It’s almost back-to-school time in many parts of Canada. Will students be painting coffins in the playground? Will they have field trips to and pajama parties in funeral homes? These are some suggestions, mentioned on the podcast Disrupting Death, for how Canadians might normalize for children the country’s Medical Aid in Dying regime.
MAID is physician-assisted suicide, which, not very long ago, most of us would consider medical malpractice, or another M-word: murder. It is the current euphemism of choice, intended to make people feel more comfortable with doctors’ being called on to kill. It turns out that it is not only children who need some hand-holding to accept the unnatural and, frankly, downright evil. The former Hemlock Society, for example, an American right-to-die organization, is now known as Compassion & Choices. It wants you to believe that sometimes the only merciful thing in the face of suffering is to expedite death. Never mind that assisted suicide also saves money, and that it often preys on people at their most vulnerable.A major reporting piece in The Atlantic, “Canada Is Killing Itself,” ... should alarm Americans, too. During a panel discussion in Manhattan recently, a doctor explained that young trainees are increasingly wondering why suicide is taboo. We live in the day of “my body, my choice,” after all. So, who’s to say when suicide should be prevented? New York Governor Kathy Hochul is supposed to decide before the end of the year whether to sign a bill legalizing assisted suicide in the Empire State. I was in Albany on the day the state senate voted to pass the bill. Many of the Democrats who wound up voting for legalization acknowledged that, where assisted suicide is legal, there have been some reports of abuse. Calabro notes cases of individuals who are suffering from homelessness, mental illnesses, and even “hearing loss” who have requested or successfully applied for MAID in Canada.