Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators urging them to stop expanding assisted suicide

(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show, Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC), returns to discuss the latest efforts to legalize euthanasia for the mentally ill in Canada, how we got here, what a future Conservative government might change, and more.

Jonathon began the episode by asking Schadenberg to update listeners on the latest efforts of Dying With Dignity (DWD), a Canadian pro-euthanasia lobbying group, in the courts to allow the mentally ill to take their own lives.

“They’ve shown how extreme they are,” Schadenberg said. Diving into specifics, he emphasized that the idea of euthanasia for the mentally ill comes from an interpretation of the Canadian Supreme Court’s Carter v. Canada decision, in which the high court established that the law preventing Medical Assistance In Dying (MAiD) was “too overbearing” for those suffering physically or psychologically, which effectively led to the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

“Nonetheless, [the Carter decision] does not say mental illness alone or psychological suffering alone. So, in fact, it’s an interpretation of the Carter decision that’s led to where they’re going now, where they’re saying that, in fact, this is actually a right decided by the Supreme Court of Canada already in Carter,” he said.

Schadenberg backtracked to the 2019 Truchon v. Attorney General of Canada decision, in which the Quebec Superior Court ruled that the “reasonable foreseeability of death” criterion for MAiD was unconstitutional. He noted that in Canada a province court’s rulings only apply to that province, so this ruling only applies to Quebec.

Nonetheless, Schadenberg explained that the ruling led to the passing of Bill C-7 by the Canadian Parliament in 2020, which went further than Truchon and removed the law that one’s death had to be “reasonably foreseeable,” allowing people who were not dying to have euthanasia. It initially did not include euthanasia for mental illness alone but was amended by the Canadian Senate to include it.

“When that went to the Senate, there was a group of senators who said they would not pass C-7 unless it included euthanasia for psychological suffering alone. So now Dying With Dignity is claiming that a certain group of people have not been given their rights in law, and they’ve gone to the court to pressure the government to do so,” Schadenberg said.

Jonathon then asked Schadenberg how we got to the point where MAiD expansion for mental illness looked like a sure thing but then got delayed several consecutive times, most recently to 2027, and if it looked like a dead issue. Schadenberg said it’s not a dead issue because the courts haven’t gone back on it; they’ve only delayed it. He explained that it was only delayed because of the backlash once the amendment was added, which led to people with disabilities and the homeless being euthanized.

“This is where you start getting the stories of people who were homeless, people who were living in poverty, people who really needed help, not death,” Schadenberg said.

“People with mental illness are often homeless; they’re often in a situation where they’re living in poverty, they’re often in a bad place socially, and yet you’re going to allow euthanasia for people with mental illness alone. So it becomes very problematic,” he added.

The pro-life activist also stressed that Canada has very poor psychiatric services, and in many parts of the country citizens have to wait a long time to see a psychiatrist. “And yet, according to the law, you’d be able to die by euthanasia in three months for psychiatric reasons alone. It starts becoming pretty problematic for a government when that happens.”

For more analysis from Jonathon and Alex Schadenberg, tune in to this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show.

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Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators urging them to stop expanding assisted suicide