The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation – which became eligible for state-assisted death a long time ago – has performed the function of propaganda arm for nearly every deadly and dangerous social cause of the past half-century, from abortion to “sex change” surgeries for minors. But its barely disguised advocacy for Canada’s euthanasia regime is second to none.
On April 28, it published this headline: “Toronto woman who wants to die says federal MAID committee isn’t listening.”
Presumably for ironic purposes, the story is bookended by trigger warnings; the article begins with a warning that there are references to suicide; it ends with places that Canadians experiencing suicidal ideation can go for help. Of course, based on the article, “help” could soon mean suicide assistance rather than prevention.
In case anyone is confused as to the editorial stance behind this “human interest” news story, the CBC lets us know up front:
Claire Elyse Brosseau has been waiting years for the Canadian government to let her die.
The 49-year-old has struggled for decades with a laundry list of mental diagnoses, including Bipolar 1 disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and disordered eating. All of this has made her life unbearable, she says.
Brosseau’s experience is awful. I know many people with similar struggles; their struggles are brutal and their pain is real. What is so insidious about CBC’s profile, however, is that the CBC and Brosseau are using this suffering to insist that death by lethal injection should be made available to one of Canada’s most vulnerable populations. Indeed, the implication is that those who fear for the lives of the sick and suicidal are the cause of her suffering.
Brosseau says that the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying is declining to perform their mandate by not interviewing people like herself. “If you’re making policy for a group of people that concerns them directly, then their perspective must be brought to bear on the question,” she said. She says she has asked the committee if she can testify but has not been invited. Because they have not heard from her, she says, they are dealing with “incomplete evidence.”
As the CBC put it: “Brosseau, who has tried to end her life before but wants to do so legally so that she can die surrounded by family, sees this as a massive oversight.”
Something difficult but important must be said here: This is precisely the sort of weaponization of empathy that gets people killed. Brosseau is suffering deeply as a result of mental illness. Thus, she wants the government to “let her die” – or, more accurately, facilitate her death through the healthcare system – and disregard the hundreds of thousands of suffering Canadians who will pay the price. The testimony of psychiatrists, academics, and disability rights groups mean nothing in the face of this singular selfish demand: I want this, and the government must give it to me.
This is precisely the same tactic used by Dame Esther Rantzen, one of the primary pushers of the U.K.’s euthanasia bill. Disability rights groups, palliative care groups, psychiatrists, and an extraordinary coalition from across U.K. society mobilized against the bill; when it passed Parliament, people in wheelchairs wept outside Westminster as she celebrated. The concerns of the vulnerable meant nothing to her. All that mattered was her right to die, because she is battling with cancer.
This is the weaponization of suffering to force changes that will bring unimaginable new suffering to our society; to the suicidal and the desperate; to their families, who will be helpless to protect them if in their weakest and darkest moments they seek suicide-by-doctor. It should be called out for what it is and rejected in the strongest terms.
