Recently I’ve read a few Substack posts from medical freedom writers about assisted suicide, prompted by Canada’s ever-expanding, Orwellian-named “Medical assistance in dying” (MAID). These writers are (rightly) concerned about how far it is going, but where I part ways with them is that they support assisted suicide for people at end of life1.
I don’t believe there is any moral difference between killing someone who is likely to die shortly, and killing someone whose natural death is not foreseeable for reasons like depression, homelessness, disability, etc. Also, the former inevitably leads to the latter, although I don’t think that is the basic problem with it.
As anyone who reads this Substack knows, I am a Christian. Thus my reasoning has Scripture as its foundation. You do not need to share that belief to follow my reasoning, although if you do not, you need to ask yourself very pointedly why you might be against assisted suicide in any case. After all, if there is no God and no afterlife, and if human beings evolved from lower life forms like every other animal, there is no intrinsic moral order to the universe. There is no reason to not end up at utilitarianism; in fact, that fits the Darwinian theory far better than the Christian value placed on all humans whether or not they are “useful”, incapacitated or suffering.
Why has society up until very recently placed such a high value on human life, and prohibited assisted suicide (murder with the complicity of the victim is a more accurate description)?
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)
So simple, so profound. There is the basis for the uniqueness of human beings among all the creatures. We are made in God’s image, capable of relationship with him and with others made in his image.
The same reasoning is behind the original implementation of the death penalty, a few chapters later in Genesis:
And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image. (Genesis 9:5-6)
Many people, including Catholics, believe that the death penalty violates the sanctity of human life. They could not be more wrong. On the contrary, human life is so sacred that its deliberate taking is the only justification for taking a life.
Interestingly, the same societies which allow assisted suicide have previously abolished the death penalty. They are not moving along a continuum toward greater valuing of human life, but less.
When we reject the fundamental principle that human life is inviolable because it is made in the image of God, we end up where we are now in Canada. The number of MAID deaths has climbed from 1,018 in 2016, when it was first legalized, to 10,064 in 2021. “MAID deaths accounted for 3.3% of all deaths in Canada in 2021, an increase from 2.5% in 2020 and 2.0% in 2019. In 2021, all provinces continued to experience increases in the number of MAID provisions as a percentage of total deaths....”2 In March 2023, Canada will become one of the few nations in the world which allows MAID for mental illness.
Why does assisted suicide inevitably end up spreading far beyond its (purported) original intent of shortening the suffering of dying people?
It sounds so innocent and even justifiable to offer assisted suicide to those who are at the end of their lives. After all, they’re going to die soon anyway, and they may be enduring great physical and emotional suffering. What’s the point of living when you are in terrible pain, and your faculties are gone? Your family is in agony seeing you like this, and you are costing the healthcare system money. Why not shorten the process?
Here’s why. Previously human life was in a class of its own, not comparable to anything else or subject to valuation.
When assisted suicide is legalized for any reason, human life gets taken out of that unparalleled position and put in a balance. It is now subject to a cost-benefit calculus, and it is possible for something to outweigh it. That something, at least initially, is foreseeable natural death or the person’s subjective perception of unbearable suffering.
And once you can weigh it against something, the only limit to what it can be weighed against is anyone’s opinion. After all, we have rejected the fundamental prohibition against taking human life and the moral framework from which it springs. There is no moral basis for limiting the reasons why it can be taken after that except subjective “feelings” about valid and invalid reasons.
In fact, there is no basis for having any reason at all, except the person’s naked will to die. As with transgenderism, it becomes unacceptable gatekeeping to limit a person’s “right” to self-determination. Eventually, I believe it’s very likely that even that won’t be required, more of which later.
If human life can be valued, what does that imply? What do we use to measure value in human societies?
Money.
It can be very costly to maintain a sick or disabled person’s life, and cutting it short represents great savings to the state.
That reasoning has already been applied to MAID. In Canada, assisted suicide has been offered several times to veterans seeking medical care for disabilities.
Once we start placing a value on lives, some are more valuable than others. Those which come out on the losing end of the calculation are lives which are very old or very young, sick, poor, disabled, mentally ill, homeless. What MAID says to those people is that they, and we, would be better off if they were dead.
Suicide becomes thinkable in a way it would not otherwise be, presented as an escape from seemingly unbearable situations. In 2020, an elderly Canadian woman died by MAID rather than face another covid lockdown. An Ontario man recently made headlines for requesting MAID, not because of his disability, but because he was facing imminent homelessness. Thankfully, he changed his mind after a GoFundMe raised enough to stave off the prospect of homelessness, but death should never have been an option.
Think of people who may be depressed, suffering, facing an uncertain future, lonely and vulnerable. How subject to suggestion are they when a powerful healthcare figure recommends or even pressures them into MAID?
And who’s to say the consent of the patient will even continue to be required? Think of a mentally incapacitated person, perhaps an elderly dementia patient. Once healthcare workers have crossed the line and become accustomed to killing patients, who’s to say they will stop at the pesky little matter of consent, especially if the person’s life is not considered valuable enough to sustain? Doctors in Quebec have already called for the euthanasia of infants. Of course, we’ve long been killing them just a bit before then and calling it abortion.
Eventually, I fear the ultimate line will be crossed and assisted suicide will become simple murder, as it moves from voluntary to required if the state deems you an undesirable for whatever reason. Impossible? Of course not.
Do not be fooled. Like every evil progressive project, assisted suicide is presented as compassionate, but it is anything but. Its smiling face is unmasked as a demonic leer. Satan hates God and hates those made in his image, and never stops his tireless crusade to “steal, kill, and destroy” in every way he can.
We must be people who choose life. Don’t fall prey to the idea that killing yourself will be the answer to your problems. You will answer to the God who forbids killing anyone made in his image, even yourself. Turn to him and allow him to prove that he cares for those who trust in him.
For those of us who already trust in God, let’s be lights in a very dark culture. Speak out against assisted suicide. Reach out and help, in practical ways where necessary, those who may consider it. Let’s help people see that all life has value, even in the midst of suffering or disability.
Note this is different to refraining from extraordinary interventions to prolong a dying person’s life by weeks or months.
“Third annual report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada 2021”, https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/medical-assistance-dying/annual-report-2021.html#a3.2.
It’s hard to believe Canada is at this place with MAiD. It’s so very, very sad and dark. 10,000 people in 2021???!! And that lady who they offered suicide to because they were annoyed at her seeking the chairlift... you’re right Susanna. This is totally a slippery slope thing. Praying for Canada and once again thanks for the great article. 💛💛
We are returning, in Canada, to what Nazis, inspired by (dare I say British&US) eugenicists were doing in Germany to wide swaths of people, both on racial, ethnic, as well as medical grounds. Many hanged in Nuremberg. But, no one went after the eugenicists in Nuremberg. So we now have Nazis.2, especially in Canada, doing same things on same purported grounds.