A Canadian woman named Miriam Lancaster caused an uproar on social media by saying doctors offered her euthanasia – known in Canada by the euphemism Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) – when she visited the hospital for severe back pain.
Lancaster told her story in a social media post on March 18 that has become a viral sensation, since her experience would appear to violate many of the promises of protection surrounding Canada’s large, fast-growing, and often bizarrely aggressive program of physician-assisted suicide.
Lancaster was interviewed by Amanda Achtman, founder of the Dying to Meet You Project, a group opposed to Canada’s euthanasia laws. Achtman frequently posts interviews with people who have been offered MAID and believes efforts like hers to put a human face on the practice have brought Canada to the “cusp of a MeToo moment concerning euthanasia.”
Lancaster, 84, told Achtman she visited an emergency room in Vancouver in April 2025 after awakening with severe back pain. Her daughter summoned an ambulance, which took her to Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) – where she said the first thing the doctor offered her was death.
“No tests had been taken,” she said in an interview last week with the Western Standard. “All I knew was that I was in an emergency ward and was approached by a doctor, which I was expecting. And the first thing the doctor did was ask about MAID.”
Lancaster told Achtman that the “very first words” out of the female doctor’s mouth were, “We would like to offer you MAID.”
“I was taken aback. That was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted to find out why I was in pain,” she said. “I did not want to die.”
Lancaster’s daughter Jordan Weaver told the Western Standard that her mother received a preliminary diagnosis before MAID was offered — but it was the very first option presented to the elderly woman, who “was in a lot of pain” at the time.
“We had been several hours in the emergency. My mom had a fractured pelvis. It fractured spontaneously due to osteoporosis, and it was hard for them to find at first, because it was such a hairline fracture,” Weaver explained.
The hospital could not offer surgery for Lancaster’s fractured pelvis, so Lancaster spent a week at VGH, followed by a few more weeks at Vancouver’s UBC hospital for rehabilitation.
“It had to be supervised by a team of doctors, nurses, and occupational and physical therapists. She couldn’t come home, so it was very expensive to treat, but it didn’t require surgery. And as you know from the story, she made a full recovery,” Weaver said.
In fact, Lancaster recovered well enough to take several trips with her family – including overseas jaunts to Cuba, Mexico, and Guatemala, where she took a horseback ride up the side of a volcano. Nothing about her condition would seem to have made her an urgent candidate for euthanasia under Canada’s laws, which are supposed to prevent exactly the sort of metaphorical push off the cliff that Lancaster experienced.
Weaver said she feared her mother, a frightened elderly woman in great distress, might have let the doctors talk her into MAID if her daughter had not been present and looking out for her.
“It was something like, you know, MAID is an option that would end the pain forever, you know, with a sort of encouraging attitude. So if someone was being respectful of healthcare workers, they might almost go along with it,” Weaver said.
“I think my mom’s pretty feisty, but if I hadn’t been there, the doctor might have been able to manipulate. It was off the cuff. It was manipulative,” she said.
Lancaster and Weaver sat for more interviews last week as interest in their story grew. On Friday, Weaver told the National Post, “My mother and I are practicing Catholics. We would never accept MAID under any circumstances.”
Canada’s adventure in euthanasia began with fairly strict rules that restricted the practice to people with terminal illness or unbearable pain, but the rules were broadened with dizzying speed over the past few years. The current standards include “intolerable psychological suffering” as a valid reason for euthanasia.
The tenth anniversary of legal assisted suicide is approaching on June 17, and some pro-life activists claim there will have been over 100,000 deaths by then. The official count from Canada’s national health agency stood at 76,475 as of December 31.
Lancaster’s experience fueled heated discussions among politicians and commentators about whether doctors should be forbidden from “initiating” the MAID discussion or not. Euthanasia opponents have always feared doctors would push assisted suicide too vigorously, especially as waiting lists for both physical and psychological treatment continue to grow. Lancaster’s encounter is uncomfortably consistent with accusations that Canada’s healthcare system is aggressively recommending MAID to clear up their patient backlogs.
Some Canadians seem astonished to discover there are no current laws preventing doctors from aggressively promoting euthanasia. Asked on social media whether she has helped Lancaster and other MAID survivors file complaints with the police, Achtman replied, “It’s actually not against current protocols,” so no crime or formal transgression against Canadian medical ethics has been committed — not even against the lady with terrible back pain who wound up riding a horse up the side of a mountain in Guatemala a few months after a doctor offered to help her commit suicide.
Lancaster herself told the National Post she did not want to get anyone in trouble. She spoke highly of the care she received at VGH and UBC and said she had no problem with VGH offering euthanasia to her husband when he collapsed from metastatic cancer in 2023. He refused based on his faith and died ten days later.
“I wanted to forget about the whole incident and just get on with my life. I really didn’t want to hang people out to dry,” she said.
The province of Alberta is currently considering a bill called the Last Resort Termination of Life Act that would include a prohibition against doctors initiating the MAID conversation with their patients. Lancaster and Weaver both told the Western Standard they were in favor of that law.
“I think that’s great. I hand it to the officials in Alberta for presenting this. This is a perfectly reasonable safeguard to avoid predatory doctors manipulating, consciously or unconsciously, patients when they’re vulnerable,” Lancaster said.
Read the full article here