Quebec tells doctors to start ignoring federal homicide laws - "By authorizing its doctors to carry out “advance directives” for MAID starting Wednesday, the Government of Quebec has effectively told its health-care system to start committing murder. Last year, the Quebec legislature adopted Bill 11, which aimed to allow physicians to administer MAID to unresponsive or mentally incompetent patients, provided that the patient had given “advance” authorization to do so. This is considered murder under federal law, so Quebec announced this week it will simply be instructing its prosecutors to ignore the relevant sections of the Criminal Code governing culpable homicide. In a Monday statement, the federal Ministry of Health said they wouldn’t be challenging the decision – but warned Canada’s non-Quebec doctors not to get any ideas... As soon as a patient becomes unresponsive or mentally incompetent, it becomes illegal to administer MAID. The Quebec law proposes to ignore this, and to allow MAID for anyone with an “advance directive.”... As recently as February, the Trudeau government was warning Quebec about unilaterally ignoring the Criminal Code. At the time, a spokesperson for Justice Minister Arif Virani told Postmedia that Quebec didn’t appear to have thought through the consequences of charging ahead with Bill 11... But with Quebec now following through on Bill 11 starting Wednesday, the federal response has been decidedly different."
Daniel Zekveld: Quebec is ignoring the Criminal Code prohibition for ‘advance’ MAID death requests - "In 2022-2023, the commission on end-of-life care reported that there were 23 cases of non-compliance with MAID regulations and gave notice of these cases to the regulatory college. In a response, the president of the regulatory college stated that over 99 percent of MAID deaths were administered according to the regulations and that the college would ensure that nothing discourages physicians from administering MAID. Note that in 19 of these cases, the commission believed that the patient did not have a serious and incurable illness. This is not simply a minor requirement for eligibility. Now add to that Quebec’s decision to allow doctors to violate Canada’s Criminal Code. Quebec’s law enforcement agency and medical regulatory bodies approve and will not penalize doctors for allowing advance requests. Such a decision may encourage a further culture of neglect, not just for patients with cognitive disabilities, but also for other existing regulations... A person may give an advance request based on the present fear of a future condition (e.g. advanced dementia) that they have never experienced—even though they might not, when that future condition arrives, actually wish to die. When a person writes an advance request, they do not know exactly what the future will bring. That person might instead be able to come to terms with the situation and live well in spite of it. With advance requests, we risk euthanizing patients who do not want to die. Advance requests ignore the possibility that a person’s wishes and desires might change and that in the future they may no longer want to be euthanized but may be unable to communicate that. It also requires subjectivity on the doctor’s part about whether the patient has reached the point outlined and whether they are suffering as described in the advance request."
Weird. We keep being told that MAID is not administered to anyone who is not dying
Medical assistance in dying: Woman with chemical sensitivities chose death - "A 51-year-old Ontario woman with severe sensitivities to chemicals chose medically-assisted death after her desperate search for affordable housing free of cigarette smoke and chemical cleaners failed, advocates say. The woman’s assisted death appears to be a first in the world for someone diagnosed with multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), a chronic condition also referred to as an environmental illness or environmental allergies, say patient support groups and doctors familiar with her case. “The government sees me as expendable trash, a complainer, useless and a pain in the a**," 'Sophia' said in a video filmed on Feb. 14, eight days before her death, and shared with CTV News by one of her friends... Four Toronto doctors were aware of Sophia’s case and they also wrote to federal housing and disability government officials on her behalf. In that letter the doctors confirmed that her symptoms improved in cleaner air environments and asked for help to find or build a chemical-free residence. “We physicians find it UNCONSCIONABLE that no other solution is proposed to this situation other than medical assistance in dying,” they wrote. The letter was signed by Dr. Lynn Marshall, an environmental physician, Dr. Chantal Perrot, a family physician and MAID provider, Dr. Justine Dembo, a psychiatrist, and Dr. James Whyte, a family doctor and psychotherapist... “It was an easy fix,” said Dr. Riina Bray, a Toronto physician who treats those with environmental sensitivities. “She just needed to be helped to find a suitable place to live, where there wasn't smoke wafting and through the vents.” “If people have to go and kill themselves, that would be a very pathetic thing and it will be heard by the rest of the world because it's not acceptable,” said Bray... MCS is also considered by the Ontario and Canadian Human Rights Commissions to be a disability. However, there is controversy(opens in a new tab) as some researchers think some of the symptoms are linked to anxiety and depression... "This is a concerning case,” said Trudo Lemmens, a professor of health law at the University of Toronto who is studying MAID expansion in Canada. “I think it highlights the concerns some us have had in expanding medically assisted death.”... Since word of Sophia’s death has started filtering out to the community of people with chemical sensitivities, more people with MCS are calling Rohini Peris, inquiring about medically-assisted death for themselves. One woman, who is disabled by MCS and is not able to find appropriate housing like Sophia, she says, is in the midst of a MAID application."
B.C. judge urgently halts assisted death of Alberta woman, day before MAID procedure - "The judge's ruling says the woman appears to have a mental health condition with no physical ailment. The B.C. Supreme Court application for the injunction says that after she was denied medical assistance in dying, or MAID, in her home province, she found Wiebe in Vancouver. It says Wiebe approved MAID on her first meeting with the woman, without consulting the patient's other doctors. Justice Simon R. Coval said on Sunday in his reasons for granting the injunction that it was "clearly a situation of extreme irreparable harm" to both the woman and her partner if the injunction was not granted before she was scheduled to die on Oct. 27... Coval said there is an "arguable case" about whether the MAID criteria were properly applied to the woman. "As I've said, the evidence suggests (her) situation appears to be a mental health condition or illness without a link to any physical condition and it may not only be remediable, but remediable relatively quickly," he said... Wiebe did not try to consult with the woman's treating physicians and "relied solely on the information provided" by the woman. It also says the woman could not find an independent witness for the authorization form, or a second person to authorize MAID so Wiebe provided both... Wiebe was interviewed for a BBC documentary that screened this year, telling an interviewer that she had been involved with more than 400 MAID deaths. She said there were situations "where I find someone not eligible or eligible when another person won't, because of the way our law is written.""
Weird. Euthanasia supporters keep insisting that no one is approved for it based on mental issues, and there're adequate safeguards in place
Apparently there're no issues with MAID approval being so subjective
Assisted death raised with Nova Scotia woman awaiting mastectomy - "Calgary palliative medicine specialist Dr. Leonie Herx said patients have reported feeling “badgered and harassed” to consider MAID... Suffering is “so personal, and it looks different for everybody,” Hendricks said. “If you don’t know the patient very well, if all that you have is a list of their medical issues and their external appearance, how can you, as a physician or a nurse, speak to their experiences and decide in an instant, ‘Oh, they must be suffering so much that maybe we should offer to help them end their lives? “I don’t understand how that could be coming from anywhere but a place of bias.”"
Power relations do not matter when it comes to pushing the left wing agenda
Shawn Whatley: We're way beyond the slippery slope. We need new criteria for MAID - "Dr. John Keown, professor of ethics at Georgetown University, argues Canada is “Skiing down euthanasia’s slippery slope.” We started by allowing voluntary euthanasia for terminal disease in adults and are now considering it for chronic disease and mental health issues, in some cases for children, too. The slippery slope explains many things but leaves out too much. Slopes imply we have similar things along the slope. For example, terminal versus chronic disease, or physical versus mental suffering. In Canada, we are way beyond slippery slopes. MAID is now considered viable treatment for all conditions that cause intolerable suffering, where what is deemed intolerable has no objective contours, only defined by the subjective assessment of a likely vulnerable and distressed patient. Furthermore, the suffering from a disease need not be real — simply the fear of potential suffering warrants consideration for MAID. Instead of patients asking for MAID, as originally imagined, we now have medical regulatory colleges mandating that physicians inform patients about MAID as a treatment option, as in the case from Nova Scotia mentioned above. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario policy on Human Rights in the Provision of Health Services states that: “Physicians must provide patients with accurate, complete and unbiased information about all available and appropriate options to meet their clinical needs or concerns … Physicians must not withhold information about the existence of any relevant service, treatment or procedure because it conflicts with their conscience or religious beliefs.” We have redefined which patients can access MAID, when they can ask for it, and what criteria qualifies them for it. Voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide are no longer patient-driven requests; they flow from regulatory mandates that physicians must mention as available options. The slope does not seem slippery; it seems entirely new."
If you don't tell your patients that they have the option to off themselves, you are a Christofascist and/or far right extremist
MAiD and marginalized people: Coroner’s reports shed light on assisted death in Ontario - "I am not a conscientious objector. I am a psychiatrist and previously chaired my former hospital’s MAiD team. However, I believe we’ve experienced a bait and switch: laws initially intended to compassionately help Canadians avoid suffering a painful death have metastasized into policies facilitating suicides of other Canadians seeking death to escape a painful life. The coroner’s reports show how far over the cliff we’ve fallen with Track 2 MAiD. Many have warned for years that when facilitated suicide is expanded to those with disabilities who have decades left to live, it is impossible to filter out suffering due to poverty, loneliness and other marginalization fueling MAiD requests. The medical disability becomes the foot in the door to open eligibility for MAiD, but social suffering pushes the marginalized through that door to seek state-sponsored death for their life struggles... Policy mistakes can occur, but these marginalized deaths result from wilful avoidance and denial of evidence-based cautions. I have previously written of the lack of safeguards and absence of evidence informing MAiD expansion. Beyond the evidence in the coroner’s report, there are clear signs of this denial:
Leaders of the Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA) supported euthanasia for depression and addictions without once mentioning suicide risks of mental illness or the need for suicide prevention in any of their consultations and testimony that led to Bill C-7’s “sunset clause” for introducing MAiD for mental illness, literally not once mentioning the words suicide, suicidal or any variant in these consultations on death and mental illness (in disclosure, I am a past president and distinguished fellow, but no longer a member, of the CPA);
The federally appointed chair of the MAiD expansion panel charged with recommending safeguards for psychiatric euthanasia recommended no additional legislative safeguards and said the gender gap of twice as many women as men being euthanized for mental illness in Europe “doesn’t concern” her... (It should be noted that there is longstanding evidence of a 2:1 gender gap of more women than men attempting suicide when mentally ill, most of whom do not die by suicide and do not try again.)
Well-funded lobby groups like Dying With Dignity continue to claim that it is a “myth” that “vulnerable populations can be eligible for MAiD if they are suffering from inadequate social supports, including housing,” erasing Canadians who have literally said they chose MAiD precisely for those reasons — their disability made them eligible for MAiD, but it was the lack of social supports that led them to request it;
Groups presenting as experts continue providing false reassurances that their CAMAP (Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers) training guidelines filter out suicidality, despite criticisms their guidelines lack any evidence-based factors distinguishing motivations for expanded MAiD requests from traditional suicide...
Denialism of all sorts is dangerous. Canada’s expanded MAiD policies have fallen prey to a new form of it: suicide denialism. What else can it be called when expansion ideologues repeatedly ignore and deny the fact that some Canadians are getting Track 2 MAiD fuelled not by illness suffering, but by known suicide risk factors of social deprivation? Some expansion advocates have already creatively dismissed concerns about the coroner reports. The head-scratching argument is that since marginalization leads to higher death rates of the marginalized anyway (gently referred to as “decedents”), the fact that Track 2 MAiD is provided to marginalized people at the same or slightly lower rates than their usual high “decedent” rates means MAiD is not a risk to the marginalized. There is even the bold suggestion that “MAiD narrows the gap between privileged and deprived.”... Claiming that state-facilitated death fuelled by social deprivation is acceptable since more marginalized people die from social deprivation and structural inequities anyway is indistinguishable from eugenics. During COVID-19, some suggested our social policies linked to marginalized deaths were enabling “social murder,” a term coined by Friedrich Engels in the 19th century describing working conditions causing premature deaths of English workers. How should we describe Canadian policy providing state facilitated deaths to non-dying marginalized individuals fuelled by social suffering?... No medication comes to market without evidence of safety, yet policymakers have ignored known evidence and have instead expanded MAiD while failing to warn Canadians adequately of the risks of premature death posed by Track 2 MAiD to those suffering from social marginalization."
The "myth" of the slippery slope strikes again
Someone claimed the Christine Gauthier case was "one asshat" who didn't "equate to the whole medical system". So much for that. But there're always new copes
Nova Scotia woman was asked if she knew about assisted dying before mastectomy surgery for breast cancer - "Fifteen months later, before a second mastectomy, “it happened again,” the woman said. Different doctor, same inquiry. “In the list of questions about your life and your past and how are you treating these things was, ‘Hey, (MAID) is a thing that exists,'” she said. “It was upsetting. Not because I thought they were trying to kill me. I was shocked that it happens. I was like, ‘Again? This happened again ?'” The woman, 51, requested anonymity because she lives in a small area with a limited number of doctors. She believes euthanasia was raised as “I was literally on my way into surgery” not because of breast cancer but because of her long history with autoimmune and other disorders that, theoretically, would make her eligible for MAID. Her experience is drawing fresh concerns about doctors in Canada raising euthanasia before their patients do, a practice that is prohibited or strongly discouraged in most jurisdictions in the world with legalized assisted death... Dr. Gus Grant, registrar and chief executive officer of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia, said it was “clearly inappropriate and insensitive” for a doctor to raise MAID as a person is being rolled into a surgical suite. “I can understand why the patient was upset,” Grant said... a group of Christian doctors said the college’s new policy on conscientious objection has sown confusion and that a “strict reading” implies they do have a duty to raise MAID with their patients... Nationally, the organization representing Canada’s MAID assessors and providers argues doctors have a professional obligation to raise MAID as a “clinical care option” if a person might be eligible, provided the intent is not to induce, persuade or convince the person to request an assisted death. But some ethicists have argued people could be unduly influenced to choose to have their lives ended, given the power dynamics of the doctor-patient relationship. Writing on X, Calgary palliative medicine specialist Dr. Leonie Herx said patients have reported feeling “badgered and harassed” to consider MAID... she worries the criteria for those who aren’t dying, whose deaths are not “reasonably foreseeable” are too broad, and that the expanded eligibility hasn’t come with the supports the federal government promised “so that nobody was choosing medically assisted deaths because they did not have the ability to lead a dignified life on subsistence benefits.”"
Weird. We keep being told that no one who isn't dying is eligible for MAID
Soon, MAID will be "basic healthcare" and doctors who refuse to promote it will be stripped of their licence for being religious extremists and/or far right fanatics
Coalition launches Charter challenge to MAID for disabled - "A coalition is challenging a section of Canada’s law on medical assistance in dying, arguing it is discriminatory and is “forcing” some people with disabilities into feeling like death is their only option. The challenge is the latest salvo in a thorny and ongoing debate about the role MAID should have in Canadian society and the limits that lawmakers should place on it... The disabilities groups say they do not oppose MAID at large, but are against the specific track two part of the law because it “singles out” people with disabilities, said Krista Carr, executive vice-president of Inclusion Canada, one of the groups that launched the challenge. The coalition contends the law violates the Charter rights of people with disabilities in two areas — their right to life, liberty and security, as well as their right to equality. In its legal application, the coalition alleges that because track two does not require treatment options to be exhausted before accessing MAID, it may “incentivize death” over other options for people with disabilities. “We have singled out one particular Charter-protected group of people ... and we are saying that we will give you the support you need to die, we will not give you the support you need to live,” said Carr. “It’s a heck of a lot cheaper to give somebody a lethal injection than it is to support them to live.” The coalition behind the Charter challenge includes national disability rights organizations including Inclusion Canada, the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, Indigenous Disability Canada and the Disabled Women’s Network of Canada. It also includes two individual plaintiffs... The coalition says the availability of track two has led to premature deaths and stigmatizes people with disabilities, sending a broader message to society that their lives are “intolerable and not worth living.” Carr said the government should be focused on addressing issues such as social deprivation, poverty and a lack of essential supports, conditions she says leaves people feeling as if they have no choice in determining their fate. “People who are not dead yet are now being put at huge risk and huge harm and huge fear every time they have any kind of encounter with the medical system,” she said. “It’s not a choice. It’s what society is forcing upon people.” Carr highlighted the case of Heather Walkus, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, who has multiple sclerosis and vision loss. She said Walkus has been offered MAID on two different occasions, including once for an injured hip. “It’s much easier to get death right now for people with disabilities than it is to get life,” Carr said... The CEO of the organization Dying with Dignity Canada, Helen Long, said there’s no evidence to support the idea that people are being approved for medically assisted death for the wrong reasons."
Ontario man gets MAID for controversial 'post COVID vaccine syndrome' - "An Ontario man in his late 40s with a history of mental illness died by euthanasia after his assisted death assessors decided that the most reasonable explanation for his physical decline was a post COVID-19 “vaccination syndrome.”... Identified as “Mr. A,” the man experienced “suffering and functional decline” following three vaccinations for SARS-CoV-2. He also suffered from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and personality disorders, and, “while navigating his physical symptoms,” was twice admitted to hospital, once involuntarily, with thoughts of suicide. Article content “Amongst his multiple specialists, no unifying diagnosis was confirmed,” according to the report. However, his MAID assessors “opined that the most reasonable diagnosis for Mr. A’s clinical presentation (severe functional decline) was a post-vaccine syndrome, in keeping with chronic fatigue syndrome.” There were no “pathological findings” at a post-mortem that could identify any underlying physiological diagnosis, though people’s experiences can’t be discounted just because medicine can’t find what’s wrong with them. However, Canada’s assisted dying law requires people to have a grievous and irremediable physical condition. Psychiatric experts raised concerns about whether the man’s mental illnesses would or should have rendered him ineligible for MAID... Another case involved a different man in his late 40s with severe ulcers and multiple mental illnesses, including depression, anxiety, narcissistic personality disorder, bipolar disorder and chronic thoughts of suicide. A year before he died by an assisted death, he attempted suicide by jumping from a height... Dr. Sonu Gaind, who is not a conscientious objector to MAID, said he’s troubled “by almost everything in this report.” “I think we have gone so far over the line with Track 2 that people cannot even see the line that we’ve crossed,” said Gaind, a psychiatrist and professor of medicine at the University of Toronto. “It’s pretty clear that some providers are going up to that line, and maybe beyond it,” Gaind said. “This is actually suicide facilitation in some cases.” In the case of the man whose doctor picked him up, “this poor guy could not get access to medical treatment for his addictions but he could be chauffeured by our medical practitioner to receive death,” Gaind said. “I think there is something deeply wrong with that.”... in a preprint study published last year that had not yet gone through peer-review, 241 adults who responded to an online survey reported ongoing symptoms after a COVID vaccination, such as excessive fatigue, brain fog and pain, numbness and tingling in different parts of the body. Most received mRNA vaccines. Led by doctors at the Yale School of Medicine, the researchers cautioned that vaccines against COVID “have saved many lives,” and that the symptoms could be unrelated to the shots, occurring by chance. However, the clustering of symptoms within the first one to 18 days from vaccination “suggests a potential relationship,” they reported."
Is it more important for the left to defend covid vaccines or euthanasia?
Yuan Yi Zhu on X - "No matter how bad you think the euthanasia stories coming out of Canada are, there's always a worse one."
Rates of medical assistance in dying for non-terminal illness in Ontario higher in poorer neighbourhoods, reports say - The Globe and Mail - "In one case, an Ontario man in his late 40s with debilitating ulcers was granted medical assistance in dying, despite a litany of mental disorders and previous suicide attempts. In another, a woman in her 50s with a history of depression, anxiety and suicidality received MAID in part because she couldn’t find housing that would relieve her suffering from multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome, a rare condition in which pain, fatigue, rashes and other ailments arise from mild exposure to chemicals. In a third, a man in his 40s with inflammatory bowel disease who was socially isolated and addicted to opioids and alcohol was told about MAID during a psychiatric assessment. His family wasn’t consulted beforehand, and the MAID provider drove him to the location where he received an assisted death... rates of medical assistance in dying for non-terminal illness were higher in poorer neighbourhoods"
Assisted dying used by patients as they are poor and lack housing, report reveals - "Assisted dying is used by patients in Canada because they are poor and lack housing, a major report has found. The first official report into assisted dying deaths in Ontario, which has been obtained by the Telegraph, found vulnerable people face “potential coercion” or “undue influence” to seek out the practice. Sixteen experts across medicine, nursing and law identified people whose lives may have been wrongly terminated at the hands of the state, where the action is called Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). It comes after Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP, introduced her private member’s Bill to legalise the practice for terminally ill patients on Wednesday, saying it “contains robust protections”. In one example identified in the report, a MAiD practitioner drove a 40-year-old addict to his death after his psychiatrist suggested assisted dying as an option. Using their own car to drive the patient to an external location to die by assisted dying “may have created pressure, and gave rise to a perception of hastening a person towards death”, the report found. On another occasion, a man in his forties who had been “involuntarily hospitalised” on mental health grounds died by assisted dying after he became convinced he had been injured by the Covid-19 vaccination. A post-mortem later found “no pathological findings”. Elsewhere in the report, one man who had tried to jump to his death the previous year, who presented with stomach ulcers, narcissistic personality disorder and chronic suicidal ideation, was allowed to die. One of the doctors on the committee warned that “the UK should not assume it will manage this better or avoid potential pitfalls”... Dr Ramona Coelho, a family medicine practitioner based in London, Ontario, said: “With the legalisation of MAiD, real lives are at stake and the dangers of a slippery slope are very real.” “When Canada legalised assisted suicide and euthanasia under MAiD in 2016, Canadians believed it was intended to be a rare, last-resort measure, reserved for consenting adults enduring intolerable suffering at the end of life. “However, lobbying efforts have steadily pushed for broader access and eligibility.” In 2021, new laws were introduced permitting non-terminal patients to access assisted dying. Dr Coelho added: “British legislators have to consider how easily assisted dying can be expanded, how easily abuses can go undetected.” The Ontario Committee found evidence of a “doctor shopping for approval” among both terminally ill and non-terminal patients, with nearly 8 per cent of non-terminally ill people who died by assisted dyting having made previous requests for MAiD. It is still illegal under MAiD for doctors to assist death solely because of mental illness, but the review found that this has occurred. It noted that it “could not identify” proper evaluation of suicidal ideation in the reviewed cases, despite guidance advising assessors to do so. Data shows that a disproportionate number of people who died by assisted dying when they were not terminally ill – 29 per cent – came from Ontario’s poorest areas. This is compared to 20 per cent of the province’s general population living in the most deprived communities. The MAiD Death Review Committee member said: “This worrisome finding suggests that MAiD could be the option of least resistance and be used to end lives when social policies have failed them.” A 50-year-old depressed woman, dubbed Ms B, was allowed an assisted death because the state could not find housing that “satisfactorily” addressed the symptoms of her multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome (MCSS) in one case... Evidence also suggested that Canadian patients could be incentivised to refuse medical treatment and make themselves more ill in order to access the practice. Dr Coelho pointed to a case in which a quadriplegic patient was told by one MAiD examiner that the 90-day assessment period prior to his assisted death could be “reduced” if he developed “untreated septicemia”... He said that if Parliament “decided that it should be a terminal ill assisted dying case subject to safeguards, then there would be no question of discrimination of any sort – and it could not be widened by litigation”. Alex Ruck Keene KC, the leading capacity barrister, disagreed and said it would be “quite possible to see how the courts would be willing to entertain discrimination-based challenges to the limits she said will be in the legislation because it will not be a question of whether assisted dying should be legal, which the courts have said is for Parliament, but rather to whom it should be available.”"
Weird. We're told by the euthanasia lobby that there's no evidence of abuse
Yuan Yi Zhu on X - "When I started to write about euthanasia in Canada, the standard response was denial. I was even called a liar in print by The Guardian. Now, the standard response is “why shouldn't people have the right to kill themselves for irritable bowel disease?”"
