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MAiD

Disability groups files legal challenge against Canada’s euthanasia regime

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

‘Instead of providing the support and resources we need to live, our government is offering death,’ a coalition of disability advocacy groups said in a press release about its legal challenge to Canada’s euthanasia regime.

A coalition of Canadian disability advocacy groups have banded together to file a “Charter Challenge” against the federal government for allowing the euthanasia of people who are not terminally ill but suffer from chronic illness or disability.

The coalition said its legal challenge, which is before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, “is about protecting the equality and human rights of all people with disabilities in Canada,” as set out in the nation’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“Instead of providing the support and resources we need to live, our government is offering death. It’s unacceptable, and we won’t stand for it,” noted National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) Heather Walkus in a press release for the coalition released on September 27.  

The coalition is made up of the CCD, Inclusion Canada, Indigenous Disability Canada (IDC/BCANDS), DAWN Canada, and two people who were harmed by Canada’s so-called “Track 2 MAiD” allowances. 

The group said it “opposes” Track 2 of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) law, “which provides assisted suicide to people with a disability who are not dying, or whose death is not ‘reasonably foreseeable.’”  

The group is claiming in its court challenge that making MAiD available to people who are not dying but may have a serious medical condition is a violation of their “fundamental rights” to liberty and security of the person.  

According to Inclusion Canada’s Executive Vice-President Krista Carr, people in Canada “are dying” as a consequence of the current law. 

“We are witnessing an alarming trend where people with disabilities are seeking assisted suicide due to social deprivation, poverty, and lack of essential supports,” noted Carr. 

When MAiD was first legalized by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016 it was restricted to those whose death was considered “reasonably foreseeable.” While euthanasia is tantamount to murder and thus gravely immoral even in cases of terminal illness, as taught by the Catholic Church, the law was loosened further in 2021 with the allowance of “Track 2” cases.

In its press release, the coalition noted that “Track 2 MAiD” has resulted in “premature deaths and an increase in discrimination and stigma towards people with disabilities across the country.” 

“While they are not challenging MAiD Track 1 in this case, they recognize that it too can pose significant problems for people with disabilities. Track 2 MAiD has had a direct negative impact on the lives of people with disabilities.” 

The coalition, which supports “Track 1” cases, is “urging the court” to “strike down Track 2 of Canada’s MAiD law, arguing that providing assisted death solely on the basis of disability is unconstitutional.” 

Despite the immorality of euthanasia in general, and the extra threat posed by Canada’s additional allowance of  “Track 2” cases, euthanasia advocates continue to insist the laws be further expanded.

LifeSiteNews recently reported how the Quebec government said it will soon allow early “advance” requests for euthanasia despite it being disallowed by current federal law. If such a practice were allowed, it would mean a person in Quebec could “agree” to be killed at some point in the future, and thus would not have to give consent at the time of their actual death.

Beyond current “Track 2” cases, Trudeau’s Liberal government has even tried to expand euthanasia to those suffering solely from mental illness.

In February, after pushback from pro-life, medical, and mental health groups as well as most of Canada’s provinces, the federal government delayed the mental illness expansion until 2027. 

Overall, the number of Canadians killed by lethal injection under the nation’s MAiD program since 2016 stands at close to 65,000, with an estimated 16,000 deaths in 2023 alone. Many fear that because the official statistics are manipulated the number may be even higher. 

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Yet another struggling soldier says Veteran Affairs Canada offered him euthanasia

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From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

‘It made me wonder, were they really there to help us, or slowly groom us to say ‘here’s a solution, just kill yourself.’

Yet another Canadian combat veteran has come forward to reveal that when he sought help, he was instead offered euthanasia. 

David Baltzer, who served two tours in Afghanistan with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, revealed to the Toronto Sun that he was offered euthanasia on December 23, 2019—making him, as the Sun noted, “among the first Canadian soldiers offered therapeutic suicide by the federal government.”

Baltzer had been having a disagreement with his existing caseworker, when assisted suicide was brought up in in call with a different agent from Veteran Affairs Canada.  

“It made me wonder, were they really there to help us, or slowly groom us to say ‘here’s a solution, just kill yourself,” Baltzer told the Sun.“I was in my lowest down point, it was just before Christmas. He says to me, ‘I would like to make a suggestion for you. Keep an open mind, think about it, you’ve tried all this and nothing seems to be working, but have you thought about medical-assisted suicide?’” 

Baltzer was stunned. “It just seems to me that they just want us to be like ‘f–k this, I give up, this sucks, I’d rather just take my own life,’” he said. “That’s how I honestly felt.” 

Baltzer, who is from St. Catharines, Ontario, joined up at age 17, and moved to Manitoba to join the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, one of Canada’s elite units. He headed to Afghanistan in 2006. The Sun noted that he “was among Canada’s first troops deployed to Afghanistan as part Operation Athena, where he served two tours and saw plenty of combat.” 

“We went out on long-range patrols trying to find the Taliban, and that’s exactly what we did,” Baltzer said. “The best way I can describe it, it was like Black Hawk Down — all of the sudden the s–t hit the fan and I was like ‘wow, we’re fighting, who would have thought? Canada hasn’t fought like this since the Korean War.” 

After returning from Afghanistan, Baltzer says he was offered counselling by Veteran Affairs Canada, but it “was of little help,” and he began to self-medicate for his trauma through substance abuse (he noted that he is, thankfully, doing well today). Baltzer’s story is part of a growing scandal. As the Sun reported:  

A key figure shedding light on the VAC MAID scandal was CAF veteran Mark Meincke, whose trauma-recovery podcast Operation Tango Romeo broke the story. ‘Veterans, especially combat veterans, usually don’t reach out for help until like a year longer than they should’ve,’ Meincke said, telling the Sun he waited over two decades before seeking help. 

‘We’re desperate by the time we put our hands up for help. Offering MAID is like throwing a cinderblock instead of a life preserver.’ Meincke said Baltzer’s story shoots down VAC’s assertions blaming one caseworker for offering MAID to veterans, and suggests the problem is far more serious than some rogue public servant. 

‘It had to have been policy. because it’s just too many people in too many provinces,” Meincke told the Sun. “Every province has service agents from that province.’

Veterans Affairs Canada claimed in 2022 that between four and 20 veterans had been offered assisted suicide; Meincke “personally knows of five, and said the actual number’s likely close to 20.” In a previous investigation, VAC claimed that only one caseworker was responsible—at least for the four confirmed cases—and that the person “was lo longer employed with VAC.” Baltzer says VAC should have military vets as caseworkers, rather than civilians who can’t understand what vets have been through. 

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Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National PostNational ReviewFirst Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton SpectatorReformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.

His insights have been featured on CTV, Global News, and the CBC, as well as over twenty radio stations. He regularly speaks on a variety of social issues at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

He is the author of The Culture WarSeeing is Believing: Why Our Culture Must Face the Victims of AbortionPatriots: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Pro-Life MovementPrairie Lion: The Life and Times of Ted Byfield, and co-author of A Guide to Discussing Assisted Suicide with Blaise Alleyne.

Jonathon serves as the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

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International

New York Times publishes chilling new justification for assisted suicide

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From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

Even happy, healthy lives without major issues can warrant needless ending if they are ‘complete.’

Notorious secular “ethicist” Peter Singer has co-authored an opinion piece in The New York Times positing a chilling new rationale for assisted suicide: the determination that one’s life is simply “complete.”

Princeton psychologist Daniel Kahneman died in March 2024 at age 90. His cause of death was not disclosed at the time, but a year later, The Wall Street Journal revealed that Kahneman had emailed friends the day before to tell them he was traveling to Switzerland to avail himself of the country’s legal physician-assisted suicide.

“I think Danny wanted, above all, to avoid a long decline, to go out on his terms, to own his own death,” WSJ journalist and longtime friend of the deceased Jason Zweig wrote. “Maybe the principles of good decision-making that he had so long espoused — rely on data, don’t trust most intuitions, view the evidence in the broadest possible perspective — had little to do with his decision.”

On April 14, The New York Times published a guest essay by the infamous Singer, a pro-infanticide Princeton bioethics professor, and philosophy professor Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, who shared that they too knew of Kahneman’s plans and that days before he had told them, “I feel I’ve lived my life well, but it’s a feeling. I’m just reasonably happy with what I’ve done. I would say if there is an objective point of view, then I’m totally irrelevant to it. If you look at the universe and the complexity of the universe, what I do with my day cannot be relevant.”

“I have believed since I was a teenager that the miseries and indignities of the last years of life are superfluous, and I am acting on that belief,” Kahneman reportedly said. “I am still active, enjoying many things in life (except the daily news) and will die a happy man. But my kidneys are on their last legs, the frequency of mental lapses is increasing, and I am 90 years old. It is time to go.”

Singer and de Lazari-Radek argued that this was an eminently reasonable conclusion. “(I)f, after careful reflection, you decide that your life is complete and remain firmly of that view for some time, you are the best judge of what is good for you,” they wrote. “This is especially clear in the case of people who are at an age at which they cannot hope for improvement in their quality of life.”

“(I)f we are to live well to the end, we need to be able to freely discuss when a life is complete, without shame or taboo,” the authors added. “Such a discussion may help people to know what they really want. We may regret their decisions, but we should respect their choices and allow them to end their lives with dignity.”

Pro-lifers have long warned that the euthanasia movement devalues life and preys on the ill and distraught by making serious medical issues (even non-terminal ones) into grounds to end one’s life. But Singer and de Lazari-Radek’s essay marks a new extreme beyond that point by asserting that even happy, healthy lives without major issues can warrant needless ending.

“Instead of seeing every human life as having inherent value and dignity, Singer sees life as transactional: something you are allowed to keep by being happy, able-bodied, and productive — and something to be taken away if you are not,” Cassy Cooke wrote at Live Action News.

Support is available to talk those struggling with suicidal thoughts out of ending their lives. The Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988.

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