Euthanasia is Not Healthcare – Josh Anderson

Euthanasia is Not Healthcare

When Canadians pull me aside to vent about those “crazy” Americans (before realizing that they’re talking to an American), I usually hear something about gun violence or Donald Trump. What some Canadians might not realize is that we Americans think y’all are out of your minds, too . And I don’t think I’m only speaking for conservative America when I say this, because when I tell Americans of any political persuasion about Canada’s practices and attitudes around medical assistance in dying, or “MAID,” I am universally met with disbelief, shock, and horror.

State-sponsored assisted suicide programs are not entirely unheard of in the United States. It might not be surprising to hear that a state as liberal as California has such a program. But Canada takes it to the next level. Despite having a similar population size, in the year 2021 alone the number of people who died by MAID was roughly twenty times higher in Canada than it was in California. In fact, according to the government-issued annual report on MAID in Canada, 3.3% of all deaths in Canada were attributed to MAID in 2021, a 32.4% increase over 2020.

What gives? Well, in 2015 the Supreme Court of Canada decided that laws preventing doctor-assisted suicide were unconstitutional, as long as the recipients had a “grievous and irremediable” medical condition. That’s similar to the eligibility requirement in California: terminal illness.

I actually happen to sympathize with the view that a person who is in their final, agonizing moments of wrestling with a terminal illness or a complete loss of brain function – where multiple physicians have confirmed that alleviation from physical suffering, much less a recovery from the underlying affliction, is physically impossible – need not have the remaining fraction of their life artificially prolonged. Like… I get why they did what they did to Terri Schiavo. And I think that most people who voice support for state-sponsored assisted suicide programs assume that cases like hers are representative of these procedures. Proponents see this as a somber but ultimately compassionate alleviation of suffering.

However, by 2021, six years of slope-slipping later, the Canadian eligibility requirements for MAID had “progressed” far beyond California’s. In March 2021, Liberal and Bloc Quebecois MPs came together to pass Bill C-7, which struck down the requirement that one’s natural death had to be “reasonably foreseeable” in order to receive MAID. The hard-left New Democratic Party enthusiastically supported the original bill, choosing to vote against it only because it had been revised in the Senate. “We don’t believe that the Senate should be doing the work of elected officials,” said NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. The NDP did not take issue with the content of those Senate revisions – which actually moved to expand the bill even further to allow people to make advance requests for MAID.

(The argument for allowing advance requests for MAID goes as follows: If someone were to contract something like dementia and be rendered incapable of informed consent to MAID, they would lose the dignified human right to choose death. It would be an oppressive, inequitable violation of human rights for the state to not kill them. Thus they should have the right to agree to it beforehand.)

In 2024, eligibility will increase to include people whose only underlying condition is mental illness. By the way, in 2021, Mental Health Research Canada concluded that they’d found a correlation “between vaccine hesitancy and mental illness.” Not even COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy specifically, just vaccine hesitancy broadly speaking, because surely there are no legitimate reasons anyone might reasonably regard pubic health institutions with skepticism! That same year, New York City psychiatrist Dr. Aruna Khilanani was invited to none other than the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center to give a talk entitled “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” The Yale School of Medicine eventually distanced themselves from Khilanani, but only after she indicated that perhaps she was the psychopathic one. Among other things, she told her audience that she “had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step.” Apparently the title of the talk wasn’t enough of a red flag. (Writing about the incident, the Washington Post included several defenses of Khilanani, including, “Her comments and the negative feedback she’s received are more revealing about white supremacist thoughts than about Khilanani’s view on racism, said Nikki Coleman, a psychologist and consultant on diversity, equity and inclusion.”) I bring up this incident because if this is the sort of mental health “expert” invited to speak to students of a… *checks notes* … Child Study Center at one of the most highly regarded universities in the world – if hers is the sort of speech to readily find defenders in the media and academia… then let’s just say I… hesitate… when the government officially enshrines into law the stance that death is preferable to however the “experts” of the day define “mental illness.”

Indeed, that stance – the stance that death is preferable to disability – has been the thrust behind the pushback towards this bill. Three disability rights advocates associated with the United Nations wrote futilely in a letter to the federal government before they expanded MAID in 2021:

“From a disability rights perspective, there is a grave concern that, if assisted dying is made available for all persons with a health condition or impairment, regardless of whether they are close to death, a social assumption might follow (or be subtly reinforced) that it is better to be dead than to live with a disability. Therefore, a major concern must be that persons with a disability (and perhaps especially those with newly acquired impairment) may opt too readily for assisted dying, based on the internalisation of prejudices, fears and low expectations of living with a disability, even before having the chance of coming to terms with and adapting to their new disability status.”

Source: https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=26002

As the bodies piled higher and higher, other countries began to take notice. “‘Disturbing’: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws,” read an August 2022 headline by the Associated Press, an American news agency. “Canadian patients are not required to have exhausted all treatment alternatives before seeking euthanasia, as is the case in Belgium and the Netherlands,” they reported. From the same article:

Belgian doctors are advised to avoid mentioning euthanasia to patients since it could be misinterpreted as medical advice. The Australian state of Victoria forbids doctors from raising euthanasia with patients. There are no such restrictions in Canada. The association of Canadian health professionals who provide euthanasia tells physicians and nurses to inform patients if they might qualify to be killed, as one of their possible “clinical care options.”

Source: https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c631558a457188d2bd2b5cfd360a867

In fact, not only are Canadian health professionals able to inform their patients of this “clinical care option,” in November 2022 the National Post reported that “Canadian doctors are encouraged to bring up medically assisted death before their patients do.” Canadian doctors are told they have a “professional obligation” to plant the seed of easy, state-sponsored suicide in the minds of anyone for whom MAID is “medically relevant.”

It’s not just Canadian doctors who have begun to promote MAID. In October 2022, the Montreal-based clothing retailer Simons released a video advertisement glamorizing assisted suicide. It’s as polished and chic as you’d expect from a big-budget production. “Last breaths are sacred,” reads the narrator. “When I imagine my final days, I see bubbles. I see the ocean. I see music. Even now, as I seek help to end my life, there is still so much beauty. You just have to be brave enough to see it.” The image of a blue whale floats across the screen, possibly referencing the so-called “Blue Whale Challenge,” where young social media users are pressured into harming and ultimately killing themselves. At the end of the commercial, superimposed over a wide shot of an ocean tide appear the words “For Jennyfer. June 1985 – October 2022,” followed by title “All Is Beauty.” As it turns out, that woman, Jennyfer Hatch, told CTV in June that she wanted to live but ultimately felt MAID was her only option: “I feel like I’m falling through the cracks so if I’m not able to access health care am I then able to access death care?’ And that’s what led me to look into MAID.” This poor woman, who admitted herself to have been pressured against her will into being killed by the state, now in her death has been turned into the centerpiece of a… *checks notes again* … clothing retailer‘s glamorous exhortation for others to follow her into suicide.

It’s not only the disabled and ill who are pushed into “choosing” MAID; it is also notably the poor. One shocking and heart-wrenching video from CityNews in October 2022 called “Fears people choosing MAiD because they can’t afford to live” shows a man from St. Catharines named Amir Farsoud saying, “I don’t wish to be dead,” and yet electing MAID because he believes it’s a choice between that and dying on the streets. “His doctor, who knows Farsoud’s real reason for MAID is his fear of being homeless,” reports the CityNews journalist, “signed off on the application in August.”

“Why is Canada euthanising the poor?” asked one article from The Spectator, a U.K-based publication. One of the reasons is that the Canadian Liberal government believes it will save on costs.

Despite the Canadian government’s insistence that assisted suicide is all about individual autonomy, it has also kept an eye on its fiscal advantages. Even before Bill C-7 entered into force, the country’s Parliamentary Budget Officer published a report about the cost savings it would create: whereas the old MAID regime saved $86.9 million per year – a ‘net cost reduction’, in the sterile words of the report – Bill C-7 would create additional net savings of $62 million per year. Healthcare, particular for those suffering from chronic conditions, is expensive; but assisted suicide only costs the taxpayer $2,327 per ‘case’. And, of course, those who have to rely wholly on government-provided Medicare pose a far greater burden on the exchequer than those who have savings or private insurance.

Source: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/most-read-2022-why-is-canada-euthanising-the-poor/

Journalists at home have been, with rare exception, entirely uninterested in critically examining this issue. In 2020, Canada’s state-sponsored broadcaster, the CBC, shut down concerns that socioeconomic vulnerability had any bearing on MAID requests: “No link between poverty, choosing medically assisted death, study suggests.” Parroting the Liberal talking point, here’s one banally evil headline the CBC ran a few years prior: “Medically assisted deaths could save millions in health care spending: Report.”

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/medically-assisted-death-could-save-millions-1.3947481

Some Canadians are even more enthusiastic about another kind of savings that will come along with a reduction in lifeforms: carbon! Vice reported on an eco-activist and member of Extinction Rebellion living in Vancouver Island named Howard Breen who applied for MAID over his anxiety about climate change. His first application was denied, but he’s confident he’ll be approved once access is expanded to include his mental illness. (Say, did the Canadian government ever explain how it is planning on reaching its aggressive, unrealistic carbon reduction goals?)

“The majority of Canadians—three out of five, according to a recent Angus Reid poll funded by Cardus, a Christian think tank that opposes MAID—are in favour of the legislation in its current state,” writes the Walrus. Thanks to such popular support for these policies, mental illness is by no means the end of the road for MAID eligibility in Canada. In February 2023, The Report of the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying recommended further expansions of MAID. What kind of pushback did this Special Joint Committee encounter? What kind of opposition did they face?

“Conservatives do not support MAID for mature minors at this time” (p. 107).

Oh, did I forget to tell you about the “mature minors“? The next group that Liberals have their eye on? The one the Conservatives can’t defend beyond stating they do not support their state-sponsored killing “at this time”?

The committee also suggested that MAID be made available in certain circumstances to “mature minors,” though it recommended further consultations. (Currently, Belgium and the Netherlands are the only countries with comparable provisions for those under eighteen.) There should be no age limit to who can consent to receiving MAID, the report states; applicants should qualify if they are deemed capable of making the decision, though it does not go further to define “capable.” The committee also recommended that parents and guardians be consulted during the process, though not that they be required to approve of their child’s decision: “the will of a minor who is found to have the requisite decision-making capacity [must] ultimately take priority,” the report states.

Source: https://thewalrus.ca/assisted-dying/

Somehow we’ve arrived at a place in Canadian politics where the same people who would deny others the right to refuse a vaccine because they might die from contracting COVID will vehemently support their right to ask the government to outright kill them. All in the name of “healthcare.”

And they’re angling to let your kids do the same. Actually, it’s worse than that. In October 2022, the Quebec College of Physicians suggested expanding MAID to include newborns with certain illnesses. I don’t know what kind of Olympic-level mental gymnastics you need to achieve to begin telling yourself that you have a newborn’s “informed consent” to perform MAID.

But here’s the thing that I always have to explain to Canadians; where I come from, we don’t call it “performing MAID.”

We call it murder.