TORONTO, February 3, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Less than one week after LifeSiteNews.com broke the story on the Trillium Foundation, an Ontario government agency, funding the pro-euthanasia group Dying with Dignity (DWD). The Foundation has launched an investigation into the matter. LifeSite reported last Tuesday that the grant from Trillium to DWD was in the amount of $177,800 over three years to create a pilot counselling program in Toronto.
Kathy St. John, executive director of Dying With Dignity, denied that her group would use the money to counsel suicide, claiming even that “We absolutely do not counsel, aid or abet assisted suicide.” However, Dying with Dignity’s goals are clear from its website where it boasts that it is “a member and active participant in the World Federation of Right to Die Societies.” Moreover, the group also acknowledges that one of its goals is to “build public support for legal change to permit voluntary, physician-assisted dying.” In its press release today, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition states, “Death with Dignity also attends NuTech conferences. NuTech is an organization which promotes the ‘Exit Bag – Suicide Bag’ and develops new methods of euthanasia and assisted suicide, including the ‘Debreather’ and the use of Helium as a suicide agent.” Marilynne Seguin, the Canadian assisted-suicide activist and founder of “Dying With Dignity”, killed herself in 1999 in the presence of a doctor with a lethal drug concoction. Seguin, a nurse, fought for the “right to die” for twenty years. She boasted of having “counseled” over 2000 patients. While she did not admit to actually administering lethal drugs she said that she was present for over 350 suicides or assisted suicides.
See the Dying With Dignity website: www.dyingwithdignity.ca See the Ottawa Citizen coverage: https://canada.com/national/story.asp?id=%7BF0280C9C-CC92-4BB3-AE3B-09E9CC55BDEC%7D