We all must take a skeptical look and acknowledge the role that money and power play in end-of- life decisions, and how assisted suicide is being used by some health care companies and decision-makers to increase their bottom line by denying treatment.
Continue Reading → The Progressive Case Against Assisted Suicide
Keeping its promise, the Couillard government is starting to cut services. The Agence de la santé et des services sociaux of Montreal will chop $87 million in mental health and in care for the elderly, starting this October. Among other cuts, hundreds of people with intellectual disabilities will lose the meagre compensation they receive.
We recently heard that a disabled man committed suicide rather than having to leave his apartment. A journalist commented that "he decided to end his ...
Continue Reading → Having fewer options to live will entice people to ask to die
A report recently released in the Netherlands states that there was a 15% increase in the number of notifications of euthanasia in that country between 2012 and 2013. The report also tells us that there was a 33% increase in the number of euthanasias done on psychiatric patients (42 cases). The report further states that dementia was the reason behind more than 2% of all euthanasias (97 cases).
The number of reported euthanasias in the Netherlands is growing. In 2003, ...
Continue Reading → Recent euthanasia numbers in the Netherlands
We mourn the death of Yvan Tremblay, a man with disabilities who committed suicide rather than be forced out of his apartment on September 14. Isabelle Maréchal describes the situation well: "He decided to end his life because he could no longer deal with an inhuman system."
For 10 years, he lived in adapted housing. The managers of the building where he was staying expelled him because of new safety regulations imposed by the government. Apparently, he could not stay ...
Continue Reading → The useless death of Yvan Tremblay
A prisoner in Belgium, Frank Van Den Bleeken, has just been granted the right to be euthanized. He is in his 50’s, has been jailed for the last 30 years, and is not terminally ill. He claims “unbearable psychological anguish”. It took three years of legal wrangling to get the courts to grant him the right to access euthanasia. Van Den Bleeken has no prospect of being released because of his violent sexual urges, and there is no ...
Continue Reading → Euthanasia for prisoners