ANOTHER CANADIAN EUTHANASIA HORROR

National Review

 

Another Canadian Euthanasia Horror

By Wesley J. Smith

September 21, 2026 6:46 AM

 

Euthanasia has become a way of life in Canada (he wrote ironically). More than 100,000 people have been killed by doctors and nurse practitioners. At least one hospice lost funding for refusing to kill patients. Doctors with religious and moral objections were told by Ontario’s highest court to either kill qualified patients wanting to die, procure a doctor who will (“effective referral”), or get out of medicine. Euthanasia has been described in the media as a splendid source of organs.

 

And there are horror stories aplenty. Here’s the latest. If the reporting is accurate, an elderly woman with stomach cancer was euthanized after being coaxed by medical personnel and while mentally incapable. From the Daily Mail story:

 

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Two days before her Christian grandmother’s assisted dying procedure in Ontario, Canada, Brigitte Kranendonk sat her down to make sure she knew exactly what was going to happen.

 

‘I used very frank terms. I said: “Do you know that you’re going to die on Friday?”’

 

The 83-year-old was in visible disbelief and began crying for 45 minutes. ‘I’ve made a mistake,’ Brigitte Stegemann, known affectionately to her family as ‘GG’ or ‘Oma’, wailed.

 

‘She was bawling. Inconsolable,’ Kranendonk, a real estate agent who shares the same first name with her late grandmother, tells the Daily Mail.

 

In a cognitive test, designed to ascertain whether she was sound of mind enough to consent to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), Stegemann ‘got every question wrong’, believing her two living siblings to be dead, according to Kranendonk.

 

Yet 48 hours after she wept uncontrollably at the notion of MAiD, Stegemann is said to have died with her hands clasped in prayer, covered in her own blood due to a botched first attempt at connecting the IV, administered by a nurse allegedly not wearing gloves.

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Well, why worry about infection when you are killing someone, right?

 

The granddaughter believes the medical personnel were ideologically motivated:

 

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‘She was a vulnerable human being, and they saw an opportunity,’ Kranendonk says, her rage and sadness visible.

 

She suspects the MAiD practitioners were inappropriately ideologically motivated, and believes the chain of events leading up to the procedure should be investigated . . .

 

Back in Cannifton, Kranendonk anxiously questioned a nurse at the residential home about who had initiated the MAiD conversation. ‘The nurse became very abrasive, very defensive,’ Kranendonk recalls. ‘She was like, “Well, I’m just trying to advocate for her. I’m just trying to do what’s right for her.”‘

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Here are the details:

 

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But every time she tried to question whether MAiD was the right pathway for her grandmother, she feels she was made to feel crazy or burdensome by the medical professionals at the home.

 

‘I truly believe that one nurse really saw us as an obstacle,’ she says. ‘We were getting in the way of her doing MAiD on my grandmother. I think she really, truly believes that MAiD is the best for people, and shame on me for trying to stop that.’

 

Kranendonk made sure she was in the room for the second MAiD assessment, and it was there where she noticed the doctor speak in ‘really loose terms, never using the words death or dying’.

 

‘She explains MAiD to my grandmother by saying: “We’re going to give you medicine, you’re going to feel at peace. And I just want you to know that you won’t have a bowel movement.”’

 

‘She’s saying it in these strange terms, that aren’t literal,’ Kranendonk says, adding: ‘My Oma’s just kind of nodding. Her first language is not English; she is 83 years old and severely hearing-impaired.’

 

Kranendonk looked at the doctor, and said: ‘She doesn’t understand what you’re saying.’

 

That’s when the doctor allegedly turned to the grandmother, and offered: ‘We’re going to make sure you won’t have any more pain.’

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I believe that it becomes an ideological cause for some who abandon Hippocratic medicine. One doctor in Canada has killed hundreds of patients. MDs raise the issue with eligible patients. Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition says that “MAID teams” may visit patients in hospitals to tell them they can apply for death. I published a photo here (sent from a source) of a MAID advertisement in a hospital waiting room! Children were indoctrinated about the goodness of lethal jabs. Veterans with PTSD were offered euthanasia as a treatment. An elderly woman was euthanized because she couldn’t bear COVID isolation. But the family was allowed to be with her when she was killed. The list goes on and on. It makes one sick!

 

How’s this for “death with dignity?”

 

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Recalling those nightmarish minutes, a traumatised Kranendonk speaks in the present tense, as if the procedure was still happening in slow motion.

 

‘There was a phenomenal amount of blood,’ she says, describing the way that the nurse failed to find the correct vein in the right arm to insert the IV, before switching to the left – but only after having ‘poked her about three or four times with the needle’.

 

‘It is all over my Oma’s arm, it is all over her nightie, soaking through her pillow, all over the sheets, there is so much blood.

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Was this done by a nurse? Where was the doctor, anyway?

 

Euthanasia is bad medicine and even worse public policy. It exposes the most vulnerable among us to abandonment and death. It subverts hospice philosophy. It pretends to be kind. It claims to be compassionate. But in the end, euthanasia consciousness can justify the most callous cruelty.

 

Medical personnel who participate willingly in euthanasia/assisted suicide believe that they are doing what is best for suffering people. But they may become victims of the culture of death too. Intentional killing or prescribing poison surely weighs heavily on consciences.

 

I wonder how death doctors sleep.

THE HEROIC FLIGHT ATTENDANT OF 1986

PEOPLE

 

In 1986, a Flight Attendant Fought Off 4 Hijackers, Hid Passenger’s Passports to Protect Americans and Died a Hero

By Colson Thayer  Published on September 22, 2026 08:35AM EDT

 

Before sacrificing her life to shield children from the hail of gunfire, flight attendant Neerja Bhanot spent 16 hours quietly outsmarting four armed hijackers on board Pan Am flight 73 in 1986.

 

Her incredible bravery — which included secretly hiding American passports to save targeted passengers — earned the 22-year-old senior purser international recognition and the lasting title of “Heroine of the Hijack.”

 

In the early morning hours of Sept. 5, 1986, four Abu Nidal terrorists boarded Pan Am flight 73 during a scheduled stopover at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan. The flight was en route from Bombay (now Mumbai) to Frankfurt, Germany, and then to New York.

 

According to the Pan Am Museum in Uniondale, N.Y., the hijackers dressed in fake airport security uniforms with authentic-looking security badges and arrived in a highly modified van that looked similar to an airport vehicle. The men subsequently boarded with assault rifles, pistols, grenades and belts of explosives with the goal of flying to Cyprus and Israel to free fellow militants who were incarcerated on terror charges.

 

On board, one of the flight attendants phoned in a warning to the cockpit and relayed a hijack code. The captain, first officer and flight engineer subsequently evaded the incident via a cockpit escape hatch, leaving the passengers and crew members face-to-face with the assailants.

 

Outside, Pan Am’s Karachi director began negotiations with a megaphone, telling the hijackers they were looking for a pilot to fly them where they needed to go. Meanwhile, 29-year-old American Rajesh Kumar was pulled out of his seat and forced to kneel at the front of the plane with a gun to his head. When no pilot appeared within an hour, Kumar was shot and kicked out of the open doors of the plane.

 

Since Abu Nidal opposed U.S. and Israeli policy in the Middle East, about four hours into the ordeal, the hijackers began trying to identify the Americans on board. Bhanot and fellow crew members then went through the bags of passports they collected, secretly sorting out the American documents, and hiding them under their seats or in their clothing.

 

Despite the extreme circumstances, flight attendants recalled comforting the passengers and passing out food and water during the ordeal in a 2016 interview with the BBC.

 

As the situation continued for hours, the battery of the plane eventually died. When the lights went out, at least three doors opened. Crew members jumped into action, helping assist passengers off the plane.

 

However, amid the chaos, Bhanot was shot in her hip, bleeding heavily, but was conscious. Witnesses later described seeing Bhanot shot while shielding children and leading them to an escape slide.

 

Two colleagues reportedly found her conscious and carried her to the emergency slide. Fellow crew members say she was still alive when she was transported to Karachi’s Jinnah Hospital; however, the chaos continued at the hospital.

 

“Neerja’s life may have been saved were conditions in the hospital better,” her colleague, Sherene Pavan, told the BBC.

 

According to the outlet, three of the hijackers were caught by airport security as they fled the airport. Lead hijacker Zaid Hassan Abd Latif Safarini was still on board when Pakistan’s security forces entered the aircraft.

 

At least 21 people were killed, including two Americans, and more than 100 were injured. However, the combined effort of the 16 flight attendants and Pan Am’s Karachi director saved the lives of more than 350 people, according to the U.S. Office for Victims of Crimes (OVC).

 

In 1987, Bhanot became the youngest and first female recipient of India’s Ashoka Chakra, the country’s highest peacetime gallantry award.

 

The OVC handed 17 Pan Am team members the Special Courage Award in 2006, including a posthumous award presented to Bhanot’s family.

 

In 2016, the 30th anniversary of the hijacking, Bhanot’s life was retold in an Indian biographical thriller entitled Neerja.

CAMBRIDGE COLLEGE SPARKS ROW AFTER GOING AGAINST SUPREME COURT RULING ON SINGLE SEX SPACES

Daily Mail

Cambridge college sparks row after replacing genders on toilets with 'cubicles' and 'cubicles/urinals' despite Supreme Court ruling on single-sex spaces

By GETHIN HICKS, REPORTER

Published: 08:32 EDT, 22 September 2026 | Updated: 09:30 EDT, 22 September 2026

A Cambridge college has sparked a row after replacing gender symbols on one of its toilets with signs reading 'cubicles' and 'cubicles/ urinals'.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)'s new code of practice, reinforcing last year's Supreme Court ruling that sex in equality law means biological

sex not gender identity, came into effect in August.

It ruled that providing mixed sex facilities could amount to direct or indirect discrimination, or unlawful harassment, against biological women.

But now, little more than a month after the code came into force, King's College at Cambridge University has been accused of providing a 'hostile environment

for people who believe in biological sex'.

The college decided to remove 'male' and 'female' signs on toilets near its main bar several years ago to read 'cubicles' and 'cubicles/urinals' in a move

which is said to have put some women off using the toilets.

It came following recommendations made by a campus LGBT+ group based off a guide published in 2018.

The guide stated that, based on national averages, there could be between 100 and 150 transgender people at the university who should 'not be rejected

from binary toilets'.

A college alumna has however today accused King's of 'caving in to activists'. The college insists that the signs have been in place for 'several years'.

The woman, who preferred not to be named, told The Telegraph: 'I think it's absolutely shocking that a university like Cambridge has decided to cave in

to trans activists. That's shocking and it's cowardly.

'Given there are three students at Cambridge who have set up the Cambridge Society for Women and they were harassed and abused and defamed, Cambridge is

proving a hostile environment for people who believe in biological sex.

'Caving in to activists – I don't think that sends a very good message to the student body. They're living, particularly in an Oxbridge college, in a particular

kind of bubble.

'You need to learn to tolerate other people's beliefs and also to understand that the law is the law.'

Another woman meanwhile complained on social media, writing: '@kings_college you expect women to traipse around King's looking for guaranteed male-free

toilets?

'Your provision here is male-biased and hostile to women as a sex class. Everyone knows what sex they are. Women and men have different hygiene needs.

Do better.'

Helen Joyce, the director of women's rights charity Sex Matters, said the signs at King's represent the 'worst of both worlds for men and women'.

It comes just a day after Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey embroiled his party in a trans rights row as he demanded the EHRC's guidance be scrapped.

Lib Dem leaders voted overwhelmingly in favour of replacing the code, dubbed 'discriminatory and unworkable', with a new one ensuring that everybody 'can

safely access public facilities and providers are protected from legal risk'. 

Dr Zoe Hollowood, who chairs the campaign group Liberal Voice for Women, told the conference: 'It is not about restoring trans rights for they have lost

none.

'It is about ripping out rights from women and destroying the clarity of the Supreme Court ruling.'

Only last month, women working at a major NHS Trust were left feeling 'intimidated' after its leaders told trans staff they can still use female toilets

and facilities.

The Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust announced there would be no 'immediate changes to its policy' just days after the EHRC's code

came into force.

It meant trans staff could still use toilets and changing rooms facilities which should only have been open to women based on their biological sex. The

trust told staff it was awaiting further guidance from NHS England.

A female member of staff at the Trust said at the time that women were upset by the email but that it was not 'safe' to raise it because it was 'signed

by all the top people at the trust'.

Of the ordeal in Cambridge this week, King's College said: 'King's College aims to be a safe, welcoming and inclusive environment for visitors and members

of the College community.

'There are toilet facilities available for single sex and gender-neutral use in multiple locations around the College.

'Toilets and washing facilities are provided to support our core mission of delivering education to our students.

'The signage on the toilets referenced has been in use for several years; these toilets are one part of our wider provision. The College provides a number

of different types of facilities for both our students and guests to the College.'

MISSOURI MOM WHO CLAIMS SHE MISTAKENLY PLACED INFANT IN OVEN, KILLING HER, COPS A PLEA DEAL

New York Post

 

Missouri mom who claimed she mistakenly placed infant in oven, killing her, cops a plea deal

By Daniel Cody

Published Sep. 22, 2026, 3:52 p.m. ET

 

A Missouri mom who placed her 1-month-old baby girl in an oven — then claimed to cops that she mistook the appliance for a crib — has pleaded guilty to the horrific death.

 

Mariah Thomas, 28, copped a plea deal on Tuesday three years after she was locked up in a Jackson County jail for placing her daughter, Za’Riah Mae, in the oven in February 2024, according to the Daily Mail.

 

She will serve 11 years in prison.

 

Cops described the scene inside her Kansas City home as “gruesome” after the helpless infant was found charred and not breathing, according to The Guardian.

 

Thomas gave police a bizarre excuse, alleging she “was putting her child down for a nap, and accidentally placed the child in the oven instead of the crib,” according to Fox 4.

 

The mother copped to a lesser charge of endangering the welfare of a child resulting in death after prosecutors dropped murder charges.

 

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker lamented that “our hearts are weighted by the loss of this precious life.”

 

“We trust the criminal justice system to respond appropriately to these awful circumstances,” Baker said, according to the local outlet.

 

Police responded to Thomas’ home when a witness was told “something was wrong with the baby and he needed to return home immediately,” according to a probable cause statement obtained by the Daily Mail.

 

The witness smelled smoke upon arriving and discovered Za’Riah’s body lying inside her crib.

 

The tiny child was covered in horrific burns, her skin was “blackened” and her clothing and diaper were fused to her skin, court documents state.

 

First responders found the infant in a car seat suffering from “apparent thermal injuries on various parts of her body.”

TEEN INVENTS AI-ENABLED GLASSES AFTER SEEING HIS GRANDMA STRUGGLE WITH BLINDNESS

NEPTUNE WAS DISCOVERED 180 YEARS AGO, BUT THE PLANET STILL HASN'T CELEBRATED ITS SECOND BIRTHDAY

PEOPLE

 

Neptune Was Discovered 180 Years Ago, but the Planet Still Hasn’t Celebrated Its 2nd Birthday

By Desiree Anello  Published on September 23, 2026 06:03PM EDT

 

Despite being discovered by astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle in 1846, Neptune has only celebrated one birthday since then.

 

Neptune, the third largest planet in our solar system, was found and identified as a planet 180 years ago — a discovery that came over 200 years after Galileo first recorded it in his notebook as a star.

 

“Its location at the edge of the solar system makes it a bit of a black hole from a knowledge point of view,” Dr. Craig O’Neill, a planetary scientist at Sydney’s Macquarie University, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation back in 2011. “From Neptune, the Sun looks like a point of light no brighter than Venus does from Earth.”

 

Given its distance from the Sun, Neptune takes far longer to complete a single orbit than Earth does.

 

A single year on Neptune lasts just under 165 Earth years. As a result, since its discovery in 1846, Neptune has only celebrated one birthday, which it did in 2011.

 

While Neptune was the second planet in history to be discovered, the way it happened remains even more significant.

 

After William Herschel discovered Uranus with a homemade telescope in 1781, astronomers eventually began to realize that another huge planet was likely pulling on it, causing Uranus to deviate from its predicted course based on Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation, according to Time.

 

On Nov. 10, 1845, French astronomer Urbain Jean-Joseph Le Verrier shared his findings after investigating the whereabouts of the undiscovered celestial body, per The Weather Network. Ultimately, he located Neptune within a single degree of its discovery position.

 

After Le Verrier mailed his findings to Galle at the Berlin Observatory, Galle immediately started looking for the body with one of his students, Heinrich Louis d’Arrest, who suggested comparing a newly drawn chart of the sky with the current sky to highlight any discrepancies.

 

And just like that, Neptune became the first planet to be discovered through mathematical predictions.

 

In addition to being more than 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth, the planet is known for being dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds, according to NASA. It is also the only planet in our solar system that is not visible to the naked eye.

 

In comparison to Earth’s wind speeds that reach a maximum of around 250 miles per hour, Neptune’s winds whip clouds of frozen methane across the planet at speeds of more than 1,200 miles per hour.

 

“Given Uranus has fairly mild winds, Neptune’s dynamics are a mystery,” O’Neill previously told the Australian Broadcasting Coorporation. “One idea is that if you put methane under enough pressure deep in Neptune’s atmosphere, it could convert to diamond which would fall as rain. This conversion process releases heat which could power the winds.”

 

“That’s a little more speculative,” he added, “but speculation is all we’ve got.”

FLORIDA HISTORY TEACHER ALLEGEDLY DELIBERATELY TRIED TO CANCEL GRADE 8 STUDENT OVER HIS CONSERVATIVE VIEWS

New York Post

 

Florida history teacher Liz Ballard ‘deliberately tried to cancel’ 8th grader ‘for his conservative views’

By Chris Bradford

Published Sep. 24, 2026, 4:44 a.m. ET

 

A Florida history teacher allegedly tried to “cancel” an eighth-grader enrolled at one of the state’s elite schools for his conservative beliefs – and now she’s facing calls to be fired.

 

Liz Ballard, a teacher at Pine View School in Osprey, Fla., is accused of singling out the boy as the “conservative perspective” in her classes before describing him as a “misogynist” and spreading the slur around the school, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a letter on Monday.

 

Ballard allegedly “harassed, disparaged and deliberately tried to ‘cancel’ an eighth-grade student for his conservative views” during her debates — even though he had previously warned her “his parents expressly forbid him to take part,” according to Uthmeier’s letter.

 

She “singled out this student and in defiance of his parents’ express instructions, pressured him to defend political positions… in front of his classmates,” the pol said, engaging in what he described as the “reputational destruction of a child.”

 

The educator then allegedly blasted the boy’s family, “openly [questioning] the suitability and influence of [his] father.”

 

Ballard has been the subject of “multiple” HR investigations and at the center of parents’ complaints, according to Uthmeier, who has called for her to be dismissed if the claims are legitimate.

 

The investigation into the teacher has spanned several months, Jason Means, the President of the Sarasota Classified Teachers Association, said, according to WFLA.

 

Ballard has tried to distance herself from Uthmeier’s claims.

 

“What I read in that letter is not accurate at all compared to the actual investigation,” she said.

 

Terry Connor, the superintendent of the Sarasota County School Board, which governs the elite magnet school, has not confirmed whether Ballard is still employed.

 

“Every student deserves a classroom where they feel safe, respected, and free to learn,” he said in a statement.

 

“No student should face harassment, humiliation, or retaliation because of their beliefs or their family’s views. Respect for students and parents is fundamental to the trust our community places in our schools.

 

“The allegations in the letter warrant careful attention. We will examine the relevant facts and records, ensure a fair process for all involved, and take appropriate action based on the findings and requirements.”

 

Uthmeier has called on the school board to provide an update by Oct. 1.

 

Pine View School educators teach students from grades two to 12.

 

The Osprey institution ranks number one among Florida high schools and 13 in the national rankings, according to US News.

 

In 2023, the school was named a National Blue Ribbon School by the Department of Education — an award that recognizes excellence or schools that close achievement gaps among students.

 

More than 9,000 schools received the accolade between 1982 and 2025 before the award was discontinued.

 

Pine View was named the second-best public elementary school in America last year, according to Niche, and the third-best public middle school in the country.