MAiD: Hope and charity are how we undermine MAiD’s devious foundation

As of this month, it has now been exactly eight years since Canada legalized euthanasia – eight years during which the slippery slope, of which so many Catholics and other concerned citizens warned, metastasized into a fatal freefall of permissiveness that has transformed this country into a world-leading facilitator of voluntary premature death.

You’ll not likely see our prime minister boasting about this, but the legalization and then expansion of what the government calls Medical Assistance in Dying is, sadly, one of his most important accomplishments.

Pro-life activists, like the 100 who attended a day-long conference in Chilliwack on May 25, hope it’s also one of his most short-lived.

I had the privilege of delivering a speech at the conference in which I reviewed The B.C. Catholic’s award-winning coverage of the MAiD calamity. I also took time to examine the pillars on which this country’s MAiD juggernaut rests.

The first of those pillars can only be described as that of duplicity and deception.

Just as the 1970s science-fiction film Logan’s Run foresaw a future in which an evil government used a promise of “renewal” to trick residents of a futurist metropolis into surrendering themselves to a killing machine called the “carrousel,” so too has our government practised deception to lull Canadians into acceptance of MAiD.

Let’s start with the very term “medical assistance in dying.” It is a lie.

In truth, there’s nothing medical about it. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “medical” as “of or relating to the science of medicine in general.” And what exactly is medicine, then? It says, “The science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease.”

But we know, of course, that MAiD has nothing to do with diagnosis, treatment, or prevention at all, and everything to do with the very opposite.

We also continue to hear, for example, that those who turn to euthanasia are courageous. But isn’t the opposite actually true?

The fact is, those choosing to control the timing of their final days do so because they do not want to face an uncertain future that may bring senility or pain. That’s the opposite of courage.

The we have the bastardization of the word “dignity.” Turn to Oxford again and you’ll see it means “composed or serious manner of style” and “the state of being worthy of honour or respect.”

Is it honourable to allow yourself to be injected with a series of drugs that immobilize and then paralyze you so you can’t breathe (and may, it’s recently been asserted, lead to a death that is similar to drowning)?

Moreover, what does the “dignity” argument say about those who refuse to embrace MAiD and choose to die naturally? Are they somehow less dignified or undignified?

Writing in The Atlantic last year, David Brooks identified another deeply disturbing development that underlies MAiD in Canada: a reckless expansion of the concept of liberalism.

As I explained in my speech, Brooks says that healthy liberalism, which he calls gifts-based liberalism, recognizes that humans were given their life, and that this life is intrinsically good. “The celebration of life’s sacredness is so deeply woven into our minds, and so central to our civilization, that we don’t think about it much until confronted with shocking examples of when the celebration is rejected,” Brooks writes.

That “shocking example” is Canadian MAiD, which embodies a perversely individualistic and selfish interpretation of what life is.

It’s one that seems to hold that a person’s life appears out of thin air, and is not, in fact, deeply connected with ancestors and the whole human community. Brooks calls this new and troubling development “autonomy-based liberalism.”

Instead of viewing all human life as incalculably valuable, the new philosophy has led to a more utilitarian view, one that considers “quality of life” in determining value. And so the death toll continues to climb.

It is to weep. Yes, so much has gone wrong, and this means that much work needs to be done to heal our shattered culture.

I ended my speech on a hopeful note, an anecdote about how a little girl’s delivery of a single flower to a lonely senior at a Coquitlam care home turned into a life-enriching experience for both of them.

This sort of connection – which is, of course, the epitome of Christian love – shows us the way to turning the MAiD tide. Loving our neighbours as ourselves is certainly a good place to start.

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