James Reinl, the social affairs correspondent for the Daily Mail published an exposé on March 19, 2023 concerning the possible expansion of euthanasia to children in Canada. Reinl writes:
When Canada changed its laws in 2016 to permit euthanasia, voters were assured the lethal injections would only be available for seriously ill adults who needed to hasten a looming death and end their suffering.
Much has changed these past seven years.
The government is now weighing whether to extend euthanasia to children and the mentally ill.
Reinl continues:
In another worrying sign, a top medical body in the French-speaking eastern province of Quebec says lethal injections should be made available to seriously ill newborns.
Supporters of assisted suicide say they help some very sick people end their agony. Critics say they are the start of a slippery slope that sees ever-more vulnerable people ending their lives prematurely.
‘Now we’ve legalized euthanasia, everything’s turning upside down,’ Alex Schadenberg, director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, a campaign group, told DailyMail.com.’It used to be seen as a last resort. Now, we think in terms of denying people a service that should be available to them.’
Reinl then asked me about the government funded MAiD activity book for children. I told him that the Children’s MAiD Activity Book is designed to normalize killing. Reinl wrote:
Schadenberg and others were stunned recently by a ‘MAiD Activity Book’ aimed at helping children understand why a relative would choose euthanasia, and how the process works.
Critics point to the innocent, child-like language used in the 26-page government-funded booklet to explain a process that is, for many, macabre.
Reinl describes the MAiD activity book:
A doctor or nurse practitioner uses medicines to stop the person’s body from working,’ says the booklet.
‘When their body stops working, the person dies.’
It describes euthanasia as a last-ditch procedure reserved for consenting adults afflicted with a sickness or disability that ‘hurts their body or their mind so much that it feels too hard to keep living.’
It explains how MAiD drugs make recipients doze off and lapse into a coma before a ‘third medicine … makes the person’s lungs stop breathing and then their heart stops beating.
‘The person does not notice this happening and it does not hurt,’ adds the book, which was written by Ceilidh Eaton Russell, a McMaster University lecturer and an expert on child grief.
‘When their heart and lungs stop working, their body dies. It will not start working again.’
The MAiD activity book was published last year by Canada’s Virtual Hospice and paid for with money from Health Canada. Reinl explains that Canadian politicians are debating the expansion of MAiD to minors, while the euthanasia lobby group, Dying with Dignity, advocate euthanasia for 12 year olds.
Reinl completes his exposé by stating that Quebec physicians want euthanasia of newborns.
That limit is too high for Dr Louis Roy, from the Quebec College of Physicians — he says newborns who enter the world with ‘severe malformations’ or ‘grave and severe syndromes’ should be entitled to a doctor-aided death.
In my interview with Reinl, I provided much more information. It hope that he will continue to investigate how insane Canada’s euthanasia law has become.
By Alex Schadenberg