A Canadian with a chronic, painful disability says he feels “pillaged” and “traumatized” after being denied good care, yet offered euthanasia “multiple times.”
Roger Foley, 49, shared his story with filmmaker Amanda Achtman as part of her series Dying to Meet You.
In the recently released BBC documentary Better Off Dead?, disability rights activist Liz Carr interviewed Dr. Ellen Wiebe, Canada’s most notorious euthanasia doctor. Wiebe is also an abortionist and an activist with Dying With Dignity, the euthanasia lobby group seeking to expand eligibility for assisted suicide in Canada even further. Wiebe’s attempted defence of Canada’s euthanasia regime backfired when throughout her interview, she laughed and smiled as she discussed ending the lives of patients.
A 29-year-old Dutch woman who has been granted her request for assisted dying on the grounds of unbearable mental suffering is expected to end her life in the coming weeks, fuelling a debate across Europe over the issue.
Zoraya ter Beek received the final approval last week for assisted dying after a three and a half year process under a law passed in the Netherlands in 2002.
Her case has caused controversy as assisted dying for people with psychiatric illnesses in the Netherlands remains unusual, although the numbers are increasing. In 2010, there were two cases involving psychiatric suffering; in 2023, there were 138: 1.5% of the 9,068 euthanasia deaths.
Amir Farsoud — whose sad story I shared with you in 2022 — won’t have to choose between going homeless or being euthanized by the Canadian government. This is what passes for good news some days.
A recent example of the use of medical assistance in dying (MAID) is setting off alarm bells. The CBC reported that Normand Meunier, a quadriplegic man from Quebec, was hospitalized in January for a respiratory virus. Mr. Meunier was left on a stretcher in the ER for four days despite communicating his need for a special mattress. He developed a severe bedsore with exposed bone and muscle, tragically leading him to seek out medical assistance in dying. Mr. Meunier told the CBC, “I don’t want to be a burden.” On March 29, he underwent assisted dying at home. The Canadian health care system’s failure to care for Mr. Meunier contributed to his death.
Suicide is a bit of a hit and miss affair. I can think of six cases of people I’ve known who’ve taken their own lives. One, a very successful business executive, threw himself out an office window; he survived the fall, only to hang himself a couple of years later. The girlfriend of a lodger survived throwing herself in front of an underground train: she left it too late and got blown back onto the platform, breaking a hip. She too, some while later completed the job by jumping off Beachy Head. A business acquaintance, having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s blew his brains out with a shot gun, literally, leaving his wife to clear up the mess. The girlfriend of another acquaintance killed herself when her boyfriend went off to university, only for the boyfriend, my acquaintance, to follow suit on the anniversary of her death. Finally, a university fresher I knew, depressed and alone in his halls of residence, killed himself during the first lockdown. Apparently a grim and drawn-out death. I blame Ferguson, Whitty, Boris and the other nutters for that one.
As a Calgary father’s legal battle to block his autistic daughter’s assisted death ignites debate over whether Canada’s euthanasia regime is expanding beyond what Canadians may be comfortable with, a new study suggests MAID deaths in Canada could continue to expand for another decade, until one in 10 deaths involve a doctor-administered lethal injection.
Expand Belgian euthanasia laws to prevent social care crisis, says insurance boss
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.”
Some right-to-die activists want everyone to have access to euthanasia—even young people with mental illness. Are they also making suicide contagious?
Zoraya ter Beek, 28, expects to be euthanized in early May.
Her plan, she said, is to be cremated.
“I did not want to burden my partner with having to keep the grave tidy,” ter Beek texted me. “We have not picked an urn yet, but that will be my new house!”
She added an urn emoji after “house!”
Imagine one day you discover that your adult daughter, who still lives with you, wants to be euthanised. As far as you are aware, she is healthy. She suffers from autism and ADHD, but no physical illnesses or disabilities that you know of. You know that she has faced many difficulties in her life, but you love her and desperately want to prevent her death. You are left fighting against her doctors, who encourage her decision and are perfectly happy to help her go through with this. To make this nightmare even worse, no one will even tell you why your daughter has been approved to die.
Her only known diagnoses described in court earlier this month are autism and ADHD.
A Calgary judge has issued a ruling that clears the way for a 27-year-old woman to receive medical assistance in dying (MAID) despite her father’s attempts through the courts to prevent that from happening.
A publication ban protects the identities of the parties and the medical professionals. CBC News will identify the daughter as M.V. and the father as W.V.
While Justice Colin Feasby acknowledged the “profound grief” that W.V. would suffer with the death of his child, he ruled the loss of M.V.’s autonomy was more important.
Why the ‘right to die’ is an affront to humanity.
The father of a 27-year-old woman who has been approved for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) has asked a Calgary judge to dig into the circumstances that led to two of three doctors approving his daughter’s application.
A publication ban protects the identities of the parties and the medical professionals. CBC News will identify the daughter as M.V. and the father as W.V.
At issue is whether the courts can step in when family members, with no legal standing, have concerns about the MAID approval process.
Were those warehouses at Auschwitz called “Kanada” as a warning?
Canada has taken step after step to expand citizens’ access to euthanasia ever since 2016, when it first legalized the practice it euphemistically labeled “medical assistance in death,” or MAID.
Officials recently announced that the Canadian government will be delaying a further expansion of the program, which would have allowed those suffering from mental illness to commit suicide. The expansion, which was slated to take effect on March 17, will not be considered again until March 2027.
When Canada’s justice minister announced plans to legalise medically assisted dying nearly a decade ago, she acknowledged the proposed law might prove divisive. “For some, medical assistance in dying will be troubling,” Jody Wilson-Raybould told reporters in 2016. “For others, this legislation will not go far enough.”
A fresh delay in expanding the scope of who can access a medically assisted death has once again put a spotlight on the system, which critics and advocates agree is one of the most liberal in the world. But the two groups remain sharply divided on what that means for improving the quality of life – and death – in the country.
