False Claim: The French government is offering seniors MAiD instead of air conditioning

Trudo Lemmens recently reposted a claim on X stating that "The French government is offering older people euthanasia rather than air conditioning."

What may be most concerning about this repost is that Lemmens presents himself as a serious contributor to public conversations about medical assistance in dying. He has been invited to participate in many of the major federal discussions and committee hearings, and remains a frequent voice of opposition on a range of MAiD issues. Yet here, he shows how quickly he abandons that seriousness when a misleading claim happens to serve his argument.

This repost by Lemmens amounts, in effect if not also in intent, to the spread of misinformation about assisted dying and its relationship to other governmental priorities.

The reposted claim relies on a familiar logical fallacy known as a false dilemma or false dichotomy. The claim works only by inventing a grotesque either-or: air conditioning or euthanasia. It presents two options as though they are mutually exclusive: governments are deciding between providing air conditioning or allow access to assisted dying, and they are choosing assisted dying. But that simply isn't how healthcare or public policy works.

People are not denied air conditioning and then offered euthanasia instead. A person who requests MAiD is assessed against legal eligibility criteria. They are not told they cannot have long-term care, home care, air conditioning, palliative care, disability supports, or any other public service, but can have MAiD instead. That imply does not happen.

This framing is remarkably common tactic among opponents of MAiD.

Sometimes the claim is that governments are offering MAiD instead of palliative care. Other times it is MAiD instead of disability supports, mental health care, housing, poverty reduction, or improved long-term care. The argument changes, but the underlying tactic remains the same: it falsely presents MAiD and social supports as though they are competing alternatives. They are not. And this is not honest engagement in discussions about deficiencies in government supports or MAiD. 

A government can (and should) improve long-term care, install air conditioning in care homes, expand disability supports, invest in palliative care, increase mental health funding, and continue to respect the right of eligible adults to choose MAiD. None of these policies excludes the others.

Tellingly, if every French nursing home received air conditioning tomorrow, this argument would not disappear. The same people would simply replace "air conditioning" with another issue they believe deserves greater funding. The point is not really about air conditioning—it is about creating the misleading impression that MAiD is replacing healthcare and social supports.

Public discussion about improving healthcare is important. So is holding governments accountable for deficiencies in care. But those conversations should be based on reality—not on the false claim that people are being offered MAiD instead of the care they need.

Opponents of MAiD continue to demonstrate why they can’t be trusted to engage in this topic honestly and in good faith.