Killing the Vulnerable, Sick, and Helpless

“So-called ‘compassionate’ euthanasia holds that it is better to die than to suffer, and that it would be compassionate to help a patient to die by means of euthanasia or assisted suicide. In reality, human compassion consists not in causing death, but in embracing the sick, in supporting them in their difficulties, in offering them affection, attention, and the [moral] means to alleviate the suffering.”

–Samaritanus bonus 

Pro-life activists have long warned that the most predictable consequence of legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide will be the stripping away of the guardrails protecting the weakest, most vulnerable, and marginalized members of society. 

We warned this would lead to a litany of horrors.  

This is precisely what happened in nations like Belgium and the Netherlands, which were among the first to legalize these inhumane practices. However, no nation seems to be as determined to plumb the depths of the depravity introduced by legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide as Canada.

An Exposé Reveals Abuses

Here at Spirit & Life, I have recounted some of the appalling cases of medical abuse emerging under Canada’s euthanasia regime. A new report from Ontario’s chief coroner has further underlined just how widespread and systemic these abuses are. 

It is telling that this government-led report was undertaken after a disturbing exposé on Canadian euthanasia practices by the Associated Press (AP) emerged. The AP, as I’m sure you know, is not a conservative news service (quite the contrary!). And yet, even they have recognized that things have gone much too far, and that people need to be held accountable before they go even further. 

Canadian law mandates that patients be certified to be suffering from “irremediable suffering” before being approved for euthanasia or assisted suicide. However, as the new report from the Ontario coroner documents, what counts as “irremediable suffering” is too open to interpretation, and thus abuse.

Related: The Ethics of Pain Management: Catholic Teaching

As the AP wrote in their original report: 

[E]xperts tasked with delivering euthanasia to people who aren’t dying have called it “morally distressing” and say the legal provisions are too vague to be protective, obliging doctors and nurses to at times end the lives of people they believe might otherwise be saved. 

“I don’t want (euthanasia) to become the solution to every kind of suffering out there,” a physician wrote to colleagues on one of the private forums. 

But as the new report from the Ontario coroner indicates, this is precisely what is happening! Health care providers are increasingly being pressured to kill people whose suffering could be alleviated by authentic care that addresses the underlying causes of their suffering, which in some cases were often not even medical in nature. Death is becoming the preferred “treatment” for forms of suffering that could, and should, be addressed using other (but perhaps difficult or inconvenient) means. Such means respect the incomparable value of human life and do not treat it as a thing to be discarded.  

Related: Ordinary and Extraordinary Means of Treatment

One doctor, who was on the committee that produced the new report, expressed relief that long-standing concerns were finally getting an airing. “To finally have a government report that recognizes these cases of concern is extremely important,” said Dr. Ramona Coelho. “We’ve been gaslit for so many years when we raised fears about people getting MAiD because they were poor, disabled or socially isolated.”

Cries for Help, Unheeded

However, just because the concerns are finally receiving some attention from the government, doesn’t mean that they will be addressed. After all, over the past year, numerous media outlets have reported on appalling cases of abuse of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in Canada. And yet, the Canadian government has continued to promise to further liberalize the law, including opening euthanasia and assisted suicide up to the mentally ill and minors! 

We can hope that the stories that have emerged from the latest report will cause chills to go up the back of any right-thinking person and provoke a backlash that will reintroduce sanity. 

Take the case of the middle-aged man who suffered from ankle and back pain that made him unable to work. The man applied for so-called MAiD, saying that the small amount he was receiving from the government in financial support was “leaving (him) with no choice but to pursue MAiD.” His doctor approved him.  

In their reports, the AP and the Ontario coroner used messages from e-mail threads and private message forums created by health care workers to discuss the topic of euthanasia and assisted suicide. The AP notes that many of the cases discussed on these forums had to do with individuals who were homeless.  

In one case, a doctor noted that his patient was asking for MAiD “mostly because he is homeless, in debt and cannot tolerate the idea of (long-term care) of any kind.” Another participant wondered whether the fear of being in a nursing home really constituted “intolerable” suffering. The doctor overseeing the case retorted that the suffering of “looking at the wall or ceiling waiting to be fed” was indeed sufficient to qualify. 

If that’s the case, just about every incapacitated resident of a nursing home in Canada would be a candidate for MAiD! When you consider the fact that it is typically far, far cheaper to euthanize a patient than it is to provide years of care for them, you can begin to understand how dire the situation is. 

In another case, a worker on one of the forums asked whether there had been instances of patients euthanized because of blindness. Another member of the forum replied, mentioning four such cases. In one case, an elderly man, who was caring for his wife despite being mostly blind, asked for euthanasia. But he wanted his wife to die with him. According to the person who was familiar with the case, after four meetings with the assessor responsible for making a decision, the wife “finally agreed” to be euthanized. 

In other words, she didn’t want to end her life. She eventually caved under pressure from her husband and due to the failings of a system that did not shut the discussion down the minute it was clear that the wife wasn’t looking to end her life.

Related: Canada MAiD Expansion Delayed – and How to Bring Hope

Repealing “Do No Harm”

The phrase “I will do no harm” is one of the most famous phrases in the history of medicine. It is found in the Hippocratic Oath, generally considered to be the oldest code of medical ethics in the world.  

Immediately following this phrase appears another, which reads: “Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course.”  

Behind the Hippocratic Oath is a recognition of the immense power that doctors wield, which could easily be misused. Hence, there is a great need to solemnly orient the medical field towards healing, erecting impregnable safeguards against any deviation from this single-minded mission. 

In keeping with this, the Hippocratic Oath also includes a section in which would-be doctors vow not to help a woman procure an abortion. Another section includes the promise that they will “abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free.” 

Within the Christian framework, this commitment to healing in the medical profession was elevated even further. Pope Francis discusses this in his newly released encyclical Dilexit nos, in which he reflects upon the Sacred Heart and the love of Christ. In this text, Pope Francis ruminates on how Christ’s life and actions radically affirmed the universal dignity of all human persons and how this had a revolutionary impact on the history of civilization.  

He writes, quoting the recent document Dignitas infinita from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith: 

By associating with the lowest ranks of society (cf. Mt 25:31-46), Jesus brought the great novelty of recognizing the dignity of every person, especially those who were considered ‘unworthy’. This new principle in human history – which emphasizes that individuals are even more ‘worthy’ of our respect and love when they are weak, scorned, or suffering, even to the point of losing the human ‘figure’ – has changed the face of the world. It has given life to institutions that take care of those who find themselves in disadvantaged conditions, such as abandoned infants, orphans, the elderly who are left without assistance, the mentally ill, people with incurable diseases or severe deformities, and those living on the streets (no. 170). 

This was the power of the Christian revolution, documented so thoroughly by the historian Tom Holland in the book Dominion. In the face of the dehumanizing effects of Original Sin and the elitist and inhumane outlook of pagan Roman society, early Christians promoted a radical doctrine that affirmed the immeasurable dignity of the marginalized, despised, rejected, and suffering.

The Hippocratic Oath is Forgotten

Canada’s euthanasia regime is doing nothing less than turning the Hippocratic Oath and the Christian revolution on their heads. 

Using a grotesque distortion of the concepts of “compassion” and “rights,” the medical establishment is turning its back on the most vulnerable. It is proactively pursuing them with offers of self-harm and death.

Linda Maddaford, the newly elected president of the Regina Catholic Women’s League, recently shared her experience of placing her father in a care home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

The very day after they moved him into the home, she recounts, “we got a blanket email inviting us to come to a presentation in the dining room.” The presentation was about MAiD.  

As she put it, it’s not that MAiD is simply an option that’s available to Canadians should they ask for it. Instead, there’s a “push from the top-down. That if you don’t—if you aren’t open to the idea; you should be. I worry for the people who feel the pressure of: ‘Well my doctor advised it.’ Or ‘someone with a clipboard came around and kept asking.’” 

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops put the situation bluntly: “[Jesus] showed most fully what it means to love, to serve, and to be present to others. His response to the suffering of others was to suffer with them, not to kill them. He accepted suffering in his life as the pathway to giving, to generosity, to mercy.” 

Atheistic Western secularists seem to think that when a nation turns its back on its Christian heritage, this is a sign of “progress” that will usher in a new age of compassionate humanism. Canada shows us what really happens: the weak, vulnerable, and suffering are preyed upon and abandoned. 

God have mercy on us!