MAiD Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

This week a judge of the B.C. Supreme Court (reminder: that’s a superior trial court, not an appellate court) heard a case that has the potential to further expand the Canadian empire of assisted suicide. The new battleground is “institutional religious objections,” or IROs, which is what the pro-euthanasia forces call them because they love acronyms so much. Most Catholic hospitals (and some hospices) have rules against administering euthanasia on the premises, which sometimes leads to very sick people undergoing what Dying with Dignity calls “forced transfers” to other facilities at the eleventh hour. The parents of one such patient are now suing B.C.’s Providence Health Care, the umbrella agency that operates the province’s legacy Catholic health institutions.

A B.C. Supreme Court trial starting this week is challenging the constitutionality of faith-based hospitals in the province opting not to provide medically assisted death for terminally ill patients.

The case stems from the death of a terminally ill woman, Sam O’Neill, who sought medical assistance in dying (MAiD) while receiving care at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver.

On Wednesday, a British man was jailed for 14 years for selling poisonous chemicals online to allow people to commit suicide. Miles Cross sold the fatal drugs to four people, two of whom, tragically, have since died as a result. In court he appeared to defend his actions, arguing that he simply wanted to “help others end their lives”.

Most Canadians disagree strongly with the concept of euthanasia for babies. We know this because every time the topic comes up, the public’s response is one of instant horror. So why does it keep coming up?

A medical assistance in dying (MAID) study exposes how MAID lobby groups may be attempting to influence policy in Canada — through the publication of medical studies.

A study on patients who were forced to transfer out of faith-based hospitals to receive medical assistance in dying (MAID) claims this caused “unnecessary suffering” for those who had to be transfered.

Claire Brosseau is desperate to die.

She is 48 years old and has had a life she calls an “an embarrassment of riches.” She has a vast network of friends, a devoted family, the steadfast adoration of a small dog. She has performed to raucous laughter in some of North America’s most prestigious comedy clubs and festivals, acted in movies, written brutally funny television shows. She has traveled, shopped, danced and known herself to be deeply loved.

She also suffers from debilitating mental illness that decades of treatment have not tamed. Sometimes she is so crushingly sad that she sobs until her bones ache. Sometimes she feels as if she were standing on a ledge, flipping minute by minute between being sure that if she jumped she would actually fly, and wanting to hurl herself as hard as she can onto the ground.

To truly understand the impact of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in Canada, we must ask the question: what does the average MAiD patient look like?

MAiD was made to ensure Canada’s “laws reflect Canadians’ needs, protect those who may be vulnerable, and support autonomy and freedom of choice.”

At least, this is what the feds claim.

(Incognito)

OTTAWA — Sandra Demontigny knew something wasn’t right when she couldn’t remember buying herself a new pair of boots. They were a splurge — a little out of character for the mother of three — and she had been excited about bringing them home.

“I saw them near the door and I asked my kids, ‘Who bought these boots? I’ve never seen them,’” she said.

“The kids were saying, ‘No, (they’re) yours. You bought them and you really like them.”

Sliding her feet inside, she realized she couldn’t remember buying them. “I started crying,” she said.

It was presented to Canadians as an exceptional option to an already approaching natural death. How did doctor-assisted dying become so popular?

Nearly a decade after the Criminal Code was amended to permit doctors to end, under certain conditions, a consenting person’s life, one in 20 deaths in Canada now involve medical assistance in dying (MAID).

A 77-year-old woman with advanced Alzheimer’s has been granted protection “against the likelihood of death at the hands of her husband” by the B.C. Supreme Court.

The case involves a woman, identified as E.W., and her husband, identified as T.W., in court documents. T.W. is a strong advocate for medical assistance in dying (MAID) and even spoke openly about a “Death Plan” for his wife, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2017, Justice B. Smith wrote in his reasons for judgment.

Canada’s government-run euthanasia program increased its death toll again last year, taking more than 16,000 lives, and placing medically assisted suicide as the fourth leading cause of death in the country.

According to an annual report published by the Canadian government, 16,499 people were killed through the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program in 2024, increasing 6.9 percent from the previous year. Close to 75 percent of the 22,535 people who applied for the program were approved.

We’re world famous.