Georgia appeals court to weigh Fani Willis' role in Trump case in October

 A Georgia appeals court will hear arguments in October on whether to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting Donald Trump for trying to overturn his 2020 defeat, a schedule that will likely postpone that trial until after the Nov. 5 election.

At issue is whether the prosecution is tainted as a result of Willis' past affair with her one-time top deputy whom she hired to work on the probe.

Trump's legal team has sought to use the affair as a reason to try to derail the case but the judge overseeing the trial said in March that Willis could remain on the case.

The Georgia election interference case is one of three criminal trials that Trump still faces, though all three have been delayed for a variety of reasons.

Last week, Trump became the first former president in U.S. history to be convicted of a crime after a jury in New York City found him guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the weeks before the 2016 election.

The Georgia appeals court did not specify when in October it will hear arguments on whether to disqualify Willis, but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the case will be heard Oct. 4.

Willis is also separately expected to ask the court to overturn a lower court ruling that dismissed several counts against Trump in the 2020 election subversion case on the grounds that the indictment was not detailed enough to sustain those charges.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/georgia-appeals-court-weigh-fani-215452812.html

Reuters: 'Proud Boys are making a comeback for Trump: ‘Bad things are going to happen’'

 The conservative quasi-militia known as the Proud Boys is growing their numbers as the group experiences the “calm before the storm”, a new investigation has found.

A report from Reuters found that the violent right-wing group is ramping up activities, including recruitment, as it prepares for the 2024 election and whatever the aftermath of 5 November may bring. According to the news service, the group’s members have been spotted at numerous events hosted by the Trump campaign and other pro-Trump groups – including the massive rally held by the former president on the Jersey Shore last month.

One member of the Proud Boys who spoke to Reuters at the Wildwood, New Jersey event said that the group was providing “security” – a common refrain from the group’s members, who are known for antagonising protesters and in some instances engaging in vicious street brawls with left-leaning demonstrators at everything from Trump rallies to Pride parades.

A Trump campaign official who spoke to The Independent on Monday denied that any of the president’s staff were in contact with the Proud Boys regarding the Wildwood rally. A month prior, Reuters reports, the group’s members were spotted outside of Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club.

Members of the group who spoke to Reuters described the Proud Boys as being in a kind of holding pattern, with preparations being made for confrontations with the left in the future – possibly in the wake of the 2024 election, as was the case after Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020. The group survives in its current iteration having shed its public-facing frontmen. Enrique Tarrio, one of the group’s founders, is currently serving a 22-year prison sentence on charges of seditious conspiracy and other crimes stemming from the January 6 attack. Gavin McInnes, another co-founder, has cut all official ties with the group, though Reuters reports he is still involved behind the scenes. Chapters also ban all interviews with journalists, with members speaking to Reuters only on condition of anonymity.

But the group’s new underground-oriented vision is reportedly having little effect on the Proud Boys’ ability to continue growing their ranks. The lack of national leadership, according to Reuters, has only empowered local chapters to run wild without oversight.

And members say 2024 may be the year that the group’s members once again take to the streets in Donald Trump’s name.

“If Trump loses, our republic, the country goes away. Bad things are going to happen,” one group member told Reuters. An Ohio chapter, separately, posted a video of members participating in a street brawl this past week after a jury handed down a guilty verdict in Trump’s Manhattan hush money trial.

“Fighting solves everything,” that unnamed chapter posted, according to Reuters.

Members of the group were described by investigators and witnesses of the congressional January 6 investigation as leading the charge during the siege of the Capitol and, in many cases, being some of first (and most violent) rioters to enter the Capitol complex during the attack. The fighting on 6 January 2021 left dozens of police officers wounded and the seat of American democracy trashed as Trump supporters tried and failed to prevent lawmakers from certifying the results of the 2020 election.

Those who spoke to Reuters from inside the group accepted that characterization of the Proud Boys as being the “tip of the spear”, with one telling the news service that “without the Proud Boys, Jan 6 didn’t happen”.

One 44-year-old member of the group, sentenced for his role in the attack in January, told a judge that he would gladly “do it all over again” for Donald Trump.

“You could give me 100 years and I would still do it all over again,” Marc Anthony Bru said as he was sentenced to six years in prison.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/proud-boys-making-comeback-trump-155350171.html

'How Gaza war is reshaping the politics of Europe's left'

 Nadir Aslam, a German of Moroccan-Pakistani heritage, had been planning to vote Green in this week's elections to the European Parliament. Instead, he will throw his support behind Mera25, a start-up leftist party with a clear pro-Palestinian stance.

Aslam, 33, told Reuters it was a speech last November by a Green leader doubling down on German support for Israel, even as the Gaza death toll neared 9,000, which "destroyed" his support for the ecologist party, a member of Germany's ruling coalition.

This shift in support, echoed across Europe, represents the latest threat - this time from the left - to mainstream political parties whose project to deepen European integration is already under attack from the far-right.

The trend is not only among the EU's Muslim communities but also among left-leaning voters who see a double standard in Europe's condemnation of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel but failure to call out Israel for its military assault on Gaza which has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians.

"We have a rise in radical right and radical left parties, (which will) reshape the policy landscape in Europe, the balance of power of several parties," said Samira Azabar, a sociologist at Radboud University in the Netherlands.

This could have consequences for the bloc's position on Israel and also drive policies granting more decision-making power at a national level, she said. EU members Spain and Ireland have recognised a Palestinian state, as has Slovenia's government, pending parliamentary approval.

POLARISATION

While the popularity of the far-right has been rising in recent years, surveys show minorities have been voting more for the radical left as mainstream parties drift rightwards on issues such a migration and cultural values.

Polling last month by Ipsos showed the far-right set to make the biggest gains in the June 6-9 elections, with the Left group in the EU assembly gaining six more seats - both at the expense of the Social Democrat, Green and Renew Europe blocs.

In France, far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) has centred its campaign on a pro-Palestinian stance in a bid to win Muslim and radical-left voters, said Blandine Chelini-Pont, a historian at Aix-Marseille University.

It seeks an arms embargo, sanctions on Israel, recognition of a Palestinian state and - in contrast to other left-wing groups - refrains from calling Hamas a terrorist group. Among Muslim voters in France it polls at 44% support compared to its 8% share of the electorate as a whole.

"Some will say we are surfing on an electorate but who are we speaking about? These are citizens of this country who do not have a racist vision of society," LFI lawmaker Sebastien Delogu told Reuters.

France's Socialists also seek recognition of a Palestinian state but do not share LFI's stance on Hamas.

"LFI has a relationship with violence that is not okay," lead Socialist candidate Raphael Glucksmann told Reuters, who says his rise in the polls to third place at 14% is in part due to his choice to distance himself from LFI.

HISTORICAL FACTORS

In Germany, pro-Palestinian startup parties are eroding support for the German Greens and Social Democrats, two of the mainstream parties which have maintained a staunch support for Israel due to Germany's historical responsibility for the Holocaust.

Aside from leftist Mera25, other pro-Palestinian start-ups include socially conservative groups like DAVA and BIG and the eurosceptic party BSW - which wants an arms embargo on Israel while pushing anti-immigration policies.

Supporters of BSW, which is polling at 7%, are 50% more likely to recognise a Palestinian state than the overall German electorate.

In Spain, where tensions with Israel date back to the Franco dictatorship, government recognition of a Palestinian state is shoring up support for parties in the ruling coalition, the Socialist Party (PSOE) and far-left Sumar.

"The Palestinian issue has become central to the political debate in Spain," said David Hernandez, professor of International Relations at the Complutense University of Madrid.

MOBILISING THE MINORITY VOTE

Voter turnout could be key.

Radboud University's Azabar noted that turnout was often lower among ethnic minorities than for the general population in EU elections, but the Gaza war may be a motivation this time.

Foreign policy issues have a track record of impacting the ethnic minority vote. In 2016, Germany's Social Democrats lost some 100,000 Turkish voters after recognising the Armenian genocide of the First World War, said Teyfik Özcan, chairman of DAVA, a new party targeting Turkish diaspora voters.

Özcan, a former SPD member, said his party offered the option of a protest vote that didn't exist until now.

"Germans have the opportunity to say, 'Okay, I'm voting for the (far-right) AfD in protest.' Muslims cannot do that," he told Reuters.

A December survey by the Institute of Political Science at the University of Duisberg-Essen showed that one in three German Muslims did not feel represented by any party.

A new sense of political representation resonates for French voters too. LFI has named as a candidate French-Palestinian lawyer Rima Hassan, who is present at protests, active on social media and is petitioning the EU to suspend its association agreement with Israel.

Chama Tahiri Ivorra, a 34-year old French-Moroccan chef, said she had never voted in a European election but would this time.

"Voting for Rima is an act of resistance," she said. "I don't know all the points on LFI's programme but what she and their other members say about Palestine is just."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/analysis-gaza-war-rattles-european-050420456.html

Iran's allies in Iraq are firing at Israel

 Iran-backed Shi'ite armed groups in Iraq have ramped up rocket and missile attacks on Israel in recent weeks, raising concerns in Washington and among some Iranian allies of potential Israeli retaliation and regional escalation should they draw blood.

Though the attacks, often from hundreds of miles (kms) away, are not seen by western officials and Israeli experts as posing the same level of threat to Israel as point-blank strikes by Hamas and Hezbollah, they have increased in number and sophistication.

At least two have hit their targets and many have had to be shot down by U.S. and Israeli defences, according to U.S officials and public statements by the Israeli military.

New weaponry such as cruise missiles have been regularly used since May and are harder for air defences to destroy.

"Overall, the intensity and the types of weapons systems used have steeply escalated," said Mike Knights, a fellow at the U.S.-based Washington institute for Near East Policy, where he tracks the attacks. "It complicates the Israeli task and is an increased financial cost," he said.

Reuters spoke to more than a dozen people, including sources in Iraqi armed groups and other factions in Iran's network of regional allies known as the Axis of Resistance, alongside U.S. and other regional officials, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to give candid assessments of a sensitive issue.

They said the attacks by Iraqi factions, including Kataib Hezbollah and Nujaba, were a cause for rising concern for Washington and also viewed with unease among some in Iran and its powerful Axis ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has carefully calibrated its own engagements with Israel to prevent all-out regional conflict.

"They could get the Axis involved in something it does not currently want," a senior figure in the Axis of Resistance said, describing the view among pro-Iran groups on condition he not be identified.

Iran and Hezbollah, the most organised members of the network, have in the past struggled to rein in Iraqi factions.

Hussein al-Mousawi, a spokesperson for Nujaba, one of the main armed Shi'ite factions in Iraq participating in strikes on Israel, told Reuters the strikes were a natural evolution of the role of Iraqi groups and aimed to increase the cost of the war in Gaza. They intend to strike from anywhere, for as long as is necessary.

"The operations carried out by the Resistance are not bound by temporal or spatial boundaries," Mousawi said. "We, as a resistance, do not fear the consequences as long as we are in the right and we represent the popular and official will."

The Iraqi government, which carefully balances its alliances with both Washington and Tehran, does not officially approve of the strikes but has been unable or unwilling to stop them.

Critics say this shows the limits of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani's power in a coalition government that includes Iran-backed armed groups, and may undermine efforts to rebrand Iraq as stable and open for business.

Iraq does not recognise Israel and a 2022 law punishes those trying to normalise ties with death or life in prison. Israel views Iraq as an Iranian vassal state and main corridor for weapons from Iran to other armed groups including Hezbollah.

The Israeli and Iraqi governments did not respond to requests for comment. The U.S. State Department declined to comment.

ESCALATING THREAT

The Iraqi groups trace their roots to the fight against U.S. troops in Iraq after the toppling of dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003. They have since grown their regional reach, mirroring the evolution of other Iranian allies such as the Houthis in Yemen who have launched strikes on shipping in the Red Sea.

Iraqi groups joined the Syrian civil war in support of Iran's ally President Bashar al-Assad, gaining a foothold in territory near the border with Israel. A shadowy Iraqi group claimed drone attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in 2021 and 2022.

The attacks by Iraqi groups on Israel are launched from areas south of Baghdad and in the Iraqi-Syrian border area where Iran-backed factions hold sway, according to Knights.

To get from Iraq to Israel, projectiles must fly over Syria, Jordan or Saudi Arabia.

While Iran has been keen to have Iraqi factions contribute to the regional battle against Israel, their propensity to miscalculate was a constant cause for concern, the senior figure in the Axis said.

He noted that the Iraqi groups had already unwittingly caused a major regional escalation in January, when they killed three U.S. troops in a drone attack on a U.S. outpost in Jordan.

That attack - which crossed multiple U.S. and regional red lines by hitting a neighbouring Arab state and killing Americans - led to a deadly campaign of U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.

So serious was the risk of escalation then, that the commander of Iran's elite Quds Force travelled to Baghdad to tell the factions to dial down their attacks, Iranian and Iraqi sources told Reuters at the time.

Attacks on U.S. forces stopped. There was a brief lull. Then, they turned their attention to Israel.

A senior Iranian official who asked not to be identified to discuss sensitive matters said this shift in focus was part of a plan to keep the pressure on Israel over the Gaza war.

A U.S. defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the attacks on Israel jeopardized the stability of Iraq and the region by increasing the risk of military action, including potentially by the U.S. and Israel.

"The sophistication and frequency of these attacks highlight the escalating threat posed by these groups" the official said.

"The U.S. military will not hesitate to act to protect our forces and support the defence of our allies."

'FREE HAND'

Iraq has posed a threat to Israel before - notoriously during the 1991 Gulf War when Saddam fired barrages of Scud missiles at Tel Aviv and Haifa.

At the time, Washington prevailed upon Israel not to retaliate to avoid an escalation that could undermine a U.S.-led coalition, including Arab armies, which had been pulled together to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

After Hamas militants launched their attack on Israel on Oct. 7 last year precipitating the war in Gaza, Iraqi Shi'ite armed factions, like other pro-Iranian groups, pledged to carry out attacks in solidarity with the Palestinians.

They initially targeted mainly U.S. forces based in Iraq and Syria. But on Nov. 2 they claimed their first ever attack on Israel.

A handful of other claimed attacks on Israel followed in the next few months, including four in February, even after the groups had publicly halted attacks on U.S. forces, according to public claims of responsibility by the Iran-backed groups.

The number of claimed attacks shot up to 17 in March, and doubled again in May, averaging more than one a day, though U.S. officials and the source in the pro-Iranian Axis said they are not certain all the claimed attacks were genuine.

Reuters was not able to determine exactly how many attacks have been launched nor how many hit their intended target.

The attacks are frequently accompanied by video released on social media purporting to show the projectiles being fired from remote Iraqi desert sites as militants shout the names of holy figures revered mainly by Shi'ites. Reuters was not able to verify the date or location of the videos.

While Israel rarely comments on its operations in neighbouring states, it is thought to have struck pro-Iran groups in Iraq before, in 2019, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had given the military "a free hand" to act "to thwart Iran's plans".

Asked to provide information on launches by Iran-backed factions in Iraq, the Israeli military declined to comment.

Israeli authorities have publicly confirmed at least two impacts on the coastal city of Eilat that Israeli media said came from Iraq, on a school in November and a naval base in April.

Additionally, the military has announced many interceptions of projectiles coming "from the east", widely seen as a reference to Iraq. No injuries or deaths have been reported as a result of the attacks.

Amos Yadlin, a retired Israeli air force general who formerly headed military intelligence, said he would rate the level of threat the attacks pose to Israel as "one step down" from Hezbollah or the Houthis.

The U.S. defence official said projectiles fired from Iraq had been intercepted by U.S. forces operating "from various locations in the Middle East, as part of our commitment to Israel's defence and regional security."

"The frequency of these actions has increased in response to the rising number of threats," the official said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/irans-allies-iraq-firing-israel-050627268.html

Exercise May Be More Effective Than Antidepressants In Treating Depression

 by Megan Redshaw, J.D. via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Research suggests exercise may be more effective for treating depression than antidepressant drugs, with dancing far surpassing all other activities and pharmacological treatments—and intense exercise close behind.

A paper published in the BMJ found that exercise was moderately effective at treating depression compared to existing treatments when used alone or in combination with other established therapies. Moreover, the benefits from exercise “tended to be proportional to the intensity prescribed,” meaning more vigorous activity yielded more significant benefits.

To identify the ideal amount and type of exercise for treating major depressive disorder, experts from Australia conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 14,170 people with major depressive disorders from 218 unique studies and ranked the effectiveness of different forms of exercise compared with existing treatments, such as psychotherapy, antidepressants, and control conditions.

Key Findings

They found that walking or jogging, yoga, strength training, and dancing were the most effective exercise modalities when used alone without medical treatment, and that certain exercises affected men and women differently. Notably, walking and jogging were effective for both men and women, while strength training and cycling were more effective for women and younger people. Yoga and qigong were more effective for men and older adults, while aerobic exercise positively impacted men more than women when used with psychotherapy.

Across all modalities, more intense exercise such as running, interval training, strength training, and mixed aerobic exercise yielded greater benefits, although even light physical activity such as walking or hatha yoga still provided “clinically meaningful effects.” The benefits of exercise were equally effective at different weekly doses for those with other medical conditions and baseline levels of depression.

Overall, dance outperformed all other exercises and established treatments for depression, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and cognitive behavioral therapy.

“Based on our findings, dance appears to be a promising treatment for depression, with large effects found compared with other interventions in our review,” the authors wrote. However, the small number of studies, low number of participants, and biases of study designs prohibited them from recommending dance more strongly.

What Is Major Depressive Disorder?

Major depressive disorder is a leading cause of disability worldwide, characterized by a persistently low or depressed mood, lack of interest or enjoyment in life or pleasurable activities, feelings of guilt or worthlessness, low energy, poor concentration, appetite changes, psychomotor disturbances, sleep issues, or suicidal thoughts.

The condition has been found to adversely affect interpersonal relationships, cause functional impairment, and exacerbate other medical comorbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Without treatment, major depressive disorder can be debilitating.

According to the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 21 million, or 8 percent, of U.S. adults 18 or older in 2021 experienced at least one major depressive episode, with episodes most prevalent among 18- to 25-year-olds and women.

Of those, 14.5 million U.S. adults experienced at least one major depressive episode that left them severely impaired. Additionally, 5 million U.S. adolescents aged 12 to 17 experienced at least one major depressive episode, which equates to approximately 20 percent of the adolescent population in that age group. Of those, 3.7 million experienced a depressive episode that left them severely impaired.

Demand for Alternative Treatment Options

According to the BMJ, some people with major depressive disorder respond well to drug treatments and psychotherapy, but many are resistant to treatment, driving scientists to look into alternatives like exercise that might complement or be more effective than medical therapy or counseling alone.

Although the researchers said their review has limitations, their findings support the inclusion of exercise, especially vigorous exercise, in the clinical practice guidelines for depression.

“Although confidence in many of the results was low, treatment guidelines may be overly conservative by conditionally recommending exercise as complementary or alternative treatment for patients in whom psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy is either ineffective or unacceptable,” they wrote. “Instead, guidelines for depression ought to include prescriptions for exercise and consider adapting the modality to participants’ characteristics and recommending more vigorous intensity exercises.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/exercise-may-be-more-effective-antidepressants-treating-depression

' Sons Turn Billionaires as Saudi IPOs Mint New Fortunes'

 

• Health care created $16.7 billion in wealth in recent years
• Crown Prince has been seeking to lower reliance on oil

Saudi Arabia has long churned out fortunes built on oil and the business surrounding it. That’s changing dramatically as new business empires boom.

A hospital group is set to become the kingdom’s biggest listing of the year, turning its two top shareholders into billionaires. Brothers Mazen and Ammar Fakeeh, the sons of the physician who founded the Dr. Soliman Abdul Kader Fakeeh Hospital Co., will have a combined fortune of at least $2.5 billion after the sale, while their sister Manal will be worth some $600 million, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-04/doctor-s-sons-turn-billionaires-as-saudi-ipos-mint-new-fortunes

"I Was Offered Assisted Dying Over Cancer Treatment": Broken Canada Healthcare System Killing Patients

 by Ian Birrell via UnHerd

Two years ago, over the Thanksgiving holiday, Allison Ducluzeau started to feel pain in her stomach. At first, she assumed she had eaten too much turkey, but the pain persisted. A couple of weeks later, she saw her family doctor who requested CT scans, although none were sorted. Soon after, as the agony worsened, her partner insisted she went to the emergency unit at their local hospital on Vancouver Island. Finally, doctors confirmed the couple’s worst fears: she was almost certainly suffering from advanced abdominal cancer.

Allison, then 56, later learned that she had stage 4 peritoneal carcinomatosis, an aggressive condition. By the time she saw a specialist early last year, he warned that she might only live a few months longer: chemotherapy tended to be ineffective for her cancer, buying a bit more time at best, and she was inoperable. Instead, she was told to go home, sort out her papers, and decide if she wanted medical assistance in dying.

Unsurprisingly, Allison was devastated. “I could barely breathe — I went in there hoping to come out with a treatment plan but was just told to get my will in order.” That night was the worst of her life as she broke the shattering news to her son and daughter at her home in Victoria. “I told them I might only live for another two months,” she recalled. “If I’d not had my children, I might have accepted MAID [medical assistance in dying] — but when I saw the effect on them, having just been through the deaths of my own parents, it made me dig really deep.”

So, determined to find help, she researched her condition, spoke to doctors as far away as Taiwan, flew to California for scans and eventually travelled to Baltimore for treatment. She had discovered that patients could be given debulking surgery to reduce their cancer, followed by targeted use of heated chemotherapy — yet back in Canada, she could not get even an initial telephone chat with a surgeon who performed such operations for two months. Aided by her tight circle of friends and relatives, she raised almost half the $200,000 cost for the operation by crowdfunding. By the time she managed to see an oncologist in her home province of British Columbia, she was already on the road to recovery.

Today, Allison is in remission. She lifts weights daily, and goes running and cycling. She recently married her partner on a beach in Hawaii in front of her children. But she remains infuriated that Canadian doctors offered to kill rather than treat her. “The way it was presented was shocking,” she told me. “I was disgusted to be offered MAID twice. Once I was even on the phone, when I was on my own having just come back from Baltimore. It left me sobbing.”

As the debate over assisted dying heats up in Britain, with Keir Starmer promising a free vote on the matter if he wins the general election, and with politicians in Jersey approving plans for its use only last week, we should take notice of Allison’s case. For she does not share the ethical or religious concerns held by many opponents of euthanasia. Nor does she oppose Canada’s 2016 MAID reform; she agreed with her father five years later that it was an “appropriate” option for his intensifying pain after many years of prostate cancer.

But she has deep worries about assisted dying being offered by doctors in a health system that is floundering — especially with inadequate and overwhelmed oncology services when cancer patients comprise almost two-thirds of the soaring numbers of citizens opting for MAID. “We do not have a good standard of care here, especially for cancer — and that is why it is so dangerous to have MAID, especially when it can be used to take a bit of pressure off physicians and the government.” She knows of three other cancer patients whose families fear they died needlessly — including the person whose home she bought after downsizing to pay her medical bills in the US.

Allison’s very existence challenges those who argue that Britain — with its flailing health and social care systems, shamefully long waiting lists and historically poor cancer survival rates — should rush headlong into legalisation of assisted death. So, what would she tell those advocating for the reform? “I would tell Britain to only accept assisted dying when the health service is fixed — otherwise it is a very dangerous step to take. We deserve decent and timely care rather than offers of faster death.”

“I would tell Britain to only accept assisted dying when the health service is fixed.”

Like her, I have no qualms over the ethics of assisted dying as an atheist — but huge concerns over its realities. This is based on my reporting on the issue from the pioneering nations of Belgium and the Netherlands, with evidence of the implications for vulnerable groups, especially those already suffering medical discrimination and societal marginalisation. One study last year, for instance, revealed eight Dutch people were subjected to euthanasia simply because they felt unable to live with their learning disability or autism, along with 16 other closely related cases. Disturbingly, many included being lonely as a central cause of their unbearable suffering.

Yet until talking to Alisson, I had not considered the implications of injecting this irreversible reform into a struggling healthcare system. In British Columbia, faced with growing waiting lists and corrosive healthcare bureaucracy, there have been reports of a number of cancer patients forced to resort to MAID. Samia Saikali, for instance, a 67-year-old grandmother in Victoria, chose to end her life that way after waiting more than 10 weeks to see a specialist. “The word cruel comes to mind,” said her daughter Danielle, pointing out that, with aggressive cancer, this delay can be the difference between having a shot at life or certain death. “Cruel to be given such a terrible diagnosis and then told to just wait and sit and wait.”

Yet studies indicate that Canada’s cancer care and survival rates are better than the UK, where waiting lists rose every year over the past decade. The NHS target for starting treatment after diagnosis is 62 days, showing how complacency is built into the British health system. But even this dismal target is missed for more than one-third of patients, despite there being evidence that each month of delay reduces the survival chances by about 10%. One study earlier this year into why British survival rates have fallen behind countries such as Canada found the average wait in Scotland for chemotherapy was 65 days — and 81 days for radiotherapy in Wales.

Concerns have been highlighted by Canadian bioethics professor Jaro Kotalik, co-editor of the first full analysis of his country’s reform, who warned British MPs last year that MAID seems to be more and more “a way to compensate for lack of resources and reduce healthcare costs”. He added that palliative care “appears to be a casualty of MAID” with reduced access, leaving some patients to feel that assisted dying was their only option since “their suffering has been inadequately addressed or because they perceive that their families or social supports would carry an excessive burden”.

“MAID has become a way to compensate for lack of resources and reduce healthcare costs.”

Kotalik maintains that there had been far too little investigation or oversight of MAID since its introduction. “There is no real governance of this national programme, which relies for the purpose of collecting information about applicants and deaths entirely on self-reporting by providers,” he said. “I’m concerned about the possibility of people choosing MAID without the full or correct diagnosis, especially in cancer when oncologists are not involved. Options for a cancer patient should not be assessed just by a general practitioner or nurse practitioner so I worry patients are not fully informed about alternative options with different treatments and more comfortable outcomes.”

Such warnings become even more pertinent in light of the surging MAID toll on Vancouver Island, a haven for wealthy retirees with its beautiful beaches, forests and mountains. Euthanasia campaigners often reject claims that reform leads to a “slippery slope”, although numbers keep rising and icriteria have been expanded in nations that led the way. In the Netherlands — which in 2002 pioneered assisted dying for patients — it accounts now for one in 20 fatalities, with 58 couples dying together last year and the rules extended to include terminally ill children.

Canada has also seen MAID cases soar each year — and once again, protections have been eroded. In 2021, the central rule that natural death had to be “reasonably foreseeable” was removed. Latest figures disclosed that 13,102 people ended their lives under the scheme in 2022, a rise of 30% over the previous year despite postponement until 2027 of the controversial expansion to people with chronic mental illness. The country is catching up fast on Holland’s rate with 4.1% of deaths aided by doctors. Its annual MAID report also revealed that more than one-third of those choosing to die felt themselves a burden on family, friends or caregivers. Inevitably, there have been significant controversies with reports of pressurised fatalities involving disabled, elderly and impoverished citizens.

Meanwhile, the rate of MAID cases under Vancouver Island’s health authority is more than twice as high as the rest of Canada; indeed, it may well be the world’s highest since it accounts for almost one in 10 deaths. I heard various explanations for this, ranging from the struggling state of the region’s cancer services through to a history of legal, social and medical activism in support of euthanasia.

Prominent practitioners include Stefanie Green, founding president of the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers, who has assisted more than 400 deaths. She spent two decades as a family doctor focusing on maternity and new-born care before turning to assisted dying. “I’d always been interested in the intersection between medicine and ethics,” she told me. “The more I looked into it, the more I was drawn to it. The skill set was almost identical. It required a knowledgeable person to take people through a natural event. I would be with them during a very intimate event. It would take time to build up the trust. It is intense, it is intimate, there are the family dynamics.”

When I asked if medically induced death was really “a natural event”, she insisted that “the death is imminent” before adding that she found the work deeply moving. “Patients are grateful, families are grateful, and I am facilitating their final wishes. I am certain in all the cases they are 100% eligible, both legally and medically. The work is done properly. It is not for me to decide on their situation. It is their personal autonomy.”

Green is both passionate and proud of her work: intriguingly, she faces far more protests over the single day a week she spends performing infant circumcisions from campaigners who argue it is an infringement of the child’s rights. She agrees, however, that patients such as Allison have every right to feel disappointed. “She should feel aggrieved that the Canadian health system is not working efficiently and failed her. I will also demand better resources with more doctors and nurses. The government has failed — but that is not reason to cancel the MAID programme. It needs to be delivered carefully and cautiously.” Likewise, she agrees society often fails people with disabilities. “We must act to remedy this — but this shouldn’t mean we cancel desired, needed, legal medical services.”

Green stresses that MAID requires people to make their own request to terminate their lives. “It cannot be triggered by anyone else. It cannot be coerced — subtly or explicitly. It must be consistent with their own values; they must demonstrate capacity. It is far, far more common to see people coerced out of their request for MAID than to have someone show up who has been coerced into making this choice — which we then note and find them ineligible.”

This debate is a moral minefield, with emotive and valid arguments on both sides. There is, however, a global drift towards legalisation of assisted dying, from Ecuador to Germany. In Britain, as lawmakers across the Channel prepare to debate assisted dying, YouGov polling suggests similar legislation would be backed by 44% of voters, although 31% remain unsure — and surveys have suggested twice as many people with disabilities would be concerned by a change in the law as support it, despite claims from campaigners to the contrary.

Christopher Lyon, a social scientist at the University of York, believes Britain should be very cautious in following Canada’s lead after witnessing his father’s assisted death in a drab Victoria hospital room in the summer of 2021. He was left highly disturbed by the experience, believing his father failed to meet the correct criteria for being moved rapidly to the category of “reasonably foreseeable” death, as well as being depressed and possibly drunk when giving consent. “It was absolutely horrific,” he said. “Britain would be wrong to go down this path. You see some people making the same arguments as in Canada about personal autonomy, control and the right to make decisions to end your life. It is perhaps a choice for people in very rare cases with extreme and unmanageable suffering at the very end of life, which is not what we see in Canada. But there is no doubt the evidence points towards a slippery slope with widening access — although it is really more of a cliff face. Ultimately, I doubt any assisted death system can be made safe.”

Lyon told me he was neutral on this issue before seeing his 77-year-old father die. “It is horribly hard to see your father in distress being killed by a doctor with no attempt to help. It is almost indescribable. It came across as so cruel — but also so avoidable.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/i-was-offered-assisted-dying-over-cancer-treatment-broken-canadian-healthcare-system