From LifeSiteNews

By  Jonathon Van Maren

An Irish mother with mental health problems killed herself under Switzerland’s permissive euthanasia regime without telling her family. Similar horror stories are happening in Canada, and the UK may be next.

Last month, Megan Royal discovered that her mother had ended her life by assisted suicide when she received a WhatsApp message from Swiss suicide center Pegasos, letting her know that her mother’s ashes would be sent to her via mail. 

Fifty-eight-year-old Maureen Slough was from Cavan, Ireland, and told her family that she would be vacationing with a friend in Lithuania. Instead, the recently retired civil servant traveled to Switzerland, where the facility says she died by lethal injection, listening to a song by Elvis Presley. Her family, including her “partner” Mick Lynch, who had spoken to her the day she died, had no idea that she was planning assisted suicide. 

Slough, who had suffered through the deaths of two of her daughters, attempted suicide in 2024, and her daughter Megan Royal says she was suffering mental anguish. “She had told us she was going to Lithuania, but she had confided in two people that she had other plans,” Royal told the press. “And after a series of concerned phone calls she said she would come home, but then we got the WhatsApp message to say she had died.”  

The suicide cost €15,000. Several weeks later, Royal and Lynch received goodbye letters from Maureen in the mail. Royal is heartbroken and outraged.  

“They should not have allowed her to make that decision on her own,” she said. “This group did not contact me, even though my mother had nominated me as next of kin. They waited until afterwards and then told me she had died listening to an Elvis Presley song.” Pegasos claims that they were provided with a letter from Royal affirming her knowledge of the suicide, verified through an email address. Royal received no email; the family says the letter was likely forged. 

According to UK Right to Life, Slough’s brother Philip, a U.K. solicitor, “has written to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, urging them to investigate the matter with the Swiss authorities … he said that Pegasos had failed to follow its own policy of informing family, adding ‘it appears my sister provided Pegasos with letters of complaint to medical authorities in Éire in respect of bogus medical conditions, and that these documents were considered by Pegasos in support of her application.’” 

He continued: “While I understand that Swiss law permits assisted dying, the Pegasos clinic has faced numerous criticisms in the UK for their practices with British nationals, and the circumstances in which my sister took her life are highly questionable.” Assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland since 1941 and is only illegal for the ambiguous reason of “selfish motives.” Switzerland has long been a destination for suicide tourism, and UK Right to Life noted that “Pegasos was at the centre of a similar controversy  earlier this year when a British mother, Anne, ended her life at the Pegasos  assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland without informing her family.” 

Many are already observing that if Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill becomes law in the United Kingdom, similar scenarios could soon be a reality in the UK. MP Danny Kruger attempted to table an amendment earlier this year requiring people seeking assisted suicide to sign a document declaring whether they had informed their family of their plan; it was ignored.  

“That is the saddest thing, which was hinted at quite strongly – in fact, stated explicitly – in some of the evidence sessions,” Kruger told the House. “It has been suggested that wanting a loved one to live is seen by doctors as a form of coercion that should be resisted; that trying to argue a loved one out of an assisted death is the coercion that we need to guard against and, on that basis, we should not be making any expectation that families are informed.”  

“What a tragic thing for us to say,” he continued. “To enable doctors to issue lethal drugs that kill people without their family knowing is an absolutely tragic thing. I beg the Committee to consider what on earth we are doing allowing that.” 

Kruger is not exaggerating. At a press conference in British Columbia for MP Tamara Jansen’s Bill C-218, which would ban euthanasia for those suffering from mental illness, Alicia Duncan told the gut-wrenching story of discovering that her mother had been euthanized after being hospitalized for a mental health crisis – and finding out about her mother’s death via text message.

If the House of Lords passes Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill – and if MP Tamara Jansen’s “Right to Recover Act” fails to pass this fall – stories like that of Maureen Slough will become excruciatingly common. Parliamentarians must act to protect the vulnerable. If they do not, children discovering that their parents have died by suicide and that their ashes are in the mail will no longer be a horrifying aberration, but a social norm.

From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

Lucasfilm, owned by Disney, issued a statement opening the door to reviving the role Carano lost on ‘The Mandalorian’ for dissenting from woke orthodoxy.

Conservative actress Gina Carano and leftist entertainment giant Disney have settled the former’s wrongful termination lawsuit, with the latter issuing a statement opening the door to reviving the Star Wars role she lost for dissenting from woke orthodoxy.

In February 2021, the Disney-owned Lucasfilm terminated its association with Carano following online activists’ uproar over a social media post in which the former MMA fighter warned that “to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different from hating someone for their political views?”

In response, Lucasfilm issued a statement saying Carano, who co-starred as heroic mercenary Cara Dune in the popular Star Wars streaming series The Mandalorian and had been slated to helm her own spinoff, “is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.” No such denigration in her remarks had ever been identified, but The Hollywood Reporter quoted one source as saying Lucasfilm had “been looking for a reason to fire her for two months, and today was the final straw.”

The move sparked a backlash against Disney among conservatives, and with the exception of small projects such as a role in a streaming movie produced by conservative outlet The Daily Wire, Carano’s acting career languished.

In February 2024, Carano took tech mogul Elon Musk up on his public offer to finance lawsuits for those “canceled” over their free speech on Twitter/X, and filed a wrongful termination suit against the company, alleging Disney “bullied Ms. Carano, trying to force her to conform to their views about cultural and political issues, and when that bullying failed, they fired her.”

On Thursday, Variety reported that the parties have reached a settlement in the suit. While no details of the terms have been released, Lucasfilm issued a statement that “The Walt Disney Company and Lucasfilm are pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with Gina Carano to resolve the issues in her pending lawsuit against the companies. Ms. Carano was always well respected by her directors, co-stars and staff, and she worked hard to perfect her craft while treating her colleagues with kindness and respect. With this lawsuit concluded, we look forward to identifying opportunities to work together with Ms. Carano in the near future.”

The statement falls short of an explicit retraction or apology, but hints at the possibility of bringing back Carano as Dune in some capacity. Moreover, Carano herself was pleased by the outcome, first posting “and the truth shall set you free,” then issuing a full statement of her own.

“I believe [this] is the best outcome for all parties involved. I hope this brings some healing to the force,” Carano said, before thanking Musk, her attorneys at Schaerr|Jaffe, her fans for their support, and God “for His love and grace in this outcome.”

“I am excited to flip the page and move onto the next chapter. My desires remain in the arts, which is where I hope you will join me,” she said. “Yes, I’m smiling.”