Alex Schadenberg and Barrie deVeber It is with profound sadness that the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and the deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research announce the death of Dr. L.L. “Barrie” deVeber. Dr. deVeber was founding president of both organizations. Barrie was born on Jan. 27, 1929 and died on Feb. 28, 2019. He was married to Iola (2015) and [...]
Dr. Barrie DeVeber honoured Editor’s Note:The December 2012 Interim reported on a Euthanasia Prevention Coalition national convention held Nov. 17, in London, Ont., which included a banquet to honour Barrie deVeber. We reprint excerpts from the article as part of our coverage of deVeber’s passing last month. After the conference, about 100 people attended a banquet honouring Dr. Barrie deVeber, [...]
Barrie deVeber with his wife Iola L.L. (Barrie) deVeber, 1929-2019, MD, professor emeritus in Paediatrics and Oncology at Western University, was one of Canada’s greatest pro-life champions as well as an outstanding medical professor, physician, researcher, and philanthropist. He eminently merited induction as a Companion in the Order of Canada, yet seems never to have been considered for the distinction [...]
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 [...]
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition executive director Alex Schadenberg said three reports do not offer much guidance on the issue of whether to expand euthanasia eligibility. The long-awaited reports from the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) concerning the possible extension of euthanasia to children (mature minors), to incompetent people who made an “advanced request,” and to people for psychological conditions alone was [...]
Hugh Scher said Taquisha McKitty's Charter rights were violated in order to declare her dead. The case concerning a woman who has been declared brain dead by a Brampton hospital is heading to the Ontario court of appeal. The issue at hand is the definition of brain death. Taquisha McKitty, 27, of Brampton, was declared brain dead on Sept. 20, [...]
Often in our culture, assisted-death is considered a caring act that affirms the choice of one who is ill, and that no harm can arise from its legalization. The new documentary Fatal Flaws: Legalizing Assisted Death, by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and DunnMedia, shows that this is not the case as it examines the harms that have arisen through euthanasia and assisted-suicide [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman Less than a year after the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously legalized euthanasia for mentally competent patients in the 2015 Carter ruling, Liberals and New Democrats on the Special Joint Committee of Parliament on Physician-Assisted Dying unanimously recommended that the law on euthanasia should extend to mentally incompetent patients as well. Everyone who supports this so-called progressive reform, should contemplate the [...]
The recent edict by the Fraser Health Authority in British Columbia ordering non-religious healthcare facilities, including hospices, to participate in euthanasia, is an infringement on the conscience rights of the medical staff. I believe that institutional conscience rights are about the rights of the workers within an institution to not participate in acts that they consider wrong. The edict by Fraser Health [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman Following a much-publicized campaign to obtain medical assistance in dying, Aurelia Brouwers, a 29-year-old, Dutch psychiatric patient, killed herself on Jan. 26, by drinking a lethal potion served up by a physician affiliated with a roving Dutch death squad, the Levenseindekliniek (an end-of-life clinic) in The Hague, the Netherlands. Brouwers was not terminally ill. Neither was [...]
A survey of 1,050 pediatricians found that about 11 per cent of them (118) report being approached by children, teens, or their parents about euthanasia or assisted-suicide a total of 409 times. The survey, conducted by the Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program, a joint project of the Canadian Paediatric Society and the Public Health Agency of Canada, found that most conversations were exploratory [...]
The Canadian Medical Health Association released its position paper on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) and it endorsed euthanasia and assisted-suicide as a legitimate medical service while coming out against expanding criteria for the procedure to include those suffering from mental illness. Noting that it released its paper days before World Suicide Prevention Day on Sept. 10, the CMHA said that “people [...]
Lawyer Albertos Polizogopoulos says doctors should not have to choose between their conscience and their practice. Five doctors and three doctors’ groups were in an Ontario court June 13-15 arguing a policy from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) violates their Charter rights to freedom of conscience and religion. The CPSO forces doctors to refer patients for [...]
One year after Canada passed the Medical Aid in Dying Act on June 17, 2016, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition says “Canada has become the prime example of how legalizing assisted dying cannot be controlled and why these laws are naturally expansive.” According to Health Canada’s “Interim update on medical assistance in dying in Canada, June 17 to December 31, 2016, there were [...]
Rory Leishman National Affairs How could the Netherlands, a country which heroically resisted the Nazi euthanasia program during the Second World War, now embrace one of the most extensive regimes of legalized euthanasia in the Western world? Most people in the Netherlands would resent such a question: They insist that there is no moral equivalence between the current Dutch model [...]