1. Sick Kids Hospital Toronto policy would euthanize children with or without parental consent – Oct 10, 2018.

2. Paediatric Palliative Care Symposium and child euthanasia – February 26, 2018.

3. Fatal Flaws film will change the way you view assisted death – June 8, 2018.

4. Declaration of Hope – Jan 1, 2016.

5. Guide to answering the Canadian MAID consultation questionnaire – Jan 15, 2020.

6. Kitty Holman: 5 reasons why people devalue the elderly – May 25, 2010.

An open letter from doctors around the world to medical ethicists and lawmakers

Link for doctors to sign the open letter (Link).

Doctors Want No Part in Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide are not part of Medicine

As medical doctors, we are committed to supporting people to both live and die with dignity and comfort.

We are determined that state-of-the-art care should be available for people who are dying and also for people suffering from chronic disease, disability or mental illness.

We believe that universal and equitable access to effective pain and symptom management, including mental healthcare and palliative care, is a fundamental human right.

This article was published by Mercatornet on September 22, 2021

German monument to the euthanasia victims

By Mark Sutherland

“Your son was released from a severe and incurable disease.”

“He died quickly and without pain. Considering his serious and incurable illness, death meant relief for him.”

“Considering her severe and incurable illness, life was agony for the deceased. You must therefore understand her death as deliverance.” [1]

These short sentences contrast with the enormity of the suffering of the incurably sick. They are typical of a narrative which makes it hard to understand why anyone could oppose the euthanasia bill to be tabled in the New South Wales Parliament later this year, a narrative which damns its opponents as lacking in compassion.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A California federal judge has rejected a preliminary injunction asking the court to permit euthanasia within the state assisted suicide act. Link to the court decision (Link).

On August 30 I wrote an article about the California court case to permit euthanasia within the state assisted suicide act. The case argued that some people with disabilities, who are approved for assisted suicide, are unable to self-administer the lethal drugs. Therefore, based on the Americans with Disabilities Act, the court must permit euthanasia (doctor administered death) in these cases.

On September 13 I wrote that the California court must reject the challenge to the state assisted suicide act based on (among other reasons): 

1. There is no right to assisted suicide, therefore there is no legal requirement to amend the perceived inequality within the state assisted suicide law.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director – Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights sent a media release today urging that assisted suicide for psychiatric patients be rejected in the US and other countries. The watchdog group pointed out that assisted suicide has now been legalized in several US states, the CCHR warned that extending assisted suicide to mental patients is dangerous. The CCHR stated that:

While the U.S. limits this to terminally ill individuals, … it’s a quick jump from this to killing patients who do not have terminal illnesses but are suffering emotional, not physical disabilities after failed psychiatric treatments.

The Treasure of Palliative Care – a video series Link to the PDF English version.

Press Release

The Treasure of Palliative Care – a video series

There is always a better option than euthanasia

A Quebec perspective for a better understanding of palliative care

Montréal, CANADA – September 9, 2021 – The Living with Dignity citizen network (LWD), founded in 2010 in advance of the debate on the issue of “dying with dignity” in Quebec, is officially launching The Treasure of Palliative Care video series today.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article by Ed Susman published on September 9 in Medpage Today reports on a presentation to the World Conference on Lung Cancer by Dr Sara Moore, a  University of Ottawa medical oncologist. Moore examined 45 euthanasia (MAiD) deaths of people with lung cancer living in the Ottawa region. She concludes that people with lung cancer who died by euthanasia were less likely to consult with a radiation or medical oncologist and less likely to undergo effective treatments.

According to Susman, Moore’s research found that 20% of those who died by euthanasia did not consult a radiation oncologist and 22% did not consult a medical oncologist.

This article was published by Bioedge on August 29, 2021.

Michael Cook

By Michael Cook, Editor of Bioedge

The debate in Canada over euthanasia and assisted suicide – or, as it is called there, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) – will have a huge impact upon developments elsewhere in the Anglosphere. As two of Canada’s stalwart defenders of MAiD, Jocelyn Downie and Udo Schuklenk, pointed out in a recent article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, “other countries will confront the same questions if they contemplate changing their assisted dying law”.

This makes their pushback against critics of MAiD even more interesting.