Ten Years After a ‘Six Months to Live’ Diagnosis, Stephanie Packer travels to Delaware to Warn Against the Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide

Stephanie Packer was told in 2012 that she had three years to live. So far, the doctors that made that prognosis are off by just 10 years.

Packer, 42, who lives in Orange County, Calif., visited Dover on March 11 to share her story with Delaware representatives who were then considering House Bill 140, which would legalize medical aid in dying, also called physician-assisted suicide. She was there to show them that there is life beyond that dire prognosis and to urge them to vote against passage of the bill.

HB 140 eventually passed the House of Representatives by a 21-17 vote with three legislators absent. It now awaits action in the Senate Executive Committee.

Reported Oregon Assisted Suicide Deaths Declined, But Do All Doctors Report?

Prescriptions for life-ending medications under Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act (DWDA) increased between 2023 and 2024, while the number of deaths went down, according to new Oregon Health Authority (OHA) data.

According to OHA’s 27th annual report on the DWDA, the number of prescriptions written for lethal medications increased 8.2%, from 561 to 607; deaths from ingestion of lethal doses of DWDA medications dropped about 2.6%, from 386 to 376.

The 2024 data represent a significant change from 2023, when prescriptions increased about 29%, driven largely by a 2023 amendment to the DWDA that removed the state residency requirement. Deaths from ingesting the lethal medications increased that year by about 20%.

Bolt Out of the Blue: United Nations Committee Calls for Canada to Repeal Track 2 of its Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia Program.

By Ian McIntosh

This report comes in large part owing to the exceptional work done by Inclusion Canada -years in the making – who first issued this Press Release to announce this monumental news:

On Wednesday March 26, 2025, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities released a set of recommendations calling on the government of Canada to repeal Track 2 of its assisted suicide and euthanasia program. Specifically, Canada’s 2021 amendment to its Criminal Code that expanded through Bill C-7, which expanded eligibility passed promised safeguards.

Track 2 of the Canadian assisted suicide and euthanasia program allows people with disabilities (“grievous and irremediable medical condition”) whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable to request assisted suicide or euthanasia.

Arguing against the very premise of Track 2, the report notes that the Canadian federal government,”…did not challenge the Quebec Truchon decision which fundamentally changes the whole premise of medical assistance in dying when natural death is reasonably foreseeable to a new program that establishes medically assisted dying for persons with disabilities based on negative, ableist perceptions of the quality and value of the life of persons with disabilities, including that ‘suffering’ is intrinsic to disability rather than the fact that inequality and discrimination cause and compound ‘suffering’ for persons with disabilities.”

Attempt to Raise Assisted Suicide Bill in New Hampshire Decisively Defeated

Dear Advocates and Friends, 

Last week we shared the good news that the New Hampshire assisted suicide bill was tabled by a slim margin of a single vote. Today, an attempt was made to raise it from the table. I'm pleased to inform you that the attempt failed! In a sharp turn from the close vote of last week, 205 legislators voted against removing the bill from the table, to 169 votes in support. There remains the technical chance that the bill could be raised again but, given the decisive vote today, the likelihood of such an action is highly unlikely.    

I remain grateful to the wonderful advocates on the ground who continue to show up, write letters, meet with legislators, and do the work of educating their neighbors on this important issue. Thanks to their tireless efforts, New Hampshire remains safe today and likely for the rest of the session, from the dangerous and discriminatory policy of assisted suicide.

 

Onward!

Jessica Rodgers (pictured above)

Award Winning 2025 Documentary, "Disposable Humanity," Scores at 31st Slamdance Festival

Content provided by Ian McIntosh and Not Dead Yet 

https://notdeadyet.org/unstoppable-award-winning-2025-documentary-disposable-humanity-scores-at-31st-slamdance-festival

Out of nearly two thousand entries, 146 films were selected for the 2025 Slamdance Film Festival in Los Angeles. Disposable Humanity captured the Audience Award and received an Honorable Mention for the Slamdance Unstoppable Feature Grand Jury Prize.

In Disposable Humanity, a profound, unforgettable documentary of historic disability injustice, Cameron Mitchell and his family guide the viewer down corridors of Nazi era eugenical horror into a past that many of us think we know but don’t.

Tim Stainton, Director of the University of British Columbia’s Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship once called Canada’s eugenical descent into assisted suicide and euthanasia, “the biggest existential threat to disabled people since the Nazi’s program in Germany in the 1930s”.

For anyone engaged in fighting health disparities and disability discrimination today, it becomes plain by the end of the film that the present-day creep of assisted suicide laws in America has an essential part of its ancestry rooted in the international ideas, language and maps of Aktion T4 – the Euthanasia Program of yesterday.

Marsha Joiner's New Book "Betrayal By Hospice & Healthcare"

Click the link at the bottom of the page to order Marsha's book.

In 2017, my Mother was murdered by hospice drug protocol. She was not dying when we were enticed to enroll her to provide help to my Dad, her caregiver as my sister and I lived states away. That began my journey warning people about the reality of what hospice had become. I became a talk show host on Betrayed by Hospice sharing her story as well as having other guests on to share the heartbreaking story of them losing a loved one to hospice. I also had experts on from various organizations to share what they could do to help. 

That was almost eight years ago. In February 2024 I started writing a book about what I have learned over those years.  My Mother's story as well as 34 others stories is included in this book. It was finished in March 2025 and is now published!

Spanish Court Refuses to Prevent Young Woman's Euthanasia Death.

Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Agence France-Presse reported on March 17 that a Spanish court rejected an appeal by a father who tried to stop his 24-year-old paraplegic daughter's euthanasia death.

Decisions, like this one, emphasize how the euthanasia laws undermine the lives of people with disabilities.

According to the article, the 24-year-old woman, who was injured in a suicide attempt, was scheduled to die by euthanasia in August 2024 when her father achieved a court injunction to prevent the death. The article stated that:

The father argued that his daughter suffered from mental disorders that "could affect her ability to make a free and conscious decision" as required by law.

He also said there were indications his daughter had changed her mind and that her ailment did not entail "unbearable physical or psychological suffering".

Death by Assisted Suicide

By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.  (pictured right).  

I had the opportunity on Monday, February 24, to speak at the British Parliament (Westminster) about the reality of assisted suicide in America. I focused on the experience with assisted suicide in Oregon and California. 

The UK assisted suicide bill that is sponsored by Kim Leadbeater is similar to American style assisted suicide laws.

Members of Parliament or their staff came to my presentation based on having time between meetings. Several MP's or their staff attended the event and asked excellent questions.

One MP, who attended, supported the Leadbeater assisted suicide bill. He is a new MP who told me that he only had 10 minutes for me between meetings.

I shared some basic data concerning assisted suicide in America including the bills that the assisted suicide lobby are promoting to expand assisted suicide in states where it is legal. I made it very clear that the strategy of the assisted suicide lobby is to first get a bill passed and then to amend the bill later. 

So You Want to Be an Organ Donor

By Julie Grimstad, 03/11/25

Every person, even a teenager as young as 14 in some states, is asked to be an organ donor when applying for or renewing a driver's license or permit.

A person should be – BUT CURRENTLY IS NOT – given honest and adequate information about the organ procurement process.

Informed consent to be an organ donor is not possible without such knowledge.  

Dr. Heidi Klessig, anesthesiologist, proposes requiring that the following information be read to driver's license applicants BEFORE they are asked, "Do you want to be an organ donor?" ...

Nevada Bill AB 346 Offers False Promise

 https://thisisreno.com/2025/03/physician-assisted-suicide-nevada/

Submitted by Jason Guinasso, pictured left.

Just two years after Gov. Joe Lombardo’s veto protected Nevada from misguided physician-assisted suicide legislation, the issue has returned in the form of Assembly Bill 346. The new bill, which would legalize what proponents euphemistically call “medical aid in dying,” represents not progress but regression in how we care for our most vulnerable citizens....

Despite some cosmetic changes, AB346 contains the same dangerous flaws as its predecessor. The bill’s safeguards against coercion are illusory, its premises about terminal prognosis are scientifically unsound, and its effects on our healthcare system would be corrosive.

Most troublingly, the legislation does nothing to address the perverse economic incentives that inevitably accompany physician-assisted suicide. Insurance companies stand to save millions by offering death instead of treatment, as we’ve already seen in states like California, where Stephanie Packer was denied chemotherapy but offered suicide pills for a $1.20 co-pay.