Canada: Euthanasia On Demand; Doctors Licensed to Kill

This article was originally published by Rhoda Wilson at The Daily Exposé.

As Canada expands its euthanasia regime, vulnerable people like the homeless, obese, and grieving are increasingly offered assisted suicide, countering claims that “safeguards” ensure the protocol remains limited in its scope.

The following was written by Jonathon van Maren and published by LifeSiteNews.

Canada’s suicide activists and euthanasia advocates promised the public that the path to “medical aid in dying” would be a narrow path with high guardrails. They were lying. It is a four-lane highway, and nobody is patrolling it.

Not a week goes by without some grim new development and our government refuses to listen to those hoarsely sounding the alarm.

On 16 October, the Associated Press covered the questions euthanasia providers are discussing on their private forums. One story featured a homeless man being killed by lethal injection:

One doctor wrote that although his patient had a serious lung disease, his suffering was “mostly because he is homeless, in debt and cannot tolerate the idea of (long-term care) of any kind.” A respondent questioned whether the fear of living in the nursing home was truly intolerable. Another said the prospect of “looking at the wall or ceiling waiting to be fed … to have diapers changed” was sufficiently painful. The man was eventually euthanized. One provider said any suggestion they should provide patients with better housing options before offering euthanasia “seems simply unrealistic and hence, cruel,” amid a national housing crisis.

Related: Disability groups file legal challenge against Canada’s euthanasia regime

Another featured a doctor debating whether obesity made someone eligible for assisted suicide:

One woman with severe obesity described herself as a “useless body taking up space” – she’d lost interest in activities, became socially withdrawn and said she had “no purpose,” according to the doctor who reviewed her case. Another physician reasoned that euthanasia was warranted because obesity is “a medical condition which is indeed grievous and irremediable.”

And perhaps the most chilling story of all is the case of a woman who was consistently pushed into accepting death:

When a health worker inquired whether anyone had euthanised patients for blindness, one provider reported four such cases. In one, they said, an elderly man who saw “only shadows” was his wife’s caregiver when he requested euthanasia; he wanted her to die with him. The couple had several appointments with an assessor before the wife “finally agreed” to be killed, the provider said. She died unexpectedly just days before the scheduled euthanasia.

Read that carefully: The couple had several appointments with the person assessing their eligibility for euthanasia before the wife “finally agreed” – that is, broke down and assented – to be euthanized.

Other providers cited examples of people being euthanized for grief. It should be obvious to anyone looking at what is happening in Canada: there are no brakes on this train.  

It just keeps getting worse. Linda Maddaford, the newly elected president of the Regina Catholic Women’s League, is sharing her family’s experience this month at the Catholic Health Association of Saskatchewan convention.

After her mother passed away, Maddaford’s family moved their father to a care facility in Saskatoon. “The very day after, we got a blanket email inviting us to come to a presentation in the dining room,” she said. The topic? Accessing euthanasia. Maddaford added that there is a “push from the top-down. That if you don’t – if you aren’t open to the idea; you should be. I worry for the people who feel the pressure of: ‘Well my doctor advised it.’ Or ‘someone with a clipboard came around and kept asking’.”

Related: Canadian woman shares ‘appalling’ story of care center pushing euthanasia on her father

Another story, covered this month by The Telegraph, relayed the experience of a Canadian woman undergoing life-saving cancer surgery … who was offered assisted suicide by doctors as she was about to enter the operating room for her mastectomy.

None of these stories appear to give euthanasia activists pause. Instead, they are constantly pushing for more.

On 16 October, the Financial Post published an editorial by Andrew Roman titled, ‘You should be able to reserve MAID service’. “Quebec is going to let people pre-order medical assistance in dying. Ottawa shouldn’t try to stop it. People should have that right,” the article’s lede states.

Anyone still arguing about “rights” as Canadian physicians euthanize patients for grief, obesity, homelessness, disability and a plethora of other conditions should not be taken seriously. But here’s Roman, arguing that if we don’t permit this, all kinds of elderly people with dementia will not be killed:

As Canada’s population continues to age, demand for MAiD – medical assistance in dying – will only increase. But, with rates of dementia also increasing, the cognitive ability of patients to consent becomes a barrier. The prevalence of dementia more than doubles every five years among seniors, rising from less than one per cent in those aged 65-69 to about 25 per cent among people 85 and older.

Then, revealing a breathtaking ignorance of how Canada’s euthanasia regime has unfolded, Roman writes this:

There is no good reason why, with the numerous safeguards in Ottawa’s and Quebec’s laws, patients should be precluded from making advance requests before their condition renders them incapable of giving consent; and no good reason why their physicians should become criminals for honouring their patients’ duly stipulated advance requests.

No good reason why? Safeguards? What a joke. He concludes:

MAiD is also regulated under provincial law and by the same medical colleges that regulate abortion. Ottawa should amend the Criminal Code to exempt MAiD altogether and, as is the case with abortion, let the medical profession do its work in accordance with provincial regulation and patients’ wishes.

And there you have it: the final goal of the euthanasia activists. Euthanasia on demand; doctors licensed to kill. We don’t have to ask ourselves what will happen if people like Roman get their way. It’s happening already.