Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators urging them to stop expanding assisted suicide
OTTAWA, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) — A number of top pro-life groups, including Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), held a rally on Parliament Hill in Ottawa Tuesday to call for protection of the mentally ill from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s euthanasia regime.
On February 27, CLC joined Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) and Quebec Life Coalition along with other legal and medical experts to demand that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau permanently pause the expansion of MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) to the mentally ill.
“While we accept this delay, the fact is that euthanasia solely on the grounds of mental illness should never have been legally permitted in the first place,” said CLC national president Jeff Gunnarson in a press release. “Those suffering from mental illness need compassionate care, not killing.”
We co-hosted a rally today on Parliament Hill. It was about protecting the mentally ill from MAiD. Thanks to all who participated.
View entire rally with all speakers here: https://t.co/KGmfVzGV8Z@EuthanasiaPC @ARPACanada @CQV_QLC pic.twitter.com/o1jXUU2mj5— Campaign Life Coalition (@CampaignLife) February 28, 2024
“The implementation of euthanasia for the mentally ill must not simply be delayed for three years, it must be entirely stopped,” he added.
During the rally, Dr. Paul Saba urged Canadians to oppose MAiD, arguing “we should be providing better care and not be killing the disabled.”
Similarly, human rights lawyer Garifalia Milousis condemned the MAiD laws, revealing that she was “here today because thankfully in my moment of suffering no one came to me and said ‘maybe assisted suicide is the solution.’”
Milousis warned that if the MAiD laws are expanded, “someone like myself in a moment of deep despair and depression and psychological suffering” would be told there is no hope for them and death is the only solution.
“Instead of us coming alongside those individuals and saying that there is hope; there is meaning, and there is purpose to their lives,” she said “We’re instead going to say ‘maybe depression is right; maybe there isn’t any hope for you anymore.’”
“My hope and prayer is that our government will change course and will hear the voices of Canadian like myself and many others here today who say that we want to live in a world that says even a life with suffering is one worth living,” Milousis declared.
In January, after a lot of pushback from pro-life, medical, and mental health groups as well as most of Canada’s provinces, the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delayed its planned expansion of MAiD to those suffering solely from mental illness from March of this year until 2027.
Shortly after, Liberal Health Minister Mark Holland announced the Trudeau government still intends to expand euthanasia to mentally ill Canadians, despite provincial health ministers requesting the measure be “indefinitely” postponed.
The provision, if and when it is implemented, will relax legislation around so-called MAiD to include those suffering solely from mental illness. This is a result of the 2021 passage of Bill C-7, which allowed the chronically ill – not just the terminally ill – to qualify for so-called doctor-assisted death.
However, many experts have warned against the MAiD expansion, including leading Canadian psychiatrist Dr. K. Sonu Gaind, who testified that the expansion of MAiD “is not so much a slippery slope as a runaway train.”
Similarly, in November, several Canadian psychiatrists warned that the country is “not ready” for the coming expansion of euthanasia to those who are mentally ill. They said that further liberalizing the procedure is not something that “society should be doing” as it could lead to deaths under a “false pretense.”
The expansion of euthanasia to those with mental illness even has the far-left New Democratic Party (NDP) concerned. Dismissing these concerns, a Trudeau Foundation fellow actually said Trudeau’s current euthanasia regime is marked by “privilege,” assuring the Canadian people that most of those being put to death are “white,” “well off,” and “highly educated.”
The most recent reports show that MAiD is the sixth highest cause of death. However, it was not listed as such in Statistics Canada’s top 10 leading causes of death from 2019 to 2022. When asked why MAiD was left off the list, the agency explained that it records the illnesses that led Canadians to choose to end their lives via euthanasia, not the actual cause of death, as the primary cause of death.
According to Health Canada, in 2022, 13,241 Canadians died by MAiD lethal injections. This accounts for 4.1 percent of all deaths in the country for that year, a 31.2 percent increase from 2021.
While the numbers for 2023 have yet to be released, all indications point to a situation even more grim than 2022.
Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators urging them to stop expanding assisted suicide