Look at the man in the picture. He is a Canadian citizen who cannot pay his bills. He is now seeking government-provided assisted death. This TV report tells the story. It’s a moral outrage.
Alexander Raikin wrote a remarkable article in The New Atlantis about MAID, Canada’s euthanasia program. He also discusses how the supposed safeguards that are meant to prevent abuse of it are almost meaningless. Raikin was able to access video from conferences with MAID providers. This is evidence that many Canadians choose assisted suicide because they know that they can have their suicide done cleanly and comfortably by the state.
An ad video from La Maison Simons, a Canadian fashion company, went viral online in December. It was titled “All Is Beauty”. It featured Jennyfer Hatch (37-year-old woman with Ehlers Danlos syndrome) who chose to have her body killed. The video was well-produced and showed slow-motion images showing people gathering on beaches. It refers to MAID at one point by describing “the most beautiful escape”. Hatch was killed the day before the campaign began. Hatch had previously told friends and interviewers she wanted to live but couldn’t afford to.
Canada’s most vulnerable patients are aware of the change in the tide. They are aware of how Canada sees them. This is evident in their perception of themselves and how they view their choices.
Catherine Frazee, a disability scholar told me via email about a doctor friend who had been a great help to her.
MAID has been a constant theme in the lives of patients. Patients who became fixated on MAID have, under other circumstances, lived through hard times and would have sought treatment options that offered a reasonable chance of success, even though it would be uncomfortable or unpleasant temporarily. Even though they aren’t at high risk for suicide, many people are still at risk from MAID. This is because it has been accepted so quickly as an honorable, “dignified,” and idyllic way of dying.
This is even a common stance from euthanasia providers. Madeline Li said that she has heard it from several people, including John Maher who edited the Journal of Ethics in Mental Health. He told Parliament that he has patients who are unable to get better, but who “are refusing effective treatment to be eligible for MAID.”
Amy Hasbrouck, a disability advocate told me that MAID was a way to “get rid” of disabled people. It is an extreme view. It is possible to envision a euthanasia program that is not intended to help the vulnerable, but that gradually becomes indistinguishable with a system designed to bring them to their deaths.
Rosina and Les, Mary, Nancy and Greg, Lucy, as well as many other Canadians, hear the cry of those in despair seeking help. They would have been ideal candidates for the Your life is worth statement a few years back. They hear another thing in Canada today: Your Death will be Beautiful.
Please take the time to read and understand the details. Although it is a Walker Percy novel, it is real.
Nazis used a concept called “life not worthy of life” to justify mass execution of the “unfit” and justified it. This poster promotes the concept. The poster informs the reader that caring for someone with a genetic handicap costs 60,000 Reichsmarks per year. It also states, “Comrade. This is your money, too.”
Canada is experiencing worse things right now. Hitler’s Germany had the state execute you. Trudeau’s Canada allows you to euthanize your self. This creates a culture where people are democratically encouraged and encouraged to think about whether or not their life is worthy of living. Not only those who face certain death or are in severe physical pain, but also people who are simply poor. Their government and medical authorities inform them that they may be better off dead and offer to help them commit suicide.
For non-sentimental reasons, the hard totalitarian government will euthanize “life unworthy to live”. For completely sentimental reasons, the soft totalitarian government encourages its citizens to choose death. Also for “practical” reasons:
Two Quebec bioethicists presented their argument in December’s Journal of Medical Ethics. They argued that combining organ donation with euthanasia is an excellent idea, which could result in high-quality organs for those who are most in need.
Researchers from the University of Calgary found that euthanasia could reduce the country’s annual health care spending to the same level as in Belgium and the Netherlands. They wrote that medical assistance in dying could lower Canada’s annual health care costs by as much as $34.7 million to $138.8million, and more than the $1.5-$14.8 millions in direct costs associated its implementation in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
It’s easy to see that the state and medical profession are quickly creating a culture in Canada where people who can’t care for themselves will be forced to commit suicide to not be a burden to others. This is partly because the wealthy and healthy will have been taught that they don’t have any obligation to help the suffering. The concept of “soft totalitarianism” I discuss in Lies is a form of totalitarianism that grows out of an unwillingness to feel pain or anxiety. Canada is a country where the state and other institutions that are influenced by progressive ideology have taught Canadians how to accept the idea that certain lives are not worthy of living and that they should be destroyed “beautifully”.
This is the end of the euthanasia system. It is also a sign that a once-Christian civilisation has been repaganized. Babies who weren’t wanted in ancient Rome were left to die. Because they believed that every life had dignity because it was given by God, the members of the emerging Christian sect would save as many babies as possible. Louise Gosbell’s essay is about the lessons we can learn from early Christians in this regard.
My third child was born at the end of 2006. Since the day we announced that we were having another baby, I was bombarded with questions about the gender of the baby. Did we plan to find out the baby’s sex? Did we expect to have a boy this round? Were we disappointed to have “another” woman? This line of questioning made me extremely frustrated.
The suggestion that we would be disappointed to have “another girl” made me angry. More than that, I was annoyed at the way this conversation ended. People would respond to me when I told them that we didn’t find out the gender our third child. They would reply, “Well, it doesn’t matter if its a boy or girl, so long as it’s healthy.”
At first, I didn’t respond to the comment. I would say to myself that people meant well and that my baby would be loved in any way they chose. As the conversation progressed with startling predictability I became less patient and began to respond to people by saying “Yes, but if it’s unhealthy, I’m going back to send it back.” People were shocked by the comment. Some would laugh it off. Others would be embarrassed and try to laugh it off, but others would struggle for words and insist they weren’t trying to mean anything. Maybe I could have been politer and said “Even though it’s not health, I will still love it.” But I didn’t.
The thing that bothered me most was the implied notion that if the baby was not healthy, he or she would be less appreciated or welcomed than a normal or healthy baby. This statement implied that I would be disappointed if a baby didn’t live up to society’s high standards of infant beauty and perfection. What if the baby was not healthy? You cannot exchange it or return it. It can’t be exchanged for a better model, or thrown away to start over. It’s mine. This is my baby, whether he’s healthy or not.
Gosbell can hear the echo of ancient Rome as Gosbell recalls how newborns were treated unworthyly by Romans. They were exposed to the elements and left there to die. Some of those who had been saved were taken by slavers and made into prostitutes. Exposed was not allowed by the Empire’s Jews. The same was true for the Christians who emerged from Judaism. Gosbell:
The health of infants is not mentioned in the early church texts. Augustine, in his fifth century treatise The City of God, stated that all human beings, regardless of their “peculiar…power, part or quality of their nature” are part of God’s diverse and good creation. Augustine also states in other works that God orders the life of all infants born, regardless of their circumstances or mental or physical condition. should therefore be protected. Augustine also argues the fact that while individuals might be offended at the “deformity” of an individual human being they are still a vital part of God’s creation. Nicole Kelley explains that Augustine encourages Christians to see deformed people, including children, as valuable and intentional parts of God’s creation by arguing that even imperfect bodies can reveal the Creator’s goodness and infallibility.
Augustine’s presentation of the inherent worth of deformed infants is unique, since we don’t have any evidence to support other discussions about this topic within the Common Era’s first five centuries. However, there are a variety of reasons why concern for deformed infants may be justified .
First, the early church condemned infanticide and exposure despite it being a common practice in the Graeco Roman world. Although they didn’t address the issue of infants born with deformities, they strongly opposed infanticide and exposure. This belief is based on the belief God created each person in his image and that each person has an inherent value. Unlike the Graeco Roman world, where one’s worth was determined by how much one can contribute to the larger community, early Christians believed that one’s intrinsic value came from God’s creation. Gary Ferngren summarizes: “In their blanket condemnation for exposure, the Christians implicitly affirm the right of every person to live.”
The church also responded to infanticide and exposed infants by caring for them. Christians have been collecting funds to distribute aid to the sick and the poor since the beginning of Christianity. The early Christians took action to protect the infants exposed as part of their concern about the weakest members of their community. The first hospitals were set up to care for newborns. Later, orphanages were established to house and care both for the parents of the infants who had lost their parents. The Christian church was so well-known for caring for exposed infants, that it became the most trusted site for abandoning them.
The legal and political perspectives of the early church’s response can be viewed as well. The imperial law “neither prohibited nor encouraged the abandonment of newborn babies,” in 331CE the Christian Roman Emperor Constantine repealed the rule that allowed infants who had been exposed to their parents to be returned by their parents. This was done in order to deter others from doing so and to reclaim them later. However, exposure remained a problem throughout the empire. In 374 CE, Valentinian I (CU Constantine’s successor) passed the first law that required parents to raise their children. Valentinian I also declared that infanticide was a capital offense. In 529 CE, Justinian I, another Christian Roman Emperor, “overturned all prior regulations on the status expositi.” “All abandoned infants, regardless of their birth status, were to now be considered freeborn” so they could no longer be held as slaves.
Gosbell is back in the modern world to discuss how “normality” has become an idol that must be worshiped by abnormal infants.
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Medical professionals often pressure mothers to give birth only to healthy, normal babies. They also push for mothers to be financially responsible for their infants’ health care costs. If they are aware that an infant has a disability, any government subsidies will be forfeited.
This pressure on mothers is increasing in the general population. Recently, I met a mother who has a 5-year-old daughter with Down Syndrome. It was shocking to me to learn how often she had been abused by strangers in the street. This perspective shows that the mother is responsible for ensuring they have only children who are not a burden to society. However, if such an infant is born, medical professionals may sometimes consider it their responsibility, but the majority of the time the mother is responsible.
It’s all here. What does it mean to live in a postChristian society? This is where you are now, and this is the direction we’re heading. We face a terrible darkness and rivers of blood if we don’t repent as culture and civilization.
Charles Camosy, a bioethicist, appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight, to discuss Canada’s rush to pass a law that would allow the state to kill minors without parental consent. But what can we say about a state using euthanasia as a way to get rid of the “problem of the weak and vulnerable?”
