Struggling Canadians need HELP not HOMICIDE

• By Sheila Gunn Reid

PETITION: Help Not Homicide

Being poor, sick, or depressed should not be a death sentence. If you agree, sign this petition.

29,866 signatures
Goal: 40,000 Signatures

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Canadians need help, not homicide. But that’s not what chronically ill, poor, homeless, and mentally struggling Canadians are getting. Many people, in their darkest hours, are told to end their lives for expediency, efficiency, and convenience.

Physician-assisted suicide has received a rebrand. It’s now called MAID, medical assistance in dying. And along with the rebrand came easier access. There have never been fewer barriers to accessing assistance to take your own life with the help of the publicly funded, rationed health-care system. A nurse or a pharmacist can help a “patient” to end their life now in Canada.

Medical homicide is happening for all manner of reasons. It's no longer happening because someone is facing imminent death due to a painful illness.

A 51-year-old woman in Ontario with severe sensitivities to chemicals took her own life with the help of the medical system because she couldn't get better housing.

In Toronto, a 90-year-old woman chose a medically assisted way out because she couldn't face any more time in COVID lockdown in her retirement facility.

A 66-year-old Montreal man chose medically assisted death because he couldn't quickly access home care that would deal with his medical needs.

A. 54-year-old Vancouver woman plagued with debts because of her medical conditions told Chatelaine that a medically assisted death might be her only option.

Another young woman chose medical assistance in death due to chronic illness, diabetes and bulimia, leaving behind a fiancé and young son.

Recently, a veterans' affairs caseworker allegedly admitted to helping Canadian veterans end their lives.

These people need help, not homicide. They need better health care, better home care, and better options. They need to know that their worst day should not be their last day.

But those are just the stories of adults. Sick babies are being killed too.

Doctors are advocating for infanticide on so-called compassionate grounds. Babies born alive are euthanized by doctors or other health-care professionals. Disability should not be a death sentence.

And it’s going to get much worse.

In 2021, MAID deaths accounted for 3.3% of all deaths in Canada. For context, 16,000 people died of or with COVID in that year, while nearly 10,000 asked in writing and received MAID, up 32.4% from the prior year.

This number doesn’t include those who made a verbal request and received MAID; MAID deaths could be higher than COVID ones.

As Amanda Achtman writes, the medical officials are considering tinkering with the stats further. Doctors' associations are considering a policy of NOT putting MAID as an official cause of death on death certificates, instead marking the reason for MAID as the death cause.

To make matters worse, the Liberals have removed the 10-day waiting period between when someone asks for medical assistance in dying and when they receive it.

As of March 2023, mental illness will be included in the criteria for assessing medical assistance in death. It can be accessed by people whose natural death is not in the foreseeable future. You must be in a state of decline that cannot be reversed in ways you find acceptable. Fatality or terminality of a condition is not a requirement.

True North journalist Andrew Lawton described his suicide attempt 12 years ago. He acknowledges that if MAID were around, then he would not be around now, living the life he is.

Being poor, sick, or depressed should not be a death sentence. It should be a reason the community reaches out to help, to lift up, not to harm and exterminate.

If you agree that medical assistance in dying is too easy to get and should not be a euphemism for infanticide, please sign the petition to Justin Trudeau's health minister, Jean Yves Duclos, at HelpNotHomicide.com.