By Wesley J. Smith Euthanasia advocates are so full of it, promising that snuff medicine will only be a last resort when nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering. It’s never been true, to the point that no law in the world requires that everything — or indeed, perhaps anything — be tried to …
Continue reading "Euthanasia Becoming First Resort in Quebec"The Canadian province is accelerating past Belgium By Aubert Martin The law that legalized euthanasia in Quebec – under the euphemism “medical aid in dying” – came into effect exactly two years ago, on December 10, 2015. Many promises preceded its intrusion into our health system: that this would be an exceptional measure for exceptional …
Continue reading "Two years of euthanasia in Quebec: the facts"By Wesley J. SMITH Euthanasia costs lives. Not only do doctors kill people who ask to die–generally without even attempting suicide prevention services–but the ethics-altering values of euthanasia/assisted suicide devalue despairing lives generally. For example, several years ago, a woman named Kerrie Woolterton in the UK swallowed anti-freeze and called an ambulance, the latest of …
Continue reading "Quebec MDs ‘Complete’ Suicides"By Michael Cook Editor’s note. My family and I will be on vacation through August 25. I will occasionally add new items but for the most part we will repost “the best of the best” — the stories our readers have told us they especially liked over the last ten months. The ink was hardly …
Continue reading "A Quebec ‘mercy killing’ prompts a rethink on euthanasia law"From “exceptional cases” to “a response to a need” By Aubert Martin A month after the publication of a letter by the secretary of the College of Physicians of Quebec – in which he expressed his concern about a growing “pressure, demanding a form of death à la carte” and in which he denounced those who …
Continue reading "When ‘safeguards’ become ‘barriers to access’"By Dave Andrusko If there is (and there is) a seamless garment of death, one of the principal knitters is Gaetan Barrette, Quebec’s Health Minister. NRL News Today readers probably recall his role in actively promoting assisted suicide and taking aim at conscience protections for pro-life physicians. Quebec legalized what it euphemistically called “aid in …
Continue reading "Quebec to provide free RU-486 by the end of the fall"By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director – Euthanasia Prevention Coalition The Québec government passed Bill 52 to decriminalize euthanasia two years before the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada’s law against assisted suicide. (The federal government subsequently legalized assisted suicide.) Gaétan Barrette, Québec’s Health Minister, is now considering extending euthanasia to incompetent people with degenerative …
Continue reading "Québec pushes the euthanasia boundaries again"By Xavier Symons New data released on assisted dying in Quebec indicates that requests for euthanasia doubled in the province in the second half of 2016. According to statistics compiled by the Protection of Conscience Project, 441 people in the region requested euthanasia in the second half of 2016, up from 266 in the first …
Continue reading "Almost 450 Quebec patients were euthanized last year"By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition The Québec end-of-life care commission has reported that during the first 7 months under the euthanasia law there were 262 reported euthanasia deaths, a number that is much higher than the expected total of 100 for an entire year. Caroline Plante reported in The Montreal Gazette [http://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/more-seeking-medical-aid-to-die-than-expected-barrette]that …
Continue reading "Under new law Québec euthanasia numbers much higher than expected"By Wesley J. Smith Waiting periods for reflection are supposed to be a “safeguard” against abuse in euthanasia and assisted suicide. That has been exposed as mere veneer as Quebec euthanasia advocates are furious that the province has imposed a 10-day waiting period. From the CBC News story: The federal assisted-dying law requires a 10-day …
Continue reading "Quebec Can’t Kill Them Soon Enough"By Amy Hasbrouck Editor’s note. This story includes quotes and sections translated from an article by Davide Gentile of Radio Canada that appeared in the Huffington Post online on May 4, 2016. It was posted at the website of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. Five months after Québec’s euthanasia law went into effect, about fifty people have …
Continue reading "Québec: 50 euthanasia deaths in 5 months, no new commitment to palliative care"By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director – Euthanasia Prevention Coalition In June 2014, the province of Québec passed Bill 52 and over the next 17 months prepared their nation for doctors having the right to kill their patients. On December 10, 2015, Québec officially sanctioned euthanasia. But it got worse. Now we learn that some Québec …
Continue reading "Has euthanasia changed physician attitudes towards suicide in Québec?"