Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts

Friday, February 23, 2024

Washington Post Opposes the Expansion of Canada's Euthanasia Law

By Lisa Blumberg

The broadening of eligibility under the Canada’s euthanasia law to include people who are deemed to suffer from “untreatable mental illnesses” has been delayed once again. The expansion had been scheduled to take effect in March. According to the New York Times, the postponement occurred because a parliamentary committee concluded that there are not enough doctors, particularly psychiatrists, in the country to assess patients with mental illnesses who want to end their lives and to help them do so. The Canadian Health Minister Mark Holland stated that “the system is not ready, and we need more time.” He did not give any new effective date for the expansion, although a committee member expressed the hope that the delay would be indefinite.

Shortly before the delay was announced but when there were already signs that the Canadian Government was having “second thoughts”, the Editorial  Board of the Washington Post wrote a sharply worded piece opposing voluntary euthanasia for psychiatric survivors in Canada and elsewhere. The importance of a major newspaper taking such a stand cannot be overestimated.

Friday, November 16, 2018

Proposed U.S. Palliative Care Act Is a Potentialy Springing Euthanasia Bill

By MARGARET dORE, Esq., MBA

In 2012, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine noted that many doctors object to physician-assisted suicide.[1] The article's authors, Dr. Lisa Lehmann and Julian Prokopetz, added that assisted deaths need not be physician-assisted.[2] They argued that a central government mechanism should provide the assistance instead:
We envision the development of a central state or federal mechanism to confirm the authenticity and eligibility of patients' requests, dispense medication [the lethal dose], and monitor demand and use.[3]