VAN MAREN: In Canada, the sweet allure of death

Jonathon Van Maren is a communications consultant with The Acacia Group, a legal consultancy providing services to churches, charities, non-profits and religious institutionsWe do not yet have Canada’s 2023 euthanasia numbers, but if recent reporting is any indication, it seems likely that they will be significantly higher than for 2022. Health Canada’s “MAID” report (Medical Aid in Dying is the preferred euphemism for euthanasia) showed a 31.2% rise in euthanasia, with lethal injections accounting for 4.1% of all deaths in 2022. In May of that same year, Health Canada had predicted that it would take until 2033 for euthanasia to reach 4% of total deaths in Canada. We reached that number over a decade early. As Physicians for Life activist Amanda Achtman recently noted, about 77,000 Canadians have been euthanized since 2016, enough people to fill Notre Dame’s football stadium to capacity.We do have some numbers though, and they suggest that assisted suicide continues to be more commonly used. British Columbia released its annual report in July. It shows that in 2023, 2,767 people were euthanized in the province that year. This is a 10% increase over 2022, in which 2,515 people were euthanized in BC. Much of the data is deliberately vague — the reason listed for 230 of these deaths was “chronic pain,” which appears to indicate that these are Canadians with non-fatal conditions that were killed. Diabetes is also listed as a comorbidity for 9.8% of cases. Considering the horror stories that have been reported over the past seven years, we know that many Canadians are opting for a lethal injection due to their inability to get the care they need.We have ample evidence of this from recent reporting alone. On October 17, the Guardian published a report titled “Canadians with nonterminal conditions sought assisted dying for social reasons.” The examples cited included Canadians opting for euthanasia due to a lack of housing; obesity; blindness; social isolation; and mental health conditions. Sonu Gaind, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, expressed alarm at some euthanasia coroner’s reports. Highlighting the example of a man in his 40s who had “previously tried to kill himself and did not have a definitive diagnosis when his euthanasia was approved,” he noted: “What we’re doing is the opposite of suicide prevention.”Indeed, euthanasia is now pro-actively offered and even pushed in Canada throughout the healthcare system. According to an October 16 report from the Associated Press:"When a health worker inquired whether anyone had euthanized patients for blindness, one provider reported four such cases. In one, they said, an elderly man who saw “only shadows” was his wife’s caregiver when he requested euthanasia; he wanted her to die with him. The couple had several appointments with an assessor before the wife “finally agreed” to be killed, the provider said. She died unexpectedly just days before the scheduled euthanasia."Read that carefully: an elderly woman initially resistant to euthanasia was pressured during several appointments before she “finally agreed” to be killed alongside her husband. On October 14, the Telegraph reported the story of a Nova Scotia woman who was about to be get her life-saving mastectomy surgery — and was offered euthanasia by doctors as she was about to be wheeled into the operating room. But, this happened twice. Fifteen months later, when she was prepping for a second mastectomy, a doctor once again reminded her of the availability of euthanasia. “It was upsetting,” she said. “Not because I thought they were trying to kill me. I was shocked that it happens. I was like, ‘Again? This happened again?’”These stories, it must be emphasized, are just a sampling of those that were reported this month. On October 24, the National Post covered the story of an Ontario man in his 40s who was euthanized for side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine. Another man in his 40s was killed because he suffered from “severe ulcers and multiple mental illnesses, including depression, anxiety, narcissistic personality disorder, bipolar disorder and chronic thoughts of suicide.” I could cite hundreds of other stories that have occurred in Canada over the past seven years — I have been reporting them in a range of publications — but those few are microcosmic examples of the tragedy unfolding in this country.Why do these stories matter? They matter because we must shine the harsh light of truth on what Canada is doing to the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society, and refuse to allow these horrors to be disguised in soothing, medical language. And they matter because despite what activists at Dying with Dignity would like us to believe, our euthanasia regime is still very much up for debate. The Conservative Party of Canada has promised to ban euthanasia for mental illness if they form government, and this is an incredibly important law that will save thousands of lives in the short term.Finally, the UK and a number of American states are considering following Canada in legalizing euthanasia — and our grim cautionary tales reveal how essential it is that they do not.Jonathon Van Maren is a communications consultant with The Acacia Group, a legal consultancy providing services to churches, charities, non-profits and religious institutions.

VAN MAREN: In Canada, the sweet allure of death

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