Quick Takes – Euthanasia: Killin’ In Canada; Killin’ In California; Killin’ In Hawaii

     Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.

     The focus this time: Everyone killin’ it now!

     First, a little Sith bein’ the Sith:

     Carrying on…

     Remember when “Reader’s Digest” just pushed condensed books?

“The push is on in Canada to normalize euthanasia as the best way to die — to save money and emotional turmoil. How hard is the push? Reader’s Digest Canada — no less — has published a guide to end-of-life planning that pushes euthanasia and doesn’t even mention hospice.

“The guide advises readers to ‘pick the right time’ to die, i.e., be euthanized — euphemistically known as ‘medical assistance in dying’ (MAID). From “The Ultimate Guide to End of Life Planning”:

“‘A scheduled death can allow people to say goodbye in the way they want. According to Helen Long, a MAID is often like a celebration of life—except the guest of honour gets to be there. “A friend of my dad had a classic car, and he and his son went for one last drive around the neighbourhood,” she says. “Once a person makes a decision, it’s often a very freeing experience for them. It gives them back their control.’

“The allusion is to ‘the guest of honour’ is to euthanasia parties, where people attend to say goodbye and watch the patient be killed or — as happens in the U.S.A. — take poison pills. In my view, people who attend such gatherings validate suicide and are morally complicit in the death.”

     Out: Boob jobs in Beverly Hills. In: Homicide!

“When activists successfully legalized assisted suicide in California, they persuaded the California Medical Association to shift from opposition to neutrality with the promise that no doctor would be forced to participate. But here’s the thing with assisted suicide: Such promises are made to be broken.

“Now that assisted suicide is well-ensconced in California culture, a bill has been filed that would destroy medical conscience for doctors who oppose assisted suicide. From SB 380 […]:

   (3) If a health care provider is unable or unwilling to carry out a qualified individual’s request under this part and the qualified individual transfers care to a new health care provider or health care facility, the individual’s medical records shall be provided to the individual and, upon the individual’s request, timely transferred with documentation of the date of the individual’s request for a prescription for aid-in-dying drug in the medical record, pursuant to law.

    (4) Failure to provide information about medical aid in dying to an individual who requests it, or failure to refer upon the individual’s request to another health care provider or health care facility that is willing to provide the information, is considered a failure to obtain informed consent for subsequent medical treatments.

    (5) Neither a health care provider nor a health care facility shall engage in false, misleading, or deceptive practices relating to a willingness to qualify an individual or provide a prescription to a qualified individual under this part. Intentionally misleading an individual as to the willingness of a provider or facility to participate under this part constitutes coercion or undue influence.

“Here is what that would mean. A physician who refused to prescribe poison to a legally qualified patient — perhaps because of religious beliefs or wanting to simply follow the Hippocratic Oath — would be obliged upon the patient’s request to find another doctor he or she knows is willing to prescribe. In other words, finding the participating M.D. would be the doctor’s responsibility, not the patient’s.”

     Does too much ukulele music make Hawaiians crave death, or are hard-Left people who run the state homicidal?

“Once facilitated suicide–or in the case of euthanasia, homicide–is firmly ensconsed in public policy, the guidelines go by the wayside and are loosened repeatedly, over time. For recent examples, see Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Washington, and Oregon.

“We see boosting stories for this process of liberalizing frequently in the popular media, only the vaunted guidelines are now called ‘obstacles’ or ‘barriers.’ It’s all such a con.

“Now Hawaii’s Department of Health predictably urges a loosening of existing protections. From the Department’s Annual Report:

   The DOH recommends the following changes to the OCOCA.

1. Waiver of any waiting periods if the attending provider and consulting provider agree that patient death is likely prior to the end of the waiting periods.
2. Given access to health care providers is limited, the DOH recommends authorizing advance practice registered nurses to serve as attending providers for patients seeking medical aid in dying.

“Please know that if you support legalizing assisted suicide, you are also endorsing a process that ultimately leads to death on demand — as it has in Germany. You may want that. But don’t play the game that legalizing assisted suicide will only be an itsy-bitsy change in the law and medical ethics.

“Calling Hawaii’s bureaucrat death-pushers the ‘Department of Health’ is akin to the totalitarian government in 1984 calling its torture and brainwashing department the ‘Ministry of Love.’

     TTFN.

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