The culture of death is creeping all around us.
While the scourge of abortion is being combated by the bulk of the conservative movement all over the world, there is now, in many western societies, a rising threat in the form of Euthanasia and ‘Assisted Suicide’.
The two stories that follow show some of the ways that this movement is progressing: on one hand, being normalized and even glamorized with new ‘suicide gadgets’ (no, I’m no kidding), and on the other hand we see how the ‘voluntary’ nature of the assisted suicide is rapidly replaced by some pressure to ‘take the easy way out’ by the supposedly responsible authorities.
Dr. Death, Jack Kevorkian, has died, but hey – the cheerleaders for the assisted suicide have crowned another ‘Doctor Death’: Philip Nitschke, an Australian ‘former physician’, self-described humanist and leader of the pro-euthanasia group Exit International.
He is now launching a new high-tech product and intends to use it for the first time in Switzerland. What product?
Sarco Pods, an electronic ‘sarcophagus’ that will be used just once by each costumer. What is it for? It’s used for – you guessed it – assisted suicides.
Dr. Nitschke: “We’re ready to use it…we’re talking to a number of people who are wanting to be the first to use it.”
Pro-life groups have of course protested that the 3D-printed Sarco Pods ‘glamorize suicide’.
Assisted suicide in Switzerland has been legal since 1942.
Daily Mail reported:
“‘I’ve been in Switzerland in the last week talking to our Swiss lawyers just to make sure there are no further Swiss requirements that are needed before use,’ said Dr Nitschke.”
The Sarco is a portable device that can be operated by users from the inside and works by reducing internal oxygen levels.
“Dr Nitschke said: ‘The person will climb into the machine, they will be asked three questions and they will answer verbally – ‘Who are you?’, ‘Where are you?’ and ‘Do you know what happens if you press the button?’
‘And if they answer those questions verbally, the software then switches the power on so that the button can then be pressed. And if they press the button they will die very quickly.’”
Currently, the only place the devices can be used is in Switzerland. But given the rate of expansion of this culture of death, it is certain to soon be adopted in other decadent western societies.
The ‘glamorization’ of assisted suicide is just one side of the coin of the normalization of these practices. The other is – disturbingly enough – peer pressure.
In Canada, for example, who’ve only had these practices for 7 years, it’s becoming a thing where public officials begin to ‘suggest’ (really, to push) ‘medically assistance in dying’ (MAID) – to people, not to facilitate someone already made up their minds, but to bring the issue to the conversation in the first place.
One is left wondering: how long until it becomes mandatory?
The Independent reported:
“A Paralympic army veteran told stunned lawmakers in Canada when she claimed that a government official had offered to give her euthanasia equipment while fighting to have a wheelchair lift installed in her home.
Retired corporal Christine Gauthier, who competed at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics, testified on Thursday that the unnamed veterans affairs case worker had offered in writing to provide her with a medically-assisted dying device, the CBC reported.
‘I have a letter saying that if you’re so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAID, medical assistance in dying’, Ms Gauthier, 52, told a House of Commons veterans affairs committee, according to the CBC.”
It is know of at least three other disabled veterans who are believed to have been offered the same ‘equipment’.
Gauthier wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ‘express her concern’. Trudeau: incident is ‘absolutely unacceptable’.
“’We are following up with investigations and we are changing protocols to ensure what should seem obvious to all of us: that it is not the place of Veterans Affairs Canada, who are supposed to be there to support those people who stepped up to serve their country, to offer them medical assistance in dying’, Mr. Trudeau was reported as saying.”
While MAID has been legal in Canada since 2016 for terminally ill citizens, it was expanded in 2022 to allow people ‘living with debilitating disabilities or pain’, to be eligible for the procedure, even if their lives aren’t at immediate risk.
Human rights advocates and religious groups are blowing the whistle on regulations that are open to abuse and the absolute lack necessary safeguards, warning that this devalues the lives of disabled people.
Read more about Euthanasia: