Death as 'harm reduction' is despicable and must be resisted

National Post, 11 May 2023

Either all life bears inherent dignity, and therefore is worthy of protection in law, or it doesn’t

The annual March for Life takes place in Ottawa this Thursday. Most years it is by far the largest demonstration of any kind in Ottawa, though many media outlets strive mightily to ignore it. This year more attention might be paid, as pro-life concerns include not only Canada’s extreme abortion license, but also euthanasia and assisted suicide. Attention should be paid, for there are ominous discussions afoot about the latter.

The past year has brought calls for Canada to replicate at the egress of life what it has at the ingress. Just as Canada’s abortion regime permits any abortion for any reason and at any time, there are advocates who want the same for euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The government’s own expansion of the criteria stopped short, at the last minute, of including mental illness. So, for the moment, depression is not legal grounds for a lethal injection.

Yet the winds are blowing cold. A new paper by two University of Toronto bioethicists argued people suffering “unjust social circumstances” ought to qualify for the deadly jab.

“All options on the table are really tragic and sad,” said Kayla Wiebe. “But the least harmful way forward is to allow people who are competent to make decisions to have access to this choice, even if it’s a terrible one.”

The same Post story included polling data reporting that already more than 25 per cent of Canadians would support legalizing assisted suicide for homelessness or poverty. It’s that kind of thinking that led The Spectator last year to ask why Canada is “euthanizing the poor?”

The central claim of the pro-life movement is that either all life bears inherent dignity, and therefore is worthy of protection in law, or it doesn’t. And if there is no inherent dignity then some other criteria must be applied, determined by those powerful enough to do so. Regarding the abortion, the powerful have determined that life in utero does not bear inherent dignity. Therefore, the protection of law does not apply.

Hence it is legal in Canada to abort an unborn child because she is a girl — or a boy, for that matter, though that is not usually the case. It is legal to abort an unborn child because of a disability — and that is very much the case, as most Down syndrome diagnoses end in death for the child.

That lethal logic — that only those who qualify are worthy of life — is now being extended.

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