Canada

Public-advocacy-focused secular bioethics is largely progressive politics covered with a veneer of expertise. While there are certainly university courses and degrees in the field, no bioethicist is licensed as such. Indeed, the entire discourse is purely subjective. It is driven mostly by philosophers, professors, doctors, and lawyers who opine about a particular set of issues, your faithful correspondent included.

But now, members of the tribe apparently want to pretend that secular bioethics has become such a deeply ingrained part of our societal bedrock that it qualifies as a moral tradition. From, “Bioethics as an Emerging Moral Tradition and Some Implications for Adversarial Cooperation,” published in the influential Journal of Medical Ethics (citations omitted):

In a forthcoming book titled The Emerging Tradition of Secular Bioethics,…we focus on whether the field of bioethics in the pluralistic and increasingly polarised American context can give justified moral guidance in foundational, clinical, research and public health domains. We argue against a proceduralistic account of bioethics that limits the field to analysing moral problems and clarifying key concepts but never offering substantive moral guidance. We also reject an Enlightenment account of bioethics based on universal, neutral and abstract rational standards and moral first principles that are undeniable by any reasonable person and that can (in theory) eliminate all fundamental moral disagreements. Rather, we argue that while once naming a discourse through which various historically embedded moral traditions could discuss ethical challenges, bioethics is now an emerging content-full moral tradition in its own right.

Notice that the entire premise excludes the moral influence of religion — which is a much deeper tradition with a far longer history — even though one of the founding fathers of bioethics was the great Christian theologian Paul Ramsey. Moreover, some of the most vibrant minds arguing against contemporary mainstream views — such as the astute Catholic bioethicist Charles Camosy (among many others) — would seem, by definition, to be excluded from the supposed “moral tradition” because their principles are profoundly influenced by faith. (For those who would applaud, please recall that eugenics was a progressive secular policy resisted most vociferously by the Catholic Church.)

Euthanasia/assisted suicide “protective guidelines” don’t really protect against abuse. They mostly serve as window dressings to make people comfortable with killing the sick. And soon after legalization, the vaunted protections are redefined by activists and the media as “barriers” to death, which become the pretext for loosening the already slack guidelines. The speed at which that happens varies, but the pattern rarely fails. Here’s an example. In Canada, a person is supposed to explicitly request and consent to being killed by a lethal jab. But a dementia patient was recently euthanized at the request of her family. From the National Post story: A frail women [sic] in her late 80s with dementia received MAID after a family member brought forward Read More ›

An article in the Daily Mail sounds the alarm that permitting infant euthanasia — i.e., infanticide — is under serious consideration in Canada: Canada‘s assisted suicide laws have continued rapidly expanding in recent years, with a group of doctors now pushing for disabled newborn babies to be euthanized.…As assisted deaths have become a major part of Canada’s health care system, the Quebec College of Physicians suggested legalizing euthanasia for infants born severely ill. Canada has jumped so enthusiastically into the euthanasia abyss that I have little doubt that infanticide will eventually be allowed there. It’s only logical. If killing is an acceptable answer to suffering, why limit the killing to adults? Besides, as the story briefly notes, the Netherlands already Read More ›

Opponents of euthanasia have been screaming about Canada’s god-awful euthanasia machine for years. And it keeps getting worse. Now, the mainstream media — usually in the tank for assisted suicide — has finally noticed, as demonstrated by a thoroughly researched and objectively presented story by Elaina Plott Calabro. It’s a long piece, but it’s well worth everyone’s time. Calabro discusses examples of doctors who have killed hundreds of patients, people who have had themselves killed because they couldn’t access proper support services, and many other cases. Euthanasia is Canada’s fifth-leading cause of death, with more than 15,000 patients terminated annually. But this section really got to me. From, “Canada is Killing Itself“: The details of the assisted-death experience have become Read More ›

Legalizing euthanasia/assisted suicide, abortion, and transgender interventions for dysphoric children is only the beginning of the ongoing destruction of Hippocratic moral values in medicine. Once such interventions are legal, activists next insist that they become readily available. But many (and I hope most) doctors want nothing to do with causing death or interfering with the normal functioning of healthy bodies. Indeed, many assisted suicide, abortion, and gender ideologues complain that too few doctors willingly participate in these procedures, as is sometimes protected by the law. These “medical conscience” rights inhibit the increasing hegemony of utilitarian medical values in health care. As a result, once life-taking or mutilating procedures become legal, efforts soon begin to conscript unwilling medical professionals into performing Read More ›

Wesley J. Smith appeared on the Ann and Phelim Scoop, hosted by Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer, to discuss the spread of euthanasia through the West. Comparing it to a metastasizing cancer, Wesley casts light on why euthanasia has become so popular, the state of euthanasia in Canada, the real reasons people seek euthanasia, and its devastating effects on human life.

The New York Times Magazine has a very long article out today highlighting cases of nonterminally ill people being killed by doctors in Canada. It is too long to comment on the whole thing. (Please take the time to read it.) But one story described was so starkly abandoning, I have to bring it to your attention.

The story describes a woman named Paula, who seems to have been deeply depressed and experiencing chronic pain that could not be diagnosed. She had been abused by her father. She had attempted suicide more than once. After her mother died of cancer, she hit the skids, and she was on the verge of homelessness. Her life went into what would eventually become a literal death spiral. From, “Do Patients Without a Terminal Illness Have the Right to Die?”:

Paula stopped seeing her therapists and her social workers. She stopped seeing a family doctor because she couldn’t find one. She stopped taking mood stabilizers. She didn’t have a cellphone or a computer, and she spent hours a day just talking on an old black landline phone to people back in Perth. Still, Paula said, she was managing things — she was holding it together — until the concussion.

She was beaten up by two women with whom she had been feuding at the housing complex, suffering a concussion, which caused her life to spiral even further. She wanted euthanasia. Tests showed no brain damage. But she was miserable and wanted to die. She went on a crusade to find a doctor — any doctor — who would approve her being killed by lethal injection under Canada’s “Track 2” euthanasia protocol for the nonterminally ill.

The Canadian health care system is melting down — and yet the country still embraces radical euthanasia policies. Here’s a current example: A woman injured in an auto accident has waited nearly two years for a consultation with a spinal surgeon — despite now having to use a wheelchair. So, she wants to come to the U.S. for a simple diagnosis, which will cost $40,000! From the CBC story: A London woman injured in a car crash says she’s left with no choice but to pay to see a doctor in the United States after waiting almost two years for a diagnosis from an Ontario spine surgeon. Sydney Gesualdi was rear-ended at a red light in July 2023, after which she was initially diagnosed Read More ›

What a debacle. More than 15,000 people died in Canada in one year because they couldn’t access care in the country’s collapsing socialized health-care system. From the Toronto Sun story: Close to 15,500 people died waiting for health care in Canada between April 1, 2023 until March 31, 2024, according to data compiled by SecondStreet.org via Freedom to Information Act requests across the country. However, SecondStreet.org says the exact number of 15,474 is incomplete as Quebec, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador don’t track the problem and Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia only provided data on patients who died while waiting for surgeries — not diagnostic scans. SecondStreet.org says if it extrapolates the unknown data, then an estimated 28,077 patients died last year Read More ›

Wesley J. Smith was on EpochTV’s American Thought Leaders this week in an episode dedicated to exploring the history and dangers of the assisted suicide movement. From EpochTV: “When a country or a state legalizes assisted suicide or euthanasia, it can no longer call itself anti-suicide, because it specifically approves some suicides. … It’s a very dangerous movement that is normalizing this kind of approach to dying as opposed to natural death.” In this episode, I sit down with Wesley J. Smith, a lawyer, public speaker, award-winning author, and chair of … Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. “We’re seeing in Canada also the beginning of a situation where patients who have a tough time getting an oncologist because of Read More ›