MAiD
Assisted suicide is never really about ‘choice’: here’s why
From LifeSiteNews
Just a few years ago, we understood that suicidal ideation itself was an indication that something was seriously wrong – but our euthanasia regime has changed all of that.
Just last week, I wrote a column on the normalization of euthanasia and the sinister insistence by those who advocate for it that being killed by lethal injection is, in fact, both a good and a life-saving thing. We are seeing the complete perversion of language in order to justify medicalized killing, which is why you don’t read terms like “killing” or “suicide” in the context of the euthanasia debate in the press. Activists realized very quickly that these terms were unhelpful in the push for normalization.
Earlier this month, Canadian MP Kevin Lamoureux, a Liberal, took it a step further, stating: “MAiD [assisted suicide] legislation, even on occasion, I would ultimately argue, saves lives.”
🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯 pic.twitter.com/bFU57gKxCJ
— Michelle Ferreri (@mferreriptbokaw) February 12, 2024
What a truly insane thing to say – and the sad fact is, he likely believes it. He also likely doesn’t realize how dangerous his statement is. What message is being sent to those the government has deemed eligible for state-facilitated suicide? Euthanasia is, legally speaking, a choice. But just as with abortion, the “choice” is often a farcical one.
When women were legally granted the “choice” of abortion, it swiftly became an expectation. Sick, sad, and depressed people may be told they merely have the “choice” to be euthanized – but as we have seen, this choice often seems like a social obligation.
This point was made in a recent essay about euthanasia in Newsweek by Katherine Brodsky, who supports euthanasia in principle. She has, however, come to have doubts that a euthanasia regime in which choice is freely exercised is possible. She writes:
I am now skeptical about the true autonomy of individuals opting for assisted death, especially in a country with socialized health care. The risk of medical practitioners recommending MAiD as a cost-cutting measure to alleviate strain on the health care system is unsettling, as suggested by a 2020 analysis estimating potential annual savings of save $66 million annually in health care costs. Individuals considering MAiD are already vulnerable due to physical or mental suffering, making them susceptible to external pressures. Reflecting on my own past struggles, I recognize the unpredictability of emotions and circumstances. What seems unbearable one day may change with time and support – yet the choice to end life is a permanent one.
Fortunately, the Canadian government has delayed – for the second time – expanding euthanasia to those suffering from mental illness. But they insist that this is a delay, not a cancellation, meaning that the position of the Trudeau government is that someone suffering acute despair caused by a mental illness is clear-headed enough to choose suicide-by-doctor. This is obviously untrue, and I genuinely wonder why the government seems so hellbent on doing this. Just a few years ago, we understood that suicidal ideation itself was an indication that something was seriously wrong – but our euthanasia regime has changed all of that.
Brodsky notes that the “choice” being offered to a specific subset of Canadians who have been pre-approved for this “choice” – a choice not offered to all Canadians, but only those the government has decided have lives not worth living – is often a false one. Citing the example of Lauren Hoeve, the Dutch girl who was euthanized earlier this year, she notes:
And yet, I was struck by something in the statement put out by Lauren Hoeve’s parents. ‘Millions of people are affected by ME/CFS, with no established treatment pathways and no cure,’ they wrote on X on Feb. 2. ‘Why is their suffering acknowledged enough for euthanasia but not enough to fund clinical research?’ And herein lies the rub. Why is euthanasia offered as a viable solution to a potentially non-permanent problem, when other options are possible?
Mental health services in Canada (and elsewhere) are scarce. Psychologists are expensive and out of reach for many. Psychiatric services are free of charge, but the wait lists are even longer than those for psychologists and few people can get access. The wait to get help is usually over a year. Family physicians just end up prescribing medications based on a checklist and see what sticks.
READ: Terminally ill children in the Netherlands can now be euthanized against their will
Precisely true. We know that many people in Canada have chosen euthanasia because it was the only “choice” being offered to them at all. Cancer patients who cannot get the treatment they actually want have opted for suicide-by-doctor instead. One woman noted that her requests for additional help to deal with her chronic condition were denied, and thus euthanasia was, she felt, the only option left available. “Ultimately it was not a genetic disease that took me out, it was a system,” she wrote. “There is desperate need for change. That is the sickness that causes so much suffering. Vulnerable people need help to survive. I could have had more time if I had more help.”
So, what does an ill and suffering Canadian hear when an MP stands up in the House of Commons and says that euthanasia “saves lives”? They know it doesn’t save their life. As Amanda Achtman noted: “Obviously, it’s not the lives of those being killed that are being saved. Such a utilitarian calculation amounts to a war against the weak and this is dehumanizing and wrong.”
From LifeSiteNews
Even happy, healthy lives without major issues can warrant needless ending if they are ‘complete.’
Notorious secular “ethicist” Peter Singer has co-authored an opinion piece in The New York Times positing a chilling new rationale for assisted suicide: the determination that one’s life is simply “complete.”
Princeton psychologist Daniel Kahneman died in March 2024 at age 90. His cause of death was not disclosed at the time, but a year later, The Wall Street Journal revealed that Kahneman had emailed friends the day before to tell them he was traveling to Switzerland to avail himself of the country’s legal physician-assisted suicide.
“I think Danny wanted, above all, to avoid a long decline, to go out on his terms, to own his own death,” WSJ journalist and longtime friend of the deceased Jason Zweig wrote. “Maybe the principles of good decision-making that he had so long espoused — rely on data, don’t trust most intuitions, view the evidence in the broadest possible perspective — had little to do with his decision.”
On April 14, The New York Times published a guest essay by the infamous Singer, a pro-infanticide Princeton bioethics professor, and philosophy professor Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, who shared that they too knew of Kahneman’s plans and that days before he had told them, “I feel I’ve lived my life well, but it’s a feeling. I’m just reasonably happy with what I’ve done. I would say if there is an objective point of view, then I’m totally irrelevant to it. If you look at the universe and the complexity of the universe, what I do with my day cannot be relevant.”
“I have believed since I was a teenager that the miseries and indignities of the last years of life are superfluous, and I am acting on that belief,” Kahneman reportedly said. “I am still active, enjoying many things in life (except the daily news) and will die a happy man. But my kidneys are on their last legs, the frequency of mental lapses is increasing, and I am 90 years old. It is time to go.”
Singer and de Lazari-Radek argued that this was an eminently reasonable conclusion. “(I)f, after careful reflection, you decide that your life is complete and remain firmly of that view for some time, you are the best judge of what is good for you,” they wrote. “This is especially clear in the case of people who are at an age at which they cannot hope for improvement in their quality of life.”
“(I)f we are to live well to the end, we need to be able to freely discuss when a life is complete, without shame or taboo,” the authors added. “Such a discussion may help people to know what they really want. We may regret their decisions, but we should respect their choices and allow them to end their lives with dignity.”
Pro-lifers have long warned that the euthanasia movement devalues life and preys on the ill and distraught by making serious medical issues (even non-terminal ones) into grounds to end one’s life. But Singer and de Lazari-Radek’s essay marks a new extreme beyond that point by asserting that even happy, healthy lives without major issues can warrant needless ending.
“Instead of seeing every human life as having inherent value and dignity, Singer sees life as transactional: something you are allowed to keep by being happy, able-bodied, and productive — and something to be taken away if you are not,” Cassy Cooke wrote at Live Action News.
In America, nine states plus the District of Columbia currently allow assisted suicide. In March, Delaware took a step closer to becoming the 10th with its own legalization bill, although it has yet to become law. Another bill recently failed in Maryland.
Support is available to talk those struggling with suicidal thoughts out of ending their lives. The Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988.
From LifeSiteNews
Schwab’s World Economic Forum became a globalist hub for population control, radical climate agenda, and transhuman ideology under his decades-long leadership.
Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum and the face of the NGO’s elitist annual get-together in Davos, Switzerland, has resigned as chair of WEF.
Over the decades, but especially over the past several years, the WEF’s Davos annual symposium has become a lightning rod for conservative criticism due to the agendas being pushed there by the elites. As the Associated Press noted:
Widely regarded as a cheerleader for globalization, the WEF’s Davos gathering has in recent years drawn criticism from opponents on both left and right as an elitist talking shop detached from lives of ordinary people.
While WEF itself had no formal power, the annual Davos meeting brought together many of the world’s wealthiest and most influential figures, contributing to Schwab’s personal worth and influence.
Schwab’s resignation on April 20 was announced by the Geneva-based WEF on April 21, but did not indicate why the 88-year-old was resigning. “Following my recent announcement, and as I enter my 88th year, I have decided to step down from the position of Chair and as a member of the Board of Trustees, with immediate effect,” Schwab said in a brief statement. He gave no indication of what he plans to do next.
Schwab founded the World Economic Forum – originally the European Management Forum – in 1971, and its initial mission was to assist European business leaders in competing with American business and to learn from U.S. models and innovation. However, the mission soon expanded to the development of a global economic agenda.
Schwab detailed his own agenda in several books, including The Fourth Industrial Revolution (2016), in which he described the rise of a new industrial era in which technologies such artificial intelligence, gene editing, and advanced robotics would blur the lines between the digital, physical, and biological worlds. Schwab wrote:
We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. We do not yet know just how it will unfold, but one thing is clear: the response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of the global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society …
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, finally, will change not only what we do but also who we are. It will affect our identity and all the issues associated with it: our sense of privacy, our notions of ownership, our consumption patterns, the time we devote to work and leisure, and how we develop our careers, cultivate our skills, meet people, and nurture relationships. It is already changing our health and leading to a “quantified” self, and sooner than we think it may lead to human augmentation.
How? Microchips implanted into humans, for one. Schwab was a tech optimist who appeared to heartily welcome transhumanism; in a 2016 interview with France 24 discussing his book, he stated:
And then you have the microchip, which will be implanted, probably within the next ten years, first to open your car, your home, or to do your passport, your payments, and then it will be in your body to monitor your health.
In 2020, mere months into the pandemic, Schwab published COVID-19: The Great Reset, in which he detailed his view of the opportunity presented by the growing global crisis. According to Schwab, the crisis was an opportunity for a global reset that included “stakeholder capitalism,” in which corporations could integrate social and environmental goals into their operations, especially working toward “net-zero emissions” and a massive transition to green energy, and “harnessing” the Fourth Industrial Revolution, including artificial intelligence and automation.
Much of Schwab’s personal wealth came from running the World Economic Forum; as chairman, he earned an annual salary of 1 million Swiss francs (approximately $1 million USD), and the WEF was supported financially through membership fees from over 1,000 companies worldwide as well as significant contributions from organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Vice Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe is now serving as interim chairman until his replacement has been selected.
BREAKING from THE BUREAU: Pro-Beijing Group That Pushed Erin O’Toole’s Exit Warns Chinese Canadians to “Vote Carefully”
Canada drops retaliatory tariffs on automakers, pauses other tariffs
Ex-NYPD Cop Jailed in Beijing’s Transnational Repatriation Plot, Canada Remains Soft Target
The Net-Zero Dream Is Unravelling And The Consequences Are Global
The “Hardhat Vote” Has Embraced Pierre Poilievre
The Pandemic Justice Phase Begins as Criminal Investigations Commence
CPP another example of Albertans’ outsized contribution to Canada
-
2025 Federal Election2 days agoOttawa Confirms China interfering with 2025 federal election: Beijing Seeks to Block Joe Tay’s Election
-
2025 Federal Election1 day agoBREAKING: THE FEDERAL BRIEF THAT SHOULD SINK CARNEY
-
COVID-192 days agoNearly Half of “COVID-19 Deaths” Were Not Due to COVID-19 – Scientific Reports Journal
-
2025 Federal Election2 days agoHow Canada’s Mainstream Media Lost the Public Trust
-
John Stossel1 day agoClimate Change Myths Part 2: Wildfires, Drought, Rising Sea Level, and Coral Reefs
-
2025 Federal Election1 day agoCHINESE ELECTION THREAT WARNING: Conservative Candidate Joe Tay Paused Public Campaign
-
Media1 day agoCBC retracts false claims about residential schools after accusing Rebel News of ‘misinformation’
-
2025 Federal Election2 days agoReal Homes vs. Modular Shoeboxes: The Housing Battle Between Poilievre and Carney