Free Republic

In a chilling display of disregard for the sanctity of life, Switzerland has introduced an ‘assisted suicide pod’, akin to a vending machine. This device allows individuals to end their lives at the mere ‘push of a button’. The portable death ‘pod’ has received approval from the Swiss government and is expected to claim its first victim this year. Florian Willet, CEO of the pro-euthanasia organization The Last Resort, announced this disturbing development during a press conference. Willet confirmed that Switzerland will ‘soon’ begin euthanizing citizens using this macabre machine.According to Willet, there are already people lined up, eagerly waiting...

In a roller coaster ride of votes, the Delaware Senate passed assisted suicide Bill HB 140 on June 25 by an 11 to 10 vote in a second vote on the bill. On June 20 I reported that the Delaware Senate defeated the assisted suicide Bill HB 140 by a 9 to 9 vote. I thanked the many Delaware citizens who worked to defeat the bill. The June 25 vote was based on all 6 Senate republicans voting No along with 4 Senate Democrats. Eleven members of the Delaware Senate voted to legalize medical killing even after an assisted suicide...

Colorado Governor Gary Polis signed Senate Bill 24-068 on June 5 to expand their state assisted suicide law. Nearly every state that has legalized assisted suicide has expanded their law. Senate Bill 24-068 expanded the Colorado assisted suicide law by: allowing advanced practice registered nurses to approve and prescribe lethal poison, reducing the waiting period from 15 days to 7 days, allowing the doctor or advanced practice registered nurse to waive the waiting period if the person is near to death, Adding language specifying that if any end-of-life options conflict with requirements to receive federal money, the conflicting part is...

Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed legislation last week expanding the state’s assisted suicide laws. Senate Bill 24-068 weakens many of the safeguards surrounding assisted death by allowing non-physicians like advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) to evaluate the patient and prescribe assisted suicide drugs. It also reduces the waiting period for assisted suicide from 15 days to seven days and allows the doctor or APRN to waive the waiting period altogether if they believe that the patient is near death. According to Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, many states like Colorado seek to allow APRNs to administer suicide because...

A disabled veteran in Canada has slammed her government for offering to euthanize her when she grew frustrated at delays in having a wheelchair lift installed in her home. Retired Army Corporal Christine Gauthier, a former Paralympian, testified in Parliament on Thursday that a Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) caseworker made the assisted suicide offer. After years of frustrating delays in getting the home lift, Gauthier says the caseworker told her: 'Madam, if you are really so desperate, we can give you medical assistance in dying now.' The worker who made the offer hasn't been named, but they are feared to...

A disabled Canadian man is now celebrating his “deathaversary” after escaping being euthanized by his government over his crushing debts. Amir Farsoud was due to be euthanized by the Canadian government’s “assisted suicide” program because he was struggling to pay off his financial debts. Farsoud said he was booked into to be killed under Canada’s “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAID) law after being faced with the grim choice of death or homelessness. However, just before he was scheduled to be euthanized, people raised enough money to improve his financial situation and he narrowly avoided death. A year and a half...

As I read this article on LifeSite News, I was greatly saddened to see the lack of compassion and the callous regard for human life in the Canadian health system. On March 29, Normand Meunier, a 66-year-old quadriplegic man, was euthanized at home after developing bed sores and a major pressure ulcer on his backside. The ulcer and bed sores, resulting from a lack of specialized care (and a lack of common decency) at the hospital in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, were so severe that muscle and bone were exposed and visible. First off, he was placed on a hospital stretcher for...

On a Thursday in January, Normand Meunier arrived at the hospital in Saint-Jérôme, Que., with a respiratory virus. Weeks later, he would emerge with a severe bedsore that would eventually lead him to seek medical assistance in dying (MAID). Meunier, 66, had been a truck driver before a spinal cord injury in 2022 left his arms and legs paralyzed. Before being admitted to an intensive care bed for his third respiratory virus in three months this winter, Meunier was stuck on a stretcher in the emergency room for four days. His partner, Sylvie Brosseau, says without having access to a...

I have always understood and sympathized with the argument for assisted suicide for people facing terminal disease near the end of life. I think hospice care is the appropriate path, but most people can at least understand the impulse to ease the path for a suffering loved one. But I have also feared that the slippery slope would lead us to this point: assisted suicide for anyone at any time for any reason. And, eventually, outright medical murder, as happens in some Nordic countries where doctors sometimes decide for patients without consent. Canada is at the second stage after legalizing...

'Dignity and right to self-determination' outweigh parent's concerns, judge saysA Calgary judge has issued a ruling that clears the way for a 27-year-old woman to receive medical assistance in dying (MAID) despite her father's attempts through the courts to prevent that from happening. A publication ban protects the identities of the parties and the medical professionals. CBC News will identify the daughter as M.V. and the father as W.V. While Justice Colin Feasby acknowledged the "profound grief" that W.V. would suffer with the death of his child, he ruled the loss of M.V.'s autonomy was more important. "M.V.'s dignity and...

A former Dutch prime minister and his wife have died hand in hand in a rare double euthanasia. Dries van Agt and his wife, Eugenie, were both 93 and were buried together on Thursday. “He died hand in hand with his beloved wife Eugenie van Agt-Krekelberg, the support and anchor with whom he was together for more than 70 years and whom he always continued to refer to as ‘my girl’,” The Rights Forum, a human rights charity he founded, said on Friday. The couple met as students at Nijmegen. The Rights Forum described him as “idiosyncratic” and said that...

Disabled people are “very concerned” that assisted dying is being considered when they are lacking many supports needed to live full lives, an Oireachtas committee has heard. An activist warned the Joint Committee on Assisted Dying that it “could lead to disabled people making choices where, through lack of supports, they begin to view themselves as a ‘burden’”. Peter Kearns is a disabled activist, artist and academic, and the development officer with the Independent Living Movement Ireland. ”Give us a chance to have a bit of a life before the other bit comes upon us,” he appealed to the committee....

Assisted suicide bills have currently been introduced in 10 US states including: Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. We expect several more states to introduce an assisted suicide bill in 2024. Some of the assisted suicide bills are being debated in states that are not likely to legalized assisted suicide, while other states are more concerning. All of these bills should be treated seriously No new state has legalized assisted suicide in the past two years but the assisted suicide lobby remains relectless. The assisted suicide lobby has failed to legalize assisted suicide in...

The vast majority of people living in the Netherlands support expanding assisted suicide for older citizens who are not facing a serious or life-threatening illness.The English-language Dutch news outlet NL Times reported last week that a recent poll conducted by Kieskompas of nearly 200,000 people found that 80% of the Dutch supported enabling elderly people who feel they've reached the end of their lives to obtain assisted suicide. In other words, a supermajority of respondents favor allowing assisted suicide regardless of whether the person requesting it is terminally ill. While a supermajority said they support expanding assisted suicide, 10% of...

Health Canada’s latest findings that assisted suicide made up 4% of all deaths in Canada has raised alarm among various groups and experts who are calling for more comprehensive palliative care options and a reconsideration of expanding eligibility for euthanasia. Health Canada released its fourth annual report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada Wednesday, revealing that assisted suicide accounted for 4.1% of all deaths in the country during the past year, marking a substantial increase from previous years. In 2022, there were 13,241 Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) deaths reported, reflecting a staggering 31.2% growth rate compared to the...

Record numbers of people ended their lives in California last year in America's biggest doctor-assisted suicide program, after lawmakers made it easier for residents to get their hands on lethal drugs. Last year, 1,270 people got fatal prescriptions under the state's End of Life Option Act (ELOA), and 853 people used them to end their lives, the California Department of Public Health said in its annual report. That's a jump from 863 scripts and 522 deaths the previous year. The data come amid growing concerns that California, Oregon, and other US states are liberalizing their assisted-suicide programs too quickly and...

The literal suicide of the West continues apace in Canada.Starting in March 2024, people with mental illness will be able to avail themselves of medically assisted suicide.That represents the latest expansion in the Medical Assistance in Dying, or “MAID,” law that launched in 2016. Some Canadians are getting ready to take advantage of the forthcoming law.On Saturday, Reuters reported how a 47-year-old woman with anorexia will be allowed to kill herself with state assistance next year when the law changes.“Every day is hell,” Lisa Pauli said. “I’m so tired. I’m done. I’ve tried everything. I feel like I’ve lived my...

Canada looks set to face another record-shattering year of euthanasia deaths in 2023 after a reported 35 percent rise to some 13,500 state-sponsored suicides in 2022, an analysis of official data shows. Regional health chiefs won’t release their formal tally for some weeks, but data from Ontario, Alberta, Quebec, and Nova Scotia already show steep rises in euthanasia deaths last year right across Justin Trudeau’s Canada, the Daily Mail reports. The data claim was shared with the outlet.

Boston, Mass., May 3, 2023 / 13:30 pm Republican Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont signed a bill Tuesday allowing non-residents to avail themselves of the state’s assisted suicide law. Vermont legalized assisted suicide in 2013, but with this new law became the first state in the nation to change its legislation to allow the life-ending procedure to those living out of state, according to the Associated Press. Oregon stopped enforcing its residency requirement for assisted suicide in 2022 but has not enshrined that provision in law. Earlier this year Vermont reached a settlement with a Connecticut woman who had sued...

Vermont on Tuesday became the first state in the country to change its medically assisted suicide law to allow terminally ill people from out of state to take advantage of it to end their lives. Republican Gov. Phil Scott signed the bill that removes the residency requirement for the decades-old law. Last year in a court settlement, Oregon agreed to stop enforcing the residency requirement of its law allowing terminally ill people to receive lethal medication. It also agreed to ask the Legislature to remove it from the law. ... Patients routinely travel to other states to utilize the best...