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Assisted Suicide
& Euthanasia News Deconstructing the Left's Shoddy Narrative on Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia - see here |
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May 27, 2021
The Crazy People Who Want to Kill the Mentally Ill
I’ve said many times the rise of the authoritarian Left is the central challenge of our time. Now the preposterous authoritarian Left wants to kill the mentally ill. Who are the crazy ones, again?
Bioethicist Peter Singer recently wrote an article advocating euthanasia for mental illness alone. Keep in mind this is the same Peter Singer who advocates infanticide. He says the mentally ill are doomed to stay that way and must endure unbearable suffering their entire lives with no hope of getting better. Unbearable suffering is part of the original rationale for assisted suicide, but the other part is supposed to be the patient giving consent. The mentally ill cannot legally consent to a car loan, but they’re supposed to be able to consent to being killed? That’s crazy.
Moreover, Singer just assumes mental illness is permanent and incurable. But psychiatry is not an exact science. People get misdiagnosed all the time. One woman was mistakenly treated for depression for 20 years and it brought her so low it she called a suicide hot line. But she eventually turned things around. A Canadian man was suffering from depression and attempted suicide, but ultimately pulled through after responding to treatment. Things can get better, and stories like these put the lie to Singer’s phony made-up case which rests on the supposed permanence of mental illness.
Some like Singer will say these people previously gave consent, so euthanasia is OK even if they lose the capacity to give consent later. There are two things wrong with this argument: First, consent is not required at the time of death meaning, in some cases, there won’t be consent at the time of death. There’s the infamous story of the Dutch doctor who asked family members to hold an elderly demented woman down while the fatal dose was administered. She previously gave consent, but she obviously didn’t want to die and struggled when they were killing her. Second, it’s a very short jump from approving euthanasia in cases like this to dispensing with the fig-leaf of consent, altogether. Given the ever-expanding evolution of euthanasia, it wouldn’t be long before the jump is made.
The truth is Peter Singer and the euthanasia lobby don’t really care about the unbearable suffering of the mentally ill. They care about the mentally ill being a burden on society. They want to legally be able to kill mentally ill people because the mentally ill are, in a word, inconvenient. That’s the road the authoritarian Left wants us to go down.
This is the same authoritarian Left that wants to force healthcare providers to participate in euthanasia, transgender surgery, and abortion against their conscience (here and here). The same authoritarian Left that threatens outdoor diners if they don’t swear allegiance to Black Lives Matter. The same authoritarian Left that forces people to buy health insurance against their will. The same authoritarian Left that combines the forces of government and Big Tech to shut down free speech. You cannot come to any sensible conclusion about any of these issues without first reckoning with the fact that the people putting them forward get their jollies from putting their boot on your neck. The issue is never the issue; the issue is always the authoritarian nature of the Left.
If you vote for today’s Democrat Party, you are aiding and abetting the rise of the authoritarian Left. Time to reconsider your political affiliations, maybe?
The Crazy People Who Want to Kill the Mentally Ill
I’ve said many times the rise of the authoritarian Left is the central challenge of our time. Now the preposterous authoritarian Left wants to kill the mentally ill. Who are the crazy ones, again?
Bioethicist Peter Singer recently wrote an article advocating euthanasia for mental illness alone. Keep in mind this is the same Peter Singer who advocates infanticide. He says the mentally ill are doomed to stay that way and must endure unbearable suffering their entire lives with no hope of getting better. Unbearable suffering is part of the original rationale for assisted suicide, but the other part is supposed to be the patient giving consent. The mentally ill cannot legally consent to a car loan, but they’re supposed to be able to consent to being killed? That’s crazy.
Moreover, Singer just assumes mental illness is permanent and incurable. But psychiatry is not an exact science. People get misdiagnosed all the time. One woman was mistakenly treated for depression for 20 years and it brought her so low it she called a suicide hot line. But she eventually turned things around. A Canadian man was suffering from depression and attempted suicide, but ultimately pulled through after responding to treatment. Things can get better, and stories like these put the lie to Singer’s phony made-up case which rests on the supposed permanence of mental illness.
Some like Singer will say these people previously gave consent, so euthanasia is OK even if they lose the capacity to give consent later. There are two things wrong with this argument: First, consent is not required at the time of death meaning, in some cases, there won’t be consent at the time of death. There’s the infamous story of the Dutch doctor who asked family members to hold an elderly demented woman down while the fatal dose was administered. She previously gave consent, but she obviously didn’t want to die and struggled when they were killing her. Second, it’s a very short jump from approving euthanasia in cases like this to dispensing with the fig-leaf of consent, altogether. Given the ever-expanding evolution of euthanasia, it wouldn’t be long before the jump is made.
The truth is Peter Singer and the euthanasia lobby don’t really care about the unbearable suffering of the mentally ill. They care about the mentally ill being a burden on society. They want to legally be able to kill mentally ill people because the mentally ill are, in a word, inconvenient. That’s the road the authoritarian Left wants us to go down.
This is the same authoritarian Left that wants to force healthcare providers to participate in euthanasia, transgender surgery, and abortion against their conscience (here and here). The same authoritarian Left that threatens outdoor diners if they don’t swear allegiance to Black Lives Matter. The same authoritarian Left that forces people to buy health insurance against their will. The same authoritarian Left that combines the forces of government and Big Tech to shut down free speech. You cannot come to any sensible conclusion about any of these issues without first reckoning with the fact that the people putting them forward get their jollies from putting their boot on your neck. The issue is never the issue; the issue is always the authoritarian nature of the Left.
If you vote for today’s Democrat Party, you are aiding and abetting the rise of the authoritarian Left. Time to reconsider your political affiliations, maybe?