By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Will Potter reported for the Daily Mail on July 9 that Kelsi Sheren (right), a Canadian military veteran who served in the Afghanistan war, is disgusted with the Canadian government’s attitude to euthanasia including making it available to veterans who are suffering from PTSD. Potter writes:
Army veteran Kelsi Sheren was a fresh-faced 19-year-old when she first set foot on the combat field in Afghanistan. It proved to be a life-altering experience.
Six months later the Canadian artillery gunner was ‘still shaking’ on a military helicopter heading home after witnessing one of her comrades being blown to pieces after he set off an IED in the field as their battalion moved from compound to compound.
‘That was my first exposure to watching someone die. And that was my first exposure to having to clean up what was left of someone,’ Sheren told DailyMail.com.
Sheren said that witnessing that horrific death “broke part of her brain” and when she got home she started therapy for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Potter explains that Sheren has become an outspoken critic of the Canadian government’s relaxed attitude to euthanasia – including its push to make it available to veterans plagued by PTSD. Sheren told Potter:
‘It’s disgusting and it’s unacceptable,’ she said, arguing that authorities would rather euthanize a soldier than foot the bill for their recovery.
Potter then states:
Sheren is enraged by the ‘unacceptable’ and ‘infuriating’ law. She says she personally knows almost a dozen veterans who have been offered euthanasia by authorities, a ‘disgusting’ approach to ‘people who were willing to put their lives on the line… then you have the audacity to tell them it’s better if you just die’.
According to Potter
Canada has the world’s most permissive assisted suicide program. The country is on track to record some 13,500 state-sanctioned suicides in 2022, a 34 percent rise on the 10,064 in 2021, according to Canada’s Euthanasia Prevention Coalition’s analysis of official data.
Canada’s politicians are currently weighing whether to expand access to include children and the mentally ill.
Potter reported that Sheren – whose experience is detailed in her new book, ‘Brass and Unity’, published by Knox Press – has made it her mission to help other veterans.
Editor’s note. This appeared on Mr. Schadenberg’s blog and is reposted with permission.