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In a courageous stand for faith, conscience, and dignity of the dying, four orders of Catholic nuns and several Catholic healthcare ministries sued New York on Friday over a new law that forces them to help terminally ill patients kill themselves in violation of their faith. In Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm v. James, Becket is asking a federal court to block the law before it takes effect on August 5, when healthcare providers who refuse to take part in assisted suicide will face crippling fines, professional sanctions, and criminal penalties. For generations, Catholic healthcare ministries have been...

French lawmakers on Wednesday adopted a bill that will create a legal right to assisted dying for adults with incurable illnesses, capping an intense ethical and ​political debate. The legislation will, under strict conditions, allow a person who requests it to receive a lethal substance. The ‌substance could be self-administered or, if the person is physically unable to do so, administered by a doctor or nurse. Access to assisted dying will be restricted to adults who are French citizens or legal residents in France, and who suffer from a serious and incurable illness that is life-threatening and in an advanced...

A London, Ont., doctor who assessed a patient with inflammatory bowel disease and a history of mental health issues for MAID outside a Tim Hortons location and later personally drove the man to the place his life was ended has agreed to a minimum six months’ supervision.

She’s Kathy Kevorkian. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday she’ll sign a controversial doctor-assisted suicide bill – capping a years-long battle over making New York a state that allows terminally ill people to take their own lives. Many religious leaders and disability advocates quickly condemned Hochul’s decision to approve the Medical Aid in Dying Act, while the governor cast it as civil rights issue on par with gay marriage. “The right to spend their final days not hearing the droning hum of hospital machines but instead the laughter of their grandkids echoing in the next room. The right to tell their...

Democrat Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker expanded his state’s culture of death on Friday by signing a bill into law legalizing assisted suicide for terminally ill people. Illinois is now the 12th state, plus Washington, DC, that allows physicians to assist terminally ill people in killing themselves — all in the name of “choice,” compassion, and easing end-of-life suffering. Pritzker signed the bill despite concerns from opponents that such a law could be a slippery slope (look no further than Canada) and could be used to coerce people with disabilities and financial hardships to choose death. […] The bill, called the...

Proposed laws to give terminally ill adults on the Isle of Man the right to choose to end their own lives have been agreed by the Manx parliament. It means the bill can now be sent for Royal Assent, making it the first parliament in the British Isles to take this step. Under the provisions in the Assisted Dying Bill 2023, adults with a prognosis of 12 months or less to live would be given the right to choose to die. Those eligible would have to be over the age of 18, and have lived on the island for five...

The doctor behind the so-called Sarco “death pod” has said he will bring his invention to Britain if assisted dying is made legal. Dr Philip Nitschke, 77, has said he is ready to launch in Britain a 3D-printed portable machine that floods with nitrogen gas at the press of a button, should Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying Bill become law. The Private Member’s Bill is due for its second reading in the House of Commons at the end of next week.

A physically healthy 28-year-old Dutch woman has decided to legally end her life due to her struggles with crippling depression, autism and borderline personality disorder, according to a report. Zoraya ter Beek, who lives in a small village in the Netherlands near the German border, is scheduled to be euthanized in May — despite being in love with her 40-year-old boyfriend and living with two cats. Ter Beek, who once aspired to be a psychiatrist, has been dealing with mental health struggles throughout her life.

A St. Anthony, N.L., mother who claims she was told by a doctor that assisted suicide was an option for her adult daughter says she wants an apology from Labrador-Grenfell Health, in part because the 25-year-old could hear the conversation. Sheila Elson's 25-year-old daughter, Candice Lewis, has several medical conditions, including spina bifida, cerebral palsy and chronic seizure disorder. During a hospital stay in St. Anthony last November, when Lewis was very sick, Elson said a doctor told her that her daughter was dying and that she had the option to end her life...