A Canadian man who was “very sick” as a kid and now lives with a chronic disability says he feels “completely traumatized” and violated that he was offered state-sanctioned euthanasia “multiple times” instead of getting the proper care he needs while in the hospital.
The man, 49-year-old Roger Foley, was highlighted in a short film by filmmaker Amanda Achtman as part of her Dying to Meet You series.
Foley, speaking from his hospital bed in the video posted on YouTube, said that as he lived his early life as a sick child he was “very uncoordinated and always tired.”
“And then they didn’t really have a lot of testing of what I ended up being diagnosed with. So, I just thought I’m lazy, I can work through it,” he said.
Foley grew up with his dad, who was a plumber and a World War II veteran. He recounted that he had “a lot of perseverance.”
“And I guess that rubbed off on me. When he passed away, it was really hard,” he said.
Foley was asked if he had been offered euthanasia, or medical assistance in dying (MAiD), as it is known to end his life. He confirmed that he had been offered the procedure, which has been legal in Canada since 2016, “multiple times.”
“One time, he asked me, do you have any thoughts of self-harm? I’m honest with him and tell him, I do think about ending my life because of what I’m going through, being prevented from the resources that I need to live safely back at home,” Foley said.
“And from out of nowhere, he just pulls out, ‘Well, if you don’t get self-directed funding, you can always apply for an assisted, you know what I mean?’ You feel so pillaged.”
LifeSiteNews was unable to reach Foley before publication to ask him more questions about having been offered euthanasia.
In the video, Foley, who did not disclose the exact nature of his condition, only noting that he could not “even function” without medication and that he is “bedridden,” he noted that Canada’s current healthcare system has not helped him to live his life better, but instead caused him more struggles.
“It’s completely traumatized me,” said Foley, adding that now “it’s this overlying option, where in my situation when I say I’m suicidal, I’m met with, ‘Well, you know, the hospital has a program to help you with that if you want to end your life.’”
“That didn’t exist before MAiD was legalized. But now it’s there. There is not going to be a second within the rest of my life that I’m going to have flashbacks to it, the devaluing of me and all that I am,” he noted.
Due to Foley’s inability to do basic tasks with the help of another person, he has had to rely on the help of hospital staff for almost everything.
When it comes to MAiD, he observed that the mainstream narrative that opposition to it only comes from people of faith is nothing but “gaslighting.”
“That’s the ultimate gaslighting statement. Like I’m not religious, I respect people who are religious. Saying that it’s just religious persons who oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide are completely wrong,” he said.
Foley observed that when it comes to his future, he has “hope” that soon he will be able to “break” through the “system” so that he can live at home.
“The thing that gives me hope is that one day this titanium wall of a system, I’ll be able to, to break through it and get access to the resources that I need and to live at home with workers who want to work with me, and I want to work with them,” he said.
“And we can work as a team … I have a passion to that. Like, I don’t want to give up my life.”
In February, after pushback from pro-life, medical, and mental health groups, as well as most of Canada’s provinces, the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delayed its planned expansion of MAiD to those suffering solely from mental illness to 2027.
The number of Canadians killed by lethal injection since 2016 stands at close to around 65,000, with an estimated 16,000 deaths in 2023 alone, and many fear that because the official statistics are manipulated the number may be even higher.
Indeed, a recent Statistics Canada update admitted to excluding euthanasia from its death totals despite it being the sixth-highest cause of mortality in the nation.
Earlier this week, LifeSiteNews published a report noting how a Canadian combat veteran and artillery gunner revealed, while speaking on a podcast with Dr. Jordan Peterson, that the drugs used in MAiD essentially waterboard a person to death.