Euthanasia Watch

Blurb:

I really do try to write about other issues. But the awfulness keeps on coming.

Yesterday, I called attention to the Canadian bioethicist who claimed that lethal jabs are no different than hip replacements. Today, I came across an awful story out of Australia in which Tony Lewis, age 71 and experiencing Motor Neurone Disease — what we call ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease — has asked for euthanasia because he was denied sufficient financial support for his disability. From the Hello Care report:

A Queensland man with Motor Neurone Disease has chosen to access voluntary assisted dying after being denied support through the National Disability Insurance Scheme because of his age, reigniting concerns about Australia’s two-tier approach to disability and aged care.

Tony Lewis is 71. Diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease last year, he falls outside the eligibility criteria for the NDIS, which excludes people diagnosed after the age of 65. Instead, he must rely on the aged care system, where funding levels and response times are widely acknowledged as inadequate for fast progressing neurological conditions.

Blurb:

Over the Christmas break some of you might have heard that on December 30, 2025, Kiano Vafaeian was euthanized in Vancouver after being approved by Dr. Ellen Wiebe, a physician who has ended over 400 lives through Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program.

Kiano suffered from diabetes, had lost vision in his left eye, and struggled with depression. His mother, Margaret Marsilla, had successfully stopped his first assisted suicide attempt back in 2022 through a public petition campaign. But this time, she couldn’t save him.

“No compassion. No protection. No effort to save a life, only to end it,” Marsilla wrote.

Despite Canada’s ban on MAID for mental illness until 2027, Dr. Wiebe did find a loophole in the system. Kiano was approved for death — not treatment, not therapy, not help, but death.

Blurb:

Kiano Vafaeian suffered from diabetes, vision impairment, and mental illness.

A 26-year-old man who sought Canada’s state-assisted suicide program after becoming depressed over losing his eyesight has now died.

Kiano Vafaeian suffered from diabetes, vision impairment, and mental illness. His case gained attention on social media after being highlighted by Billboard Chris, who shared details of Vafaeian’s death and his family’s objections to the process.

Vafaeian’s mother, Maersilla Vafaeian, wrote in a Facebook post that she had previously been able to stop her son from undergoing euthanasia and secure help for him when he was vulnerable.

Blurb:

The New York Times is demanding that the Canadian government advances it’s rapid expansion of “assisted suicide” laws in order to swiftly euthanize a woman suffering from mental health issues.

It comes as Canada’s spiraling assisted-suicide program is once again under international fire after the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities called on the Canadian government to repeal its planned expansion of euthanasia for those suffering solely from mental illness, a policy critics warn will normalize suicide as “healthcare.”

Blurb:

Canada’s government-run euthanasia program increased its death toll again last year, taking more than 16,000 lives, and placing medically assisted suicide as the fourth leading cause of death in the country.

According to an annual report published by the Canadian government, 16,499 people were killed through the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program in 2024, increasing 6.9 percent from the previous year. Close to 75 percent of the 22,535 people who applied for the program were approved.

The report authors stated that the number of deaths is possibly stabilizing, while admitting that “long-term trends” have not yet been identified. Based on 2023 numbers, an estimated 1 in 20 deaths are government-directed.

Blurb:

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday that she will sign dangerous legislation legalizing assisted suicide.

That’s a move pro-life and disability rights advocates warn endangers the state’s most vulnerable citizens, discriminates against the disabled and opens the door to future expansions of state-sanctioned death.

Hochul, a Catholic, said she has reached an agreement with legislative leaders to add supposed “guardrails” to the Medical Aid in Dying Act before signing it into law next year. However pro-life groups warn that such limits have eventually been abused or removed in other states and countries, leading to euthanasia and pressure to die.

Blurb:

The Belga News Agency reported today that The Belgian Advisory Committee on Bioethics released an advisory report that supports euthanasia for people with advanced dementia.

Approval for euthanasia, which is killing a person by lethal poison, has moved from the terminally ill, to the chronically ill, to people with mental illness, to children and newborns and now to the incompetent.

Clearly The Belgian Advisory Committee have bought into a eugenic ideology based on the belief that some human lives are not worth living, and can be killed.

The Belga News Agency reported that:

At present, someone with advanced dementia cannot legally obtain euthanasia in Belgium. The current law requires that a person be mentally competent when requesting euthanasia, or that a prior living will or advance directive has been drawn up that applies when the patient is in a state of irreversible loss of consciousness – a coma.

This means that people with dementia can currently only request euthanasia if they are still sufficiently mentally competent. In 2024, 56 people with dementia in our country received euthanasia.

Blurb:

On December 7, 2024, 28-year-old Ghanian artist Joseph Awuah-Darko made headlines when he announced that his mental illness — what he called treatment-resistant bipolar disorder — had made his life unbearable and that he was planning to be euthanized in the Netherlands. He claimed that it had taken him four years to get approved for euthanasia.

But he wasn’t planning to go out quietly. First, he was planning a project called “The Last Supper,” in which he would sit down with hundreds of strangers for a meal and conversation — all, of course, carefully documented on his social media sites. The press went wild, describing the suicide promo tour as a “deeply personal yet profoundly universal journey” in which Awuah-Darko would “create moments of warmth, understanding, and human connection before his time runs out.”

Of course, Awuah-Darko’s time wasn’t “running out.” He had requested, and then scheduled, suicide-by-doctor. His “Last Supper” project — which seems to be a deliberately blasphemous derivative of the Last Supper of the Lord Jesus Christ before His Crucifixion — was designed to send precisely the sort of message that Dying With Dignity pushes on the public. Death by lethal injection isn’t a terrible thing at all. It simply allows you to factor death into your plans — and while you wait, you can be a “bipolar foodie,” to boot.

Blurb:

A Canadian pro-assisted suicide lobby group that has charity status wants Canada’s euthanasia laws expanded to allow minors to request the grim procedure.

The group, which calls itself Dying with Dignity Canada (DWDC), says Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) laws should be expanded and allow for “mature minors.”

The group claims that it is a “national human-rights charity” to “improve quality of dying, protect end of dying rights, and help people across Canada avoid unwanted suffering.”

DWDC says that MAiD in Canada should also apply to “mature minors” who, it claims, are suffering “grievous and irremediable medical condition.”

“It is unfair to allow a 70-year-old with terminal cancer the choice of a peaceful death but deny a 17-year-old who has been given the same prognosis and demonstrates a clear capacity to make the decision as an adult, the same choice,” the group claims.

Blurb:

“All I can say for now is they are aware of the urgent life-saving need and we had a very positive call,” Beck posted.

Glenn Beck, a prominent conservative commentator as well as founder of The Blaze, has been in contact with a Saskatchewan woman approved for MAID (medical assistance in dying) after he offered to pay for her surgery in the US.

Jolene Van Alstine has a rare thyroid disease (parathyroid hyperplasia) which causes increased blood calcium levels which can lead to abdominal pain and broken bones. She has dealt with depression, nausea and vomiting, according to the Toronto Sun.

She had surgery in 2020 to remove the glands, but as the pain returned shortly thereafter, her husband, Miles Sundeen, believes that some of the gland was left in, and she has been unsuccessful in getting the surgery to remove the remaining parathyroid gland.

Blurb:

Members of the Scottish Parliament, which is the latest Western legislative body to consider expanding assisted suicide, rejected efforts in committee to restrict the practice with young people, disabled people, and others.

Liam McArthur, a member of the body, introduced a bill last year that would “allow terminally ill adults in Scotland, who are eligible, to lawfully request, and be provided with, assistance by health professionals to end their own life.”

The legislation is moving through the committee process.

Some of his colleagues introduced a bill restricting the more shocking cases of assisted suicide, under which patients can legally opt to have a doctor take their lives.

Blurb:

Canada’s healthcare crisis has entered a new and disturbing phase as the Liberal government funnels a billion dollars to fund care in foreign nations while Canadians at home are being euthanized because they cannot get the treatment they need to survive.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s latest move, pledging over a billion Canadian dollars to fund healthcare overseas, has become the tipping point for many who have watched Canada’s single-payer system crumble for years.

The announcement landed as the country continues to face a wave of avoidable deaths, including cases where desperate citizens are offered Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) instead of the care they were promised.

 

Blurb:

Canada’s spiraling euthanasia system is once again under fire as heartbreaking new accounts reveal that a surging number of patients are being forced into “choosing” the government’s “assisted suicide” death program after being denied actual medical care under the nation’s collapsing socialized healthcare model.

An alarming number of Canadians are reporting that they have no other choice but to agree to be euthanized by the government, despite the supposed availability of treatments for their conditions.

As Slay News has previously reported, the government’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program is now saving tens of millions of dollars a year.

In 2024, the government saved over $136 million by euthanizing patients instead of treating them.

Blurb:

Two Democrat Governors—Illinois’ JB Pritzker and New York’s Kathy Hochul—face enormously important decision. Each has a bill on their desk which, if signed, will add to the roster of 11 states which allow assisted suicide.

Hochul has had months to decide—the House and Senate passed the “Medical Aid in Dying Act” in April and June, respectively—and opponents of assisted suicide hope and pray the long delay means that in the end she will veto S.138/A.136.

Proponents have pushed passage for years and years, proving yet again that pro-lifers can never rest.

Blurb:

QUEBEC CITY, Quebec (LifeSiteNews) — The province of Quebec has the highest euthanasia rate in the world.

On October 30, the Quebec 2024–2025 Report of the Commission on End-of-Life Care revealed that deaths by Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) have reached 7.4 percent of the total provincial deaths and have increased 9% since last year.

“The Commission notes that MAiD is in increasing demand and occupies an important place in the public sphere in Quebec,” the report asserts.

“The Commission rigorously and vigilantly fulfills its mandate to ensure that MAiD requirements are properly applied in Quebec and that MAiD is not chosen as a treatment option when other [sic] curative, palliative, or end-of-life care options are unavailable,” it continued.

Despite its promise, the commission reported that 50 percent of the MAiD requests were from those who felt they were a burden to family, friends, or caregivers. Twenty-four percent of those killed cited loneliness and isolation as reasons to end their lives.

Blurb:

After several busy days of Conservative Party conference lobbying politicians and darting between fringe events, I decided to venture down enemy territory lane and attend the Dignity in Dying (DiD) panel fringe event. Contrary to what the media might have you believe, fringe events were packed, people spilling out like sardines into the corridors, and I often found myself turning up a good half-hour early just to secure a standing spot, never mind a seat sandwiched between two delegates.

Upon arrival at the DiD panel, it was the first room I had walked into where the room was full of empty seats.

On the panel sat the Rt. Hon. Kit Malthouse MP, Dr. Neil Shastri-Hurst MP, David Barker (Chief Executive, Willow Burn Hospice) Nick Hoile (Board Member for Dignity in Dying) and Rebecca Gillanders, a volunteer.

Blurb:

The Scottish Parliament has passed a financial resolution to the Scottish assisted suicide Bill that would hand a “blank cheque” to implement assisted suicide, with funding likely to have to be diverted from other services to pay for this.

The Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, at Stage 2 in Holyrood, would legalise assisted suicide for someone who is aged 16 or over, deemed mentally capable, ordinarily resident in Scotland, and terminally ill. There is no prognosis requirement specified.

Due to the likely large expenditure required by the implementation of assisted suicide, the Bill was required to be subject to a financial resolution before it could progress to the next Parliamentary stage.

Blurb:

Acclaimed artist and sculptor Jackie Ferrara has been euthanized despite reportedly being in “good health.”

Ferrara is the latest celebrity to be killed by “assisted suicide,” continuing the disturbing trend of liberal media outlets glamorizing what should be treated as a tragedy, not a fashionable lifestyle choice.

Ferrara was killed via lethal injection on October 22 at age 95.

By all accounts, Ferrara was in “good health.”

She simply decided that she was “ready to go,” and didn’t want to “depend on anybody.”

“I don’t want a housekeeper,” she told The New York Times shortly before her death.

“I never wanted anybody.

“I was married three times.

“That’s enough,” she added.

So far, 90,000 people have taken advantage of Canada’s law MAID, (Medical Assistance in Dying) which legalizes assisted suicide. In 2024, there were 16,500 MAID suicides, which accounted for 5% of total deaths that year.

Canada’s average wait time to see a specialist is now at 27.7 weeks, an all-time high, and this fact alone has led to documented suicides, including from a Winnipeg woman who wrote just before her MAID suicide, “I could have had more time if I had more help.”

Blurb:

Canada has euthanized around 90,000 people since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government legalized so-called “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAID) in 2016, a watchdog has revealed.

The death toll was exposed in shocking new data published by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC).

EPC Executive Director Alex Schadenberg revealed the grim total, citing government data and projected 2025 figures.

“There were around 16,500 Canadian euthanasia deaths in 2024, representing 5% of all deaths,” Schadenberg declared.

Blurb:

The fight against euthanasia reached a new level yesterday, as Fox News published an article that blows the lid off the sinister nature of the industry.

Reporter Asra Nomani has just published an investigative report detailing the predatory-like behavior of what she calls “Assisted Suicide Inc.”

“A Fox Digital investigation reveals … opponents of euthanasia face a multimillion-dollar global lobby that could be called Assisted Suicide Inc., a sprawling network changing laws worldwide, developing euthanasia services for funeral parlors, selling ‘suicide pods,’ promoting ‘suicide tourism’ and even training ‘doulas for death,’” she writes.

Blurb:

Uruguay, once a conservative pillar in Latin America, has crossed a tragic threshold. Its Senate has voted to legalize euthanasia, turning the nation’s medical profession into an instrument of state-sanctioned death. After eight years of debate and multiple legislative battles, the upper house approved the so-called “Dignified Death.” The law allows doctors to end the lives of patients who claim to suffer “unbearable pain” from incurable conditions.

Uruguay has abandoned life.

On October 15, 2025, Uruguay’s Senate voted 20 to 11 to legalize euthanasia. This followed a 64 to 29 vote by the Chamber of Representatives on August 13, 2025. With those two votes, Uruguay’s legislature handed doctors the legal authority to kill. The left-wing government of President Yamandú Orsi celebrates this as a milestone. They cheer it as progress. What they have approved is death, on demand, wrapped in official procedure and sold as compassion.

Supporters call it compassion, but it’s not. It’s surrender. They claim it protects choice, but it erases conscience. By declaring death a form of medical care, Uruguay has chosen elimination over treatment, and despair over dignity. This isn’t progress. It’s a complete moral collapse.

Mom Pretends She’s on Vacation, Her Family Learns Later She Traveled for Assisted Suicide– www.westernjournal.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

An Irish woman told her family that she was going on vacation, but instead she went to Switzerland to die by assisted suicide.

The family of Maureen Slough, 58, of Cavan, Ireland, is now saying that the procedures of the clinic that facilitated her death were not sufficient to allow family members the chance to stop Slough.

Megan Royal explained that her mother said she was off to vacation in Lithuania, according to People. Then the truth emerged.

“A close friend of hers messaged me on the Wednesday night, possibly at like 10 p.m. I was in bed with the baby,” the mother of two said. “He just replied like, ‘Your mom’s in Switzerland.’ He’s like, ‘You have a right to know. I was sworn to secrecy. She’s there and she wants assisted suicide.’ I was so scared in that moment.”

Royal eventually contacted her father, who contacted Slough. Although Slough said she would come home, Royal learned the next day her mother was dead.

“What was worse was not only did I get the text on WhatsApp, they had advised me that her ashes would be posted to me in 6-8 weeks,” she said. “In that very moment, because I was alone, I just sat there with the baby and cried… I just felt like my world ended.”

Pegasos, an assisted dying nonprofit in Liestal, Switzerland, was paid £15,000. The Irish Independent reported that Slough paid out €15,000, which is about £13,000, according to Wise.

Source Link
Excerpt:

The state of Washington has announced it will no longer release data on its assisted suicides, sparking concerns over the resulting risk of abuses that would worsen what is already a gravely immoral practice.

The Washington State Department of Health website has posted a notice on its website stating that “due to funding cuts,” it has halted its so-called “Death with Dignity Program,” meaning that while eligible patients may still commit assisted suicide, reports documenting the practice will no longer be released.

The health agency said it has made the “difficult decision” to discontinue its assisted suicide report so that staff can focus on “prioritiz[ing] patient safety and other critical work,” according to The Telegraph. 

A 2024 annual statistical report will not be released. The most recent available data year is 2023,” states the Washington Health website.

Source Link
Excerpt:

Starmer is taking the UK down a dark path.

The culture of death is taking hold of the United Kingdom.

A mere two days after the UK House of Commons voted to decriminalize late-term abortion ‘up to birth’, the Labour party of failing Prime Minister Keir Starmer has approved a bill legalizing assisted suicide.

Starmer was glad to vote for the bill, and – as proof of just how committed the UK has become to the culture of death – a good deal of Tories (including failed Globalist, former PM Rishi Sunak) and even Reform UK MPs also backed the bill.

The ‘Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill’ was approved in the House of Commons by 314 votes with 291 against, a majority of 23 (down from a majority of 55 in the last reading of the bill).

The Bill now goes to the House of Lords for further scrutiny, and if approved in the upper house it will ‘pave the way for assisted dying services to be introduced by the end of the decade’.

But there’s ongoing pushback from the right-thinking decent folk of Britain.

The Telegraph reported:

“Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, said: ‘This should not be treated as a conscience issue. It is assisting a person to kill themselves. We need political parties and leaders to rise up who will speak clearly on this point and refuse to implement a state suicide service’ […] Ross Hendy, CEO of the charity, CARE, described the result as ‘a blow to human dignity and people whose legitimate fears have been dismissed as irrelevant’.

Source Link
Excerpt:

Illinois Right to Life is celebrating the close of the 2025 legislative session with a significant victory: the defeat of a dangerous Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) bill that would have legalized physician assisted suicide in our state.

The Illinois Legislature attempted multiple strategies to push this bill through, including a legislative sleight of hand: after identical PAS bills stalled in both the House and Senate, proponents amended a food sanitation bill, stripping its original content and replacing it with PAS language. The maneuver allowed the bill to reach the House floor, where it passed. However, the Senate did not vote to concur with the amended language—effectively killing the bill for now.

“This is a critical win for Illinois’ most vulnerable citizens,” said Mary Kate Zander, President of Illinois Right to Life. “Our lawmakers heard from thousands of Illinoisans who refused to allow death to become a state-sanctioned ‘treatment.’ We are grateful to our coalition partners, and most of all, to the countless constituents who made their voices heard. We give glory to God.”

Source Link
Excerpt:

Key takeaways

  • Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo says he would not sign a bill legalizing assisted suicide because it is “unnecessary” due to palliative care expansion and improvements in pain management.
  • The bill’s sponsor has attempted multiple times to pass the bill and vowed to continue trying.
  • Eleven states plus Washington, D.C., have legalized assisted suicide, with Delaware the most recent.

The details

Assembly Bill 346 would have legalized physician-assisted suicide in the state for terminally-ill adults age 18 and over.

Lombardo, a Republican, has vetoed assisted suicide legislation in the past; in April, he released a statement saying he would do so again. Lombardo cited advancements in palliative care as a reason why he is against assisted suicide.

Source Link
Excerpt:

With the help of pro-life advocates, a bill to legalize assisted suicide in Nevada was defeated May 16 when it did was not advanced by a state senate committee.

This is the fifth time that such legislation has failed to pass in the state,

Republican Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo had previously stated that he would veto any assisted suicide legislation if it passed the senate, according to Breitbart. Lombardo vetoed a similar proposal in 2023.

Assembly Bill 346 would have allowed adults with a prognosis of six months or less to live to end their lives with a prescription from a doctor or nurse practitioner. The bill also stipulated that the adults must be “mentally capable” to make the decision.

 

Source Link
Excerpt:

The coroner’s inquest into the euthanasia death of Normand Meunier continued last week in Saint-Jérôme, Québec.

The inquest examined how Meunier acquired the horrific bedsore that resulted in Meunier dying by euthanasia (Medical Assistance In Dying—MAID).

Coroner’s inquest into Québec euthanasia death of man with a bed sore.

On May 13, Leora Schertzer reported for the Montreal Gazette that:

Geneviève Paradis, a nurse who cared for Normand Meunier during his time in the ICU, testified Monday that she did not check Meunier’s bedsores, noting that the hospital was short staffed. Another nurse, Rachel Lanthier, testified she thought one bedsore was significant, but did not see any records of it in Meunier’s hospital file to make a comparison and track the wound’s growth.

Source Link
Excerpt:

Delaware Governor Matt Meyer, a Democrat, signed House Bill 140 into law on Tuesday.

The new law, deceptively named “The Ron Silverio/Heather Block End of Life Options Law,” opens the floodgates for state-sanctioned euthanasia by allowing terminally ill adults to request and self-administer life-ending medication — with full government and medical backing.

This radical measure was championed by far-left Democrats Rep. Paul Baumbach, Rep. David Bentz, Rep. Eric Morrison, and Sen. Bryan Townsend.

Under the new law, once a mentally competent individual is diagnosed with a terminal illness and deemed to have six months or less to live, doctors and advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) are empowered to prescribe death-inducing drugs.

According to Delaware Public, the end-of-life medication may only be prescribed to a terminally ill patient after they make two verbal requests and one written request themselves — a legal guardian or healthcare surrogate is not permitted to make the request on their behalf.