In Canada, patients at the William Osler Health System hospital saw the following message on an advertising screen: “Medical assistance in dying is a legal medical service in Canada, whereby physicians or nurse practitioners help eligible patients fulfil their wish to end their suffering”. The is overflowing with compassion—a photo of a male doctor’s hand gently resting on the arm of a woman in a hospital bed. The ad then provides a free-phone number that people interested in euthanasia can call to obtain more information.
This is a sign of the profound abandonment of patients who may be afraid, in pain, depressed; the only help the hospital offers them is to end their lives. The ad makes no mention of palliative care or other means to reduce or eliminate suffering without killing. It does not describe that counselling can help people regain their desire to live. There is no hint that suicide prevention services might be available. And it obscures the fact that medical assistance in dying is a euphemism for homicide by lethal injection. It shows how far euthanasia has penetrated Canada since the country’s Supreme Court adopted it three years ago: not only is euthanasia now legal, the government has transformed access into a positive right. Not only that but there are fears that access will be extended to individuals who are legally incompetent to make a decision to end their lives, or to children or patients with serious medical conditions who could make themselves qualified to receive euthanasia by self-starvation, for example.
This ad confirms it: medically assisted aid in dying has not only been normalised in Canada, but is well on the way to being perceived by the powers that be as the “treatment” of choice for those with serious medical conditions. And a society that becomes obsessed with eliminating suffering quickly embraces eliminating the sufferer as a means. What better way to save on medical costs?
Euthanasia corrupts everything it touches, including the healthcare system and society’s perception of the value of people with serious disabilities and illnesses.
National Review, Wesley J. Smith (13/11/2018)