I Am Erica 🇺🇸

A Canadian grandmother was euthanized without her consent. An 83-year-old Canadian grandmother was euthanized under the country’s Medical Assistance in Dying program on July 10. Brigitte Stegemann was killed despite having previously declined it because of her Christian faith. And her family says she was declined the right to give final verbal consent. Brigitte Stegemann, known lovingly to her family as “GG,” died by lethal injection at The Pearl, a long-term care facility in Belleville, Ontario, where she had lived for the previous two years. She had been diagnosed with untreatable Stage IV stomach cancer about five months earlier. Her granddaughter, also named Brigitte, held legal power of attorney and had served as her primary caregiver and advocate for more than 12 years. Facility staff routinely contacted the granddaughter for decisions about medications, treatments, and daily care. Approximately two months before her death, Stegemann was asked about Medical Assistance in Dying. According to her family’s public statement, she “clearly stated that she did not wish to pursue it.” As a devout Christian, she said the practice conflicted with her personal beliefs and faith. She wanted to die naturally. While the granddaughter was away on a 10-day vacation, facility staff held private discussions with Stegemann about MAiD without informing her family or any advocate. The family was never given a clear answer about who initiated those conversations, a serious concern given Stegemann’s diminished capacity, severe hearing impairment—she was completely deaf in her left ear and had very limited hearing in the right—and frequent periods of lethargy and unresponsiveness. When the formal assessment occurred on July 6 and 7, the family described Stegemann’s sudden alertness as anomalous after days of near-unresponsiveness. During the capacity evaluation, the physician had to repeat questions repeatedly because of her hearing loss. Stegemann repeatedly gave incorrect answers to basic questions about her own life. When asked if she had any siblings, she said she had none—though she was the second-youngest of 14 children. She also said none of her siblings were still alive, even though some were and she had spoken with one the previous week. She became disoriented, began to cry, and said, “I forgot about the grandkids,” confusing her living siblings with her great-grandchildren. The family corrected the vast majority of her answers and the granddaughter objected directly, questioning how Stegemann could possibly be deemed capable of consenting to her own death. The physician explained the procedure in language the family found euphemistic and misleading for an elderly woman of Stegemann’s background, describing it as receiving medication, feeling peace, falling asleep, and promising she “would not lose control of her bowels.” The family was then ordered to leave the room. The power-of-attorney holder’s request to remain was denied. When the physician emerged, she stated flatly, “I have deemed her capable of making her own decisions,” and informed the family that Stegemann had consented. The procedure was scheduled for July 10. The family was left “shocked and distressed.” They later discovered that the death date had been set before any official MAiD application paperwork was completed. Facility staff, including the home manager, then filled out and witnessed the forms themselves without notifying the power of attorney, despite the family’s daily visits. On July 8, the date was briefly advanced by a full day simply because the physician had an opening in her schedule. The home manager admitted she had personally completed the paperwork. On the morning of July 10, the family took Stegemann outside to the patio for fresh air and a scoop of her favorite strawberry ice cream while waiting for her pastor to arrive. Her clear wishes to be surrounded by family and to have her pastor present were treated as secondary to the schedule. After returning to her room, an intravenous line was inserted amid what the family described as a significant, alarming amount of blood covering Stegemann, the bedding, and the surrounding area. When the physician arrived, Stegemann remained silent, her hands held in a prayer position, and gave no verbal response. The family had been strictly assured that Stegemann would be asked for a final, explicit verbal confirmation on the day of the procedure to ensure she still wished to proceed. “Tragically, we were left alarmed and horrified when the clinical team completely ignored her silence and carried the procedure forward regardless,” their statement said. Stegemann was dead shortly afterward. In their account, the family described what happened as “a systemic failure driven by clinical arrogance, a total lack of transparency, and a blatant disregard for the safeguards meant to protect vulnerable patients.” Once a vulnerable patient had explicitly declined MAiD because it violated her Christian faith, the facility should never have targeted her for re-evaluation behind closed doors while her primary advocate was away—especially when staff had no difficulty contacting the granddaughter daily for routine decisions. The family is now speaking out in the hope that Stegemann’s story will serve as a warning and an urgent call for greater clinical transparency, mandatory family inclusion for cognitively vulnerable patients, and strict legal accountability for facilities that operate outside the law. Canada legalized Medical Assistance in Dying in 2016. By April 2026 the country had already recorded more than 100,000 euthanasia deaths. Cases like Stegemann’s underscore the profound risks the system poses to elderly, hearing-impaired, and cognitively vulnerable patients whose prior refusals and diminished capacity are overridden in the name of “choice.”