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

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

Hans & Sophie Scholl

Some research suggests that Hans and Sophie Scholl heard the sermon by Bishop von Galen, the Bishop of Muenster, who on August 3, 1941, challenged the killing of people with disabilities by euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr Chris Perry

Daniel Tang, reported for the Epoch Times that Dr Chris Perry, the President of the Queensland Australia Medical Association warned Queensland legislators who are debating euthanasia that terminally ill patients choose to “take poison” and die out of hopelessness or abandonment.

Tang reporting on a press conference stated:

Dr. Chris Perry said the euthanasia experience in Victoria, Canada, and Oregon in the United States—one of the earliest jurisdictions to legalise the practice—saw many candidates choose euthanasia because they felt trapped or incapacitated.

Perry stated that killing people who feel hopeless and neglected is not right:

“So, it’s not the right way to treat human beings; we should be treating human beings as we’d like to be treated with dignity and respect,”

“You don’t want people being feeling hopeless, and being neglected, not being well cared for, and ending up taking a drink which will result in them dying in 20 to 30 minutes,”

The Queensland government will likely vote on a bill to legalize euthanasia this week.

This article was published by Mercatornet on May 17, 2021

By François Trufin

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

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

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

The Luxembourg update was published by the Australian Care Alliance.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide has been legal in Luxembourg since 2009. The person requesting euthanasia or assisted suicide must have a serious, incurable and irreversible affliction which leads to unbearable physical or mental suffering.

The sixthbiennial report by the National Commission for Control and Evaluation covering 2019-2020 was published in March 2021.

There were 16 cases of euthanasia in 2019 (doubling the 2018 figure of just 8 cases) and 25 cases in 2020 –a further rise of 56.2%. This brings the total number of cases from 2009-2020 to 112.

Most cases involved euthanasia by lethal injection except for two cases (one in 2016, one in 2018 and two in 2020) of assisted suicide by oral ingestion of a barbiturate.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The French media is reporting that a bill to legalize euthanasia will be debated on Thursday April 8.

The Local news reported that Olivier Falorni, deputy for the parliamentary splinter group Libertes et Territoires (“Freedom and Territories”), has introduced a euthanasia bill that will be debated during the time allotted to the party.

MP’s who oppose euthanasia have filed 3000 amendments to the bill. The Local reported:

MPs hostile to euthanasia have filed 3,000 amendments ahead of the debate which will slow down Thursday’s proceedings to the point of making any vote in the allotted timeframe impossible.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Latvia Saeima

The Latvian public broadcaster LSM.LV reported that, after a long debate, the Latvian Saeima rejected a citizens initiative to legalize euthanasia by a vote of 49 to 38 with 2 abstentions. A citizens initiative collected 10,000 signatures which required the Saeima to debate the issue.

LSM reported that Saeima representatives saw the euthanasia debate as opening the door for better end-of-life care for Latvians. According to the report:

opposition MP Viktors Valainis (Union of Greens and Farmers) said euthanasia would be the easiest way for severely ill people to escape intolerable pain, yet it is “absolutely unacceptable” because it ignores a number of problems in palliative care.

Gordon Friesen

By Gordon Friesen, EPC board member
http://www.euthanasiediscussion.net/

Euthanasia has two faces in Canada. The first is Voluntary Euthanasia, which is a practice based upon the assumed right of an individual to control his, or her, own destiny. Medical Assistance in Dying, on the other hand (as defined in Quebec Bill 52, 2014), is a benign medical procedure, objectively indicated in cases involving “intolerable suffering” and “irremediable decline”.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have written about the cultural epidemic of loneliness and isolation and I have explained how loneliness and isolation leads to a higher level of deaths by euthanasia (MAiD). Now that Ontario, and other jurisdictions, have moved back to being “locked-down,” will we experience more depression and hopelessness based on cultural loneliness?

CTV medical correspondant, Avis Favaro, reported on a group of teenagers from the Upper Canada College, Bishop Strachan School, Havergal and Bayview Glen who are participating in a virtual pen pal program. Favaro reports:

The program, called Pandemic Pals or Pan Pals for short, has students connect with seniors in long-term care homes via phone and Zoom calls in an effort to combat loneliness brought on by lockdowns in the province.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Maura Kathryn Bannister

An Australian nurse who refered to herself as the “angel of death” lost her nursing license on March 19 but will unlikely face criminal charges.

On March 10, the Queensland (Australia) Civil And Administrative Tribunal of the nursing and midwifery board of australia, in the Bannister case decided to:

disqualify her from applying for registration as a health practitioner for a period of two years from the date of this decision, and

prohibit, under the National Law s 196(4), from providing any health service for a period of two years from the date of this decision.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Spanish parliament passed the euthanasia bill with a vote of 202 to 141 (2 abstentions). The Vox party has stated that it will challenge the euthanasia law before Spain’s Constitutional court.

On March 15, Portugal’s Constitutional Court rejected a similar euthanasia bill that was passed by Portugal’s parliament on January 29.

The lower house approved the bill even after the Spanish Bioethics Committee unanimously rejected the proposed bill in their October 6 report which stated:

The bill is invalid not only because it decriminalizes euthanasia as an exception to the general rule requiring life to be protected, but also because it recognizes death as a right that can be incorporated into the list of public health benefits, the committee noted.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Alex Schadenberg

On March 11, the Liberal government, with the support of the Bloc Quebecois (BQ), forced a closure of debate on Bill C-7, Canada’s euthanasia expansion bill, and then passed Bill C-7, with the Senate amendment approving euthanasia for mental illness alone, once again with the BQ supporting the Liberals.