Does it make sense to involuntarily commit a man because he might be suicidal — and then kill him by euthanizing him? That’s what Canadian authorities apparently did. He was put in a hospital against his will because it was feared he might kill himself. But while in the hospital, a month later, he was euthanized, supposedly at his wish. He didn’t have cancer or suffer from chronic pain or a terminal illness. But the hospital justified his euthanasia by citing his “hearing loss,” even though the hearing loss had occurred a half century earlier.
Live Action News reports:
A man named Alan Nichols died after being hospitalized in Canada, a victim of euthanasia due simply to “hearing loss.” Now, his outraged family is demanding answers, while experts claim this is an increasing problem within the country facing people with disabilities.
The Associated Press reported that Nichols, 61, was hospitalized in June of 2019 over fears that he might be suicidal. However, he soon texted his brother, pleading with him to “bust him out.”
However, just one month later, Nichols was dead. He had been euthanized, with the reason on his application listed as “hearing loss.” His family went to police, but they ruled that Nichols’ euthanasia was justified, even though a euthanasia assessment filed by a nurse practitioner noted seizures, frailty, and “a failure to thrive.” Yet that explanation wasn’t good enough for Nichols’ family, who noted that with his history of mental illness, he couldn’t have truly understood the issue, and that he wasn’t suffering.
“Alan was basically put to death,” his brother Gary Nichols said.
The Washington Examiner says that Canada is allowing far too many people to be euthanized — over 10,000 people in the past year.
As Democrats celebrate the passage of a bill that will entrench the government in our healthcare, our neighbors to the north provide a chilling example of the effects of socialized medicine. A recent Associated Press expose about the culture of death within Canada’s single-payer system shows how putting the government in charge of healthcare leads to the devaluing of human life, particularly the most vulnerable.
The Associated Press noted that Canada has some of the loosest and most permissive laws on euthanasia in the entire world:
· Unlike most countries that have legalized assisted suicide, Canada does not have a commission to investigate to review troubling deaths under the law.· While countries like Belgium forbid doctors from bringing up euthanasia with patients, fearing the physician will unduly influence a patient’s perspective and wishes, the Canadian association of health professionals encourages doctors to discuss euthanasia with patients as a possible “clinical care option.”
· Unlike in Belgium and the Netherlands, Canadian patients do not need to exercise all medical options before choosing euthanasia.
Despite these already liberal guidelines, Canada’s euthanasia laws will become even more open on several levels. First, so-called mature youths under the age of 18 will qualify for this “mercy killing.”
In addition, people will be able to qualify for death based exclusively on mental health conditions. Coming so soon after the coronavirus pandemic, when prolonged lockdowns in many locations, including in Canada, exacerbated depression and related symptoms, this liberalization could lead to an explosion of new deaths from euthanasia.
Yet Canada has already seen a wave of euthanasia in recent months. The Associated Press noted that “there were more than 10,000 deaths by euthanasia last year, an increase of about a third from the previous year.” This number is even more staggering when you consider that Canada has roughly one-tenth the population of the United States.
When euthanasia cases rise by more than 30% in a single year, that should provide cause for alarm for most observers. But that’s not the case in Canada, which will only expand access to the procedure….Noting the way in which both medical and law enforcement authorities have called Nichols’s death justified and appropriate — the euthanasia form listed hearing loss as the sole justification for his killing — one Canadian professor said the case “demonstrates that the rules are too loose and that even when people die who shouldn’t have died, there is almost no way to hold the doctors and hospitals responsible.”
