assisted suicide, by its nature, creates a cruel scale of value on human lives, deeming some more worthy than others simply based on their circumstances. With assisted suicide, we are no longer stating that we should protect all lives from suicide, instead, we are saying that some lives should be exempt from that protection, that some lives are simply not worth living.Fahey, who has survived a suicide attempt continues:

As a society, we work diligently to prevent suicide in healthy individuals, because of the knowledge that their lives have inherent and immeasurable value, and we know their death would be a tragedy. Is it our place to remove that value and promote suicide simply because someone is challenged by suffering? Doing so has devastating and far-reaching consequences, especially for New Hampshire’s young people, for whom suicide rates are already on the rise.

The supporters of this bill assert that medical aid in dying (MAID) is not actually suicide, because those who utilize it do not wish to die, and those who end their lives by suicide do wish to die, and therefore it puts no one at risk. I find this claim incredibly false. When I attempted suicide, I did not wish to die, rather, I desperately wished to live. I simply saw no alternative to the mental and physical suffering I was experiencing.Fahey has also lost several friends to suicide. She writes:Recently, I lost a childhood friend to suicide. He was young, with a young family. Another young woman I know of took her life last month; her obituary reads “she made a heart-breaking decision in an effort to pursue peace.” Passing HB 1283 will clearly send the message to vulnerable young people that intentionally and unnaturally ending one’s life in the face of suffering is a legitimate solution to their pain.Fahey lives with suffering but normalizing suicide and death are not the answer. Fahey writes:
One of the greatest burdens in my personal health journey has not been the illness itself, but reconciling the unavoidable pain, discomfort, and fear with the goodness of life. I believe many young people in a similar position would say the same. I still struggle to accept this, but while I can hardly remember a day without bodily suffering, I also cannot remember a day where I have not been able to find great meaning and joy.

When the proponents of this bill state that it is not only permissible, but dignified, to take one’s life when confronting great adversity, it undermines the efforts of all of those, like myself, who have fought so hard to live in the face of grave, and often silent, suffering. It puts countless New Hampshire young people at risk by normalizing suicide as an acceptable solution to their burdens.Fahey ends her article by urging people to contact their state Senator to oppose assisted suicide.Contrary to the message of this bill, our suffering doesn’t define us. Our lives, however difficult, however limited, are worth living and celebrating. The Granite State needs to protect lives, not legislate ways to end them. I urge those who value every life to reach out to their state senator and ask them to vote against HB 1283.People with disabilities need help to live not to die (Link).

The writer of "Bed Blocker Blues" opposes assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

In a recent interview with Judith Woods that was published in the Telegraph, former punk poet and writer of the Bed Blocker Blues, John Cooper Clarke, stated that he is totally opposed to assisted dying. Woods reports:
“I’m totally against assisted dying,” he says. “I’m sure people have the most heartbreaking tales to tell but extreme cases make for bad legislation. The whole issue is literally a matter of life and death and in Europe where it’s legal, we’re already seeing a mission creep where people are ending their lives for things like incurable depression. Just because someone is feeling a bit hopeless that’s no reason to kill them or help them to kill themselves and to make it worse, it’s dressed up in the language of human rights, as if there were some kind of liberation to it. I just don’t see how helping people die improves life as we know it.”

Clarke (75) is currently on tour promoting his latest volume of poetry.

Clarke lived a punk lifestyle and is "enjoying a 21st century Renaissance nobody saw coming." Woods reported:

Cooper Clarke now describes the post-punk era, when he descended into drug addiction, as his wilderness years. In his well-written and hugely well-received 2020 autobiography I Wanna Be Yours he describes his early years in fabulous detail but rather brushes over the 1980s. “Those were dark times,” he says simply. “Why would I want to dwell on them?

For the euthanasia lobby folk who think Clarke opposes assisted dying because he never experienced death, Clarke also commented on a friend who recently died of brain cancer.

Clarke is responding to this life and death issue from a straight forward human perspective.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

As Ireland debates legalizing euthanasia, a leading psychiatrist issued a warning that the recent case of a physically healthy 28-year-old autistic woman in the Netherlands, and a healthy 27-year-old autistic woman in Canada who have been approved for euthanasia could also become a reality in Ireland if euthanasia is legalized.

Maria Maynes was published by RIPT on April 9, 2024 concerning the debate to legalize euthanasia in Ireland. Maynes interviewed Consultant psychiatrist, Professor Patricia Casey, a specialist in Adult Psychiatry. Maynes reportes:recent cases unfolding worldwide involving physically healthy young people should provide evidence to Irish lawmakers that “the slippery slope exists,” as she expressed particular concern about those with autism choosing assisted suicide or euthanasia.

Last month, this publication also reported on the Canadian case of an unnamed 27-year-old woman, who was also autistic, and had chosen to die by physician assisted suicide. While the father of the unnamed woman tried to intervene through court action, arguing that she did not have the ability to consent to the death under Canada’s MAiD programme, his intervention was unsuccessful.

There have also been cases in Belgium, where Asperger’s (now subsumed under the autistic spectrum) is among the most common conditions for which Belgians seek euthanasia on mental health grounds, alongside personality disorders and depression.Maynes quoted Casey as stating:
“There is a danger that when young, autistic people see a problem that they will look for what they see is a simple solution, or a trendy solution,” she said.Casey also stated:
“I was struck by the photograph of 28-year-old Zoraya ter Beek in the Netherlands, who was pictured surreally embraced in the arms of her boyfriend while announcing that she was due to die on May 28th. This photograph conceals the turmoil and nihilism behind her decision and may well be used in the future to promote assisted dying as a calming answer to one’s problems.”Professor Casey compares the issue to the romanticizing of suicide that was successfully countered by national campaigns. Professor Casey fears that the same type of romanticizing of death by euthanasia will also occur.

Professor Anne Doherty examined the issue of suicide rates in jurisdictions that have legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide. Professor Casey referred to her research and stated:
“Prof Doherty found that the rate of non-assisted suicide increased after assisted suicide was legalised, and I fear we will see exactly the same pattern. I also think it is very nihilistic to say to people, ‘There is no help. Why don’t you go for assisted suicide?’ I mean, it is such a dark thing to say to anybody. I think it should be absolutely taboo, but instead of that, it is now becoming glamorised.”Professor also commented on the "bracket creep" in countries that have legalized euthanasia and stated:
“This is what has happened in a range of countries. The Netherlands, for instance, didn’t start with euthanasia for young people with mental illness. It legislated initially for those with terminal illness. Similarly in Canada and in Belgium. Now all of those countries are allowing assisted suicide for young people, or for people with mental illness – or a combination of both.”

As for the concern that people with Autism are more susceptible to requesting euthanasia, Casey stated:

“One of the reasons a young person with autism may be more susceptible is due to the fact that a lot of those with autism have unusual interests and hobbies. For example, some would have an interest in the afterlife, or the occult, or similar. We also know that some individuals who are on the autistic spectrum have very fixed beliefs about things, and so can be quite suggestible.”

“Once something has been suggested, the person can fixate on that. I think the interest in unusual things, something we often see in those with ASD, and some of the things that are outside the norm, along with their tendency to fixate on things, would make that person particularly vulnerable. For instance, people with rigid thinking, such as many of those with ASD, find it difficult to consider alternative solutions to problems. And this may render them more than willing to choose this particular pathway to death.”

Professor Casey also commented on the Social Contagion that is likely to happen with euthanasia:

“There will be a social contagion aspect, because as we know, teenagers and young adults are always online now. One person engaging in, or planning, an assisted suicide, will be in touch with others in their group and that contagion effect is very toxic.”

“We must not forget that suicide clusters existed in the recent past, because of social contagion. And it is difficult to escape that prospect in relation to assisted suicide, also.”

Ireland is currently debating the legalization of euthanasia. A recent parliamentary report was released which advocated that euthanasia be legalized for a person diagnosed with a disease, illness or medical condition that is both incurable and irreversible; advanced, progressive, and will likely cause death within six months (or within 12 months in the case of someone with a neuro-degenerative disease, illness or condition; and suffering in a manner that the person “cannot be relieved in a manner that the person finds tolerable.”

The Irish report obviously decided to push for the legalization of euthanasia in a fairly wide open manner.

For further reading, Gordon Friesen, the President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition issued a warning to Ireland in his article: If euthanasia is legalized as a cure for suffering, then suffering people will be "cured" with euthanasia!

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have great news.

Justice Anne Kirker, on April 8, 2024; issued a stay of the injunction pending a determination of an appeal in the case of the 27-year-old autistic Calgary woman whose father has been trying to prevent her death by euthanasia (MAiD).

In other words, the woman will not be allowed to be killed by euthanasia until after the Court of Appeal makes a decision in this case. The trial is tentatively set for October 2024.

This case concerns a 27-year-old autistic woman who lives with her family and has been approved for death by MAiD (euthanasia) but whose father claims that, based on the law, she does not qualify to be killed by euthanasia.

This case concerns me greatly since I have an autistic son.

CBC News reported on March 12, 2024 on the Calgary court case concerning a father who petitioned the court to prevent the euthanasia death of his 27-year-old autistic daughter, who lives at home. The father stated that his daughter did not have a medical condition that qualifies under the law and yet the daughter had already been approved for death by lethal poison.

CBC News reporter, Meghan Grant reported on March 25, 2024 that Justice Feasby ruled that the 27-year-old daughter can die by euthanasia despite her father's concerns. Justice Feasby withdrew the temporary injunction that prevented the woman from dying by euthanasia but maintained a 30 day stay of the injunction, which gave the father time to appeal the decision.

Justice Feasby ordered an assessment of the role of Alberta Health Services with relation to the approval of euthanasia for the daughter.

On April 2, 2024, Kevin Martin reported for the Calgary Herald that the father of the 27-year-old autistic woman appealed the decision to the Alberta Court of Appeal.

On April 8, Justice Anne Kirker ordered a stay on the injunction to prevent the death of the 27-year-old autistic woman until after the appeal is heard. The date of the appeal is not known but will likely be heard in October.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition will seek to intervene in the Appeal.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide are currently being debated in England, Scotland, Ireland, Jersey and the Isle of Man. Each jurisdiction is debating a different proposal.

Sonia SodhaSonia Sodha wrote an excellent opinion column that was published in the Guardian on April 7, 2024. Sodha wonder who will step in to save the most at risk? and she states: Proponents of legalising assisted dying are right to stop and think of the possible unintended consequences. Sodha explains:
It’s rare to get a politician who openly admits they are torn on an issue, but in recent days there have been two striking examples. First, Wes Streeting, Labour’s shadow health secretary, admitted that though he voted to legalise assisted dying a few years ago, he feels conflicted. Then Nicola Sturgeon, former Scottish first minister, wrote a piece saying that, with new Scottish legislation on the table, the reservations she expected to subside are becoming stronger.Sodha also supported euthanasia but has now changed her position. Sodha explains:
A decade ago, I would have supported assisted dying out of a respect for personal autonomy and a desire to alleviate suffering. Today, I understand these objectives are not standalone but need to be weighed against the impact on those for whom an abstract liberal notion like autonomy is highly simplistic, and the state-sanctioned wrongful deaths that seem to me impossible to avoid.Sodha further explains why she now opposes euthanasia:Sodha explains how the risk of coercion is a wider issue:
Then there is the internal pressure that arises from some feeling that they ought to do it to save relatives difficulty and financial consequences: where the right to die becomes the duty to die. That message will be reinforced at a societal level; Times columnist Matthew Parris recently argued in a widely condemned column that assisted dying could help address the cost of an ageing population; that there are those willing to be honest about this should give serious pause for thought. Moreover, palliative care doctors talk about how the wish to die is not stable, and often abates in terminally ill patients in the wake of an initial diagnosis, and can be affected by depression, which is hard to diagnose.Sodha then refers to the International evidence with legalised euthanasia.
The most cited example is Canada, where a limited form of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) was legalised in 2016 for people with “grievous and irremediable medical conditions” with assurances about its narrow scope. Today, that definition has been interpreted to include a person with severe sensitivities to chemicals unable to access appropriate housing from the state, and there have been reports of officials promoting assisted dying to people with disabilities applying for government assistance and medical professionals trying to coerce people into it. A parliamentary committee has recommended MAiD should be extended to some sick children and it is set to be expanded to people with chronic mental illness. In the Netherlands, euthanasia is an option for people who are autistic and lonely and is about to be extended to children of all ages. In Oregon, where the law has remained more stable, terminal conditions today include arthritis and anorexia.Sodha comments on the House of Lords debate that assured people that safeguards can be maintained. Sodha writes:Sadha criticized the House of Lords debate by writing:
In the House of Lords debate, there was a marked failure to engage with these detailed concerns. Some claimed there is no evidence of problems abroad, as if coercively influenced wrongful deaths would magically reveal themselves after the fact. One only need look at the fight to reveal the true number of hidden homicides of women by their abusers to understand the naivety in that and, in somewhere like Oregon, the system is simply not set up to catch wrongful deaths. With brutal utilitarian honesty, former supreme court president Lord Neuberger acknowledged there would be abuses, but argued the benefits for those acting autonomously would outweigh them.Sodha concludes by challenging politicians to examine the complexity of the issue. She writes:

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

When jurisdictions release their euthanasia data I publish an article updating the data from the previous year. This year I missed the February 27 release of the 2023 Belgian euthanasia data. 

The 2023 basic data indicates that the number of euthanasia deaths increased by 15.4% to 3,423 deaths and there were 48 euthanasia deaths for psychiatric conditions up from 26 in 2022.

Thankfully the Australian Care Alliance published an article on the Belgian euthanasia experience which includes the 2023 data. Here is their report.

Euthanasia became legal in Belgium on 3 September 2002.

Increase in numbers

In Belgium deaths by legal euthanasia increased more than fourteenfold (1456%) from 235 in 2003 – the first full year of legalisation – to 3,423 in 2023. From 2020 to 2021 alone the increase was 10.4%, with further increases of 9.85% from 2021 to 2022 and 15.4% from 2022 to 2023.

Officially reported euthanasia now accounts for one in 33 (3.03%) of all deaths in Belgium in 2023.

Organ donation

There was a total of 64 cases of organ donation with euthanasia in Belgium between 2005 and 2021.

One case involved a 52 year old woman with a mental disorder manifested with the symptom of auto-mutilation – cutting to cause self-harm. Her consent to euthanasia and organ donation was accepted despite this particular mental illness.

Polypathology

In 2023 there were 793 cases (23.2% of all cases) of euthanasia for polypathology, that is two or more conditions none of which in itself is sufficient ground for euthanasia.

Death not expected in the foreseeable future

In 2023 there were 713 cases (20.8%) of euthanasia where the person was not expected to die in the foreseeable future. Euthanasia where death was not expected increased by 38.9% from 2022 to 2023 while euthanasia where death was expected only increased by 10.47% over the same period.

This included 372 (10.9% of all cases) for polypathology; 35 for cognitive disorders; 48 for psychiatric disorders (double the number for 2022); and a range of physical non-terminal conditions, including arthritis (18), eye disorders (8), chromosomal and congenital abnormalities (3) and injuries from external causes (9).
No physical suffering

In 2023, 56 (1.9%) cases involved no physical suffering at all. This includes, for example, some cancer patients “whose physical suffering is alleviated by painkillers” but who “may suffer psychologically from the loss of dignity or a loss of autonomy.”

Five children

Five children have so far been killed under the Belgian law. Three children were killed by euthanasia in 2016/2017. These were a 17-year-old child who was suffering from muscular dystrophy; a nine year old child, who had a brain tumour, and an 11 year old child, who was suffering from cystic fibrosis.

Luc Proot a member of the Belgium’s Federal Euthanasia Evaluation and Control Commission, commented to Charles Lane of the Washington Post that he “saw mental and physical suffering so overwhelming that I thought we did a good thing”. As Lane points out he is referring to the Committee approving the cases after the fact based on reports from the doctors who carried out the killing. It is curious that Proot refers to “mental and physical suffering” when the Belgian law specifically refers only to “unbearable physical suffering” in relation to children in contrast to a reference to “unbearable physical or psychological suffering” for adults. This comment raises a doubt in relation to each of these three cases of child euthanasia as to whether there was “unbearable physical suffering” that could not be alleviated.

Good palliative care can relieve the various forms of physical suffering associated with end-stage brain tumours.

Life expectancy for people with cystic fibrosis (CF) is increasing significantly in response to developments in treatment regimes. In the United States the median predicted age of survival for people with CF has now increased to 47 years. It is by no means clear that the 11 year old child euthanased in Belgium in 2016 or 2017 was facing imminent death. He or she may have had years to live. Depression is also a particular issue with CF. The “mental suffering” mentioned by Luc Proot may have been relieved through appropriate treatment.

The 17 year old child had Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). “Until relatively recently, boys with DMD usually did not survive much beyond their teen years. Thanks to advances in cardiac and respiratory care, life expectancy is increasing and many young adults with DMD attend college, have careers, get married and have children. Survival into the early 30s is becoming more common, and there are cases of men living into their 40s and 50s.” On the available information it is not clear whether in this case the child was both imminently dying and experiencing unbearable physical suffering that could not be alleviated.

A fourth child was killed by euthanasia in 2019; and a fifth child was killed in 2023.
Euthanasia to complete failed suicide attempts

Between 2014 and 2017 two patients who were in an irreversible coma after a suicide attempt were euthanased based on an advance directive 5 months and 35 months respectively before the suicide attempt.

Euthanasia for psychiatric conditions and dementia

In 2023 there were 41 cases of euthanasia for cognitive disorders (including Alzheimer’s and other dementias) as well as 48 cases of euthanasia for psychiatric conditions.

In 2022 there were 42 cases of euthanasia for cognitive disorders (including Alzheimer’s and other dementias) as well as 26 cases of euthanasia for psychiatric conditions.

Between 2018 and 2021, there were 97 cases of euthanasia for cognitive disorders (including Alzheimer’s and other dementias) as well as 102 cases of euthanasia for psychiatric conditions and including depression/bipolar disorder (36), personality disorders (35), anxiety/stress disorders (10), schizophrenia (10), autism (6), and anorexia (2).

Extraordinarily, one person was euthanased in 2018 for “Commonly occurring behavioral and emotional disturbances during childhood and adolescence (such as attachment disorder)” and one person in 2020 for “Mental and behavioral disorders related to the use of psychoactive substances”. The Commission reports that:
In young patients, the unbearable and persistent nature of the suffering was frequently associated with experiences from the past. In this regard, it was a question of sexual abuse, neglect as a child, rejection by parents, self-destructive behavior and suicide attempts. In addition, failed suicide attempts have made those affected aware that there is also another, more dignified way to end their life.

Euthanasia by advanced directive

19 people were killed by euthanasia in 2023 while unable to give consent, pursuant to an advanced directive. 

A case of euthanasia without request

One case reported in 2016/2017 concerned an interruptive act of life without request from the patient.

In this complex case where the patient had not made an explicit request, some members of the Commission felt that the law on euthanasia had been violated and that the file should be sent to the public prosecutor. Indeed, demand is one of the essential legal conditions. However, other members considered that a referral to the prosecution was not appropriate. The two-thirds majority, legally required for referral to the King's Attorney (see Article 8 of the law) was not reached (9 for referral to the King's public prosecutor, 7 against).

This high threshold of two-thirds majority of the Commission for referral to the public prosecutor helps explain why only one case has ever been referred (in 2015). 

Euthanasia tourism

The place of residence is only required to be reported in the first part of a euthanasia report filed by the doctor performing euthanasia. This part only gets open when questions arise. However, in 2020 and 2021 doctors did refer in the second part of the report to people who were foreigners who came to Belgium to seek euthanasia. There were 79 such cases reported in this way (up from 45 reported in 2016 and 2017) but there may be many more. Of the 79 reported cases “More than half of the deaths were expected in the near future” meaning several were cases where death was not expected in the short term.

There were 110 cases of euthanasia tourism in 2023. Of these 44 (40%) were cases where death was not expected in the foreseeable future.

Conclusion

The 22-year experiment with euthanasia in Belgium is fatally flawed. It has resulted in the abandonment of the disabled, the mentally ill, the suicidal and the victims of child abuse to hopelessness and State sanctioned death by lethal injection. 

By Gordon Friesen
President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Gordon Friesen
Through the years Alex Schadenberg has written many articles (and hosted many others) on the subject of euthanasia in the British cultural diaspora that are published on the EPC blog. By that term, I mean, above all, those countries such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand whose populations are (or at least recently were) of majority British stock. Most lately Alex has written pieces on the Channel Islands, Scotland, and the UK itself.

Unfortunately this very significant cultural and political group appears to have fully embraced the notion of euthanasia. And because all of its members have a largely common social structure, they appear to be on track to do so in one particular fashion, for which Canada most unhappily provides us with the template.

One final example, Ireland, is found at the heart of British history, being itself one of the "British Isles", but having resolutely rejected British Imperialism all the way back to William the Conqueror! In recent memory, the Irish have literally fought their way out of the Empire, slammed the door on the Commonwealth.

Unfortunately, however, that independent streak is not reflected in their evolving policy on euthanasia.

Over the last half year, the Irish Houses of Parliament (The Oireachtas), have studied euthanasia in a Joint Committee on Assisted Dying. Readers of this blog will be familiar with the names Leonie Herx, Trudo Lemmens, and Heidi Janz, all of whom spoke before the Committee (October 17, 2023: Assisted dying in Canada), and also Mark Komrad (October 3, 2023: Assisted dying in the United States). I personally submitted a pamphlet-length criticism of euthanasia but sadly, these efforts have proved fruitless, as we may plainly see in the recently released Final Report of that body (March 2024).

Conclusions of the Irish Joint Committee on Assisted Dying

In all probability the Irish will soon authorize euthanasia for people "diagnosed with a disease, illness or medical condition... causing suffering to the person that cannot be relieved in a manner that the person finds tolerable".

There are, of course, other requirements, such as an expected death within six months (or 12 for certain conditions); of full mental capacity (including at the time of euthanasia); and of major age. However, as experience has clearly demonstrated in Canada, there can be no logical basis for confidence in any such secondary requirements:

From the moment that we first admit the principle of euthanasia, practised as a cure for suffering, ALL classes of suffering individuals can (and eventually will) gain access to euthanasia through the vehicle of fairness-based judicial litigation and legislative extensions to eliminate discrimination. It might take a year or a few years. But given the assumptions of our commonly shared British sense of Justice, that outcome is reasonably inevitable. Public responsibility for medical care

Another common assumption throughout the British diaspora is that medical care is a collective responsibility. As a medical treatment, then, euthanasia will be available, as in Canada, throughout the entire medical industry. It will not be a simple liberty. It will be a claimable right (entitlement). And this status is made clear by the fact that (despite individual conscience protection) objecting physicians will be required to make referrals to "participating health care professionals" (and/or) "a national oversight body" to get the job done).

Similarly, again (because medical homicide is to be an entitled medical treatment), there is no doubt that we are talking about true euthanasia and not assisted suicide, since: 

"any potential legislation for assisted dying should provide a means of access to treatment for individuals who require assistance during the administration."

As I have noted in previous articles, it is these two elements (true medical euthanasia employed as a "cure" or "treatment" for suffering) and euthanasia provided as a publicly guaranteed entitlement (rather than a simple liberty), which explain the amazing ten times greater frequency which separates Canada from Oregon-style assisted suicide regimes. And it is therefore the Canadian group to which Ireland will apparently belong.

I must in fairness mention a number of well-intentioned safeguards and social justice measures included by the Irish legislators in their recommendations. These include: ratification of the "Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities" (UNCRPD); extensive capacity testing; measures to avoid coercion (without, however, recognizing the inevitably coercive effect of the entire projected regime); strict oversight; clinical separation of Palliative Care from assisted death; administrative separation of Palliative Care budgets; increased support of Palliative Care; information and counselling on alternatives to euthanasia, etc., etc....

However, pious assertions regarding care of the "least fortunate" and the "most vulnerable" can do little to change actual budgetary realities. And procedural safeguards (like the three member physician committees) tend to disappear like mist on a summer morning. Or to use a time-honoured Irish colloquialism: They are not worth a Tinker's damn!

Our Irish friends should, therefore, have no illusions: 

If euthanasia is legalized as a cure for suffering, then suffering people will be "cured" with euthanasia! Indeed, "euthanasia" itself is but a misleading euphemism. The correct term is "medical homicide". And the plainest description is thus:
Suffering people will be killed. Despite justified criticism, those of us who trace our roots to the British tradition may be rightfully proud of many positive political and social principles diffused around the globe.

Unfortunately, medical euthanasia is not one of them.

Gordon Friesen, April 7, 2024

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The 2023 Netherlands euthanasia report, that was recently released, indicates that the number of euthanasia deaths increased and the number of euthanasia deaths based on mental illness increased by 20%.

The Netherlands Times reported that there were 9,068 reported euthanasia deaths in 2023 which was up from 8,720 in 2022. There was also a 20% increase in euthanasia for psychological reasons in 2023 with 138 reported deaths.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The father of a 27-year-old autistic woman who has been approved for euthanasia, has appealed the decision.

Meghan Grant reported for CBC News on March 25, 2024 that a Calgary judge ruled that a 27-year-old Calgary Autistic woman can go ahead with a MAID death despite her father's concerns. There is a publication ban on the names of the participants. The judge did order a 30 day stay to give the father an opportunity to appeal the decision.

This case is very close to me since I have an autistic son.

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Grant reported that:

The daughter had been approved for euthanasia by one doctor and turned down by another doctor. The father took issue with the role of the Alberta Health Service in finding the second doctor to approve the death. Grant reports:

Her father took issue with the third doctor who signed off on M.V.'s MAID approval "because he was not independent or objective."

At the March 11 hearing, Sarah Miller, counsel for the father, called the situation "a novel issue for Alberta" because the province operates a system where there is no appeal process and no means of reviewing a person's MAID approval. Justice Feasby did order an assessment of the Alberta Health Service's role. Grant reports:
While Feasby found the "court cannot review a MAID applicant's decision-making or the clinical judgment of the doctors and nurse practitioners," he did rule the actions of the MAID navigator — a person who works for AHS and helps co-ordinate a patient's eligibility assessment — can be examined.

Feasby ruled the courts can review whether the AHS MAID navigator followed its own policy.

"There can be no doubt that it is a serious issue," wrote Feasby. "The AHS MAID policy is part of the legal framework governing medical assistance in dying and, as such, is a matter of life and death."

Nonetheless, Feasby only granted a 30 day continuance of the injunction based on a possible appeal, he did not extend the injunction until the role of the Alberta Health Service is examined.

On April 2, 2024, Kevin Martin reported for the Calgary Herald that the father of the 27-year-old Autistic woman appealed the decision to the Alberta Court of Appeal. Martin reported:

The judicial ruling that lifted an injunction blocking the assisted suicide of a Calgary woman has been appealed by her father.

Lawyers Sarah Miller and Emily Amirkhari filed two separate notices in the Alberta Court of Appeal on Tuesday appealing rulings by Justice Colin Feasby of applications made by their client, who can only be identified by the initials W.V.Justice Feasby ruled on March 25 2024 that the temporary injunction preventing M.V. (daughter) from dying by euthanasia was to be lifted. The lawyers for W.V. (father) filed two appeals. The first appeal is based on an alleged error in law by Justice Feasby based on the unwillingness of the daughter to answer questions in court. The second appeal is asking the Alberta Court of Appeal to maintain the temporary injunction while the court proceedings take place.

Martin reported:

The father wants to know how his daughter, who has autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), qualifies for the life-ending procedure, which has been approved by two doctors.

Among the errors the lawyers say Feasby made in his ruling was finding the father does not have a private interest to seek a judicial review.

“The pain of losing a child, even an adult child, is not something that any parent should experience,” Feasby said in his written decision.

“(The parents) have devoted their lives to raising M.V. from birth and have continued to support her since she has come of age.

“They will understandably be devastated by her death,” he said.

Canada's euthanasia law was not designed to protect vulnerable people. The law is designed to protect the doctors who are willing to kill. 

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition will seek to intervene in the appeal.