Image – Shutterstock: Kitreel
An 84-year-old woman has spoken out after being offered euthanasia while seeking treatment for severe back pain in a Canadian hospital, raising fresh concerns about the direction of end-of-life care.
Miriam Lancaster was taken by ambulance to Vancouver General Hospital in 2025 after waking up in intense pain. What followed, she says, was both unexpected and deeply unsettling.
“The first person that I remember coming to speak to me was a young lady doctor. And this is where the story begins,” Lancaster said. “The very first thing she said to me was, ‘I would like to offer you MAiD.’”
Medical Assistance in Dying, known as MAiD, allows doctors or nurse practitioners in Canada to administer or prescribe drugs intended to end a patient’s life.
Lancaster declined the offer immediately. “I said: ‘No, thank you,’” she recalled. “I was certainly taken aback, and there were so many other things on my mind.”
At the time, her concern was not about ending her life, but understanding the cause of her sudden pain. “Yesterday I was feeling fine. I got out of bed this morning, and suddenly I am not feeling fine. I am in horrendous pain. So I need to know what’s causing the pain. Let’s not talk about end of life please.”
Her experience was not isolated. Lancaster noted that her husband had also been offered euthanasia during a previous hospital stay. “My husband, three years previously, had also been offered MAiD. He turned it down,” she said. “As practicing Catholics, there is no way that we are going to take measures to end our life. That is in the hands of the Lord.”
Doctors later determined that Lancaster had a small fracture in her sacrum, a bone at the base of the spine. After several weeks of rest and recovery, she returned home.
Reflecting on the experience, she said: “When I got home, I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve been given a second chance here. I am going to make the most of whatever time is left.’” She has since travelled abroad, including trips to Cuba, Mexico, and Guatemala, even riding a horse on a volcano.
Her story has prompted wider concern about how euthanasia is being presented within healthcare settings. Amanda Achtman, a Canadian bioethics advocate, warned that such offers can have a profound psychological impact.
“Simply having euthanasia offered already kills a person, because it deflates and defeats a person’s sense of self-worth, self-esteem, and of value,” she said.
Achtman also pointed to the scale of euthanasia in Canada, noting that “1 in 20 deaths is the result of this premature hastening of an end of life.” She added that offers of assisted dying are being made with increasing frequency, including in situations where patients have not raised the issue themselves.
Speaking on the situation, SPUC CEO, John Deighan, has said, “Lancaster’s experience highlights a growing concern that, rather than focusing on care, treatment, and recovery, vulnerable patients may instead be presented with the option of ending their lives. This epitomises the problem with assisted suicide regimes. They cheapen life and health systems become intent on killing their patients instead of caring for them. SPUC will do everything in our power to prevent the UK becoming anything like Canada regarding the way we recognise human dignity.”
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