Why Is Canada Euthanizing the Poor? | Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg is the Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition an international organization which he launched over 20 years ago. The EPC, raises awareness around the world for medically assisted suicide and where it can move. Alex is with us today to discuss the work that Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is involved in. On What the Current Laws Allow…. A British researcher published an article entitled “Why is Canada Euthanizing the Poor?”. Essentially what the researcher was doing is looking at some key stories that have happened in Canada over the last few months. So, he was looking at the cases for instance, of the 51-year-old, a woman who had issues related to being able to chemical sensitivities, and this person was living in social housing was poor and unable to live in those conditions and then asked to die by euthanasia. What this person needed was a clean place to live. When you’re in social housing, you’re obviously living with many people who have different issues, such as you might have people who smoke cigarettes, who might like to smoke pot, and if you’ve got chemical sensitivities, you might not be able to even breathe in that condition. So, she needed a place to live. That’s what she needed, instead she died by euthanasia. There were also several cases of people with disabilities who needed a place to live. On the Laws Being Proposed to Amend … Bill C14 and Bill C7. Euthanasia is lethal injection. Now we call it MAID, Medically Assistance in Dying. MAID as a term [but] it’s made up in Canada. It only exists in Canada. And the reason we created this term is to make you feel better about killing. So, people say, oh, it’s not euthanasia, it’s MAID, and that’s a created term. At least the Dutch who have legalized euthanasia, they’re honest when they write about it, they call it euthanasia because that’s what it is. Nonetheless, in 2016, we legalize this and we said it was for people whose natural death was reasonably foreseeable. We created a 10-day waiting period. So first of all, they never defined natural death being reasonably foreseeable. So, what did that actually mean? They said that it was a terminal illness requirement, but if you don’t define it, it really lacks a lot of meaning. LINKS: Why Is Canada Euthanizing the Poor? Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Website The EPC blog