On Friday, Feb. 9, the Democrat-controlled State Senate in a 21-19 party line vote passed Senate Bill 280, pleasantly named “Death with Dignity.”
This issue is fraught with emotion and controversy, and some people I feel close to strongly support so called “physician-assisted suicide.” They think it’s cruel to make someone with a terminal illness suffer mentally and physically, helplessly waiting for death while their body is wracked with pain, perhaps their mind is gone, and as their life savings drain away.
Democrat supporters of this bill try to reassure us with some “safeguards,” including:
- A patient must be over the age of 18, a resident of Virginia and either have a diagnosed terminal condition or be in hospice care
- A patient must be determined as capable of making an informed decision on receiving medical aid in dying
- A patient must be determined as having made this request of their own volition without any influence from outside sources, etc.
With these “safeguards” and the undeniable pain many experience when dying, why would anyone be against this? Are they monsters who enjoy cruelty?
Point One: With skyrocketing healthcare costs, expect governments and hospitals to view this as a great way to cut costs and improve their bottom lines. With a federal debt currently at $34.2 trillion, expect desperate measures as more people start realizing our government is trillions beyond broke.
Someone said, we may think it’s great to “reduce the carbon footprint,” until you find out YOU are the “carbon footprint” someone is trying to “reduce.” Plus, it sounds great to “cut healthcare costs” until the terrifying moment, too late, you find out YOU or one of your loved one are the “healthcare cost” someone is trying to “cut.”
Plus, some will see killing sick people as a way to open up more hospital beds to help make way for the untold millions of illegal aliens the Democrats are welcoming in.
Point 2: It’s already happening. As my insightful father used to say, “wise people learn from other people’s mistakes, but fools must make their own mistakes, for they will learn no other way.”
So let’s take a lesson from Canada. Not only is our neighbor further down the leftward path, so much so that is shows frightening signs of falling into dictatorship, they have legalized what they pleasantly call “Medically Assistance In Death” (MAID).
Canadian Retired Army Corporal Christine Gauthier, who injured her back in a 1989 training accident, represented her country at the 2016 Brazil Paralympics. In a warning about “socialized medicine,” Gauthier has been waiting for five years (!) for her government’s veterans affairs office to install a wheelchair ramp in her home.
Shockingly, instead of installing finally installing the ramp, the government sent her a letter claiming “if you’re so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAID, medical assistance in dying.”
Her response was basically, “I don’t want to kill myself, I just want a wheelchair ramp!”
And in a major back-pedaling dated Feb. 8, Canada has moved back their proposed March 17 plan to start legally killing people with mental illness.
Many associate the Nazi Holocaust with the extermination of some six million Jews, among others. However, it’s little known that the Holocaust began with the killings of mentally and physically disabled because the Nazis labeled them a “burden” to the “Third Reich.”
Also, a dear friend of mine died in a hospital in Arizona during the Covid hysteria. Outrageously, according to his wife and friends, the hospital wouldn’t let her get him out but instead killed him by cutting off his food and water in order to collect their “Covid bonus.”
Point 3: A “diagnosed terminal condition” is not 100% sure. We probably all know people who were “given 6 months to live” but ended up living for two or three years, and in some cases, recovering. Others were so depressed they wanted to die but later pulled through and are thankful to be alive.
Point 4: Some ill will feel a need “not to be a burden.” Many elderly are from generations to “think first about others” and “not be a burden.” How easily many could be persuaded to “give up,” especially if arm-twisted by greedy heirs eager to get their hands on the inheritance.
Point 5: The Judeo-Christian ethic our nation was founded on tells us God is the author of life and death. As our culture keeps blasting away at that foundation, expect less value of life.
Point 6: Since the Democrat Party has decided to make abortion one of their main selling points, their plan to kill the sick and old is just the other side of their two-sided death vise grip.
Point 7: This bill is pushed by Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D-Richmond/Chesterfield), who was called out for not listing one of her residences on her candidacy form from 2023. The bottom of the form warns “Knowing making any untrue statement or entry” is a felony, but in what many see as yet another example of our “two-tiered justice system,” Hashmi got off scot-free and is still in the Senate writing laws like this one. Do you want to risk your life or that of your loved ones to a bill pushed by a politician who falsified her own candidacy paperwork?
Update Feb. 19, 2024. On Feb. 13, four days after the “Death with Dignity” bill passed the Virginia Senate for the first time ever, its patron in the House of Delegates, Patrick Hope (D-Arlington), pulled the bill from consideration, evidently rendering the bill “dead” in this session.
Go Deeper:
Letter from Richmond area healthcare professionals: “Doctors oppose assisted death bill because it violates “Do No Harm” oath.
–Scott Dreyer
