This article was published by OneNewsNow on September 25, 2015. by Alex SchadenbergA Canadian province is getting tough with medical personnel who are opposed to doctor-assisted suicide. Continue reading

By Alex SchadenbergExecutive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition According to an article written by Sharon Kirkey and published by newspapers affiliated with the National Post, the Québec government will distribute euthanasia kits with step by step instructions for killing patients. The Québec government is following a similar protocol to the Netherlands euthanasia law.After several years of language games, it is clear that the Québec government has given physicians the right, in law, to kill their patients by lethal injection. The article states: Continue reading

By Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick OBE, is the director of Hope Ireland. (First published on Alex Schadenberg's Blog) February 6, 2015 was a disastrous day for Canadians with disabilities - not just for them - but for all disabled people everywhere, and all people made vulnerable by the fact that they are facing end-of-life decisions.The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) judgement writes euthanasia into law on the grounds of disability alone. That is archetypal disability discrimination - in this case, to death. Continue reading

This article was published in the Winnipeg Free Press on February 24, 2015 and reposted from Alex Schadenberg's blog Dr Harvey Max Chochinov holds the Canada Research Chair in Palliative Care.A few days after the Supreme Court of Canada overturned the prohibition against doctor-assisted suicide, I received a note from a wonderful colleague of mine saying that her closest friend's 53-year-old son had just died of spinal cancer. Two weeks before his death, he had visited his doctor, experiencing "terrible pain." Despite his anguish, his physician refused to give him morphine, claiming that because he was a smoker he was "more likely to become addicted." Continue reading

First published on CANADIAN CATHOLIC NEWSFebruary 25, 2015 OTTAWA - McGill University ethicist Margaret Somerville has called for a Royal Commission on "physician-assisted death" as well as for the federal government to invoke the notwithstanding clause to trump the Supreme Court's recent ruling on the matter.In a Feb. 19 letter to Justice Minister Peter MacKay, the founding director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and the Law wrote him of the "gravity" Canada faces as a result of the Carter decision that struck down Canada's laws against physician-assisted suicide. Continue reading

Article first pubnlished in SPIKED ONLINE on the 19th fo FebruaryUsing the language of freedom to justify on-demand death is Orwellian and dangerous. When parliament is paralysed, the courts must act.' So said lawyer Joseph Arvay, representing the appellants in a case about the legal status of assisted suicide, at the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) last October. The SCC now apparently agrees; last week it struck down the ban on assisted suicide and gave the government 12 months to draft a replacement law.The decision, made in relation to the Carter vs Canada case, was unanimous. This is surprising given the contested nature of this issue in Canada. The previous landmark ruling, in the 1993 Rodriguez vs British Columbia case, was split 5-4 against upholding motor-neurone-disease sufferer Sue Rodriguez's right to be assisted to die. Continue reading

By Dr. Kevin Fitzpatrick (OBE). Article first appeared on Alex Schadenbergs Blog. The Supreme Court of Canada judgment confirms what people with disabilities have always known - assisted suicide and euthanasia (AS/E) are fundamentally rooted in the most heinous discrimination against disabled people - discrimination to death.The assisted suicide lobby in the UK, as in Canada today, has scorned this idea, without rationale. There are terrible purposes at work. The press to legalise assisted death only thinly veils the view that the lives of people with disabilities are not worth living. Continue reading

This opinion article by Peter Stockland first appeared in the Calgary Herald and looks at the significant problems with e Canadian Supreme Court's recent decision. The belief has grown since last Friday's Supreme Court of Canada decision that we will have legalized doctor-assisted suicide by next year.It's a terribly mistaken assumption. We might have doctor-assisted suicide. We might just as easily have doctor, lawyer and local Hell's Angel chieftain assisted suicide. Continue reading

This article was published in the National Post on February 7, 2015. By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention CoalitionThe Supreme Court of Canada has made an activist decision by giving physicians the right in law to cause the death of people by euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Court has made an irresponsible decision, what is more, by using imprecise and subjective language, leaving many issues to be determined by Parliament without objective criteria the decision sets a dangerous precedent that, if unchecked, will lead to the sort of abuses that are now common in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland. Continue reading

"Whatever proportions these crimes finally assumed, it became evident to all who investigated them that they had started from small beginnings. The beginnings at first were merely a subtle shift in emphasis in basic attitude, basic in the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing as a life not worthy to be lived." (Dr. Leo Alexander, medical advisor at the Nuremburg trials NEJM July 1949) Friday 6th February, Ottawa Canada. The full bench of the Supreme Court of Canada, in the long running case of Carter vs Canada, returned a unanimous decision on appeal that strikes at the heart of the fundamental protections of life, particularly for people in the community whom, for whatever reason are already socially devalued.The Court has directed the Ottawa Government to deal with their judgement by way of legislation within 12 months.Head of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, Alex Schadenberg said today that, 'The Supreme Court is naïve to think that assisted suicide will not be abused, when abuse already occurs.' Continue reading