Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth for the Colson Center on Johnstone Street. According to a recent article in The Atlantic, assisted suicide is now so popular in Canada, doctors cannot keep up with the demand. The article was appropriately titled Canada's Killing Itself, and it described how medical assistance in dying, or MAID, Passed just 10 years ago, but now accounts for about one in twenty deaths in Canada. That numbers more than the total number of combined deaths from Alzheimer's and diabetes, and it surpasses many other countries where assisted dying has been legal for far longer. Also, the shortage of what's wrongly called care is not due to a lack of interest from medical professionals.
Doctors seem to be, in fact, flocking to join what the Atlantic article called, and I quote, the world's fastest growing euthanasia regime. For example, Dr. Stephanie Green, a founder of the Canadian Association of Maid Assessors and Providers, traded in her own decades-long practice as a maternity doctor to now end lives. Both kinds of medicine, she told The Atlantic, are, and I quote, deliveries.
Some doctors have already reported euthanizing hundreds of patients, and yet the demand is exceeding the supply. Canada's Parliament legalized MAID back in 2016, promising increased autonomy and decreased suffering. But instead, the practice has corrupted medicine, threatened conscience rights, pressured the vulnerable, and expanded the whole culture of death. As the American Medical Association's official opinion still says, quote, euthanasia is fundamentally incompatible with the physician's role as healer. would be difficult or impossible to control and would pose serious societal risks.
And that's especially true in single payer health care systems like in Canada. Eventually the decision of who should live and who should die will be determined by financial realities. and be justified by arbitrary ideas about so-called quality of life. In fact, whenever and wherever it has been legalized, The so-called right to die soon becomes a perceived duty to die. Though patients are promised death with dignity and an end to unnecessary suffering, they instead consistently report not wanting to be a burden on their friends and family.
And many are convinced, as law and disability professor Teresa Degener described, Quote, a life with disability is automatically less worth living. and that in some cases death is preferable. ⁇ Despite what Canadian officials have claimed, there are no effective safeguards to this practice. A recent report in the New Atlantis noted how hundreds of serious violations of regulations have occurred in just the Ontario province of Canada, and not a single one has been reported to law enforcement. Although Ontario Chief Coroner Dick Heyer boasted, and I quote, every case is reported, everybody has scrutiny on all these cases, physician whistleblowers there identified over 400 issues with compliance.
These range from patients who were killed who were not capable of giving consent to communication breakdowns with pharmacists. providing the deadly prescriptions. For example, only sixty one percent of physicians notify pharmacists about the purpose of the medication being prescribed prior to being dispensed. as is required. And even more troubling here are reported cases of providers expediting euthanizing drugs to patients sooner than the legally required 10-day waiting period.
In one case, a euthanasia provider, Dr. Eugenie Tan, administered the wrong drugs. When the patient did not die, the doctor then had to administer different drugs to complete the assisted suicide. Hire failed to report this, eventually admitting that it was a blatant case of violating Canadian law. Also, according to the report, about one quarter of all euthanasia providers in Ontario was notified by the coroner's office of a compliance issue in twenty twenty three alone.
Now national law states that every report should lead to criminal investigation, but Heyer failed to report even one. Instead, he determined that all issues and questions required only, and I quote, an informal conversation with the practitioner. doctor Tan, for example, received an email of warning and remains licensed to this day. To call this whole thing a slippery slope is quite an understatement. MAID began as a practice, limited to gravely ill patients at the end of life.
but the law has already expanded to include people suffering from serious medical conditions but not facing imminent death. and made will soon be made available to those suffering only from mental illness. Parliament there has also recommended granting access to euthanasia to the miners. Assisted suicide is simply not a medical practice. No, it's a practice that corrupts medicine.
It risks abuse and it erodes public trust. The best case scenario for Canada at this point is that it becomes a deterrent for the rest of the world. and that Christians there will demonstrate the kind of courage they need to in how they live. and and how they die. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint.
Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Bob Dittmer. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast. For more resources to live like a Christian today, go to breakpoint.org. You know, people in positions of power need to be held accountable. Comedy is one of the most effective ways to do that.
Tyrants hate mockery. And so one of the ways of holding them accountable is to make fun of their bad ideas. That was Seth Dillon, CEO of the Babylon Bee, and one of the stories that are told in the new upcoming documentary film Truth Rising from the Coulson Center and focus on the family. When the Babylon Bee's Twitter account was suspended for a joke that told the truth, they were faced with the choice: delete the post, get the account back, or stand on truth and lose the platform. How the story came out was completely unexpected by everyone.
Here's Seth's story in Truth Rising, which premieres on September the 5th. This is a confusing civilizational moment, but keep in mind it's just that, a moment. It's not the whole story. The whole story is under the purview and authority of God. And that means we can be confident in the truth.
Christ is Lord of all, and He has promised to make all things new. And He's called each of us to this precise moment in history. For a reason, you're called to be faithful wherever God has placed you. That's what Truth Rising is all about. It's an invitation to understand the civilizational moment we're in and believe that God has called you to it so that we can be people of faith and courage where God has placed us.
Stay up to date by going to truthrising.com slash Colson. That's truthrising.com slash Colson.
