Showing posts with label Alex Schadenberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alex Schadenberg. Show all posts

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Jurisdictions That Legalize Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide Will Regret It. Just Look at Canada.

By Alex Schadenberg 

Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I am just returning from a speaking tour which included meetings with elected representatives in Scotland and the Isle of Man. Both jurisdictions are debating the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide. While in Scotland, a news story was published concerning Keir Starmer, the leader of the UK Labour party, who promised that if elected he would bring forth a bill to legalize assisted dying.

At the same time the French President, Emmanuel Macron, announced that an "assisted dying" bill would be introduced on May 27. As horrific as Canada's experience with euthanasia has been, the terrible euthanasia stories out of Canada is creating a hesitancy in other countries when they debate legalizing poisoning by doctors.

Monday, March 4, 2024

24 Years Ago, Jeanette Hall Had Terminal Cancer and Wanted Assisted Suicide

 By Alex Schadenberg , material contributed by Margaret Dore

I was speaking this weekend in Oregon and Dr Kenneth Stevens gave us an incredible gift by bring Jeanette Hall to the event.

(Picture: Alex Schadenberg, Jeanette Hall, Kenneth Stevens, Wesley Smith)

Oregon's assisted suicide law came into effect in 1998. In 2000, Jeanette Hall had cancer and she was give six to 12 months to live. Jeanette made a settled decision to use Oregon's assisted suicide law in lieu of being treated for cancer. Her doctor, Kenneth Stevens, who opposed assisted suicide, thought that her chances with treatment were good. Over several weeks, he stalled her request for assisted suicide and finally convinced her to be treated for cancer.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

This Is Where the ‘Right to Die’ Leads Us

By Alex Schadenberg*

Spiked published an in-depth article by Lauren Smith on January 15, 2024 titled: "Canada has revealed the horror of assisted dying." Smith tells the stories of the many people who have felt forced into  considering death by euthanasia.

Smith sets the stage for her article by calling Canada's euthanasia law a gruesome, state-sanctioned industry. Smith states:

There is nothing remotely civilized about Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) programme. Assisted dying in Canada was initially considered a last resort for terminally ill patients suffering from incurable pain. But in the space of just a few years, euthanasia has been made available to pretty much anyone who is struggling with an illness or a disability. Even Canadians facing homelessness and poverty are feeling compelled to end their lives, rather than ‘burden’ the authorities.

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Alex Schadenberg: "Canada's Life Expectancy Rate Drops; Euthanasia Is One of the Reasons"

Canada's life expectancy rate has dropped three years in a row from the average Canadian dying at the age of 82.3 years in 2019 to 81.3 years in 2022. Much of the news coverage blaimed the shorter life span on Covid 19 deaths and the Canadian Press reported that:
An increase in deaths among younger people last year was attributable in part to deaths under investigation by a coroner or medical examiner, which typically include suicides, homicides and drug toxicity deaths.
Further to that, the Canadian Press reported:
New Brunswick saw the biggest decline in life expectancy among provinces, dropping more than a year to 79.8 years from 80.9 in 2021, the report said. Saskatchewan's life expectancy has fallen the most over the past three years combined, dropping a full two years to 78.5 in 2022 from 80.5 in 2019. Prince Edward Island was not included in the yearly data breakdowns by province.
Health Columnist Andre Picard was published by the Globe and Mail on December 5 as stating:
A one-year loss in life expectancy may not seem like a big deal, but it is. It’s only the second time this sharp a drop has happened in Canada in the past century. In fact, life expectancy has been climbing steadily for decades: 71 in 1960, 75 in 1980, 79 in 2000, and 82.3 in 2019. Life expectancy is an oft-misunderstood measure. It’s not so much a prediction of how long an individual can expect to live, but rather a crude measure of a country’s health, the only real measure of overall population health we have.
To read Schadenberg's article as originally published, please click here:

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Files Brief to Massachusetts Supreme Court in the Kligler Assisted Suicide Case

Alex Schadenberg, Executive Directive, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, London, Ontario, Canada

In January 2020 the assisted suicide lobby appealed a  Massachusetts Superior court decision which found that there was no right to assisted suicide in Massachusetts. 

Recently the Massachusetts Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and yesterday, EPC-USA submitted a brief in the Massachusetts Supreme Court in this case. 

The case known as Kligler concerns Dr Roger Kligler, who is living with prostate cancer and seeking death by assisted suicide and Dr Alan Schoenberg, who is willing to prescribe lethal drugs for Kligler to die by assisted suicide.  Kligler who claimed to be terminally ill when launching the case in 2016 remains alive today.

Kligler and Schoenberg are arguing that doctors cannot be prosecuted for prescribing lethal drugs for assisted suicide to a competent terminally ill person under the Massachusetts state constitution.

Friday, July 1, 2016

BCCLA Launching Legal Case to Expand Euthanasia "Eligibility"

http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.ca/2016/06/first-legal-case-to-expand-euthanasia.html

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

The BC Civil Liberties Association has wasted no time in launching the first legal challenge to Canada's recently passed euthanasia and assisted suicide law.

Globe and Mail reporter Laura Stone informs us that the BC Civil Liberties Association is launching a court case to "strike down" as unconstitutional the provision in the euthanasia law that states a person's "natural death must be reasonably foreseeable" to qualify for death by lethal injection.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

WE WON!!!!

EUTHANASIA PREVENTION COALITION APPLAUDS RULING OF BC APPEAL COURT ON ASSISTED SUICIDE

Media ReleaseToronto, Thursday October 10, 2013 /CNW/
The BC Court of Appeal has struck down the decision by Justice Smith and upheld the current laws which protect Canadians from euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) intervened in the BC assisted suicide case in order to uphold the principles of Parliamentary sovereignty and basic human rights. EPC is pleased that the Court has followed the lead of Canadian Parliament, the Supreme Court of Canada, and of the majority of Parliaments and Supreme Courts around the world in finding that the prohibitions against assisted suicide represent an important protection against abuse of vulnerable people.
EPC legal counsel Hugh Scher states:
EPC is concerned about the safety, security and equality of people with disabilities and seniors, which is central to the protections set out under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our Criminal Code. 
EPC-BC chair Dr. Will Johnston states:
The debate is over whether what the suicidal person proposes – to kill themselves – is a goal which should be shared and facilitated by the state. I suggest there are alternate goals like the treatment of depression and other symptoms, to which the state should apply itself. When someone has lost hope for the future, finds no meaning in their life, and sees only one solution – death – we recognize a suicidal depression. That bleak tunnel vision should evoke suicide prevention, not euthanasia.
Disability rights advocate Amy Hasbrouck of Toujours Vivant - Not Dead Yet states:
People with disabilities, chronic illness and seniors are negatively affected by assisted suicide and euthanasia because it leads to the impression that our lives are lacking in meaning and value as compared to other Canadians.
EPC Executive Director, Alex Schadenberg states:
The evidence is clear that in jurisdictions where these practices have been legalized, there have been significant abuses of vulnerable people. For example, studies in Belgium demonstrate that 32% of people killed under the Belgian law were killed without consent and without their own request, in breach of a fundamental condition of that law. 
Not one of these doctors has been prosecuted.
In the event today's ruling is appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, EPC will seek to intervene with a view to protecting the dignity and equality of all Canadians, particularly those who are most vulnerable to the risks of abuse from assisted suicide.

Please consider a generous donation to help us cover expenses and to prepare for the next round.  Thank you for your support!  To donate, click here.
For further information, please contact:
Dr. Will Johnston, (Vancouver) EPC-BC Chair: (604) 220-2042 – willjohnston@shaw.ca
Alex Schadenberg, (London) EPC Executive Director: (519) 851-1434 – info@epcc.ca
Amy Hasbrouck, (Montreal) Tourjours Vivant - Not Dead Yet: (450) 921-3057 – info@tv-ndy.ca

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Leblanc Case: A Recipe for Elder Abuse and a Threat to the Individual

Margaret Dore
January 26, 2012

"Those who believe that legal assisted
suicide/euthanasia will assure their
autonomy and choice are naive."

William Reichel, MD
Montreal Gazette,
May 30, 2010[1]

A.  Introduction

Leblanc vs. Attorney General of Canada brings a constitutional challenge to Canada's law prohibiting aiding or abetting a suicide.  Leblance also seeks to 
legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia as a medical treatment.  In 2010, a bill in the Canadian Parliament seeking a similar result was overwhelmingly defeated. 

Legalization of assisted suicide and/or euthanasia under Leblanc will create new paths of elder abuse.  This is contrary to Canadian public policy.  Legalization will also empower the health care system to the detriment of individual patients.

Monday, January 2, 2012

"If euthanasia were legal, the wife, not wanting to die, would still be a victim"

The Danger of Euthanasia
By Alex Schadenberg, Ottawa Citizen January 2, 2012
 
Re: Time to rethink euthanasia, Dec. 29.

Marcel Lavoie implies that legalizing euthanasia would stop violent deaths in the elderly, such as the death of Doreen Flann by stabbing.

In many of these deaths, the perpetrator-husband also kills himself for a murder-suicide.
In Oregon, where assisted-suicide has been legal since 1997, murdersuicide has not been eliminated. Indeed, murder-suicide follows the national pattern.

Moreover, according to Donna Cohen, an expert on murder-suicide, the typical case involves a depressed, controlling husband who shoots his ill wife: "The wife does not want to die and is often shot in her sleep. If she was awake at the time, there are usually signs that she tried to defend herself."

If euthanasia were legal, the wife, not wanting to die, would still be a victim.

Our laws against assisted suicide and euthanasia are in place to protect vulnerable people. Assisted suicide and/or euthanasia should not be legalized in Canada.

[For more indepth information, see Dominique Bourget, MD, Pierre Gagne, MD, Laurie Whitehouse, PhD, "Domestic Homicide and Homicide-Suicide:  The Older Offender," Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, September 2010 (Canadian study);  Don Colburn, "Recent murder-suicides follow the national pattern," The Oregonian, November 17, 2009; and “Murder-suicides in Elderly Rise: Husbands commit most murder-suicides – without wives’ consent” ]

Alex Schadenberg, London
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Thursday, December 29, 2011

"If euthanasia were legal, the wife, not wanting to die, would still be a victim"

Dear Editor:

Marcel Lavoie implies that legalizing euthanasia would stop violent deaths in the elderly, such as the death of Doreen Flann by stabbing at the hands of her husband, Ian. [“Time to rethink euthanasia,” Dec. 29th
]. In many of these deaths, the perpetrator-husband also kills himself for a murder-suicide.   

In Oregon where assisted-suicide has been legal since 1997, murder-suicide has not been eliminated. Indeed, murder-suicide follows “the national pattern.” Moreover, according to Donna Cohen, an expert on murder-suicide, the typical case involves a depressed, controlling husband who shoots his ill wife:
 
“The wife does not want to die and is often shot in her sleep. If she was awake at the time, there are usually signs that she tried to defend herself.”
 
If euthanasia were legal, the wife, not wanting to die, would still be a victim.

Our laws against assisted suicide and euthanasia are in place to protect vulnerable people. Assisted suicide and/or euthanasia should not be legalized in Canada.
 
Link to a Canadian study published in September 2010 - http://www.jaapl.org/content/38/3/305.full
 
[Note to editor: You may be interested in these articles: Don Colburn, "Recent murder-suicides follow the national pattern," The Oregonian, November 17, 2009,  and “Murder-suicides in Elderly Rise: Husbands commit most murder-suicides – without wives’ consent.”
 
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Box 25033
London ON, Canada, N6C 6A8
1-877-439-3348

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Doctor-assisted suicide is dangerous for us all

By Licia Corbella, Calgary Herald
November 19, 2011 

It's been a sickly couple of weeks for life. This past Monday, a B.C. Supreme Court case kicked off in which five people are seeking the right to choose to be killed by a physician. The very next day, the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) released a report that urges the federal government to legalize assisted suicide in Canada. A summary of the End of Life Decision Making report states: "The evidence from years of experience and research where euthanasia and/or assisted suicide are permitted does not support claims that decriminalization will result in vulnerable persons being subjected to abuse or a slippery slope from voluntary to non-voluntary euthanasia."

Wow. The RSC panel members must be really lousy researchers. At the very least, someone should teach them how to use Google. Why? Because on Nov. 9, it was announced that a woman with advanced Alzheimer's disease was euthanized in the Netherlands in March. In Holland, this was not even big news.  The horror stories in the Netherlands, where euthanasia was legalized in April 2002, but where it was practised for years prior to that without censure, go way back and prove that there is not just a slippery slope, but a veritable vertical skating rink. Two comprehensive studies, headed up by the Attorney General of the High Council of the Netherlands - Prof. J. Remmelink - reveal utterly shocking examples of abuse, or rather, murder.The first of these reports was released in September 1991. It found that in 1990 alone:

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The Carter Case and Assisted Suicide: A Recipe for Elder Abuse and a Threat to Individual Rights

For shorter print versions of this article, click here and here.
For talking points, click here.

Will Johnston, MD
Margaret Dore, JD
Alex Schadenberg
November 1, 2011
"Those who believe that legal
assisted suicide . . . will assure their
autonomy and choice are naive."

William Reichel, MD
Montreal Gazette,
May 30, 2010[1]

A.  Introduction

Carter vs. Attorney General of Canada brings a constitutional challenge to Canada's laws prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia.[2]  Carter also seeks to 
legalize these practices as a medical treatment.[3]  Last year, a bill in Parliament seeking a similar result was overwhelmingly defeated.[4] 

This article's focus is physician-assisted suicide.

Legalizing this practice would be a recipe for elder abuse.  Legalization would also empower the Canadian health care system to the detriment of individual patient rights.  There would be other problems.

B.  Parliament Rejected Assisted Suicide

On April 21, 2010, Parliament defeated Bill C-384, which would have legalized physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in Canada.[5]  The vote was 228 to 59.[6]
C.  The Carter Case