Bill C-384 — Kevorkian's Solution

It's symbolic that just days before the House resumed its debate on the euthanasia bill, the New York Times Magazine had published its interview with Jack Kevorkian. This time the murderer (aka Dr. Death) doesn't talk about easing the pain and suffering. His vision is much broader now:

[Y]ou see this last crisis we went through that scared everybody, there was a solution, but nobody would like it. I could solve it in a minute by cutting the population in half, and now you’d have a job for everybody.

Killing the unemployed? Reducing the population in half to combat unemployment? Even Hitler didn't came to that. Yep, death does tend to be Kevorkian’s solution to things. Can't find a job? Lethal injection. Getting too old to work? Lethal injection it is. Seriously ill and can't bear the pain? Here's some anesthetics. Some tenfold dose of it, to be precise.

The latter was debated yesterday in the House of Commons. For now - it's mostly about the pain and suffering. But some MPs could see beyond the fancy words; they could see that if euthanasia becomes legal, people with disabilities (and then - just the elderly) could be pressured into euthanasia and treated as a burden to others if they choose to live their natural life to the last day. Even those MPs who spoke in favor of the bill (like Bill Siksay) mentioned that as a possible consequence.

In Mr. Siksay's opinion that's not serious enough a threat to reject legal euthanasia. Is that so? After all, the oldest "baby boomers" are going to start retiring as early as next year and the CPP is losing money on the stock market. Who can guarantee that once euthanasia is legal, the politicians don't resort to Kevorkian's solution to reduce pension and healthcare expenses and to free up hospital beds?

The vote on bill C-384 is today. Judging from the number of opposition MPs, who spoke against the bill, (including 2 from the NDP,) it will be defeated. But it's yet too early to consider the debate to be over. Let's not forget how quickly the Parliament went from voting 216:55 in favor of the traditional marriage to ramming through the legislation that redefined marriage and parenthood to suit the homosexual lobby. We must make sure this never happens with euthanasia; that direct and intentional actions that cause another person's death never become legal.

Even once the bill is defeated, the debate will continue and we're likely to see the euthanasia supporters using the backdoor approach, trying to bring Kevorkian's solution through the courts, UN declarations and "human rights" commissions. We must be ready to fight those attempts. We must make sure that the politicians can't claim that "the society has evolved" and that our right to life, from conception to natural death, does not devolve into an implied "right to die".