The Rise of Euthanasia
By Ray Ross
In 1967 as an undergraduate at Boston College, I took a course on Catholic ethics. The course focused on contraception, abortion and euthanasia. The Nazi use of euthanasia to disappear all of those living in mental institutions as well as many living in nursing homes was still fresh in the minds of the public. Euthanasia was then considered abhorrent and a crime against humanity.
In the 1990’s Dr. Jack Kevorkian became prominent for advocating assisted suicide. In all he helped euthanize 130 patients until he was convicted of 2nd degree murder in 1999 for directly injecting a lethal dose into a patient.
Today Canada’s Medical Aid in Dying Act (MAID) allows doctors and nurse practitioners to provide medical assistance in dying without the liability for culpable homicide. It allows the doctor or nurse practitioner to administer a lethal dose or prescribe a drug so that the patient can self-administer a lethal dose.
A little over four percent of Canadian deaths are now attributed to the MAID program and the numbers using MAID have increased 31.2% since 2021 and they’re increasing year over year. By the way, a significant number of those committing assisted suicide have undergone transgender operations and are either suffering terrible pain from the mutilation to their bodies or they’re in despair from their decision to undergo the sex change.
Lest you think the United States is ethically and morally superior to our brothers to the north, eleven U.S. states now allow for assisted suicide. Those states are:
- California
- Colorado
- District of Columbia
- Hawaii
- Maine
- Montana
- New Jersey
- Oregon
- Vermont
- Washington
In June New York passed a bill that will be the most far-reaching MAID legislation to date, and that bill is awaiting the signature of Governor Hochul.
The Catholic Church, of course, vehemently opposes euthanasia and assisted suicide. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Intentional euthanasia, whatever its forms or motives, is murder. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and the respect due to the living God, his Creator.”
Much has changed since my undergraduate days. We live in an age of anti-humanism. In addition to chemical abortion, IVF, and transgenderism, we’ve now added the increasing legalization of euthanasia.