(LifeSiteNews) — Inevitably, the Culture of Death devours its own devotees.
In November, I reported on the arrests of several people by the Swiss police for “inducing and aiding and abetting suicide” after a 64-year-old American woman with a compromised immune system died in a so-called “Sarco” suicide capsule on September 23. Among those arrested was Dr. Florian Willet, who heads up the pro-euthanasia group The Last Resort and was present when the woman died. Willet insisted that her suicide went off without a hitch.
The “Sarco” pod — short for “sarcophagus” — is the brainchild of Philip “Dr. Death” Nitschke, who has been accused of attempting to glamorize suicide through his slick, 3D-printed capsule. The capsule proved controversial even in Switzerland, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1942 for those considered to have “sound” judgment. On the side of the capsule is a quote by pop scientist Carl Sagan: “We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
According to a June 3 report in the Independent, Willet has now himself died by assisted suicide. The 47-year-old euthanasia activist was released in December after police decided that his role in the Sarco death did not constitute intentional homicide, but Nitschke, who also serves as the director of Exit International, stated that Willet’s arrest was partly due to blame.
“When Florian was released suddenly and unexpectedly from pre-trial detention in early December 2024, he was a changed man,” Nitschke said. “Gone was his warm smile and self-confidence. In its place was a man who seemed deeply traumatised by the experience of incarceration and the wrongful accusation of strangulation.”
Another of Willet’s friends made a similar claim, stating, “This friendly, positive man had changed into an anxious, suspicious person who no longer trusted even his best friends. He lived in his own world. He became increasingly distant from his friends.” If Willet’s fellow activists are to be believed, police should not investigate the use of a suicide pod in case the operators of the pod fall under suspicion of killing somebody.
In Canada, another story about euthanasia activism and assisted suicide has similarly made headlines. “Son of woman who inspired assisted dying law chooses to die on his own terms,” the CBC reported on May 31. Price Carter, a 68-year-old who has stage 4 pancreatic cancer, is planning to be euthanized; as the CBC glibly put it, “he intends to die on his own terms with his family at his side.” Why is the CBC covering this story? Because Price Carter is euthanasia royalty:
Carter said he’s always known that medical assistance in dying would be an option “that I would exercise if I could, if needed to.” He has that option, in large part, because of his mother. Kay Carter’s name is on the landmark Supreme Court of Canada case that gave Canadians the right to choose a medically assisted death just over a decade ago.
The CBC emphasized that Carter is cool, calm, and collected about his upcoming assisted suicide; that he has found the process easy to navigate, and that he is “at peace with this, I truly am, and I would have been years ago.” Propaganda campaigns need poster boys, and the CBC has been plugging for Canada’s euthanasia regime from the beginning — and they cannot help but be gruntled by this neat bit of symmetry, in which the son of the woman whose Supreme Court case brought euthanasia to Canada will himself die by lethal injection:
It was more than 15 years ago that Price, along with his sisters Marie and Lee and his brother-in-law Hollis, surreptitiously made their way to Switzerland to be with their mother on her final day. The 89-year-old was living with spinal stenosis and chose to go to a non-profit facility that provided medically assisted death. She became the 10th Canadian to do so.
At the time, assisted death was illegal in Canada. Kay Carter wrote a letter explaining her decision and her family helped draft a list of about 150 people to send it to after she died. She couldn’t tell them her plans in advance because of the risk that Canadian authorities would try to stop her from going to Switzerland or prosecute the family members who helped her.
When she got to the Dignitas facility, she finalized the paperwork, settled in a bed and chased down the barbiturate that would stop her heart with Swiss chocolate. “When she died, she just gently folded back,” Price said. After a few minutes, one of the attendants from the facility walked over to the door, “and the curtains billow out, and she says, ‘There, her spirit is free,’” he said. “If I was writing the movie, I wouldn’t change that.”
The CBC emphasized that although Carter cried when his mother passed, it was “not from sadness” but because “the experience itself was beautiful” — and that he would like his children to see him die the way he saw his mother die. The CBC added, “His children — Lane, Grayson and Jenna — live in Ontario. They’re all busy, he said, so when the time is right he’ll try to find a date that works for everyone.”
In the meantime, Carter could not help but carry on his mother’s legacy by pushing for an expansion to Canada’s euthanasia by permitting “advance request” that “would allow people with Alzheimer’s, dementia, or other degenerative conditions to make the application and decide when they’d like to end their lives.”
“We’re excluding a huge number of Canadians from a MAID option because they may have dementia and they won’t be able to make that decision in three or four or two years. How frightening, how anxiety-inducing that would be,” he said. Despite the fact that more than 60,000 Canadians have died by euthanasia, Carter says he is frustrated by the pace of change.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, meanwhile, has called on Canada to repeal Track 2 MAiD, halt the expansion of euthanasia eligibility to those suffering from mental illness and disability, and refrain from legalizing advance requests. According to Vice-Chair Rosemary Kayess, Canada is on the path to “state-sponsored eugenics.” That, indeed, is the real legacy of Carter versus Canada — which turned out to be Canada versus the vulnerable.
