Quick Takes – Normalizing Euthanasia: Anti-Euthanasia Tattoos; Lessening The Worth Of A Disabled Persons Life; The Slippery Slope Ain’t No Fallacy

     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: When death becomes the highest moral good from caregivers.

     First, a little mood music:

     Carrying on…

     How precarious is life in Canada when elderly patients have to have the positive directive of NOT killing them literally tattooed onto them?

“Considering the Nazi-tinged history of euthanasia, there is something dark and ominous about a headline reading ‘Christine’s “Don’t Euthanize Me” Tattoo.’ Christine Nagel, who got her first tattoo at age 81, doesn’t even approve of tattoos – but the Calgarian had an important reason for getting this one. It is on her upper arm, and the ink letters spell out crystal clear instructions: ‘Don’t euthanize me.’

“In today’s Canada, Nagel finds it necessary.

“She told Amanda Achtman, who works with Canadian Physicians for Life, why the tattoo is so important in an interview for Achtman’s Substack ‘Dying to Meet You’ in August. ‘Because the government passed a bill that is a way to eradicate human life, but human life is a gift from God,’ Nagel said. ‘We don’t decide when it begins; no more do we decide when it ends.’ Nagel was born in London, England, in 1935 and came to Canada in 1957, adopting a total of seven children and surviving an abusive marriage.

“…

“Nagel’s tattoo serves a dual purpose: to ensure that those around her respect her right to life should they need to be reminded, and to advocate for her view that all life is sacred – a view her country, unfortunately, has chosen to abandon. ‘I know I’m here for a reason,’ she told Achtman. ‘Because God wanted me to be. You want to be born into this family and eventually raise His children, do whatever I can to follow His way and to be with Him. And the older I get, the closer I am to God. Respect the life you have. It’s a gift from God.’”

     When you normalize euthanasia for the disabled, their lives legally become less valuable, as has happened in, yet again, Canada:

“A recent homicide case in Canada further illustrates the point. As regular readers of my work are well aware, Canada has fallen off the euthanasia moral cliff by allowing broad categories of people to be killed by doctors as a means of ending “suffering.” But that denigrating attitude toward people with serious health conditions is catching on, and now, a man who killed his disabled wife has only had his hand slightly slapped on the wrist by a judge for the crime. From the Edmonton Journal story:

“‘A retired accountant who killed his severely disabled wife will be allowed to serve his sentence on house arrest rather than in prison, with a judge ruling the accused’s ‘caregiver burnout’ lessens his moral responsibility for the crime.”

“‘Belzile pleaded guilty last month to manslaughter for injecting Christiane Belzile — a 69-year-old, non-verbal stroke survivor for whom Francois Belzile had been sole caregiver for seven years — with a lethal dose of insulin after she was injured in a fall in 2018. Belzile then tried to end his own life.’

“Despite Francois’s refusal of state assistance — and a threat to end their lives if they ceased to be able to live “independently” before the crime — he was deemed unable to form intent to murder and allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter.”

     Euthanasia has turned from a distortion of the medical practice into the goal of medicine.

“‘[T]he introduction of death care — in each state of Australia; in Canada, Belgium, and the Netherlands; recently in Spain and soon in France; and in ten states and counting across the United States — was meant to provide another treatment option in end-of-life care, another tool for use by physicians and their patients.’

“But something deeply disturbing has occurred. ‘At the core of death care is the presumption that safeguards work and that consent, the most important safeguard, prevents death care from slipping into rampant homicide or suicide contagion. Instead, it is turning into the end of medicine.’

“It’s easy to see where this leads. ‘In Belgium last year,’ Raikin reports, ‘after a lethal injection failed to kill a 36-year-old woman with terminal cancer, the presiding physician smothered her with a pillow. In New Zealand and Canada, suicidal patients seeking medical care for suicide prevention were prompted to consider assisted suicide instead.’”

     TTFN.

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