Euthanasia

The public discussion in Canada about their assisted suicide law (MAiD) is still ongoing.
This was also up:


After years of frustrating delays in getting the home lift, Gauthier says the caseworker told her: 'Madam, if you are really so desperate, we can give you medical assistance in dying now.'
 
Source (in Dutch): Portugees parlement stemt weer voor toestaan euthanasie

Portuguese parliament votes again to allow euthanasia
News
The Portuguese parliament has voted for the third time to decriminalize euthanasia. The previous two times, the Portuguese president vetoed the decision and Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa may do so again. The president promised to come up with a decision soon.
ANP - Friday, December 9, 2022 at 17:13

Conservative Rebelo de Sousa blocked the euthanasia law twice since early 2021, saying several conditions for euthanasia were written down "ambiguously and unclear." After the first veto, the law was again rejected by the president.

To accommodate the president, the period between application and final euthanasia became two months. Psychological help was also made mandatory.

Socialist Party

The Socialist Party is the major force behind the law, which received 126 votes in favor and 84 against. "The right to live cannot under any circumstances become a duty to live," said Socialist MP Isabel Moreira.

Portugal is a largely Catholic country, and there is much opposition to the law from that quarter. The Portuguese Bishops' Conference calls the law a danger to humanity.

Sixth country in EU

The southern European country may become the sixth country in the European Union to allow euthanasia. The Netherlands was the first country to legalize euthanasia in 2001.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
 
Source: Ban on assisted suicide not against European Convention on Human Rights, court rules

Wednesday, 14 December 2022 - 13:10
Ban on assisted suicide not against European Convention on Human Rights, court rules

[...]

Cooperatie Laatste Wil (CLW) achieved nothing with its case filed against the criminal enforcement of the ban on assisted suicide. The court in The Hague ruled that the State “has not acted, is acting, or will not act unlawfully towards CLW and its supporters by fully enforcing the ban on assisted suicide.”

CLW argued that the ban is not in line with the European Convention on Human Rights. It states, among other things, that “everyone has the right to respect for their private life” and that “no interference by any public authority shall be permitted in the exercise of this right, except as provided by law and necessary in a democratic society.”

In court, CLW argued that people, in general, can judge the meaning and quality of their lives and should be able to choose conscious, voluntary termination of their life. Now they depend on the judgment of doctors and the euthanasia law, while there is “a not inconsiderable group” who desire to make this decision for themselves, and “that should not be ignored.”

The State disagreed. It referred to a study showing that only 0.18 percent of people over 55 want to end their lives and their reasons are “complex and changeable.” People also need to be protected from themselves, the State argued.

In the Netherlands, assisting in suicide is punishable by law. Only a doctor may provide assisted suicide to someone who is suffering unbearably and hopelessly due to medical causes. Providing assisted suicide to someone who considers their life "completed" is not allowed.

According to the European Court of Human Rights, the right to self-determination does not go so far as there is also a right to assisted suicide, the court explained. Nor is there an obligation to make a "dignified" suicide possible. Interference by the government is permitted, the court says, if it serves a legitimate purpose and is necessary in a democratic society.

In addition, according to the court, states have "a wide margin of appreciation, certainly with regard to sensitive subjects such as these, on which there is no international agreement." The State must protect the right to life. "This means that the State must prevent vulnerable persons from ending their lives on a whim," the court said.

With the existing regulations on euthanasia, the State has "made a good assessment between the various interests," the court said in its ruling

Reporting by ANP and NL Times

Similar: Court rejects pro-assisted suicide group's human rights claim - DutchNews.nl

Coverage in Dutch:
Verbod op hulp bij zelfdoding wordt gehandhaafd
Legale hulp bij het sterven raakt verder uit beeld, na uitspraak rechter in zaak Laatste Wil
Hulp bij zelfdoding niet toegestaan: hoe zit het nu precies?
Verbod op hulp bij zelfdoding blijft van kracht, niet in strijd met EVRM
 
Archiving another link to an article on SOTT about the Canadian situation which seems to be sliding into a death dealing supermarket.

Canada euthanising 1000s of people who aren't terminally ill, 32% increase just this year -- Sott.net

Started to wonder if eventually they will deal with this like they do with gender conversion with children (shutting out the parents or whoever might disagree). Also started to wonder if assisted suicide was being moved to the school classroom - here is a 2018 paper on this (paywall):

Medical Assistance in Dying: Implications for Canadian Classrooms and the Academy

Abstract The recent passing of legislation decriminalizing medically assisted suicide was a landmark in Canadian history. Since the law’s passage, an average of four Canadians per day have chosen to die using medical assistance. With Canadians embracing this option of death, we argue that there will be moments in Canadian schools when this topic will be brought into the classrooms. In this paper, we outline how children view death both emotionally and conceptually, as well as how teachers can discuss death in their classrooms. The purpose is to provide a brief explanation of the law, an expiation of how children view death, and a framework for how teachers may be prepared to broach the topic when raised in their classrooms.

Has it moved into the classroom and in what direction?


[...]
You see, the woke agenda has now travelled to unprecedented levels. Children aged 6–12 in schools are taught how a person is killed during euthanasia. It is a common practice that most parents never seem to care more about this issue simply because they think that children are incapable of forming any ideas about complex matters like euthanasia.

But studies by the National Institute of Mental Health in the US have everything required to give parents in Canada the necessary concern. The whole euthanasia agenda being served to small children in schools has the potential to seriously impact the emotional well-being of children as their loved ones’ killing is discussed, planned, and executed.

Even after being aware of the chaos, this move could instil in young minds, the government in Canada is still standing firm with some additional dose of wokeness to support the move.

“We endorse killing as an acceptable answer to human suffering, we have to train the children that assisted killing is okay,” school authorities in Canada were quoted as saying.

Additionally, a good deal of thought should be given to the fact that in Canada, euthanasia is a “Yes” while “palliative care” gets a big “NO”.

Canada has created a positive right to euthanasia — including coercing dissenting doctors into participating in the deed in Ontario. Yet, according to a study published by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, only 15 per cent of dying Canadians have access to quality palliative care in their last years of life.

Palliative care is an interdisciplinary medical caregiving approach aimed at optimizing the quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex, and often terminal illnesses, with death as the outcome. Many studies are bound by the fact that such medical approaches can taste success. But it is characteristic of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to not move in a logical way, as he will be robbed of his chance to flaunt his woke genius to the world.

Make no mistake, Canadian kids would surely recognize the injustice of killing their loved ones. With the issue getting more discussed in the Canadian political discourse, Trudeau’s attempt to indoctrinate young minds is sure to hit a roadblock in the coming days.

Actually, I'm not so certain given the full force of indoctrination possibilities (with a few amendments to current laws), if kids down the road will "recognize the injustices" (baring legitimacies for some people to seek this out due to their terminal illness) - don't know how wide spread this death curriculum is and what it looks like. It does seem to be under something like a ponorogenic case of normalizing. For now, thought, the outside Canada media press is pushing back to some extent, yet will they switch. Canadian mainstream press plays a more supportive role, from what can be seen.

Also, apparently "Dystopian” suicide rooms added to funeral homes in Canada.
Canadian funeral homes are now offering assisted suicide rooms for individuals to die in, expediting the process from lethal dose to coffin, with both now being offered under the same roof.

Lastly, this documentary was on my mind in terms of what will happen as this situation grows more abject - how far might euthanasia programs extend?

 

Around the world, Canada is increasingly becoming known for one thing: the coldblooded brutality of our euthanasia regime. From impoverished people opting for suicide because they can’t find a home and the disabled asking for lethal injections due to lack of support to veterans being actively offered MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) when they request services, Canada’s stories have made front pages across the globe.


In response, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has put a (temporary) delay on expanding assisted suicide to those with mental illness, and has begun lying about some of these stories to blunt the damage, with the Veteran Minister of Affairs claiming that veterans had not been offered MAiD despite the fact that this fact is a matter of public record.


READ: Trudeau gov’t to ‘delay’ mental illness expansion of assisted suicide law after pushback


But it gets more ghoulish still. Health Canada and Veterans Affairs are two of the federal government partners in the release of a new coloring and activity book for children – on assisted suicide in Canada.

The target audience is children aged between 6 and 12. The booklet is titled “Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Activity Book” and the cover reads: “Welcome! These activities will help you think about Medical Assistance in Dying by someone in your life.” The intent of the book is to normalize suicide for children and to justify the killing of parents, grandparents, and loved ones by Canada’s euthanasia regime to those left behind. Here, for example, is how the book describes MAiD:


The word ‘medical’ means the science of medicine, and ‘assistance’ means help. So MAiD means that medicine is used to help someone with their death. A doctor or nurse practitioner (a nurse with special training) uses medicines to stop the person’s body from working. When their body stops working, the person dies. This is done in a way that does not hurt the person. The medicines help them feel comfortable and peaceful. A person has to ask for MAiD and then go through a bunch of steps before it can happen. The steps are described below in this book.

For those 18 years old or older, the book says, MAiD can be requested if they have “a serious illness, disease, or disability that hurts their body or mind so much that it feels too hard to keep on living.” On page two already, they are justifying suicide for those with mental illness or disabilities. On page five, the booklet reiterates that some people with disabilities will opt for suicide because they cannot make their disabilities go away. The message here is crystal clear. Throughout the booklet, the word “disability” is paired with “illness” when talking about MAiD (“disability” is used in that context 12 times.) According to this children’s resource, if you have a disability, you may be justified in feeling that your life is not worth living.


READ: How many more mutilated victims of transgender ideology will choose assisted suicide?


On page four, they describe how someone is killed via lethal injection this way:


The first medicine makes the person feel very relaxed and fall asleep. They may yawn or snore or mumble. The second medicine causes a ‘coma.’ A coma looks like sleep but is much deeper than regular sleep. The person will not wake up or be bothered by noise or touch. The third medicine makes the person’s lungs stop breathing and then their heart stops beating. Because of the coma, the person does not notice this happening and it does not hurt. When their heart and lungs stop working, their body dies. It will not start working again. This often happens in just a few minutes, but sometimes (rarely) it can take hours.

The booklet then gives a list of multiple choice questions for children, asking if they want to be in the room when their loved one is killed by lethal injection, or if they’d like to read or color with crayons to “pass the time” as their relative is dying, or if they’d like to video call the person to tell them goodbye rather than be present, or see the person’s body after the poison has done its work and he or she has died. Children are also asked if they’d like to kiss their loved one goodbye or say a prayer.


READ: Assisted suicide is on the rise in Canada, killing the most vulnerable in the name of ‘mercy’

In a booklet filled with lies, perhaps the most egregious one is included near the end: “MAiD is a personal choice. That means that no one can decide for another person. Each person has to decide for themselves.” If this “MAiD activity book” makes anything crystal clear, it is that each person is, in fact, deciding on behalf of children, relatives, and loved ones.

Our pandemic of assisted suicide is exposing the fundamental falsity of radical individualism. Canada’s Trudeau government has decided that the desperate, disabled, and ill can kill themselves. For the children who are left behind, it has a coloring book with multiple choice questions.
 
12 second video of textbook for children in Canada about MAID. OMG! I have no words!

 
12 second video of textbook for children in Canada about MAID. OMG! I have no words!


Clicked on the link and turned up this write-up:

Just as Ottawa publicly acknowledges that its euthanasia regime may have gone too far, critics have highlighted the existence of a little-known book about medical care for dying children that was funded by the Canadian government.

The book is not intended for children seeking euthanasia themselves, and is not intended for mass distribution in schools or public libraries. Minors are not eligible for medically assisted death in Canada, although the College of Physicians of Quebec is pushing for the practice to be extended to severely disabled newborns.

Rather, the workbook is intended for children who may soon be in person at death with medical assistance. “Created for young people who have someone in their lives who might have MAID,” the group said in a statement.

MAID is defined in the booklet as the use of drugs to stop a person’s “body” from working.

“When their body stops working, the person dies,” it says.

The booklet describes MAID as a last resort, reserved only for voluntary adults suffering from an illness or disability that “damages their bodies or minds so much that it becomes too difficult for them to continue living.”

Children are introduced to the “three drugs” that make up the lethal injection process and are encouraged not to try to change the mind of a family member who has chosen euthanasia. “As much as others would like to change their minds, the person who chooses MAID is also likely to strongly want to change their disease or condition and how it affects their lives,” it says.

Canada’s medically assisted death system was legalized in 2016 by the Supreme Court of Canada and quickly became the most liberalized euthanasia regime in the world. In recent months, a string of cases have attracted international attention in which patients with chronic diseases have been offered death instead of treatment.

There are no links to the textbook on this article. I asked The Great Google, and the textbook in question is from an outfit called Canadian Virtual Hospice. There is a link to the textbook on this National Post article.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canad...ssisted-suicide-activity-book-for-childrenThe Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Activity Book was first published in July by the group Canadian Virtual Hospice.
The book is not intended for children who are themselves seeking assisted death, and it’s not subject to mass-distribution through schools or public libraries. Minors are ineligible for medically assisted death in Canada, although there has been a push by the Quebec College of Physicians to extend the practice to severely disabled newborns.

Rather, the activity book is intended for children who may soon be attending a medically assisted death in person. “Created for young people who have someone in their life who may have MAID,” the group declared in a statement.

MAID is defined in the booklet as the use of medicines to stop a “person’s body from working.”

“When their body stops working, the person dies,” it reads.


An image from The Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Activity Book.
An image from The Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Activity Book. PHOTO BY CANADIAN VIRTUAL HOSPICE

The booklet describes MAID as a last-ditch measure reserved only for consenting adults afflicted with an illness or disability that “hurts their body or their mind so much that it feels too hard to keep living.”

Children are guided through the “three medicines” that constitute the lethal injection process, and are urged not to attempt to change the mind of a family member who has opted for assisted death. “As much as other people may want to change their mind, the person who is choosing MAID probably wishes just as strongly that they could change their illness or condition and how it is affecting their life,” it reads.

Financed by Health Canada, the 26-page booklet was written by Ceilidh Eaton Russell, a McMaster University lecturer and a consultant on grief in children. Russell is also behind the handbook Living Dying: A Guide for Adults Supporting Grieving Children and Teenagers.

The Canadian system of medically assisted death was legalized in 2016 following a Supreme Court of Canada ruling and has rapidly become the world’s most liberalized euthanasia regime. It has attracted international attention in recent months for a string of cases in which patients with chronic illnesses were offered death in lieu of treatment.

This included at least five instances in which Canadian Armed Forces veterans were offered MAID by a Veteran Affairs caseworker after seeking help for chronic conditions including PTSD.


An image from The Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Activity Book.
An image from The Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Activity Book. PHOTO BY CANADIAN VIRTUAL HOSPICE

On Tuesday, Minister of Veterans Affairs Lawrence MacAulay called it “harmful misinformation” that veterans were being offered assisted death – despite his own testimony to a House of Commons committee admitting as much.

However, last week Justice Minister David Lametti did announce that he intended to delay the March rollout of a measure that would extend MAID to Canadians whose only underlying condition is mental illness. This came after multiple statements by Lametti that the MAID system was working, and that controversial cases were aberrations.

Recent years have also seen a growing number of Canadian institutions treating MAID as a normal component of the country’s medical system. In 2020, the Parliamentary Budget Office prepared a report for the House of Commons noting that MAID would yield a net savings for the health-care system by slashing the need for palliative care and other “end of life” costs.

Last month, the Canadian clothing retailer Simons took down a commercial it had commissioned celebrating what it called the “hard beauty” of assisted suicide. It later emerged that the woman featured in the ad, Jennyfer Hatch, had sought MAID only after the B.C. medical system failed to provide her with appropriate care for a rare disease.


An image from The Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Activity Book.
An image from The Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Activity Book. PHOTO BY CANADIAN VIRTUAL HOSPICE

Throughout all this, the MAID activity book has largely escaped notice, aside from a few brief mentions on conservative websites.

Over the summer, the right-wing U.S. magazine National Review slammed the book as a means of introducing Canadian children to the “medical killing fields.” It also received a brief mention on the Australian anti-euthanasia website BioEdge, which described it as promoting the “normalization of euthanasia.”

But attention flared up this month when the book was featured in a widely circulated tweet by the group Canada Unity, which was one of the early organizers of the Freedom Convoy, the trucker protest against the pandemic mandates that blockaded Downtown Ottawa for several weeks last winter.


Normalising MAiD with colouring books for Canadian children​

Michael Cook
August 2, 2022

Here’s an interesting development in the normalization of euthanasia. A website supported by Health Canada, Canadian Virtual Hospice, has produced an activity book to explain euthanasia and assisted suicide to children.

The brightly coloured downloadable PDF explains Medical Assistance in Dying in language that children aged 6 to 12 can understand. Can I change her mind? The booklet answers:

It can be very hard to hear other people disagree or even argue about MAiD. Sometimes people feel like they need to choose whose “side” they’re on, or they feel bad about agreeing with one person and not another. They may feel stuck in the middle or wish they could fix it, even though no one can make another person change their mind or their feelings.

Bioethics writer Wesley J. Smith criticized the booklet as potentially damaging to children:

It not only ends the life of despairing people who are abandoned by the “It’s your choice” deflection, but as this book illustrates, has the potential to seriously impact the emotional well-being of children in the family who watch as their loved one’s killing is discussed, planned, and executed. If I were a kid and that happened to somebody I loved, I’d never want to see a doctor again. Good grief.
 
Bulid Back Better?


Canada Provides More Organs From Assisted Suicide Recipients for Transplant Than Any Other Country​

By Marnie Cathcart

January 17, 2023 Updated: January 17, 2023
Canadian patients who opt for euthanasia provide more transplant organs than any other country globally that allows physician-assisted suicide, according to the first international review of medical assistance in dying (MAID).
Patients in Canada who decide to end their lives with physician help also contributed to almost half of the world’s documented organ transplants occurring after euthanasia.
Canada legalized euthanasia in 2016, and became a world leader of the practice in 2022, with record numbers of people committing suicide with physician-administered lethal drugs. As of May 2022, eight countries in the world allowed death by “intravenous practitioner-administration of lethal substances,” the type of MAID compatible with subsequent organ donation.
Five years ago, patients had to be facing imminent death in order to avail of the procedure. That is not the case anymore.
As of last year, Canadians who wanted help to end their lives did not have to suffer from a terminal condition. Instead, they could qualify for MAID with a “serious and incurable illness, disease or disability.” The availability for MAID was expanded in 2022, with plans to include mental illness as a qualifying condition by March 17, 2023.

Altruism​

Canada has some of the most liberal rules in the world for receiving assisted suicide. The authors of the review noted that clear ethical standards need to be implemented, as there are consent and trust issues to resolve due to “potentially influenceable” patients.
The report noted that altruism could become a motivating factor in ending one’s life. There is “risk that knowing how many people their organs could help, will prevent the MAID patient from feeling absolute freedom to change their mind, right up until the last time they are asked whether they wish to proceed, just before substance administration,” it noted.
Epoch Times PhotoEuthanasia medication being prepared for consumption. (Go Gentle Australia)

Ethical Concerns​

Organ donation after euthanasia “raises some important ethical concerns involving patient autonomy, the link between the request for MAID and the request to donate organs and the increased burden placed on seriously ill MAID patients,” said the report.
In Canada in 2021, the most commonly cited “intolerable physical or psychological suffering” reported by patients who wanted assisted suicide was “the loss of ability to engage in meaningful activities (86.3 percent), followed closely by the loss of ability to perform activities of daily living (83.4 percent),” according to a Health Canada report.
In 2016, there were just over 1,000 deaths by euthanasia. That number skyrocketed to 31,644 in total by the end of 2021. In 2021 alone, more than 10,000 people died after euthanasia.
The number of people obtaining assisted suicide was up 32.4 percent in 2021 from 2020, according to Health Canada.
Just under half of people chose to have their deaths at home in 2021, roughly 44 percent. There were 12,286 written requests for assisted suicide in 2021, up 27.7 percent from 2020. Of those, 81 percent were provided euthanasia.
medically assisted dying bill protestPeople rally against expansion to medically assisted dying legislation, during a protest in Ottawa on June 1, 2016. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

MAID at Home​

Canada is also leading globally in another area, according to the review. There have been eight documented assisted suicides where the patient had MAID in their homes and were then transported by ambulance to have their organs removed. Five of those occurred in Canada.
In 2022, Canadians learned that people in severe economic or medical crises had been applying to die by assisted suicide because they could not cope with their challenges or pay their bills.
In addition, as many as eight military veterans who contacted the government were offered death without even asking for it, including retired corporal and former Paralympian Christine Gauthier, who wanted help to build a wheelchair ramp at her home.
She testified before a parliamentary committee that a government case worker offered her assisted suicide and even offered to supply the equipment.
The federal government has said that employee no longer works with the department. It has also said it will delay the plan to expand euthanasia to include people with a mental illness as their only medical condition.
The international review notes that four countries allow euthanasia patients to donate organs—Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain—and 268 patients who ended their lives with MAID had their organs transplanted in 837 patients, in the years up to and including 2021. One deceased could donate multiple organs to more than one recipient.

Organ Donation​

A total of 2,782 organ transplants were performed in Canada in 2021; 78 percent of transplants used deceased donor organs and 21 percent used living donor organs.
Of those organ transplants, 136 came from deceased Canadian donors, making up 6 percent of all transplants in the country, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
Organ donation after euthanasia (ODE) began in 2005 globally, and by 2017 was developed for patients obtaining MAID from home.
“ODE is of increasing importance for donors, representing up to 14 percent of donations after circulatory determination of death,” said the report.
Epoch Times PhotoOrgan transplants after euthanasia are “an exceptional procedure” with legal, ethical, and operational challenges that could erode society’s trust, according to a new report. (Shutterstock)
The review began in 2021 and the resulting study, “Practice and challenges for organ donation after medical assistance in dying: A scoping review including the results of the first international roundtable in 2021,” appeared in the December 2022 issue of the American Journal of Transplantation.
The review noted that organ donation from assisted-suicide patients raised many “unique, ethical and logistical considerations” and had multiple stakeholders, including the patient and family, end-of-life care providers, and organ procurement organizations.
According to the review, in 2020, there were 17,217 assisted suicide deaths globally, which included those who self-administered MAID drugs. Most of the patients had cancer or neurological conditions, said the report.
Trudo Lemmens, professor in health law and policy at the University of Toronto, told CTV News that more than 35 percent of those Canadians who had assisted suicide in 2021 felt they were “a burden on family, friends or caregivers” according to a Health Canada report.
“I am concerned that people who struggle with a lack of self-esteem and self-worth may be pushed to see this as an opportunity to mean something,” Lemmens told reporters.
The author of the review, Dr. Johannes Mulder, who provides MAID in Zwolle, Netherlands, did not reply by press time, but told reporters “guidelines are necessary and should also be strict” when adding organ donation to assisted suicide.
Organ donation after euthanasia “is an exceptional procedure, presenting legal, ethical, and operational challenges and requiring dedicated guidance that will gain and retain society’s confidence. If protocols are diffuse in their aims or burdened by earlier habits and ways of thinking, quality of care could be compromised and trust lost,” stated the report.
“If a public misperception arises that ODE is aimed at increasing organ procurement, this confidence will be rapidly lost.”
 

"They've announced that a year from today they will introduce measures to end the lives of people who are depressed," he said (Conservative MP Cooper). "Will they recognize that we need to treat depression and give people hope for a better life rather than ending their lives?"

Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett chastised the Conservative leader, saying that health professionals are trained to deny MAID to people who are suicidal.

That's some real good semantics there, Carolyn.
 
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