Life is Not a Hallmark Card

Thousands of medical ethicists and bioethicists, as they are called, professionally guide the unthinkable on its passage through the debatable on its way to becoming the justifiable until it is finally established as the unexceptionable.   Richard John Neuhaus

In Destruction of Life Devoid of Value, published in 1920, psychiatrist Alfred Hoche and jurist Karl Binding argued that the killing of “worthless people” was not a criminal act.  A practical suggestion on how such killings might be carried out was provided by French born medical scientist Dr. Alexis Carrel, a Nobel-prize winner, who in his 1933 best seller Man the Unknown called for the creation of small euthanasia stations equipped with suitable gases to “humanely and economically dispose of the mentally ill and criminal class” whom he described as “useless and harmful beings.”

The eligible population for assisted death is growing in Canada.  Last year it became legal for those who do not have a terminal illness but experience other forms of chronic pain or disabilities and, beginning in 2023, mental illness will become another qualifying medical condition. 

Euthanasia is fast becoming an “eject button” for the marginalized.  And if some have their way the list will grow. Dr Louis Roy of the Quebec College of Physicians testified before the House of Commons Joint Committee on Dying that he felt it “was appropriate to euthanize children younger than one if they have grave and severe syndromes or severe malformations or, if their prospective of survival was null, so to speak.”

Once the government discovered that they could save money by not treating patients, all bets were off. According to a 2017 study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), Cost Analysis of Medical Assistance in Dying, the government could save between 34.7 and 138.8 million a year, depending on how many they could euthanize.

When assisted death for mental illness becomes available in March of 2023, the floodgates will be thrown wide open.  To be eligible you simply need to suffer from something which “cannot be relieved under conditions that you consider acceptable.”  The reality is that it is already happening.  Alan Nichols from British Columbia was suffering from severe depression when his family took him to a hospital for a psychiatric episode.  Instead of treatment, they euthanized him.

On one hand, we tell people that suicide is a terrible tragedy that must always be prevented; on the other, though, we also tell people that it’s not only acceptable, but the dignified option under increasingly wide circumstances, which include saving the socialist health care system money.   

Every human person, no matter how weak or how strong, no matter how young or how old, no matter how productive or how burdensome, no matter how unwelcomed or how inconvenient are children of God and therefore to be respected, protected and cherished.  Humans have an inherent and immeasurable worth and dignity, not based on any human quality, legal mandate or individual accomplishment.  

All life is valuable and cheapening the life of any one person cheapens life for all of us. Euthanasia is not about choice, it’s simply a means to kill people at the most vulnerable time of their life, to save a few bucks.  

“The moral test of a government is how it treats those who are at the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadow of life, the sick and the needy, and the handicapped.”   Hubert Humphrey

Source:  Hunger Games Style Social Darwinism by Zahraa Hmood, Welland Tribune; Canada’s Killing Regime by Jonathan Van Maren, First Things; Medically assisted Deaths Could Save Millions in Health Care Spending by Kelly Malone, CBC; Promoting Death With Dignity?, Franklin County Patriots; Canadian Government’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Activity Book—Government-funded Childhood Propaganda, by Jui McLeod, Canadian Free Press

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