Canadians are expressing outrage over the increased normalization of medical-assisted suicide in the country’s single-payer system.
Several reports have come forward of loved ones being pressured into suicide by either a physician or nurse practitioner, a practice known colloquially as “medical assistance in dying” or MaID.
In a new short film by Amanda Achtman, a patient advocate and creator of the website Dying to Meet You, Benjamin Turland told of the intense grief he felt, far deeper than what a natural death would have brought, when both his grandmothers, within two months, chose MaID.
“With my grandfathers, I couldn’t have done anything about them passing, Turland told the publication. “That was just the natural time for them to go. But when you choose it, then you feel like there’s something I could have done, and it impacts multiple generations.”
Children’s Author, Vets, Babies
In another example, an 80-year-old author of the beloved children’s book “Love You Forever,” Robert Munsch, publicized plans to choose MAiD. Munsch says he has been diagnosed with dementia and Parkinson’s Disease. “When I start having real trouble talking and communicating,” he told The New York Times Magazine, “then I’ll know.”
Meanwhile, a scandal has unfolded at Veterans Affairs Canada over allegations that it has been offering Canadian veterans, some with PTSD and traumatic brain injury, assisted suicide.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is conducting an internal review of a matter
And, a report by Right to Life UK found Canadian doctors consider euthanasia a form of intervention for newborns with disabilities.
Socialism’s Solution
Canadians have become nihilistic, atheistic, immoral, liberals, says John Dale Dunn, M.D., a Texas physician, attorney, and policy advisor to The Heartland Institute, which co-publishes Health Care News.
“They’re all part of the same ideology–socialism–which is all about turning people into nothing more than a mass of cells that don’t have any particular importance and therefore, are expendable, depending upon the needs of the collective, which can eliminate them because they demand attention and consume resources,” said Dunn.
“Whenever you develop an ideology that is based upon the welfare of the collective, it means that in order to go forward in efforts to further this altruistic idea of helping the collective, you have to decide upon people that should be eliminated, then they won’t be taking resources from the rest of us,” said Dunn. “If we look at ethics and morality over a period of centuries and eons, this is probably the dividing point of the questions: What is the value of a human life? What’s the value of a human individual? When did they not become valuable and become a burden, and should they be eliminated?”
Misfits and the Despairing
Canada now has two types of people dying unnatural deaths, says Dunn.
“Canadians are at the point where they actually euthanize thousands of people who are nothing more than on the fringes of society and or definable dependent upon the resources of society for one reason or another,” said Dunn. “And then there’s another group of people who are unhappy or depressed, and are inclined toward suicide, so euthanasia is offered to them as a good solution for their unhappiness and depression.”
When a society reaches the point Canada has, then it searches through the population for suicide candidates, says Dunn.
“These patients would be considered normally as candidates for medical care, rehabilitative care, supportive care, or surgery,” said Dunn. “But instead, you’re introduced to a doctor who will help you along. Or they could just withhold your care, and you could die from your medical problems.”
Evolving Doctor-Assisted Suicide
Should the United States worry about the promulgation of Canada’s euthanasia culture?
Interest in doctor-assisted suicide already began in the United States with the rise of physician Jack Kevorkian in the 1990s, says Merrill Matthews, Ph.D., a health care policy analyst and columnist for The Hill.
With the publication of his book, “Prescription Medicide,” in 1991, Kevorkian defended and promoted his position on physician-assisted suicide, says Matthews.
“Even though Kevorkian was an outlier when we interviewed him by radio in the mid-1990s, it seemed likely that his ideas would spread–and they did,” said Matthews.
Twelve states and Washington, D.C., now allow what’s come to be called, in the United States, medical aid in dying, and seven states have bills awaiting the governor’s signature.
“Kevorkian had an expansive view, even supporting physician-assisted suicide when a patient wasn’t terminally ill,” said Matthews.
“While states passing legislation have tried to put strict controls and limits on the practice, the concern has been that with the passage of time, those restrictions would be relaxed, that views about MAID would shift from a ‘last resort’ option to a reasonable response,” said Matthews.
A Money Saver?
MAiD proponents initially claimed that allowing patients with severe medical challenges to end their lives would save the health care system money.
“In 1998, I was asked by medical ethicists at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City to contribute a chapter to a book, Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate, said Matthews. “My chapter asked whether MAiD actually saved the health care system money. The answer, at that time, was clearly no. In most cases where physician-assisted suicide was considered an option, the patient was only a few weeks, not years, away from death. Any money saved by an early death was minimal.”
Kenneth Artz ([email protected]) writes from Tyler, Texas.
Artz has more than 20 years’ experience in nonprofit organizations, publishing, newspaper reporting, and public policy advocacy.
