Paul Tuns: In August, the Commission on End-of-Life Care in Quebec issued a memo to the province’s physicians who provide so-called medical aid in dying (MAiD) urging doctors to ensure that any euthanasia or assisted-suicides they carry out comply with the law. The memo, penned by the Commission’s president, Dr. Michael Bureau, a supporter of Canada’s liberal euthanasia laws, suggested that there [...]
By Paul Tuns Dr. Joel Zivot, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, testified last month before Canada’s Senate committee hearings on Bill C-7, which, if passed, will expand criteria to make euthanasia more permissive. Zivot testified that an assisted death may be tortuous, not peaceful, explaining that death from the pharmaceutical [...]
By Paul Tuns After nearly two months of debate and hearings, the Senate amended the government’s Bill C-7, which, if passed, will extend euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide to those who are not terminally ill and those suffering psychologically and thus opening the door to euthanasia for mental illness despite the government’s insistence that mental illness is not a reason to access a [...]
Interim Staff On Jan. 18, the Ontario Office of the Chief Coroner released new reported euthanasia and assisted suicide death statistics, showing that there were 1260 assisted deaths from July 1 - Dec. 31 2020, compared to 1127 in the first half of the year. The 2387 reported “Medical Aid in Dying” deaths (MAiD) in 2020, bring the province’s total reported euthanasia [...]
Italian psychiatrist raises doubts about assisted suicide and mental illness Bernardo Carpiniello reports that psychiatrists raise serious clinical concerns in approving euthanasia for mentally ill patients. Bernardo Carpiniello of the Department of Medical Sciences and Public Health-Unit of Psychiatry at the University of Cagliari, Italy, published an article in the Journal of the Italian Society of Psychiatrywarning about the dangers [...]
It is madness, if you will excuse the expression, to extend Canada’s already-permissive euthanasia/assisted suicide regime to the mentally ill. As we have recently reported in these pages, the Trudeau government’s Bill C-7 eliminates what modest restrictions existed in their 2016 euthanasia law, including that death be imminent. While claiming that C-7 does not allow mental illness as a reason to access [...]
Campaign Life Coalition has scrambled to organize a virtual and truly national March for Life the second week of May after city and provincial officials closed down events and venues because of COVID-19, making the annual event in Ottawa an impossibility. Pro-lifers across Canada are asked to tune into the livestream at MarchForLife.ca throughout the week for a number of events. [...]
(medical assistance in dying) This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things, (a) repeal the provision that requires a person’s natural death be reasonably foreseeable in order for them to be eligible for medical assistance in dying; (b) specify that persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness are not eligible for medical assistance in dying; (c) create two sets of [...]
Editor’s Note: The term “euthanasia” in Canada, in its legal voluntary form is called “medical assistance in dying” and became legal along with assisted suicide in June 2016. The term ‘assisted suicide’ means that the individual committing suicide dies by a self-administered drug rather than a doctor-administered lethal injection. “Medical assistance in dying” and “death by legal injection” mean that a doctor [...]
Laying Down the Lawton For a couple of weeks in January, Canadians were invited to share their thoughts on assisted suicide with the federal government. The “online public consultation” confirms what most people already knew – that the federal government would be revisiting the laws around assisted dying. While social conservatives no doubt leapt at the opportunity to get involved, [...]
Campaign Life Coalition did not expect much from Justin Trudeau’s cabinet shuffle considering that Trudeau’s entire Liberal caucus is pro-abortion. But when CLC national president Jeff Gunnarson saw the newly unveiled cabinet Nov. 19, he told The Interimit was worse than expected. Gunnarson said he is concerned with one minister who kept his portfolio and upset that a “rabid pro-abortionist” was moved [...]
Alex Schadenberg The Ontario office of the chief coroner released the updated data for MAiD (euthanasia and assisted-suicide) deaths in Ontario. Its report indicates that between legalization on June 17, 2016 and June 30, 2019, there have been 3,303 euthanasia and assisted-suicide deaths. According to the Ontario data, the number of assisted-deaths have increased each year since legalization. There were [...]
The American Medical Association (AMA) has again rejected physician-assisted suicide by an overwhelming majority. Delegates at the June 8-12 AMA annual meeting in Chicago, voted 392-162 to reaffirm the organization’s existing policy, which states that “Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia are fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.” By [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman On April 20, The Spectator, one of the oldest and most influential weekly, news magazines in Britain, published an intriguing debate on the legalization of euthanasia by two avowed atheists, Sam Leith and Douglas Murray, respectively literary and associate editor for the magazine. In recent years, bills to legalize euthanasia have been repeatedly rejected by the [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman In a remarkable report released in December, the Expert Panel on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) which was convened by the Canadian Council of Academies at the request of the Trudeau government concluded that there is no consensus among academic authorities on the wisdom of amending Canada’s euthanasia law to include MAiD for mature minors, advance directives [...]