(LifeSiteNews) – A health authority in British Columbia has been actively promoting euthanasia via a slideshow it has allegedly been emailing to healthy seniors’ groups, according to a recent report.
The PowerPoint slideshow was alleged to be from Fraser Health Authority, which is a large healthcare region in a suburban area of the Vancouver area. It was obtained by Will Potter of the Daily Mail, who detailed it in a report published July 1.
The disturbing images actively promote euthanasia in a package of information for seniors regarding their pension packages.
Included in the slideshow was text on “expressions of wanting to die,” saying that it could be used to “promote a sense of control” as well as talk of being able to die by euthanasia in only a “day.”
British Columbia has seen a 24% increase in medical assistance in dying (MAiD). In total, some 2,515 people died from MAiD in 2022 alone in British Columbia.
The email to seniors, Potter noted, showed a “track system” that spells out the options for MAiD, those being when death is “reasonably foreseeable” or when it is “not reasonably foreseeable.”
LifeSiteNews contacted Fraser Health concerning the pro-MAiD email but has not received a reply.
Fraser Health has a history of going after pro-life hospice societies, as noted from a recent incident.
On March 29, 2021, the Delta Hospice Society (DHS) was evicted from its two buildings after 35 years when Fraser Health Authority canceled a lease with the pro-life group over its refusal to allow euthanasia at its palliative care facility.
Both the Irene Thomas Hospice and the Supportive Care Centre were taken by the Fraser Health Authority without compensation for DHS’s assets, which had an estimated value of $9 million.
As it stands, the DHS is operating out of a small office. It still has a store, The Hospice Cottage Charity Shoppe, which now serves as its main source of revenue.
DHS president Angelina Ireland recently warned, in speaking with LifeSiteNews, that pro-euthanasia lobbying groups are coming “after Catholics.”
Indeed, earlier in the week, LifeSiteNews reported on how a pro-death group is pressuring British Columbia’s government to mandate that Catholic hospitals in the province offer euthanasia as an option to patients who ask for it.
Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC), in comments to LifeSiteNews said that for pro-euthanasia groups such as Dying With Dignity Canada “there will never be enough killing.”
In a recent blog post, hr documented how Fraser Health in 2019 helped Alan Nichols die by MAiD because he was depressed and suicidal.
“Instead of being treated for suicidal ideation, as he had received in previous experiences with suicidal ideation, but rather he was approved for and died by euthanasia, even though his family begged the doctors who approved his death to reassess him,” Schadenberg said.
The EPC has launched a petition to British Columbia Health Minister Adrian Dix, calling for him to oppose mandating Catholic hospitals to provide MAiD.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government legalized euthanasia in 2016, and since then deaths have skyrocketed under its MAiD program. There has also been a continued push to further expand who can qualify for state-sanctioned death.
The allowance of MAiD for those suffering solely from mental illness came in 2021 with Bill C-7, which also allowed the chronically ill – not just the terminally ill – to qualify for doctor-assisted death.
The mental illness expansion was originally set to take effect in March. However, after massive pushback from pro-life groups, conservative politicians and others, the Liberals under Trudeau delayed the introduction of the full effect of Bill C-7 until 2024 via Bill C-39, which became law on March 9.
In 2024, unless a new Conservative federal government gets elected, MAiD laws will expand to those who have a mental illness.
The Conservative Party under leader Pierre Poilievre is against expanding MAiD laws but has not said if it would repeal all euthanasia laws.