Free Republic

The BMA’s [British Medical Association’s] new VSED (Voluntary Stop Eating and Drinking) guidance is not a British story. Canada ran this experiment years ago, and we already know how it ends. Every time one of these documents lands, the same thing happens. A medical body publishes something careful and administrative, the language is so smooth you could skate on it, and the people who object are told they’ve misread it. Nobody is being killed. Nobody is being pushed. This is only guidance, only clarification, only doctors being given the information they need to care for their patients well. I have...

Sisters Alicia and Christie Duncan were originally only granted 48 hours notice that their mother was going to be euthanised. It was Sunday, October 24, 2021, when 61-year-old Donna confessed to her family that she had been approved for Canada’s assisted-dying programme, officially known as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). Her death was scheduled for the following Tuesday - expedited due to her having qualified for Canada's streamlined 'Track 1' pathway, reserved for individuals whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable. But Donna was not terminally ill, according to her daughters, who insist she was in the midst of a spiralling...

The doctor who performed the Netherlands’ first case of euthanasia on a child under 12 did so with due care, the supervising committee concluded after investigating. The patient, a child of nearly 2 years who suffered from several severe medical conditions, died at the end of 2025. This child was born very prematurely, at only 26 weeks of gestation. It quickly became apparent that the child had suffered severe brain damage, resulting in severe cerebral palsy and a visual impairment. This was compounded by frequent and severe epileptic seizures, which were largely unresponsive to medication. This left the child restless...

Kiano Vafaeian should be alive. Claire Elyse Brosseau is alive. In Canada, that difference may have less to do with a clear medical standard than with geography. The Canadian pro-euthanasia movement has spent years assuring the public that their Medical Assistance in Dying [MAiD]came with safeguards. Including: two independent assessors and that the person asking for death be facing grievous and irremediable suffering. They promised that mental illness alone was to remain excluded. The promise was simple: vulnerable people would be protected, and despair would not become a channel to death. Then came Kiano. Kiano was born March 14, 1999....

A radical euthanasia activist wants to bring a “death collar” to the UK if it legalizes assisted suicide. Leading pro-life advocates are calling on Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to block Philip Nitschke, the euthanasia campaigner known as “Dr. Death,” from entering Britain to promote a new suicide collar days before a parliamentary vote on assisted suicide. Nitschke plans to demonstrate the Kairos collar at a public event in London on September 5, six days before the House of Commons votes September 11 on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. And he would potentially sell the deadly device if...

In spite of a court injunction barring anyone from speaking on this case, Fahim’s mother is publicly calling for the court to reverse their order on removing hydration and nutrition, immediately return her son back to his home, and drop the “gag” order crushing free speech on this case. She could face being imprisoned for her actions. In an exclusive video, Farah, the young man’s mother publicly shares her heart from the bedside of her son and discusses how his condition has dramatically gotten worse after he was removed from his loving home 16 months ago by the government. Here...

Do not ask me about euthanasia. I am not interested. I was contacted by a woman who called us on behalf of her elderly Aunt who was receiving treatment in a hospital in London Ontario. The Aunt wanted to know if there was anything that could be done to stop the MAiD team from asking her if she wanted MAiD. The woman told me that her Aunt was asked, if she wanted euthanasia twice, in a pretty persuasive manner, and she said NO. The woman told me that her Aunt was very upset because the person in the bed next...

Mr Justice McKendrick has ruled that providing clinically assisted nutrition and hydration to sustain the life of a 28-year-old man suffering from a prolonged disorder of consciousness is contrary to his best interests and should cease. The judgment, released today following a 4-day trial last week, overrules the unanimous view of the young man’s family and all his treating clinicians that the life-sustaining treatment should continue, agreed at a ‘best interests meeting’ in March. The case is subject to draconian reporting restrictions under the so-called Transparency Order, which Mr Justice McKendrick has ordered to remain in force until the death...

Nova Scotia’s only Catholic hospital will lose its religious identity at the end of this month. And with the ditching of its Catholic affiliation, the hospital will begin killing babies in abortions and euthanize patients. The facility was founded by nuns more than a century ago, but St. Martha’s Regional Hospital will become Antigonish Memorial Regional Hospital on October 1 after the Mission Assurance Agreement expires September 30. The Sisters of St. Martha, who founded the hospital in 1906, are withdrawing their name and ending their sponsorship role. Provincial officials say the publicly funded hospital’s services and policies will then...

Mr Justice McKendrick has ruled that providing clinically assisted nutrition and hydration to sustain the life of a 28-year-old man suffering from a prolonged disorder of consciousness is contrary to his best interests and should cease. The judgment, released today following a 4-day trial last week, overrules the unanimous view of the young man’s family and all his treating clinicians that the life-sustaining treatment should continue, agreed at a ‘best interests meeting’ in March. Mr Justice McKendrick has ruled that providing clinically assisted nutrition and hydration to sustain the life of a 28-year-old man suffering from a prolonged disorder of...

Senior Fellow Susan Martinuk argues Canada’s MAiD program has exceeded its ethical limits. With expanding criteria, alarming error rates, and insufficient oversight, she urges a critical reassessment of current policies before further expansion in 2027.Thousands of errors and questionable MAiD cases expose serious cracks in Canada’s safeguards Ten years after Canada legalized medical assistance in dying (MAiD), the safeguards Canadians were promised are looking increasingly shaky. Troubling cases and serious questions about oversight should give Canadians reason to pause before the system is expanded again. Since 2016, there have been more than 100,000 MAiD deaths and Canada has gained an...

Colorado citizens legalized assisted suicide by approving Proposition 106 in 2016 which came into effect in 2017. In 2024, Colorado passed assisted suicide Bill SB 068 expanding their assisted suicide law by: permitting non-physicians to prescribe the assisted suicide poison, reducing the waiting period from 15 days to 48 hours and allowing the 48 hour waiting period to be waived if the presciber believes that the person is imminently dying. The 2025 Colorado assisted suicide report states that: In 2025, 580 patients received prescriptions for aid-in-dying medications under the provisions of the Colorado End-of-Life Options Act. This represents a 12.4%...

A Canadian grandmother was euthanized, despite having reaffirmed her opposition to it two months prior. Now, her family is speaking out. Key Takeaways: * Brigitte "GG" Stegemann had been living in a care home for two years; her granddaughter, also named Brigitte, had legal power of attorney and was routinely contacted for medical decisions. * Five months before her death, Stegemann was diagnosed with untreatable Stage IV stomach cancer. * After three months, Stegemann was asked about Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD), which she said she ardently opposed due to her Christian faith. * Staff reportedly had discussions with her...

In October 2023, Dutch doctor Menno Oosterhoff made a home visit to one of his patients. But unlike most of his work, his purpose that day was not to save a life, it was to end one. His patient was 17-year-old Milou Verhoof, a rape survivor who had endured profound psychological trauma. After years of unsuccessful treatment, she asked to be euthanised, and Mr Oosterhoff was the doctor who carried out her request. Now, years later, Milou's parents and Mr Oosterhoff are facing legal battles after 14 psychiatrists and doctors privately wrote to the Dutch public prosecutor asking to conduct...

A paper published by the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that Canada should take advantage of the bumper crop of corpses produced by its euthanasia policies and begin harvesting them for organs. The organs would be taken from the euthanasia volunteers while they are sedated, but still alive. Canada’s National Post reported on Thursday that the paper has caused a stir in the Canadian bioethics community because the organ-harvesting proposal might turn a horrified public away from Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), the Canadian euthanasia program. But the proposal also follows the logic of euthanasia to its ultimate conclusion,...

I have very bad news for everyone who opposes killing people. France’s National Assembly passed their euthanasia bill by a vote of 291 to 241 on Wednesday, July 15. We reported on June 30 that France’s National Assembly voted to pass the euthanasia bill by a vote of 295 to 232. France’s Senate has defeated the euthanasia bill three times after the previous votes. This final vote will not go to the Senate for a vote as the National Assembly can pass legislation into law even when they are not able to reach agreement with the Senate. The issue might...

This week, the French National Assembly adopted for the third time a bill to legalize a right to “assisted dying” and rejected a conscience clause that would have protected private healthcare institutions from being forced to assist in suicide or euthanasia services. The bill now goes to the Senate, which will likely strike it down once more, before returning to the National Assembly for a final, decisive vote on July 15. Key Takeaways: The National Assembly approved the text twice, in May 2025 and February 2026, but the Senate struck it down. It will now return to the Senate, and...

A child under the age of 12 has died through euthanasia for the first time since the law was changed two years ago. Health minister Sophie Hermans said the case had been reported to the committee that reviews all late-term abortions and medically assisted deaths of children. Hermans revealed the child had died at the end of last year when she presented the committee’s annual report to parliament on Monday. No details about the child’s circumstances, such as their age, gender or their medical condition, were given. The death has also been referred to the public prosecution service, as happens...

When Canada legalized medical assistance in dying (MAID) in 2016, the public debate focused largely on one situation: people facing the end of life and suffering intolerably. For many Canadians, that remains their understanding of the law today. But Canada’s MAID framework has evolved significantly since then. In 2021, Parliament expanded the law through Bill C-7, creating two pathways for assisted death. The first pathway applies to people whose natural death is imminent and expected soon (reasonably foreseeable). The second — known as “Track 2” — allows separate access to MAID for individuals with disabilities who are not dying. This...

They’re rules to literally die from! New York’s health department released rules for the state’s controversial new doctor-assisted suicide law — as critics argue it’ll herald a “new and frightening era” allowing government and corporations to view patients as expendable. The rules aim to set strict standards for how patients “self-administer” suicide medications, including requiring two verbal requests and mandatory waiting period. But the rules and the medical euthanasia wider law – which goes into effect Aug. 5 and likely will be challenged in court – were condemned by New York Archdiocese Archbishop Ronald Hicks as the expression of a...