More women seeking elective, government-assisted suicide than men, as euthanasia in Canada rises 16% in 1 year



More women than men sought out assisted suicide even when their death was deemed not to be reasonably foreseeable, a recent report stated.

A document on government-assisted suicide in Canada has revealed a 15.8% increase in euthanasia, year over year.

Medical Assistance in Dying, known as MAID, has become one of the leading causes of death in Canada since being legalized in 2016.

'It is not yet possible to make reliable conclusions.'

The federal government of Canada has since announced that in 2023, there were a total of 15,343 people who were killed by the state. Additionally, over 2,900 people died before they received the government service, while 915 requests were deemed ineligible, and nearly 500 people withdrew their request during processing.

This near-16% increase showed a decline from the 31% growth the program had seen between 2019 and 2022. However, the government document admitted, "It is not yet possible to make reliable conclusions about whether or not these findings represent a stabilization of growth rates over the longer term."

There also exists unanswered questions regarding the demographics of who is seeking state-sanctioned suicide.

Assisted suicide categories

Under the government program, suicide requests are separated into two different "tracks."

"Track 1" refers to those who meet the eligibility criteria set out by the government and are deemed as having a natural death that is "reasonably foreseeable."

Patients are put in "Track 2" when they meet the eligibility criteria set out by the government but are deemed not to have a "reasonably foreseeable" natural death.

Track 2 made up 4.1% of the assisted deaths in 2023, equating to 622 people who received help from the government to die even though their death was unlikely to happen otherwise.

Women were overrepresented in this category at a rate of nearly six out of 10 (58.5%), despite men being the majority of those who have MAID requests overall (51.2%).

Additionally, over 11% of the Track 2 patients — those without a foreseeable death — are below the age of 50, representing about 70 people in 2023.

For Track 1, 13.9% of MAID recipients are under 65 years old, which represents over 2,000 younger people who were deemed terminally ill.

Canada's rules for MAID eligibility require recipients to be over 18 years old and be "mentally competent."

This age requirement is not matched in every country, especially the Netherlands, where assisted suicide eligibility extends to infants as well. Terminally ill children aged 1-12 can be killed by the state in that country.

“The end of life for this group is the only reasonable alternative to the child’s unbearable and hopeless suffering,” the Dutch government said in 2023, per the Guardian.

In 2002, the Netherlands became the first country to legalize euthanasia nationally, and in 2014, Belgium became the first country to allow children to kill themselves.

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Eat the bugs and die in the pods: Swiss assisted death pod sparks outrage



Multiple arrests have been made after a 64-year-old American woman became the first person to use an actual suicide pod in Switzerland. This suicide pod is called the Sarco and has been in development since 2017. At that time, its inventor coined himself the “Elon Musk of Assisted Suicide.”

Dr. Philip Nitschke told Newsweek that he has been drawn to the world of euthanasia since he was a young medical school graduate in Australia, inspired by the work of euthanasia enthusiast Dr. Jack Kevorkian.

The Netherlands also became the first government to legalize euthanasia nationally (under strict conditions at the time) in 2002. However, the first country to allow children to kill themselves was Belgium in 2014.

Before the Sarco, Nitschke was already hard at work making suicide machine prototypes and successfully killing people with them. His first machine was a laptop hooked up to an intravenous system. The computer would ask a patient if the patient wanted to die and then trigger a lethal injection of barbiturates or depressants.

This death machine was used to kill four people in Australia from 1996 to 1997, a brief period when euthanasia was legalized in the country before it was struck down. It was made legal again in 2022. Nitschke, then 70, admitted that his work surrounding how to best help people die has taken some time.

"I've spent the last 20 years fighting for the legislation that just passed," he said at the time.

He noted he had aided hundreds of "rational suicides" over the years and even published a book in 2006 describing the most painless and efficient ways to commit suicide.

All of this spawned the Sarco.

 JAN HENNOP/AFP via Getty Images

What is it?

The Sarco was introduced in 2021 when suicide capsules were legalized in Switzerland. With the help of Dutch designer Alexander Bannink, Nitschke managed to get the capsules through a legal review of authorized forms of assisted suicide. The doctor boasted of the freedom of killing oneself without government bureaucracy.

"The benefit for the person who uses it is that they don't have to get any permission, they don't need some special doctor to try and get a needle in, and they don't need to get difficult drugs to obtain," Nitschke said, per Business Insider.

After their legal victory, the 3D-printed device was touted as a portable option that could be towed wherever the user wanted to die.

In 2020, approximately 1,300 people died by assisted suicide in Switzerland.

YouTube took down a demonstration of the machine for violating community guidelines; however, it chiefly involved using virtual reality goggles to show users what it would be like to be suffocated by gas in a picturesque setting ... to utilizing its viewing window.

“An idyllic outdoor setting or in the premises of an assisted-suicide organization” are the perfect situations, Nitschke said.

The user must pass a mental capacity test and be asked several questions before activating the machine. They are then prompted with a button that will bring oxygen levels dangerously low, after which the vessel fills with nitrogen gas until death.

As any scientist in his position would state, Nitschke said suicide pod lovers will feel “no panic” and “no choking feeling” but instead become “a little disoriented” and “slightly euphoric.”

Who makes it?

Designer Bannink of the Sarco doesn’t appear to mention his suicide pod designs on his website or portfolio, opting to display underwater car drawings and flamboyant bikes.

He does, however, cite his design philosophy as the following:

“Any company can make ‘good’ products! So the way to distinguish yourself as a brand is to do it smarter or more beautiful than others.”

The company behind the recent suicide pod usage is a firm called the Last Resort. The company commented on the matter, saying, “On Monday 23 September, at approximately 16.01 CEST, a 64-year old woman from the the mid-west in the USA died using the Sarco device.”

Co-president of the organization Florian Willet called the woman's death “peaceful, fast and dignified.” She added that it occurred under “a canopy of trees, at a private forest retreat.”

The Last Resort refers to itself as a “new human rights organization” that offers a drug-free means of “elective, peaceful & dignified death.”

“A good death is a fundamental human right,” the company says, noting that it offers free services to approved patients.

The pod is 3D-printed and costs vary depending on the manufacturer.

Exit International, which helped develop the Sarco, estimated costs at around $19,000 per unit.

Is it legal?

 JUSTIN TALLIS/Getty Images

The first use of the Sarco came on the same day Swiss Interior Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider told the Swiss National Council that she considers the use of the Sarco to be illegal.

“The Sarco suicide capsule is not legal in two respects. ... On one hand, it does not fulfill the demands of the product safety law, and as such, must not be brought into circulation.”

“On the other hand,” she continued. “The corresponding use of nitrogen is not compatible with the article on purpose in the chemicals law.”

At the same time, the Last Resort cites on its website that Switzerland is actually “one of the few countries” in which helping someone kill themselves “is not a crime. “

The Daily Mail reported however that Swiss law indicates that a person can receive assisted suicide so long as the person takes their life without “external assistance” while those who help the person die cannot do so for any “self-serving motive.”

This is likely why Last Resort offers its program for free.

The Last Resort said its program exists within the law and does not require specific approval due to the fact that the user is the one who presses the button to end their own life. It also cites that the user proves they are of sound mental capacity.

Stateside, euthanasia was first made legal in Oregon in 1997. This was followed by approval in California, Vermont, and Washington, but it is not federally legalized.

Internationally, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Ecuador, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, and of course Switzerland have all legalized assisted suicide.

Russia is the only country in which all forms of euthanasia are illegal, as of November 2011.

In the Netherlands, where the suicide-pod designer is from, assisted suicide eligibility extends to infants as well. If aged 1-12, terminally ill children can be killed by the state. Those who are 5-10 can be killed if they are suffering unbearably or have no hope of improvement.

“The end of life for this group is the only reasonable alternative to the child’s unbearable and hopeless suffering,” the government said in 2023, per the Guardian.

The Netherlands also became the first government to legalize euthanasia nationally (under strict conditions at the time) in 2002. However, the first country to allow children to kill themselves was Belgium in 2014.

Canada, which boasts a robust suicide system, paused its program for those who are mentally ill.

The country’s requirements are rather loose overall, allowing those with PTSD, depression, anxiety, and other survivable illnesses to use the country’s Medical Assistance in Dying program.

Are people using it?

Unfortunately, the trend of euthanasia is becoming more popular in places like Switzerland, where the suicide pods are currently available. In 2020, approximately 1,300 people died by assisted suicide in the country.

The Last Resort reported it had 120 applicants waiting to use its machine to end their lives; about 25% of those people were British. This included a married couple that wanted to be the first to use a double suicide pod.

The Netherlands said that only one person between 12-16 used government suicides in 2022 while it is estimated that the country’s new age rules would apply to about 5-10 children per year.

Sadly, euthanasia became the fifth-highest cause of death in Canada during the summer of 2024. According to a report, it is evidence that medical professionals in Canada “are not viewing MAiD as an option of last resort only."

With ages being lowered and allowable reasons for euthanasia being widened, societies are not far from the suicide booths portrayed in the cartoon “Futurama,” it seems.

In fact, the only aspect of reality the cartoon appeared to get wrong is that it would actually cost money to be euthanized.

90-year-old woman opts for assisted suicide when faced with the possibility of another COVID-19  lockdown



A 90-year-old Canadian woman opted for assisted suicide when faced with another mandatory lockdown in her Toronto retirement home.

What are the details?

According to CTV News, Nancy Russell, a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, opted for medically assisted death in October.

Her friends and family, according to the outlet, congregated in Russell's room on the day of her death, where they'd gathered and sang a song she had chosen to send her on her way.

Residents at Russell's retirement home often ate meals alone in their rooms during mandatory lockdowns, were faced with activities cancellations, and were unable to see family for days or weeks on end.

"These measures," the outlet reported, "aimed at saving lives, can sometimes be detrimental enough to the overall health of residents that they find themselves looking into other options."

Other options, in this case, are defined as medically assisted suicide. Russell's family told the outlet that their loved one chose a "MAID" — or "medically assisted death" — after she "declined so sharply during lockdown that she didn't want to go through more isolation this winter."

"Being mobile was everything to my mom," her daughter Tory explained. "My mother was extremely curious, and she was very interested in every person she met and every idea that she came across, so she was constantly reading, going to different shows and talks. [She] was frequently talking about people she met and their life stories, very curious, open-minded. So for 90, she was exceptional."

What happened after the lockdown?

The country's first mandatory lockdown took place in the spring months, and Tory revealed that her mother rapidly declined shortly thereafter.

"She, almost overnight, went from a very active lifestyle to a very limited life, and they had, very early on, a complete two-week confinement just to her room," she explained. "[My mother] understood the fragility of the people in the building and the importance of protecting them, so it was just a very difficult time."

Russell's decline became more and more noticeable as time passed, her family says.

“She was just drooping," Tory said. “It was contact with people that was like food to her, it was like, oxygen. She would be just tired all the time because she was under stimulated."

The outlet reported that Russell had long been a proponent of assisted suicide, and that the pandemic and resulting lockdown measures apparently seemed like a good time to go.

"She just truly did not believe that she wanted to try another one of those two-week confinements into her room," Tory added.

She died on her own terms

The outlet reported, "On Oct. 20, Nancy Russell died with her loved ones by her side, honoring her wish for a death on her own terms. Before her death, she spent eight days at the home of one of her children, while family members and friends visited in person or called and emailed. They played games and told stories in the backyard."

Tory said that her mother was able to "direct a peaceful, pain-free death on her own time" and "avoid a great fear of hers, which was to endure winter and lockdowns."

“I worry about seniors, I worry about families who feel helpless. I felt helpless and I believe some other members of my family did at times," Tory added.

In Russell's obituary, she is described as "ever adventurous."

"Nancy departed this world with her wits intact and her expansive curiosity tempered only by a willingness to let the mystery be," her obituary read.