Tag: suicide

MAID for mental illness? Conservatives urge support for bill to ban euthanasia for psychiatric reasons

Conservative MP Tamara Jansen, who represents Cloverdale–Langley City, continues to sound the alarm on what many consider to be a dangerous and immoral shift in Canadian law: The euthanization of people suffering from mental illness through the country’s Medical Assistance in Dying program (MAID).

Under the Liberal government, offering and carrying out assisted suicide for those deemed to have a “grievous and irremediable” mental health condition is expected to be practiced in the Spring of 2027, but not if Jansen’s new Right to Recover bill stops it.

“MAID for mental illness doesn’t protect the vulnerable, it targets them,” said Jansen during a press conference she held outside of Acadamy Farms held June 9th to raise awareness about the bill. “That’s why I was compelled to table the Bill C-218.”

If passed, the criminal code would be amended to make it unlawful to offer or provide MAID to any individual solely for mental illness.

“Imagine someone suffering from trauma, PTSD, depression, or just feeling completely hopeless? They could walk into a hospital, ask for help and instead be offered MAID,” Jansen posed from the podium.

Alongside Jansen was Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, Ontario, MP Andrew Lawton, who seconded the bill. Lawton shared his personal experience of surviving a suicide attempt years before becoming a husband and elected MP.

“One of the grievous issues with the laws that are set to go into effect in 2027 is the lack of differentiation between someone with suicidal ideation who needs to be stopped and supported, versus someone who walks into a medical office and seeks MAID as a service because of their mental illness,” stated Lawton.

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Gun suicides in U.S. reached record high in 2023

More people in the United States died by gun suicide in 2023 than any year on record — more than by gun homicide, accidental shootings and police shootings combined.

A new report analyzing federal mortality data found that suicides involving firearms made up 58% of all gun deaths in 2023 — the latest year with available data. In total, 27,300 people died by gun suicide in 2023, according to the report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions and the Johns Hopkins Center for Suicide Prevention.

The findings are based on finalized data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In all, 46,728 people died from gun-related injuries in 2023, according to the CDC’s Wonder database.

Gun homicides fell for the second year in a row, dropping from 20,958 in 2021 to 19,651 in 2022 and 17,927 in 2023. Despite the decline, the 2023 total ranks as the fifth highest on record for gun homicides, according to the report.

Rural, less populated states recorded the highest gun suicide rates in 2023. Wyoming led the nation with about 19.9 gun suicide deaths per 100,000 residents — nearly 10 times the rate of Massachusetts, which had the lowest at about 2.1 per 100,000.

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How NYT Magazine Threw Away Journalistic Ethics on Suicide

The New York Times Magazine recently published a cover story (6/1/25) that gave in-depth representation to the challenges faced by a chronically sick, disabled woman named Paula Ritchie, age 52. Ritchie dealt with underdiagnosed illnesses and pain, as well as challenges in supporting herself and managing her mental health.

The Times then told the story of Ritchie ending her own life out of despair over her situation. The journalist, Katie Engelhart, observed and documented her suicide, up until the last breath left her body. “I was with Ritchie until the very end,” she posted on X (6/1/25). Engelhart gave lengthy justifications for Ritchie’s choice to end her life, and described several people who supported her in that decision.

Articles like this aren’t common in the media. Suicide prevention is typically regarded as both a social good and an ethical responsibility. In the US and Canada (where the article takes place), suicidal people are involuntarily detained to prevent their deaths. It has long been illegal in Canada (and many US states) to assist or even “counsel” a person to commit suicide.

There are also ethical standards that guide media outlets in reporting on suicide, in order to minimize the risk of glamorizing or idealizing it. These guidelines are based on research showing that the media has an outsized influence when it comes to suicide. Graphic, detailed and sensationalized coverage has been shown to increase the “risk of contagion,” according to one guide. AP News specifically tries to avoid detailing the “methods used” in stories that reference suicide, based on this research.

The Times violated almost all of the published guidelines by personalizing, detailing, dramatizing, justifying and sentimentalizing Ritchie’s suicide, as well as by making it a cover story. The story featured close-up images of the method of Ritchie’s death and what appears to be her post-mortem body.

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Teen Dies by Suicide After Being Targeted in AI-Generated ‘Sextortion’ Scheme

A 16-year-old Kentucky boy reportedly committed suicide shortly after he was blackmailed with AI-generated nude images, an increasingly common scheme known as “sextortion.”

Elijah Heacock of Glasgow, Kentucky, received a text including an AI-generated nude photo depicting himself and a demand that he pay $3,000 to prevent the image from being sent to family and friends, according to a report by KFDA.

On February 28, shortly after receiving the message, the teen died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Elijah’s parents, John Burnett and Shannon Heacock, told CBS that they didn’t have a solid understanding of the circumstances that led to their son’s death until they found the messages on his phone.

Heacock said she now believes her son was a victim of a sextortion scheme.

“Sextortion is a form of child sexual exploitation where children are threatened or blackmailed, most often with the possibility of sharing with the public a nude or sexual images of them, by a person who demands additional sexual content, sexual activity or money from the child,” the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) explains.

“This crime may happen when a child has shared an image with someone they thought they knew or trusted, but in many cases they are targeted by an individual they met online who obtained a sexual image from the child through deceit, coercion, or some other method,” the NCMEC continued.

“In many cases, the blackmailers may have stolen or taken images of another person and they are communicating through a fake account,” the organization added.

Elijah’s parents said they had never heard of sextortion until law enforcement began investigating their son’s death.

“The people that are after our children are well organized,” Burnett said. “They are well financed, and they are relentless. They don’t need the photos to be real, they can generate whatever they want, and then they use it to blackmail the child.”

NCMEC says sextortion schemes have skyrocketed, revealing the organization has received more than 500,000 reports of sextortion against minors in just the last year.

Since 2021, at least 20 young people have committed suicide as a result of becoming victims of sextortion scams, according to the FBI.

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Victory for mom who claims child was sexually abused by AI chatbot that drove him to suicide

A Florida mother who claims her 14-year-old son was sexually abused and driven to suicide by an AI chatbot has secured a major victory in her ongoing legal case. 

Sewell Setzer III fatally shot himself in February 2024 after a chatbot sent him sexual messages telling him to ‘please come home.’ 

According to a lawsuit filed by his heartbroken mother Megan Garcia, Setzer spent the last weeks of his life texting an AI character named after Daenerys Targaryen, a character on ‘Game of Thrones,’ on the role-playing app Character.AI.

Garcia, who herself works as a lawyer, has blamed Character.AI for her son’s death and accused the founders, Noam Shazeer and Daniel de Freitas, of knowing that their product could be dangerous for underage customers. 

On Wednesday, U.S. Senior District Judge Anne Conway rejected arguments made by the AI company, who claimed its chatbots were protected under the First Amendment. 

The developers behind Charcter.AI, Character Technologies and Google are named as defendants in the legal filing. They are pushing to have the case dismissed. 

The teen’s chats ranged from romantic to sexually charged and also resembled two friends chatting about life.

The chatbot, which was created on role-playing app Character.AI, was designed to always text back and always answer in character.

It’s not known whether Sewell knew ‘Dany,’ as he called the chatbot, wasn’t a real person – despite the app having a disclaimer at the bottom of all the chats that reads, ‘Remember: Everything Characters say is made up!’

But he did tell Dany how he ‘hated’ himself and how he felt empty and exhausted.

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Disgusting: Canada Promotes Euthanasia WITHOUT PARENTAL CONSENT For Children & Teens Suffering From Mental Health Issues

Host of “Over Opinionated” Jasmin Laine posted flyers she came across in Manitoba, Canada, that support allowing euthanasia for kids and teenagers deemed “mature minors” by the eugenicist Canadian government.

“You have to be a special kind of demonic to advocate for MAID for young vulnerable people and people who are suicidal,” she wrote on 𝕏. “Imagine walking into a clinic for help, and being told the world would be better off without you… that you should cave to the lies the devil on your shoulder is telling you and it would be more affordable for Canada’s healthcare system if you were gone.”

Laine is the perfect person to bring attention to the disturbing concept as she has participated in “recovery plans and treatment after trying to end it” after her partner of ten years committed suicide.

“There is nothing compassionate about this—it is pure evil,” she concluded her post.

The flyers explain that members of the Canadian government have recommended citizens deemed “mature minors” be allowed to qualify for MAID, or medically-assisted suicide.

“A mature minor is a child or teen who is deemed capable of making a decision for MAID. This would essentially remove the minimum age of eligibility,” the paper states. “The [government] committee also suggested parents may not be consulted and wouldn’t need to consent to their child’s death via MAID.”

In an example of dystopian hypocrisy, the informational pamphlet also says, “Children are uniquely vulnerable. Canada’s first priority must be to provide high quality medical care for children.”

So, to allegedly protect the most vulnerable citizens, Canada wants to allow them to be killed without parental consent.

Beginning in March 2027, the physician-assisted suicide program will be available to Canadians suffering from mental illnesses.

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Ontario Chief Coroner reports raise concerns that MAID policy and practice focus on access rather than protection

The Chief Coroner for Ontario recently released two new reports of its interdisciplinary MAID Death Review Committee: on Same or Next Day Provision of MAID and on Waiver of Final Consent.

The MAID Death Review Committee — of which I am a member — reviews cases of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) that are selected by the coroner’s MAID team for the common issues they raise. The review helps inform policy recommendations.

Committee reports contain case summaries and summaries of committee discussions, and the Chief Coroner’s recommendations. The newly released reports appear to confirm what is argued in several chapters in our recently co-edited volume, Unravelling MAiD in Canada: Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide as Medical Care, and in other publications: Canada’s MAID law, policy and practice focuses excessively on promoting access to death, not on protection.

Some of the cases suggest a troubling prioritizing of ending patients’ lives with MAID rather than a precautionary approach. In my opinion, they reveal an urgent need for more rigorous legal and professional standards. Committee members’ starkly contrasting views on the ethics of some of the practices, which can be gleaned from the anonymous summaries of the committee’s discussions, are striking.

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Citizen journalist, who took his life after school district threatened him, vindicated in court

Citizen journalist Shawn McBreairty didn’t live to see his legal victory against a Maine school district for threatening to sue him for criticizing its alleged suppression of female student protests against a gender identity restroom policy, committing suicide two days after receiving what his lawyer called a “bogus” legal threat letter from a party’s lawyer.

But by granting summary judgment to McBreairty’s widow, Patricia, on behalf of his estate, and denying it to Brewer School Department and Superintendent Gregg Palmer, U.S. District Judge Lance Walker’s ruling is heartening McBreairty’s friends and allies in the parental rights movement and First Amendment law community.

The district’s anti-hazing, bullying and workplace bullying policies, implementing state law, did not apply to McBreairty or “oblige, compel, or justify the conduct by the Brewer School Department and its legal counsel that gave rise to this civil action,” Walker wrote.

He also mocked defendants’ argument that the legal threat letter sent by its “retained counsel” did not constitute “municipal action,” which “makes no sense” unless they are “toying with the notion” that law firm Drummond Woodsum – whose website opens with a land acknowledgment to indigenous people –”acted at their own direction.”

Nothing gave the district or its counsel “license to threaten litigation whenever someone unaffiliated with the public schools speaks critically about a matter of public interest occurring in the schools and, in the process, identifies students or staff and criticizes them,” the blistering ruling by the President Trump nominee says.

“I’ve never cried over a win before … [sic] but I’ve never fought a case to ensure that my friend’s legacy was that of a winner,” lawyer Marc Randazza, a First Amendment legend with a colorful client list who has represented McBreairty in four cases involving school districts, wrote on X. “Shawn, I miss you bro.”

He prevailed for McBreairty in a 2022 lawsuit against Regional School Unit 22, which paid him $40,000 for banning McBreairty from school board meetings based on his criticism of sexualized books in the school library, particularly one that Breairty repeatedly said featured “hardcore anal sex.”

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied McBreairty standing last year, however, when he sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against RSU 22’s ban on “complaints or allegations” against school employees at school board meetings.

Randazza told Just the News Friday it’s been a “bittersweet couple of days” but he’s getting ready for trial on McBreairty’s claims that the Brewer district violated his civil rights under federal Section 1983 and the comparable provision under the Maine Constitution.

He’s seeking damages before the “politically diverse population” of Portland. “Sometimes it’s a lot more fun to have one of these things in front of a jury.”

The Center for American Liberty sponsored McBreairty’s lawsuit before its founder, Republican superlawyer Harmeet Dhillon, became assistant attorney general for civil rights in the second Trump administration. “His widow fought on and today she, Shawn, and we all won as the First Amendment prevailed,” Dhillon wrote on X.

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Transgender surgeries associated with increased risk of suicidal ideation, depression: Oxford Academic study

A study of over 107,000 patients with gender dysphoria over the age of 18 has concluded that those who undergo transgender surgeries, are at greater risk for mental health problems, including depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, and others.

The paper, published in the Oxford Academic Journal of Sexual Medicine, stated in conclusion that bottom and top surgeries are “associated with increased risk of mental health issues.” The results section stated that “from 107 583 patients, matched cohorts demonstrated that those undergoing surgery were at significantly higher risk for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorders than those without surgery.”

It said of those who got surgery, “Our analysis reveals a significantly elevated risk of mental health disorders-including depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorder-post-surgery among individuals with a prior diagnosis of gender dysphoria.”

Males and females who underwent surgery had a higher risk of depression, according to the study. Although those who underwent surgery had a higher rate of mental health issues, the study claimed that the surgeries were “beneficial in affirming gender identity.”

The study authors noted that “the heightened risk of mental health issues post-surgery was particularly pronounced among individuals undergoing feminizing transition compared to masculinizing transition.”

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Young Girl Whose Suicide the Media Blamed on Bullying About Family Being Deported Told Friends She Was Being Molested by Relative

The 11-year-old girl whose tragic suicide was splashed all over the media because she was allegedly bullied about her family potentially being deported by the Trump administration confided in friends that a relative was sexually abusing her.

The mother of Jocelynn Rojo Carranza participated in multiple interviews where she explained, in Spanish, that her daughter killed herself because she was being told by bullies that her family would be deported and she would be left all alone.

“The kids said because your family is Hispanic, that they were going to call ICE so her parents could be taken away and she would be left alone,” Marbella Carranza told Univision.

The Gainesville Independent School District confirmed that the girl was the target of bullies, at least one of whom was disciplined for their behavior. The district has not released details about what happened or what was said.

Carranza was found unresponsive at her home in Gainesville, Texas, on February 3 and she died in the hospital five days later.

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