Britain's daily efforts to censor speech and undermine its farmers are making this once great country resemble a communist regime. But its leaders remain determined to continue their march toward dystopia, and are now targeting the elderly with state-sponsored euthanasia. The push to legalize euthanasia has reached Britain, with a harrowing subway advert and support in The Economist.
Canada's huge euthanasia program should serve as a warning to other Western countries. In fact, Britain appears to be about to plunge headlong into this moral abyss. The growing acceptance of industrial-scale medical suicide is no coincidence. It reflects the natural trajectory of modern totalitarian states.
We are ruled by an elite that appears to be trying to police suicide in the West.
Every elite class needs a political formula, a narrative to justify its authority. For the management elite, the formula is expertise and efficiency. In a complex world dominated by large bureaucracies, these sprawling systems require technical knowledge and management skills from those at the top.
Bureaucracies thrive on uniformity, and managerial elites rely on predictable outcomes to deliver promised efficiency and material wealth. This obsession with control drives the need for social engineering. This is a new kind of human subject, flexible and obedient to the plans of the ruling class.
In the modern state of perfection, control extends to every aspect of life, including death. The promotion of euthanasia reflects the ultimate expression of this ideology. That is, a system that determines not only how people live, but also when and how they die.
In 2009, the debate over the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare” as it became popularly known, began in earnest. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) famously warned that government-controlled health care would inevitably lead to “death boards” deciding whether patients could continue receiving treatment. The media ridiculed Palin, branding her ignorant and accusing her of spreading misinformation about the ACA. But her warning was correct. The link between dependency and sovereignty is undeniable. If the state is responsible for the care of an individual from birth, it will necessarily influence decisions about when that individual's life should end.
In 2016, Canada introduced the Medical Assistance in Dying Program. Like other state-sponsored euthanasia programs, MAID was initially promoted as a compassionate option for terminally ill patients to end their suffering. The message focused on dignity, self-determination, and the idea that the program would be a rare solution to extreme cases. However, by 2022, MAID deaths would exceed 13,000 per year, an increase of 31% from 2021, and accounted for 4.1% of all deaths in Canada. Far from serving only the elderly and those with chronic pain, MAID has facilitated the deaths of poor people who can't pay their rent and people who suffer from mental illness. In a stark example of the slippery slope, Canada's euthanasia program has moved from providing a “dignified” end to terminally ill patients to ending the lives of young people grappling with affordability.
The administrative revolution that began in the 1930s and 1940s led Western governments to create modern welfare states. These welfare programs, like Social Security in the United States and the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, relied on large bureaucracies and experts who claimed to be able to predict human behavior, including birth rates and life expectancy. Policymakers structured these welfare systems like pyramid schemes, assuming that the continued growth of generations would maintain them. The rapid decline in birth rates created a crisis for social planners. In response, many governments accepted replacement levels of immigration, both legal and illegal, to offset population declines.
When immigration failed to stabilize the system, administrative states opted for euthanasia to relieve demographic pressures. What began as the welfare state's reliance on predictable human behavior has now evolved into the use of death as a solution to economic and demographic challenges.
As a man who lost his wife after a painful battle with cancer, I understand on a deep level why the arguments for euthanasia seem so convincing. It's heartbreaking to see a loved one suffer because their situation hasn't improved. But industrialized mass euthanasia is a terrible solution to a very difficult problem. The state is not killing you to protect your dignity. You are losing your life because you are inconvenienced.
Although it is unpleasant to discuss, people who no longer wish to live are rarely deprived of the means to end their own lives, unless they are completely medically incapacitated. Modern technology can extend lifespan far beyond the natural lifespan, and patients should have the right to refuse such interventions if they wish. But turning suicide into a large-scale state-run procedure is a dangerous step with predictable and alarming consequences. When the extinction of human life becomes a mere bureaucratic task, the value of life is inevitably reduced to a mere statistic.
Once established, a bureaucracy naturally seeks to expand its mission and jurisdiction. Administrators within these systems are encouraged to expand their authority by expanding their scope of work. Programs designed to address specific problems often evolve into blunt instruments that explore new applications. This tendency is a troubling characteristic of all bureaucracies, but is particularly alarming when the task is to end human life on a large scale.
As it becomes increasingly clear that mass immigration cannot solve the economic challenges facing the West, calls for state-sponsored euthanasia will grow louder. Advocates will present industrial suicide with hidden words of sympathy, but these programs are doomed to morph into the “death panels” Palin warned about.
The same ruthless bureaucrats who outsourced jobs and opened borders for economic gain do not support euthanasia out of genuine concern for dignity. A ruling elite that truly cares about the nation will address the spiritual and material problems that impede family formation, community building, and the broader elements that make life meaningful. Instead, we are ruled by an elite that appears to be trying to police suicide in the West.
