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The incalculables of State-sanctioned suicide

A society that applauds the ‘bravery’ of suicide is one that will soon ask those who don’t, “Why not?”

(Image: Bret Kavanaugh/Unsplash.com)

In 1997, my mother took her own life, leaving her five children behind. She had her justifications, I presume, as they all do. We were poor, our family life was broken, and the area that we lived in wasn’t the best. In an increasing number of countries, she would have qualified for physician-assisted suicide. In modern day Canada, she may well have been accepted into the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program.

What would that mean for those left behind, to be told by government or corporation that our mother was better off dead—not in the eyes of a woman struggling with depression, but in the fiscal lens of the State? The reduction of the value of people to their cost, versus how much tax money they generate, is what the secular world has concluded and enacted.

Numerous government-sponsored studies have sought to evaluate how much money will be saved by killing those in one of the most vulnerable groups of the population, as if the right number would justify the murders. This confuses morality with accountancy. We start by crunching numbers and end by crushing people. There is even an incentive for governments to accept MAID applicants, hitherto known as the suicidal, for six percent of all Canadian organ donations come from these encouraged suicides.

Bureaucrats cannot calculate the loss to the loved ones left behind, the impacts those people would have had on those not even met yet, nor the eternal ramifications. These are realities that the depressed struggle to see, as a consequence of their condition, but those making decisions under the influence of MAID have no such excuse. Their decisions to assist in suicide are done without the anguish of mental illness or the fog of pain. (There is news that Canada is apparently delaying efforts for a year to expand its medical assistance in dying program to include mental illness, but it appears unclear if that’s merely a response to backlash, for there are no indications that a non-economic approach to the value of man has been adopted.)

They are evaluating the value of human lives in the utilitarian manner that governments have always fallen to in their darkest moments: does this citizen help the State? Natural law tells us that citizens don’t live for the State; it lives to serve them. When this order is reversed, democide is the eventual result. The twentieth century stands in horrifying testament to this.

Countries such as Greenland, Ireland, and Iceland have been celebrating the murder of unborn children believed to have birth defects. The worst totalitarians of the past century introduced eugenics to get the most “productive” offspring. These secular governments reveal the callousness of a morality based on cold calculation rather than a reverence for the gift of human life.

Some claim that the MAID recipients are different from other suicidal people, in that they have “real problems”. Yet the depressed typically have tangible problems in addition to their emotional burdens. It’s often difficult to see which came first. Did Jonathan lose his job because his depression made it difficult to get out of bed, or did the job loss cause the shift toward despair? The stories emanating from MAID are those of desperate people in difficult situations—people who need help, not pushed off of the ledge because the State asserts that it’s cheaper than treatment.

Those making these decisions don’t understand what man is. The true definition of man is anathematic to a government that prides itself on being irreligious. Man without a Creator has only the value of his output, of his production. If he is created by God, in His own image, then he holds value by His divine reflection. He was chosen to exist, to play some part in the Divine plan, at whatever time and location he was placed. Those who surround him too have value, and their love of one another is to be in relation to the recognition that each baptized person is a loved child of God.

The State cannot see a depressed mother anymore than it can see a son struggling with addiction, a war hero battling his internal wounds, or a family torn apart by tragedy.

When the fashion company Simons released a Canadian commercial lauding a woman who had recently been killed by the MAID program, it applauded her bravery. The commercial didn’t tell the full story of how she had struggled to get the medical care that she needed and eventually gave up trying. But, in any case, if that was bravery, what would that imply about those who chose to keep fighting? By inference, those who battled their difficulties would be cowardly or even selfish. The truth is turned on its head.

On this view, those who endured tremendous pain and trial, and dared to need (or, perhaps worse, ask for help) would be deemed blameworthy. A society that applauds the ‘bravery’ of suicide is one that will soon ask those who don’t, “Why not?” It will ask them to justify their existence. It will join with the heathenized government in doing cost-benefit analyses of people’s lives. They’ll look at the nationalized healthcare system and proclaim with indignation that their taxes are “going to waste.”

This is a culture that’s dying, for it no longer sees why man lives, nor why itself exists.

If such a culture doesn’t recognize the dignity and value of the individual, it will meet the bleak ending of every totalitarian system, as a result of the common thread of placing collective desire over the needs, value, and dignity of the individual. They fail to see personhood—how each person is an unrepeatable, unique bearer of a destiny.

As the faithful, our decisions regarding others should help them on their own paths to Sainthood, not whisk them away in their weakest moment. Ultimately, that’s the evil that’s being committed. It is to approach a person in his darkness, when he can’t see past his pain, and take part in blocking out the light. It is to tell him that his despair is without end or purpose, and that both he and those he leaves behind will be made better with his death. It is to lie.

There are times of suffering in every human life. Those who bear the heaviest crosses, among whom Christ lives, need people to represent the Simon of Cyrene in their lives—to bear the weight with them. Such is the meaning of compassion, in Latin, cum passio— to suffer with.

When our world is fraught with darkness, we must guide others, especially the vulnerable, toward the light, and speak against the lies that widen the maw of the abyss. Every human life has dignity and worth. Every person is loved by God. Every baptized person is a child of God. May we treat them as such.


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About Sarah Cain 3 Articles
Sarah Cain, known as The Crusader Gal, is a political and cultural commentator who makes regular videos about the decline of the West, and she writes Homefront Crusade. Originally from England, she lauds the traditional values that have so far prevented America from succumbing to the darkness that envelops Europe.

27 Comments

  1. To kill the elderly, ill and disabled, or to persuade them to kill themselves, is not mercy and it is not “humane”. It is action straight out of the Nazi playbook.That sort of thing was their specialty. When life is calculated this cheaply, it is a reflection of a significant illness in a society, one which has turned it’s face from God. If such societies search for a superior alternative to God and His rules of morality, they will not find it. Certainly they will not find it in secularism. They will only find a cheapening of the value of life. Too many societies these days, including our own, appear to want to interpret “freedom of religion”, as freedom FROM religion. In recent years they ( govt; leftists) have been going out of their way to suppress religious expression in any public venue. As small a mention of religion or religious belief in public, evidently, as a pro-prayer motto on a t-shirt. Such has happened recently in an American shopping mall and a government Museum in Washington DC, where the shirt wearers were told they must immediately leave, for fear I suppose that someone might be “offended”.Such a over-reaction can only be called bizarre, and would be laughable, if it were not so dangerous to religious freedom. We are taking slow but obvious steps toward totalitarianism. When will the “merciful” euthanasia cease to be voluntary, and become mandatory at the whim of a govt official? God help us.

  2. We live in a world that is culturally and morally very, very sick. What else would you expect from a world that denies the existence of God and each person sets himself up as the sole arbiter of what is right and what is wrong, what is real and what is fanciful, what is true and what is a lie, what a man is gender-wise and what a man is not, what is good and what is evil, what is a thing of beauty and what is as ugly as sin.

    Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again. (But God could, and did.)

  3. The haunting impact of suicide by loved ones—family and friends—is lifelong. A sense of failure and remorse surfaces on anniversaries or when reminded of these tragedies even when survivors know they are not responsible. Ripple effects include depression, lethargy, anger, and inappropriate “compensation” in other personal relations. Yet, the most devastating realization is that our society has stopped caring for these suffering individuals and now actively coach them towards self destruction, perhaps eternally.

  4. A fine and insightful reflection Sarah, thank you! It is important to remember, as Sarah does, that those tempted to suicide often have very real material and social problems that need addressed, not just psychological and spiritual conditions. To not address them but focus only say “live on” in law is akin to wishing a starving man a good day without providing him a loaf to make his day better. The cost of that “loaf”, as Sarah points out, is what is driving the materialist push for assisted suicide and Christians must counter that not only with spiritual counsel and legal arguments but by addressing the very real bleakness and harshness of some of the lives. The answer is not just law but the beauty and vigor of Christian life shared and propagated.

  5. Sarah Cain articulates the dynamics of America becoming a culture of death [initially warned by John Paul II mainly regarding Europe ] with medical suicide. From personal familial experience she brings a deeply personal commitment to exposing what’s already occurred in Europe.
    Although America already with abortion, an open border permitting the youth destroying drug fentanyl, suicides due to depression largely the after effect of transgenderism, our Nation’s increasing rejection of God – we’ve reached the status of a death culture. Medical assisted suicide will accelerate the death trend. Sarah Cain attributes the underlying cause as rejection of God, our loss of the value of life.
    It began with the Roe decision [certainly relative was the medical assisted suicide case Compassion in Dying v State of Washington 1997], a justice claiming he couldn’t define what a person is. Loss of identity was previously studied by German born American psychologist Erik Erikson with his text Identity Crisis [see Identity, Youth and Crisis 1979].
    Ahead of his time, he wrote “Identity is an unfathomable as it is all-pervasive. It deals with a process that is located both in the core of the individual and in the core of the communal culture. As the culture changes, new kinds of identity questions arise. For example, on issues of social protest and changing gender roles that were particular to the 60s” (Erikson Identity).
    Catholicism Apostolic and traditional alone is capable of restoring knowledge of who we are.

  6. Thank you so much for writing this, and sharing your family tragedy for us to know your rightful testimony from painful experience–I pray the reality of your personal witness will move people to heed your warning! My 97 year old WWII veteran father is in his last days suffering from advanced lung disease that causes him obvious panic for breath alleviated only by pain/anti-anxiety medication, increased oxygen by nasal canula, prayer, and family love, so he has accepted hospice care to go gracefully at home in the midst of family as God intends. I thank God that my Christian father and family rejects “ending his suffering” by assisted suicide, which would only deprive us all of this beautiful time for reconciliation, healing, and renewing of love so often wounded in our growing up due to effects of my father’s lifelong struggle with combat exacerbated PTSD. I fear that with his and all of our other WWII veterans passing, seemingly defeated Nazism and collapsed Cold War Communism, both of which actually only went into quiet subversion mode in America and Western Europe, will more and more openly rear their demonic hydras heads. Thank you for reminding us that those of us whose lives bear personal testimony to the experience of our parents who had to face the monsters head-on in open conflict have a duty to carry forward the alarm for all people to stay vigilant, and never give in to the deception that evil has finally been defeated, until day our Lord Jesus Returns in full glory! God bless you, sister in faith! God bless you!

  7. “This is a culture that’s dying, for it no longer sees why man lives, nor why itself exists.” Another brilliant essay, bravo.

  8. “When our world is fraught with darkness, we must guide others, especially the vulnerable, toward the light, and speak against the lies that widen the maw of the abyss. Every human life has dignity and worth. Every person is loved by God. Every baptized person is a child of God. May we treat them as such.”
    Granted this statement. But what is your answer to those people who say: “OK, but don’t force me to pay for the medical services to help keep these people alive by using the tax system.”?

    • Responsible people who have lived productive and constructive lives spent decades paying into the system. They have earned a right to the care they need, and it should be provided to them. There is no excuse acceptable for not providing people with care.

  9. This leaves me in shock and dismay. The GIFT of LIFE is given by God as a GIFT. Not respecting it or belittling its grace is in itself horrific. Pray for those who no longer treasure this gift. Help all to honor this gift through kindness, care, and love. Care for those forgotten, for those who feel worthless or less than… Lend a positive and helping hand to those homeless, those neglected, those guilty, and those whom others see and treat as worthless. Our actions, interests, and real care do make a difference. Simply – be CAREFUL.

  10. WHAT if. I had terminal cancer. My pancreas is shot, there is NO hope for it, I will die in 18 months time.
    Instead of slowly dying off, in pain, in agony, being consumed by the cancer, AND my life’s fortune, which I wanted to leave to the kids, being consumed by the medical complex. (THAT is what all the ‘treatment’ is all about, money, and if you think they are wanting you to hang in for compassion, then you are a fool and need to mind your own business)

    What if I decide, Im going to take a trip, then come back, and say my goodbyes to everyone, and END IT. No dragging out, last several months of my life, the quality is garbage because I am heavily drugged up, can’t eat, can’t sleep, need a machine to breather, lost most my weight… on and on and on because the cancer is DESTROYING ME.
    What if, instead of 18 months of misery and money going into the pockets of the medical community, I say, im ending it NOW. I have NOTHING to live for, because I will NOT live !! Let me end with dignity, and with everything I worked so hard to get, and leave for my kids, still going to them, and NOT the government and the establishment.

    WHY do you people still insist, this is a bad choice? I am not allowed to end my life with dignity, I need to suffer until the last moment, because for some goofy idea, you think, that is what ‘YOUR’ god wanted???

    • You make a compelling case and yet, is there more that we should consider?

      Suffering in our faith is a testimony. We may not know the value or extent of our attestation, however it may go well beyond what appears on the surface.

      Jesus had a difficult life even though He was loved by some. He didn’t have to go through an excruciating death, yet He loved us so much, He paid the price for our sins. Was it worth it, yes indeed! Praise and honour and thanksgiving to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

      1 Peter 5:10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

      Romans 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

      Revelation 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

      1 Peter 4:1 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,

      Philippians 3:10 That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

      Philippians 1:29 For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,

      God bless you as you contemplate matters and the words of our Lord.

    • Your post is deeply dishonest and manipulative. It consists of the typical and tiresome emotionally charged phrases that seek to justify the unjustifiable. You have been given life. You have an existential responsibility to live that life as fully and deeply as possible, even in the midst of its tragic aspects. Something that is legitimately tragic does not need to turn my life into a tragedy.

  11. The medical system’s collapsed in Canada. Takes a month or so to even see a GP. So how do they find time for this? You don’t even hear about it up here. Seems to be an American misperception.

  12. There is a reason why suicide is considered a cardinal sin. While we have no say into which body and circumstances we are being born, life is a test for our eternal soul and the Lord won’t throw anything at us that he doesn’t think we can handle. If Job can do it, so can we. At the end of the life we’ll have to answer for what we did with this gift that had been given to us and if we followed our conscience despite the temptations along the way. Not everybody will be strong enough and avoid all pitfalls, but the worst sin is to bail out. God thought better of you than that.

  13. J.M.J.

    Thank you Sarah. Your personal witness is truly courageous. Your comprehensive treatment of a demonic utilitarianism in this day and age is the 5th of the 5 key points that need full exposure to His LIGHT at this time of crisis. The other 4 are: autonomy, dualism, hedonism and compassion. When all five are considered we see the encirclement of Satan’s seige warfare against the Fortess of LIFE.

    This is what may go down as the ultimate witness of the Church Militant, the sacrificial LOVE of the remnant before we are hauled off to our destiny, to stand (and fall prostrate) before our Maker.

    https://thecitadel5.blogspot.com

  14. Am very sorry for your mother, may her soul rest in peace.

    Am sorry for thesystems in crushing Humanity or human rights.

    Thanks for your story and encouragement, it was helpful for me, spiritually and psychologically.

  15. ….A society that applauds the ‘bravery’ of suicide is one that will soon ask those who don’t, “Why not?”

    Absolutely right. Years ago when euthanasia was just being talked about, my mother said it was the thin end of the wedge. That in some families the elderly would be made to feel a burden and pressured to take the euthanasia option. You are 100% correct with your assertion. If our culture gets to that point, the next step is to stop even asking.

  16. For those who believe it’s no one else’s business but their own if they commit suicide and die, I beg to differ. As an old poem goes, no man is an island, and each life touches those around it. I lost a nephew to suicide last year and I can tell you the negative impact it made on surviving family member: The sadness, the blame, the unwarranted guilt. Your life is a gift from God and you are part of a greater whole, even if you cannot see it at this moment. Life circumstances change with lightening speed, and some issues which seem insurmountable can change in a heartbeat for the better. To take a hand to one’s own death is taking on the role of God, which is not our right. It is true some people will suffer. It is also true that many have offered such sufferings to God.It is also true that some people struggled and lived a while longer than expected and thus changed other lives for the better. It is an interesting fact that no two people have the same fingerprints. Its because each human, out of the worlds many billions, is unique. Likewise, God has a special unique role for each one of us to play on this Earth. We will never know until later what critical mission God had in mind for us to accomplish. For some people the mission will be big, and for others, small. But none will be unimportant in God’s eyes. Which is why we must make every moment on this Earth count. Even the painful moments.

  17. The euthanasia/assisted suicide lobby is very well-organized and very determined (and no doubt very well-funded).
    I believe most of the deaths are euthanasia rather than suicide. (Suicide sounds more palatable as being self-directed, promoting autonomy blah, blah, blah). The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has a monthly newsletter which is an invaluable source of up-to-date information on euthanasia/assisted suicide and the resistance.

2 Trackbacks / Pingbacks

  1. The incalculables of State-sanctioned suicide | Passionists Missionaries Kenya, Vice Province of St. Charles Lwanga, Fathers & Brothers
  2. The incalculables of State-sanctioned suicide | Franciscan Sisters of St Joseph (FSJ) , Asumbi Sisters Kenya

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