A Canadian news item that likely passed under most Americans’ – including prolife Americans’ – radar was an August 25 statement by the Québec College of Physicians seeming to endorse euthanasia for newborns.

The British tabloid The Daily Mail claimed the College reaffirmed on August 25 support for a policy proposal initially floated three years ago to permit the active euthanasia of disabled newborns.  The article quoted the College as saying “the CMQ [Collège des Médecins du Québec) reiterates that medical assistance in dying may be an appropriate treatment for babies suffering from extreme pain that cannot be relieved and who have severe malformations or serious polysymptomatic syndromes that destroy any prospect of survival.  …  The CMQ believes that parents should have the opportunity to obtain this care for their infant under these well-defined circumstances.”

Granted, the sensationalist Daily Mail is not a usual “paper-of-record” and the story has only been picked up in prolife/conservative outlets (see here and here).  But given four facts: the College has not put up any disclaimer or other statement on its website; apparently has some relatively contemporaneous statement under protected login; the statement tallies with previous ones from the group; and it fits into the overall trajectory of ever-expanding Canadian MAID (“medical assistance in dying”) makes the claim credible.

As various sources note, the cessation of extraordinary means to preserve the handicapped newborn’s life is currently legal.  The proposal moves from ceasing active means to prolong life to taking active means to end life. 

The College statement cites the most extreme cases – unrelievable “pain” conjoined with “severe malformations” that “destroy any prospect of survival” – and claims (at least right now) that actively murdering these newborns will occur “under these well-defined circumstances.”

No one should take these disavowals seriously. The decade-long history of MAID has demonstrated ever-progressive rollback of initially promised guardrails to limit the practice, so that almost five percent of Canadians now die from MAID. Initially hawked as a solution for the “terminally” ill, the “terminal” condition has since been removed.  The proposal that “mental illness” can be the sole qualifying criterion for MAID has not been ruled out, only deferred by Parliament until 2027.  Precedent therefore is on the side of those who regard “well-defined circumstances” limiting MAID as temporary obstacles until society is better acclimated to the idea.

Even here, very few countries (since Nazi Germany) have ventured down the road of officially endorsing active euthanasia to eliminate handicapped newborns.  To get a sense of the qualitative leap that proposal represents and the advanced position of the culture of death in Canada, consider the outrage generated by ex-Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s 2019 radio remarks endorsing neglect of survivors of late-term abortions, based on a “discussion” with the mother.

Lest there be any doubt about why this creep is happening, however, let’s pin it where it belongs: on abortion-on-demand.  As long as abortion-on-demand was the law of the land in the United States and justified by Doe’s elastic definition of maternal “health”) the legality of third-trimester abortions resulting in delivery of a surviving infant always blurred what should have been the bright line of birth.  Whether or not one thought Roe was rightly decided, the distinction between pre- and post-natal life received lip service because it was clear: the Fourteenth Amendment forbade deprivation of life without due process of law from birth. 

That consensus prevailed as long as the it remained in tandem with the Bill Clinton adage of abortion being “safe, legal, and rare,” i.e., acknowledging that even if one accepted abortion, it was a bad choice.  But the “shout-your-abortion” crowd has emphatically insisted that no abortion – even just before birth – can ever be subject to moral judgment. Well, if abortion is so sacrosanct, then how far does its sacrality extend: to the act itself or to its full consequences?  In other words, if a late term abortion results in a surviving child, is the mother entitled to a dead baby, too (especially if the baby is handicapped)?

Blurring the birth line is nothing new: in that sense, Kenneth Edelin was a “pioneer” of this ethic when he killed a baby back in 1975.  And Yale University Hospital was presumably advancing “cutting edge” medicine by abandoning 43 newborns with birth defects ca 1980.  The only “backwardist” was Ronald Reagan with the Baby Doe Regulations, which the federal courts effectively eviscerated.

In America, the results of blurring the birth line and doing nothing for the handicapped newborn largely remains lethal discriminatory medical neglect. That posture has been reaffirmed multiple times by Democrats through their rejection of Abortion Survivor Protection Acts, most recently on January 22, 2025 with every Senate Democrat voting against it.

Canada now seems ready to take the next step: actively killing these newborns.  Sure, the idea is initially wrapped in all sorts of “extreme case” language intended to let the camel’s nose under the tent, “safeguards” almost certainly to be quickly discarded.

The paradox is that the College of Physicians of Québec advertises itself as “protecting the public by ensuring quality medical care.”  The risible truth is: it does neither.