A social scientist at the University of York in the United Kingdom has published a research paper arguing that the Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) policies in Canada enable “healthcare serial killers” (HSKs) to thrive.
Published in the HEC Forum, an international, interdisciplinary peer-reviewed publication, Christopher Lyon pointed out that there are many similarities between MAID and HSKs. “Clinicians involved in HSK typically target patients with the same clinical features as MAiD-eligible patients,” Lyon wrote. “They may draw on similar rationales, e.g., to end perceived patient suffering and provide pleasure for the clinician. HSK can remain undetected or unconfirmed for considerable periods owing to a lack of staff background checks, poor surveillance and oversight, and a failure by authorities to act on concerns from colleagues, patients, or witnesses.”
Lyon explained that Canada’s MAID program is “effectively euthanasia-based” and “has similar features with added opportunities for killing afforded by clinicians’ exemption from criminal culpability for homicide and assisted suicide offences amid broad patient eligibility criteria.”
Healthcare serial killers appear across the globe and can vary in number of victims. “Rationales or motives for HSK include perceiving vulnerable, elderly, sick, or disabled people as burdens or in need of death to relieve suffering and to provide dignity and may still overlap with general SK motives of sadism and material or financial gain,” Lyon wrote. “They are often challenging to detect and stop due to job-related access to means of killing, responsibility for record-keeping, trusted role, professional insularity and protectionism, poor oversight, and victims whose deaths are less likely to attract suspicion due to age, illness, or existing likelihood of dying.”
Canada’s MAID program is one of the most permissive in the world, and includes broad criminal exemptions for the doctors who participate in it. But Lyon pointed out that the self-reporting system could make it even more difficult to spot a HSK masquerading as a MAID physician.
“Unlike other MAiD jurisdictions, Canada uniquely lacks an oversight system to independently review MAiD requests, consistent post-death reporting, and a waiting period between approval and death,” he wrote. “Despite known referrals, no police investigations or charges are yet known in these cases of federal criminal and provincial law violations. It is also dubious that healthcare systems could readily spot and stop culpable homicides in MAiD by relying on self-reported legal compliance, filtering possible criminal activity through local oversight or regulatory colleges before (electively) involving police, or operating without a supervisory unit at least as empowered as Québec’s MAiD commission.”
Some of the common feelings HSKs have are also experienced by MAID providers, according to Lyon. He claims that “pleasure is… a frequent occurrence… may be addictive and is a feature of clinical personality disorders,” adding that “elation and a sense of liberation from ending suffering are common in HSK.” Lyon says healthcare serial killers who practice MAID describe the feeling as being “hyped up on adrenaline,” or as “satisfaction,” and claim it is “the most important medicine I do,” “an ultimate act of compassion,” and “extraordinary work.”
He also noted issues with some specific providers, like Ellen Wiebe — about whom Live Action News has reported.
“Wiebe’s public history of MAiD has themes of HSK in that it is custodial, mission-driven, and utilitarian, with possibly sadistic elements in her apparent enjoyment of patient deaths…” he wrote. Weible stunningly stated in an interview with disability advocate Liz Carr, “Doctors like grateful patients. And nobody is more grateful than my patients” — over 400 of whom are deceased. Weible also runs an abortion business, killing vulnerable preborn humans as well.
😟 @thelizcarr spoke to Dr Ellen Wiebe, a Canadian doctor who has helped kill over 400 people by euthanasia or assisted suicide, as part of her BBC One documentary ‘Better Off Dead?’.
Not content with just killing people at the end of their lives, Wiebe also runs an abortion… pic.twitter.com/i3rNp6yzQE
— SPUC Pro-Life (@spucprolife) May 15, 2024
Originally from Canada, Lyon began speaking out against MAID after his father, who had struggled with mental illness and suicidal ideation, became a victim of the Canadian program. Now he urges American voters to reject legalized assisted suicide.
“In Canada, some MAID doctors talk about the adrenaline high and other pleasures they get from MAID and even compare it to a ‘crusade.’ MAID is often promoted as a ‘right’ by its advocates, so its medical reasons or suffering aren’t always the first reason for it; in Canada the suffering doesn’t even have to be real or directly caused by the illness,” he said. “Could healthcare and law enforcement services even tell the difference between a serial killer and a MAID physician?”
