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Roger Foley

Help protect Roger Foley from euthanasia: LifeFunder

(LifeSiteNews) — Over the past several years, many pro-life Canadians have looked at the steady stream of horror stories emerging out of Canada’s euthanasia regime and asked: What can I do to help?  

It is a good question. It often seems as if there is nothing we can do to address the despair, pain, and financial hardship driving people to euthanasia – and nothing we can do to fix a system in which the most vulnerable Canadians are frequently offered a lethal injection rather than the help they so desperately want. 

Now, however, there is a unique opportunity to help one Canadian with disabilities who has been fighting for his life for years – despite being offered euthanasia multiple times, even when he confessed to feeling suicidal. Roger Foley, who suffers from an incurable neurological disease, was first offered euthanasia in November 2016. By January 2018, he said, it had become “a recurring pattern.”  

In March of 2018, he filed a lawsuit in a bid to get the healthcare he needs. That case has been ongoing for six years. Roger Foley is seeking to secure the full, direct-funding home care he needs to live at home on a permanent basis – and to hold the healthcare system accountable.  

A LifeFunder has been started to assist Roger, with a fundraising goal of $10,000. Any donation to Roger’s case would go towards fighting Canada’s euthanasia regime—and affirming that his life has as much value as that of every other Canadian.  

“They are trying to take my life away from me by a so-called ‘medically-assisted death,’ referred to as MAiD,” Foley said. “I have been dehumanized, threatened, attacked, and abused, and my life has been completely devalued just because I am a person with disabilities. There’s a constant reminder of it, I would say it’s a harassment, and they don’t see it as coercion, they see it as informing, but it’s a real blurry area right now in Canada.” 

The persistent suggestions from healthcare workers, Foley told me, makes him feel as if he is hanging from a cliff by his fingers – and those who are supposed to be helping him are instead stepping on his hands. “Words can’t describe how pillaged I feel and how scared I feel,” he said. “The suicide prevention in this country for disabled and vulnerable people has been completely obliterated due to the assisted dying regime. It’s very traumatizing when [euthanasia is] offered, especially so bluntly and also in combination with being blocked with the supports that you need to live as well.” 

Like so many other vulnerable Canadians, Roger Foley believes he is being pushed towards euthanasia – but he is determined to fight on, which is why he launched his lawsuit. “I just decided that I’m gonna continue fighting for my life and that my life still has value, even though I’ve been told to my face it doesn’t.”  

Roger Foley is no longer simply fighting for himself – he believes that his case is important because it is a microcosm of what is occurring throughout the Canadian healthcare system. Indeed, his story has attracted international interest because he is both a courageous and an articulate advocate for himself. Although he frequently cannot get out of bed, he is very capable of detailing, in clear terms, what is being done to him, why it is wrong, and what he needs. He believes that his fight for his own life is actually a fight for the lives of many just like him. 

I believe Roger Foley is right, and I commend his case to all people of goodwill. If you can give, please consider doing so.  

Help protect Roger Foley from euthanasia: LifeFunder

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Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National Post, National Review, First Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton Spectator, Reformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.

His insights have been featured on CTV, Global News, and the CBC, as well as over twenty radio stations. He regularly speaks on a variety of social issues at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

He is the author of The Culture War, Seeing is Believing: Why Our Culture Must Face the Victims of Abortion, Patriots: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Pro-Life Movement, Prairie Lion: The Life and Times of Ted Byfield, and co-author of A Guide to Discussing Assisted Suicide with Blaise Alleyne.

Jonathon serves as the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

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