Today is a sad day for the United Kingdom. Not content to follow Orwell down the dark paths of censorship, they are also legalizing assisted suicide.
In the name of 'compassion', of course.
BREAKING: MPs vote in favour of the assisted dying bill#Talk pic.twitter.com/1SBbE5EIeH
— Talk (@TalkTV) November 29, 2024
I have written about the catastrophe that is Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program and how it 'evolved' from helping the terminally ill end their suffering to being broad euthanasia for the poor and people with non-terminal illnesses like anorexia and depression. And the header image? It's from an anti-euthanasia protest in Brussels, where a dementia patient who never consented to euthanasia was killed by doctors who made the family hold the understandably combative patient down as they murdered her. That doctor, since retired, was cleared of wrongdoing.
There is zero reason -- zero reason -- to believe euthanasia won't be expanded in Canadian way in the U.K., or that dementia patients won't get the same treatment the woman in Brussels did.
And the first people impacted by such policies will be the disabled. Not those with terminal cancer or terminal diseases like ALS, but disabled people who can largely function on their own but require some special assistance and additional medical care.
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They know it, too:
People in wheelchairs openly weeping, here outside of Parliament. The atmosphere is one of profound sadness and terror. A dark cloud has descended over the UK. #AssistedDyingBill
— Caroline Farrow (@CF_Farrow) November 29, 2024
The National Health Service (NHS) oversees the U.K.'s socialized medicine system. In July, The Guardian warned its financial circumstances are so dire the entire system may collapse:
The NHS’s finances are so dire that the whole health service may break unless it receives a massive cash injection, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has warned.
Years of underfunding have left the NHS in England so cash-strapped that it cannot treat patients quickly enough, and the rising tide of ill-health will make matters worse, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.
The NAO does not specify how much extra funding the health service needs to get it back on its feet and ensure trusts that provide care can balance their books. But a leading thinktank recently put that figure at £38bn more a year by the end of this parliament.
Absent that 'massive cash injection', they will look to cut costs. And the best way to do that (I use 'best' in the most morbid sense of the word) is to start removing the more costly patients from the NHS.
That means those with disabilities or severe illnesses, like cancer. The average British citizen who has spent his life paying taxes for the NHS will be told, upon a diagnosis, that treatment isn't an option but euthanasia is. It's coming; it's only a matter of time.
I doubt this same limited option will be given to the MPs or their families.
I love her Majesty Catherine, Princess of Wales. I sincerely do. She is kind and beautiful and an asset to the Royal Family. Earlier this year during her cancer battle, I hoped she would be successfully treated. She's not only around my age, but her children are younger than my own.
She did successfully beat cancer, thank goodness.
But I doubt she did it at an NHS facility. She -- unlike the commoner -- had access to private doctors and staff to treat her illness, regardless of the cost.
We can argue whether or not that was correct, but it's the reality.
The U.K. has, however, established that there is a clear caste system not based necessarily on income, but on sociopolitical clout. This is why migrants are often not prosecuted for crimes but a natural born citizen goes to prison for months (or years) for posting memes to Facebook.
This same prioritization will apply to the 'assisted dying' bill: those who are politically protected (for whatever reason) will be given access to health care and treatment. Those who are not will be told to shed this mortal coil for the good of the nation.
It will become a patriotic duty to let the government kill you. We write dystopian stories about this as cautionary tales. The MPs read them as instruction manuals.
There is a small glimmer of hope: fed up with Labour's nonsense, a petition demanding new elections topped two million signatures as of November 25.
Will Labour listen to the people? That remains to be seen.
But it will kill them. In the name of 'compassion', of course.
