By Andrea Widburg
Canada has enthusiastically embraced euthanasia. And maybe that’s not surprising given that socialist countries must inevitably ration treatment, and the best rationing is accomplished by limiting the number of people who need serious care. However, many Canadians are now thinking of euthanasia, not just as a cure for untreated or untreatable illnesses, but also for homelessness and poverty.
These numbers come from a Research Co. poll asking Canadians about their attitudes toward Canada’s expanding Medical Assistance in Dying (or MAID) program:
One third of Canadians are apparently fine with prescribing assisting suicide for no other reason than the fact that the patient is poor or homeless.
The results were contained in a recent Research Co. poll probing just how comfortable Canadians were with the current state of the country’s MAID (medical assistance in dying) regime.
Starting in March 2021, Canada became one of only a handful of countries to legalize assisted suicide even in instances where a patient does not have a terminal illness. Ever since, a Canadian can be approved for MAID simply for having a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.”
Research Co. found that 73 per cent of poll respondents favoured the current regime, and only 16 per cent opposed it.
Pollsters also found not-insignificant numbers of Canadians who favoured assisted suicide in cases where no medical condition of any kind was present.
If a Canadian’s only affliction was “poverty,” 27 per cent said they would be fine with legalizing that person’s access to MAID. Another 28 per cent pegged “homelessness” as an appropriate bar to qualify for MAID.
Incidentally, when it comes to euthanasia for poverty (27% support) and for homelessness (28% support), another 11% of respondents really weren’t that sure. The only good news in the poll is that 44% of Canadians still oppose euthanasia for poverty, and 43% oppose it for homelessness. Expect these numbers to decrease in time.
Aside from showing how it’s becoming increasingly acceptable for doctors to kill rather than cure or help people, the study shows something deeply disturbing about the Western mind: We lack mental resilience.
Another study emerged recently, not about Canada but about America, showing that depression among Americans has reached a new high:
More than a quarter of American adults are depressed, a 10% surge from nearly a decade ago, according to the latest Gallup survey.
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Depression rates have sharply risen among women and Black and Hispanic people in particular. More than 36% of women report that a doctor has diagnosed them with depression in their lives, compared to 20.4% of men, with depression rates among younger people outpacing that of older respondents. While white people historically have reported the highest depression rates, Black and Hispanic adults are now reporting similar figures.
Some of this is going to be situational, given COVID and the terrible economic upheavals Biden’s handlers have wrought. Also, it’s apparent that it’s worst among people who tend to be leftists: women, blacks, and Hispanics. That’s not a surprise because leftism is about existential gloom and doom—and because they’re leftists, there’s no afterlife or resurrection to offset the misery. When you die, you’re dead.
But I also believe some of the depression is tied to the expectations that we have about a “quality” life in the First World. Ironically, in an age in which the First World is becoming increasingly socialist, we are inundated with ever more advertisements and commentary about the material things that will make our lives better. This materialism means we are constantly assured that one can’t find love and happiness in a shack. You need the latest electronics, the finest plumbing, the most fashionable clothes, the biggest, most luxurious house, and so much more. Social media makes creature comforts the standard for happiness.
I happen to love my creature comforts, but I’m old enough to understand that there is more to life than a dishwasher, spiffy shoes, and a hot bath. For young people and other leftists, though, already inundated with propaganda about an existential climate crisis and non-stop racial hatred, happiness is fragile, if not impossible. If you add to that the denial of the creature comforts shilled through non-stop commercialism, you have people who feel that the final straw in a nihilistic existence would be life without a hot bath or designer shoes.
No wonder so many people think it’s a mercy killing to offer someone poor or homeless a sanitized medical death. In the abstract, that’s what they’d want for themselves—although it remains to be seen how they’ll feel in some dystopian future when the mobile euthanasia truck comes for them because they can’t pay their heating bill or just got evicted from their apartment.
