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MAiD

Even Canadian leftists are starting to recognize the ‘dystopian’ nature of MAiD

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From LifeSiteNews

By Alex Schadenberg

Euthanasia based on poverty or disability is rarely based on personal choice and autonomy, it is horrifying, it is profane, it is the outcome of a failed social welfare system, and it is indefensible.

David Moscrop wrote an excellent article that was published by Jacobin Magazine on May 2, 2024. Jacobin is an ideologically left magazine, which is concerned about Canada killing people with disabilities and the poor by euthanasia, known as MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying).

The article begins with this quote:

Canada boasts one of the world’s highest assisted-death rates, supposedly enabling the terminally ill to die with dignity. However, this suicide program increasingly resembles a dystopian replacement for care services, exchanging social welfare for euthanasia.

Moscrop tells the story of Normand Meunier, the quadriplegic man in Québec who died by euthanasia after suffering from horrific neglect. Moscrop writes:

For want of a mattress, a man is dead. That’s the story, in sum, of a quadriplegic man who chose to end his life in January through medically assisted death. Normand Meunier’s story, as reported by the CBC, began with a visit to a Quebec hospital due to a respiratory virus. Meunier subsequently developed a painful bedsore after being left without access to a mattress to accommodate his needs. Thereafter, he applied to Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program.

As Rachel Watts writes in her report, Meunier spent ninety-five hours on a stretcher in the emergency room – just hours short of four days. The bedsore he developed ‘eventually worsened to the point where bone and muscle were exposed and visible – making his recovery and prognosis bleak.’ The man who ‘didn’t want to be a burden’ chose to die at home. An internal investigation into the matter is underway.

I find it interesting that the article states that Meunier chose to die by euthanasia when in fact he was put into an untenable situation. Moscrop then reinforces the concerns of the disability community:

Disability and other advocates have been warning us for years that MAiD puts people at risk. They warned that the risk of people choosing death – because it’s easier than fighting to survive in a system that impoverishes people, and disproportionately does so to those who are disabled – is real. Underinvestment in medical care will push people up to and beyond the brink, which means some will choose to die instead of ‘burden’ their loved ones or society at large. They were right.

Moscrop comments on how euthanasia is the outcome of a failed social welfare state:

A libertarian ethos partially underwrote the fact that not many people blinked when MAiD was initially rolled out. Taking a more expansive view of rights, many of those not swayed by rote libertarianism were convinced that concerns over bodily autonomy and compassion were reason enough to adopt MAiD. However, in the absence of a robust welfare state, and in the face of structural poverty and discrimination, particularly toward disabled people, there is no world in which the MAiD program can be understood to be ‘progressive.’

Indeed, last year, Jeremy Appel argued that MAiD was ‘beginning to look like a dystopian end run around the cost of providing social welfare.’ Initially supportive, he changed his mind on MAiD as he considered that the decisions people make are not strictly speaking individual but are instead collectively shaped and sometimes ‘the product of social circumstances, which are outside of their control.’ When we don’t care for one another, what do we end up with?

‘I’ve come to realize,’ wrote Appel, ‘that euthanasia in Canada represents the cynical endgame of social provisioning with the brutal logic of late-stage capitalism – we’ll starve you of the funding you need to live a dignified life [. . .] and if you don’t like it, why don’t you just kill yourself?’

READ: Young, healthy women being euthanized in the Netherlands should be a warning for Canada

Moscrop then comments on that euthanasia for psychiatric reasons has been delayed in Canada based on the lack of mental health care. He refers to the reality as grotesque and writes that this is the stuff of nightmarish science fiction. Moscrop comments on the broken social welfare system in Canada.

In Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, a recipient of disability support receives about $1,300 a month – a pittance they’re meant to stretch to cover food, shelter, and other basic needs. Ontario Works – the province’s welfare program – pays a current maximum of $733 a month. Meanwhile, rental costs for a one bedroom apartment routinely push toward an average of $2,000 a month in many cities. In April, in Toronto, a one bedroom apartment averaged almost $2,500 a month.

Moscrop challenges a statement by euthanasia activists James Downer and Susan MacDonald who stated:

Despite fears that availability of MAiD for people with terminal illness would lead to requests for MAiD driven by socioeconomic deprivation or poor service availability (e.g., palliative care), available evidence consistently indicates that MAiD is most commonly received by people of high socioeconomic status and lower support needs, and those with high involvement of palliative care.

By their own admission, the data on this matter is imperfect. But even if it were, the fact that ‘most’ patients who choose MAiD are better off socioeconomically is beside the point. Some are not – and those ‘some’ are important. That includes a man living with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis who, in 2019, chose medically assisted death because he couldn’t find adequate medical care that would also allow him to be with his son. It also includes a man whose application listed only ‘hearing loss,’ and whose brother says he was ‘basically put to death.’ This story came a year after experts raised the concern that the country’s MAiD regime was in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In 2022, Global News said the quiet part out loud: poverty is driving disabled Canadians to consider MAiD. Those ‘some’ who are driven to assisted death because of poverty or an inability to access adequate care deserve to live with dignity and with the resources they need to live as they wish. They should never, ever feel the pressure to choose to die because our social welfare institutions are starved and our health care system has been vandalized through years of austerity and poor management.

Moscrop then states that Canada has the resources to prevent endemic poverty and provide adequate care, that poor people being euthanized by the state is profane.

Moscrop then refers to a recent article by professor Trudo Lemmens who is a critic of Canada’s euthanasia law.

In a February piece for the Globe and Mail, University of Toronto law professor Trudo Lemmens wrote, ‘The results of our MAiD regime’s promotion of access to death as a benefit, and the trivialization of death as a harm to be protected against, are increasingly clear.’ In critiquing MAiD’s second track, which allows physician-assisted death for those who do not face ‘a reasonably foreseeable death,’ Lemmens points out that within two years of its adoption, ‘“track two”’ MAiD providers had ended already the lives of close to seven hundred disabled people, most of whom likely had years of life left.’

In raising concerns about expanding MAiD to cover mental illness, Lemmens added that ‘there are growing concerns that inadequate social and mental health care, and a failure to provide housing supports, push people to request MAiD,’ noting that ‘[a]dding mental illness as a basis for MAiD will only increase the number of people exposed to higher risks of premature death.’

Moscrop continues by referring to a commentary from disability leader Gabrielle Peters.

In 2021, Gabrielle Peters warned in Maclean’s that extending MAiD to cover those who weren’t facing an immediately foreseeable death was ‘dangerous, unsettling and deeply flawed.’ She traced the various ways in which a broader MAiD law could lead to people choosing to die in the face of austerity, adding an intersectional lens that is often missing from our discussions and debates over the issue.

She warned that we were failing to consider ‘how poverty and racism intersect with disability to create greater risk of harm, more institutional bias and barriers, additional layers of othering and dehumanization, and fewer resources for addressing any of these.’ And now here we are. We should have listened more carefully.

Moscrop ends his article by suggesting that euthanasia may be OK based on personal choice but it is indefensible when it is based on poverty.

While MAiD may be defensible as a means for individuals to exercise personal choice in how they live and how they die when facing illness and pain, it is plainly indefensible when state-induced austerity and mismanagement leads to people choosing to end their lives that have been made unnecessarily miserable. In short, we are killing people for being poor and disabled, which is horrifying.

It thus falls to proponents of MAiD to show how such deaths can be avoided, just as it falls to policymakers to build or rebuild institutions that ensure no one ever opts to end their life for lack of resources or support, which we could provide in abundance if we choose to.

I agree with most of Moscrop’s comments but I disagree with his statement that euthanasia is possibly defensible as a means of individuals exercising personal choice. Even though people with disabilities experience social devaluation in Canada, they may be still exercising personal choice when they ask to be killed.

The problem with modern writers is that they miss the fact that euthanasia is about killing people. Even if Canada had a greater level of equality, there would be people who ask to be killed based on their poverty or their concerns about homelessness.

The real concern is that Canada has given medical professionals the right in law to kill their patients. This is about people killing people.

Nonetheless Moscrop is right that euthanasia based on poverty or disability is rarely based on personal choice and autonomy, it is horrifying, it is profane, it is the outcome of a failed social welfare system, and it is indefensible.

Reprinted with permission from the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Alberta

Alberta government announces review of Trudeau’s euthanasia regime

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The Conservative provincial government of Alberta is pushing back against the Canadian federal government’s continued desire to expand euthanasia in the nation, saying it will launch a review of the legislation and policies surrounding the grim practice, including a period of public engagement. 

The United Conservative Party (UCP) government under Premier Danielle Smith in a press release said the province needs to make sure that robust safeguards and procedures are in place to protect vulnerable people from being coerced into getting euthanatized under the MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) program.

“Alberta’s government is reviewing how MAID is regulated to ensure there is a consistent process as well as oversight that protects vulnerable Albertans, specifically those living with disabilities or suffering from mental health challenges,” said the government Monday.  

The government said a online survey regarding MAiD open to all Albertans who have opinions about the deadly practice will be available until December 20.  

“We recognize that medical assistance in dying is a very complex and often personal issue and is an important, sensitive and emotional matter for patients and their families,” said Alberta’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General Mickey Amery. 

Amery said it is important to ensure this process has the “necessary supports to protect the most vulnerable.” 

The government said that it will also be engaging with academics, medical associations, public bodies, as well as religious organizations and “regulatory bodies, advocacy groups” regarding MAiD  

The government said all information gathered through this consultation will “help inform the Alberta government’s planning and policy decision making, including potential legislative changes regarding MAID in Alberta.” 

When it comes to MAiD, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government sought to expand it from the chronically and terminally ill to those suffering solely from mental illness. 

Alberta’s Minister of Mental Health and Addiction Dan Williams said that the UCP government has been “clear” that it does not “support the provision of medically assisted suicide for vulnerable Albertans facing mental illness as their primary purpose for seeking their own death.” 

“Instead, our goal is to build a continuum of care where vulnerable Albertans can live in long-term health and fulfilment. We look forward to the feedback of Albertans as we proceed with this important issue,” he noted.  

The Alberta government said that as MAiD is “federally legislated and regulated” it is main job will be to try and make sure that it protects “vulnerable individuals” as much as possible. 

Alberta’s Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange reaffirmed that the Alberta government “does not support expanding MAID eligibility to include those facing depression or mental illness and continues to call on the federal government to end this policy altogether.” 

The number of Canadians killed by lethal injection under the nation’s MAiD program since 2016 stands at close to 65,000, with an estimated 16,000 deaths in 2023 alone. Many fear that because the official statistics are manipulated the number may be even higher.

To combat Canadians being coerced into MAiD, which LifeSiteNews has covered, the combat pro-life Delta Hospice Society (DHS) is offering a free “Do Not Euthanize Defense Kit” to help vulnerable people “protect themselves” from any healthcare workers who might push euthanasia on the defenseless. 

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International

Euthanasia advocates use deception to affect public’s perception of assisted suicide

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From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

Politicians claim that moral opposition to assisted suicide (or suicide in general) and euthanasia is religiously motivated and then make the leap to insisting that this means such opposition should be ignored.

Euthanasia activists are currently doing what they do best: the bait and switch. 

As the debate heats up in the U.K., all of the familiar tactics are on display. First, of course, there is the relentless lying. Despite the case study of Canada, the Netherlands, and Belgium – and despite disability activists, judges, palliative physicians, and the secretaries of health and justice warning that no “safeguards” will hold – U.K. euthanasia activists are insisting that this time everything will be different. 

The response to these critiques has been predictable but infuriating. Euthanasia activists insist that all of this is about religion – that those nasty Christians are, once again, seeking to impose their suffering-based theology on the country. (This despite the fact that even Ann Furedi, who heads up the U.K.’s second largest abortion provider, opposes the proposed assisted suicide law.) One good microcosmic example of this tactic comes from UK writer Julie Street, who posted to X (formerly Twitter): 

Just walked out of Mass bloody fuming – our priest used the homily to read a letter from the Catholic bishops telling people to oppose the Assisted Dying Bill then handed out cards with our local MP’s details on to lobby them. Religion has no place in politics or women’s rights. 

There is much to say in response, of course. Why is Street so surprised to discover that her Catholic priest and bishops are, in fact, Catholic? Is she ignorant of the religion that she at least appears to practice? How airtight does one’s mind have to be not to see assisted suicide and euthanasia as religious issues? Indeed, “euthanasia” is Greek for “good death” – the theological premises are baked right into the term. Or does Street think that religious people should shut their mouths in the political arena and voluntarily disenfranchise themselves as the fates of the weak are decided? 

Is Street also ignorant of the fact that it was largely due to the Catholic Church’s public opposition that Adolf Hitler moved the Nazi’s euthanasia operation underground? (We now know, of course, that the Nazis only claimed to have disbanded the T-4 program.) I thought progressives wanted a Church that stood up for the weak, vulnerable, and dispossessed – and who qualifies more than the sick, elderly, and those with disabilities? Christians are accused of not being loving enough, and then rebuked when they stand up for the victims the political class deems expendable – first the unborn, now those on the other end of life’s spectrum.  

But there’s more to this tactic than grating ignorance. Progressives like to play both sides of the fence. Take abortion, for example. Politicians like to claim that it is a religious issue, and that thus they cannot legislate against it due to the fact that we live in pluralistic societies. Many religious leaders are quite happy to follow this logic, claiming that since abortion is a political issue, it cannot be discussed in church. And all the while, the countless corpses of the aborted unborn pile up in the No Man’s Land between. 

The assisted suicide debate is unfolding along similar lines. Politicians claim that moral opposition to assisted suicide (or suicide in general) and euthanasia is religiously motivated and then make the leap to insisting that this means such opposition should be ignored. Meanwhile, because politicians are debating the issue, folks like Street can claim that because this is now a political issue, priests and pastors should keep their traps shut. See what they did there? It’s a neat trick, and despite how farcical and illogical it is, it seems to work with maddening regularity. 

In fact, the priest Julie Street had the good fortune to hear was standing in the tradition of the clergy who stood up against Adolf Hitler and his eugenicist gang – and fighting the same evil being advanced under many of the same premises, to boot. She should be grateful. If she can’t manage that, she should at least be better educated.   

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Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National PostNational ReviewFirst Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton SpectatorReformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.

His insights have been featured on CTV, Global News, and the CBC, as well as over twenty radio stations. He regularly speaks on a variety of social issues at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

He is the author of The Culture WarSeeing is Believing: Why Our Culture Must Face the Victims of AbortionPatriots: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Pro-Life MovementPrairie Lion: The Life and Times of Ted Byfield, and co-author of A Guide to Discussing Assisted Suicide with Blaise Alleyne.

Jonathon serves as the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

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