Catching Up on the News With Alex Schadenberg

First published on June 9, 2025 

Dear Friends:

I have very sad news. Stephen Mendelsohn, a disability leader, long-time opponent of assisted suicide, and member of the EPC-USA board, died on June 1 in an accident. Stephen followed the US state bills and updated leaders on news stories. He will be missed.

In late May, I had a speaking tour in British Columbia (BC) where I had engagements in Vernon, Kelowna, Salmon Arm, and Vancouver over four days. In Vancouver, I visited St. Paul’s Hospital to see the euthanasia clinic that was imposed on the hospital by the BC Ministry of Health. The euthanasia clinic was opened in January 2025.

Background: In June 2023, the euthanasia lobby was pressuring the BC government to force Catholic hospitals (Providence Health Care) to provide euthanasia. They used the story of Samantha O’Neill (34) who requested euthanasia at St. Paul’s. The hospital did not provide euthanasia; they transferred O’Neill to St. John Hospice (operated by Vancouver Coastal Health) and she died by euthanasia on April 4, 2023. In December 2023, based on the pressure from the euthanasia lobby, the BC government expropriated property from Providence Health (at St. Paul’s) to build a killing center.

Former Chinese Military Doctor Says CCP May Use Taiwanese Troops’ Organs in Event of War

Dr. Zheng Zhi [pictured right] warned people of the plan at a screening of the award-winning documentary, ‘State Organs,’ in Taiwan.

A former Chinese military doctor, who witnessed the Chinese communist regime’s forced harvesting of organs from a living person years ago, said Beijing had long made plans to take Taiwanese soldiers’ blood, skin, and organs in the event of a Taiwan invasion.

Dr. Zheng Zhi, a former Chinese military doctor currently living in exile in Canada, traveled to Taiwan for several screenings of the award-winning documentary “State Organs” from June 4 to 15, which features Zheng’s eyewitness account as a resident doctor in a Chinese military hospital.

While at the General Hospital of Shenyang Military Region in the 1990s, the Chinese military, known as the People’s Liberation Army, outlined a combat plan every year, he said at one screening event.

“Once a war breaks out in the Taiwan Strait, the greatest pressure for them will be on logistics support,” he said.

Millions of troops may be mobilized to the front line of the Taiwan Strait, including possibly 2 million to 3 million logistics personnel, he said.

He said that from the Chinese regime’s view, “the most difficult part of the logistics to supply the front is the storage, refrigeration, and transportation of blood, as many soldiers will be bleeding or burned in combat,” and “blood supply will become the biggest pressure.”

The Explosion of Myocarditis: Dr. McCullough's Vaccine Testimony

https://www.theblaze.com/shows/pat-gray-unleashed/vaccine-myocarditis-mccullough

Blaze TV Staff, 05/25/25.

In a Senate hearing this week about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine, Dr. Peter McCullough detailed his experience as a cardiologist — and after the shots, it’s not a good one.

“The topic today is myocarditis or heart damage from the COVID-19 vaccines. I’m a cardiologist. I know the topic well. I’ve examined thousands of patients with this problem — thousands. Before the pandemic, I had two patients ever with this problem,” McCullough testified.

“There’s 1,065 papers in the peer-reviewed literature on COVID vaccine myocarditis, so let me summarize them for you,” McCullough continued. “The first author is Verma and colleagues. New England Journal of Medicine. Forty-two-year-old man comes into Washington University Hospital with vaccine myocarditis.”

“The infection is ruled out; it’s the vaccine. He’s in the hospital. This is one of the best hospitals in the United States. He died three days after taking Moderna. They can’t save him in the hospital,” he explains.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

https://www.dailywire.com/news/dont-need-dei-in-our-state-republicans-move-to-close-government-university-dei-offices

By Leif Le Mahieu

The Tennessee General Assembly sent two bills cracking down on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to Republican Governor Bill Lee’s desk on Tuesday as the legislative session came to a close.

One bill would ban publicly funded universities and state and local governments from maintaining DEI offices, while the other bill would prohibit those same entities from making hiring decisions based on race. Both bills passed with overwhelming Republican support.

“DEI violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson said on Tuesday. “We don’t need DEI in our state, Mr. Speaker. We need to hire people and promote people based on their merit. Diversity is a wonderful thing and it will happen. But we’re not going to make diversity the number one objective when we’re trying to serve our constituents and hire good people to take care of our constituents. It will be based on qualifications and merit.”

Lawmakers Pass Bill Barring Discipline Against Students Who Refuse to Use Peers’ Preferred Names, Pronouns

The Montana Senate on Friday cast the final vote approving a bill restricting public schools from taking action against students or staff who decline to use the preferred names or pronouns of other individuals — a move supporters have framed as a protection against compelled speech but opponents have criticized as damaging to transgender students. The controversial proposal now passes to Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte for his signature or veto.

House Bill 400, sponsored by Rep. Braxton Mitchell, R-Columbia Falls, has sparked considerable debate since it first appeared in the House Judiciary Committee in mid-February. Mitchell initially pitched the measure, which he titled the “Free to Speak Act,” as a protection of free speech rights in public K-12 schools. The bill would prevent individuals from facing disciplinary action for refusing to use the preferred name or pronoun of another and grant a person legal recourse for any punitive steps taken against them for using the non-preferred names or pronouns. HB 400 extends those same provisions to state employees as well.

The proposal drew support from conservative-leaning organizations including the Montana Family Foundation, but sparked strong pushback from public education advocates concerned about the effects HB 400 would have on educators’ ability to address bullying and harassment among students. It advanced on largely party-line votes through the House chamber and then the Senate Judiciary Committee before landing on the Senate floor April 10.

Bolt Out of the Blue: United Nations Committee Calls for Canada to Repeal Track 2 of its Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia Program.

By Ian McIntosh

This report comes in large part owing to the exceptional work done by Inclusion Canada -years in the making – who first issued this Press Release to announce this monumental news:

On Wednesday March 26, 2025, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities released a set of recommendations calling on the government of Canada to repeal Track 2 of its assisted suicide and euthanasia program. Specifically, Canada’s 2021 amendment to its Criminal Code that expanded through Bill C-7, which expanded eligibility passed promised safeguards.

Track 2 of the Canadian assisted suicide and euthanasia program allows people with disabilities (“grievous and irremediable medical condition”) whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable to request assisted suicide or euthanasia.

Arguing against the very premise of Track 2, the report notes that the Canadian federal government,”…did not challenge the Quebec Truchon decision which fundamentally changes the whole premise of medical assistance in dying when natural death is reasonably foreseeable to a new program that establishes medically assisted dying for persons with disabilities based on negative, ableist perceptions of the quality and value of the life of persons with disabilities, including that ‘suffering’ is intrinsic to disability rather than the fact that inequality and discrimination cause and compound ‘suffering’ for persons with disabilities.”

New York Times: Diane Coleman has Died

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/us/diane-coleman-dead.html?smid=url-share

By Clay Risen, published 11/20/2024, updated 11/22/24

Diane Coleman, a fierce advocate for disability rights who took on Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the right-to-die movement and the U.S. health care system, which she charged was responsible for devaluing the lives of Americans like her with physical and mental impairments, died on Nov. 1 at her home in Rochester, N.Y. She was 71. [Diane pictured right with sign stating "freedom rider"]

Her sister Catherine Morrison said the cause was sepsis. 

Ms. Coleman was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a disorder that affected her motor neurons. She was using a wheelchair by 11, and doctors expected her to die before adulthood.