Danielle Smith outraged about euthanasia Alberta Premier Danielle Smith appeared on the John Bachman Now Show on Newsmax in January. Toward the end of the interview, Bachman said that the increase in doctor-assisted suicide in Canada was frightening, and asked Smith for her opinion. Smith agreed that “one of the things that the federal government was allowing was a potential for [...]
Alex Schadenberg, Special to The Interim: When a jurisdiction is debating an assisted suicide bill, many organizations and individuals present information about the necessary safeguards that the jurisdiction must implement to “safely” legalize assisted suicide. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition knows that it is not possible to “safely” legalize assisted suicide and once legal the law will inevitably expand. Great Britain is currently debating [...]
Paul Tuns: Toronto Cardinal Francis Leo called out the Trudeau government for “normalizing euthanasia” as he condemned the Health Department’s consultation to expand euthanasia through advance directives. In the Feb. 21 letter to Health Minister Mark Holland, the Cardinal stated, “Your government is normalizing euthanasia – by extension, those experiencing loneliness, isolation and depression associated with their medical condition are increasingly vulnerable [...]
Paul Tuns: The Fifth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying released in December, and updated and clarified last month, revealed that there were 15,343 reported euthanasia deaths representing 4.7% of all deaths in 2023. The report, which must be released annually by Health Canada, showed a steady increase in the number of euthanasia deaths each year, rising from 2838 in 2017, [...]
Interim Staff: The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) launched a petition to British Columbia Health Minister Josie Osborne, Conservative Health Critic Anna Kindy, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC demanding a review of Ellen Wiebe’s euthanasia practice. Wiebe, a former abortionist, was recently prevented by court order by euthanizing an Alberta woman after her common-law husband sued, saying that his [...]
Josie Luetke: Interim writer, Josie Luetke, Talk Turkey Quebec “legalized” euthanasia in 2014, even though the federal prohibition wouldn’t be struck down by the Supreme Court until a year later, and the new parameters for the procedure not passed until a year after that. In 2019, a Quebec Superior Court ruling declared unconstitutional the requirement that one’s natural death be [...]
Mary Zwicker: Arrests have been made and a criminal case opened following the use of a “suicide pod” to end the life of an American woman deep in the Swiss woods. Swiss authorities are considering the possibility of charging the perpetrator with “intentional homicide.” The October Interim reported on the “Sarco” suicide pod and the death of Kate Connelly, a 64-year-old American [...]
Paul Tuns: Rita Marker, who Wesley Smith called “the great anti-euthanasia warrior,” died at the age of 83 on Oct. 30 after a long illness. Marker’s activism against euthanasia began in the mid-1980s after attending an international “right-to-die” convention in Europe. Smith said, “She was so alarmed by what she heard, she and her late husband and soulmate Mike Marker, formed the [...]
Paul Tuns: Diane Coleman, founder of the anti-euthanasia organization Not Dead Yet, died on Nov. 1 at the age of 71. Coleman, who was born with muscular spinal atrophy, a disorder that led her to use a wheelchair by the age of 11 and which doctors predicted would prevent her from reaching adulthood, founded Not Dead Yet in 1996 to show opposition [...]
Paul Tuns: Alexander Raikin published a report in The New Atlantis on Nov. 13, that reveals at least 428 Ontario patients who were killed by the country’s Medical Assistance in Dying regime that did not comply with federal law, or federal or provincial regulations. Raikin begins his report with the stark comment: “For years, there have been clear signals that euthanasia providers [...]
By J.M. Glover British Catholics fight against assisted suicide bill A recent CBC online story has reported that Russian On Oct. 16, British members of Parliament began debating a Labour bill to legalise assisted suicide. Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, released a pastoral letter to Catholics reminding them that “the evidence from every [...]
Meanwhile Dying with Dignity asks courts to extend law to mentally ill Paul Tuns: On Sept. 26, a coalition of disability rights organizations and two individuals filed a Charter challenge with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice opposing Track 2 of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) law, which provides euthanasia to people with a disability who are not terminally ill. The [...]
Paul Tuns: An Ontario coroner’s committee revealed that one in fifty euthanasia deaths in the province violated so-called safeguards to protect vulnerable patients and that they were not offered medical or social supports that may have encouraged people to eschew choosing Medical Assistance in Dying. The MAiD Death Review Committee is a 16-person committee of medical professionals, social workers, ethicists, lawyers, and [...]
Rory Leishman: Thanks to the appalling Medical Assistance in Dying laws mandated by the Supreme Court of Canada and enacted by the Trudeau Liberals and their NDP and Bloc Quebecois allies, Canada now has both the most and the fastest increasing number of euthanasia deaths in the entire world. More Canadians are killed every year by MAID than die of stroke. Yet [...]
Oswald Clark: West Virginia could outlaw euthanasia Voters in ten states will decide the fate of abortion laws after abortion advocates organized to get referenda on the issue on the ballot. The ten states are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, and South Dakota. In Maryland and New York, the legislature voted to put the constitutional amendment on [...]