The Patriot Post® · The Rip Current of Assisted Suicide
By Chuck Donovan
The rip current of death continues to gnaw at the shores of Western societies in the form of endorsed and assisted suicide. After the unexpected victory of opponents of assisted suicide in the British Parliament earlier this year, advocates of “aid-in-dying” in the United Kingdom have regrouped and member of Parliament Lauren Edwards has said she intends to bring back the same measure, the Leadbeater bill, using a maneuver that may allow it to be passed without passage in the House of Lords. The key vote in Parliament is now scheduled for September 11 and the outcome, despite sustained opposition from key health and disability groups in Great Britain, is uncertain.
A similar maneuver in France allowed its assisted suicide bill to advance to final passage on July 15 by a margin of 291-241. The French Senate had objected to many provisions of the bill, mostly the lack of safeguards in a measure that allows not only assisted suicide but active euthanasia, terms that led one French commentator to describe the bill as “one of the most permissive in the world regarding euthanasia.” Gregor Puppinck of the European Center for Law and Justice listed 27 provisions of the law as “extremely concerning,” including, according to a summary published in The European Conservative:
“A single doctor can decide on the entire procedure, with no requirement for a written request or witnesses; the doctor may meet the patient for the first time on the very day of the request, consult two people of his or her choice without them examining the patient, and then authorize euthanasia within a timeframe that can be reduced to three days. People under legal guardianship are not excluded; family members are not informed before death and have no recourse.”
The bill also apparently leaves unaddressed the question of whether individual and institutional health care providers can, as matters of conscience or religious belief, or both, refuse to take part in acts of assisted suicide or euthanasia. Because of these concerns, the law has not yet been formally promulgated and it will be evaluated by the French Constitutional Council, a body empowered to review provisions of the law and to recommend changes via what are called “interpretive” clarifications. Critics of the law do not believe that assisted suicide and euthanasia will be blocked by the Council though they are encouraged that referral to the Council was sought, on different grounds, by multiple parties.
Naturally, much of the liberal European media hailed the law as preserving strict protections for the vulnerable elderly and disabled. The law employs what has become fairly standard language for assisted suicide proposals, requiring the presence of a “serious and incurable condition,” “intractable suffering,” or a “life-threatening condition.” The tendency of such laws in other nations, and in U.S. states, has been to begin with such “limitations” only to see fresh lobbying campaigns to make assisted suicide available, or encouraged among, ever larger segments of people, including children and those struggling with mental illness.
Canada has entered a critical period in its pending decision on expanding its Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) law to allow assisted suicide to proceed when the only underlying condition is mental illness. The nation recently reached the imposition of the 100,000th death by MAID. As The Washington Stand has reported, a Canadian parliamentary advisory committee recently issued a strong majority report recommending against permitting MAID in cases solely involving mental illness, which could lead to a postponement of the March 17, 2027 date now set for this dramatic widening of MAID.
Parliament returns to session in September and could take up the matter. The liberal Canadian government of Premier Mark Carney has not spoken definitively on the topic, but many commentators infer by his remarks about there being a “clear” path forward that the government will come out in favor of the committee’s recommendation against MAID for solely mental health conditions.
Last March, the Province of Alberta notched a victory for opponents of assisted suicide when it adopted a law finding that MAID for patients who are not terminally ill, or whose sole condition is mental illness, or who are children does not constitute health care under the Canadian system. The national law decriminalizing MAID for certain patients, commentators concluded, does not obligate Alberta to follow suit and allow the process to be practiced and funded in its hospitals and private practice.
Two scholars with the Christian Legal Fellowship, Derek Ross and Professor Brian Bird, wrote an op-ed in the Toronto Globe and Mail arguing, “While the federal government gets to determine what counts as a crime, each province gets to determine what counts as health care, and they may choose — as Alberta has done — to prioritize life-affirming care for patients.”
The tide for assisted death-dealing remains strong. It has engulfed the Isle of Man, a picturesque island located between Northern Ireland and England in the northern half of the Irish Sea. The island has a population of roughly 85,000 people. Its legislative council approved the assisted suicide measure in June and it awaits the generally pro forma step of Royal Assent before it becomes law. Its use can be invoked when an individual has received a terminal diagnosis and has lived on the island for at least five years. The law does, however, allow MAID when the predicted death is a full 12 months away. The Isle of Man thus becomes the first of the British Isles to allow assisted suicide and the law’s implementation is expected in early 2027.
The law’s authors claim safeguards exist, but the prognosis of a year to live, which the patient forfeits when he or she chooses MAID, is another aspect of the problem. Among other reasons to resist MAID should be the reality that the drive for treatments or cures of many diseases is succeeding in extending life expectancy, even for patients facing severe health challenges.
The case of Ben Sasse is the most well-known example. His Stage 4 pancreatic cancer was diagnosed on December 23, 2025, at which time he was given — by conscientious medical providers — a life expectancy of just 90 days. He has now announced that, thanks to his access to an experimental new drug, the size of his tumors has shrunk by 80%. Of kindred importance has been the former university president and senator’s response to his diagnosis, which has been the antithesis of abandoning hope even as he recognizes the reality of his still-lethal condition.
Sasse’s interviews over the past six months are riveting and, ironically to some, far-sighted about what he sees as the most important things to value in life and the way forward in our troubled lands. The world has been magnificently blessed that this hero did not choose MAID, as understandable as that might have been at the time of his drastic news.
The rip tide of death is not confined to one condition or biography. Among the other aspects of this practice that damage our culture is that it is a siren song. It draws in not just a primary victim, a single physician or nurse or pharmacists, but entire departments, ministries, hospitals, networks — and inexorably society itself. New York State joined the ranks of jurisdictions encouraging assisted suicide last February when its Governor, Kathy Hochul, signed into law a “Medical Aid in Dying Act.” The law is scheduled to take effect on August 5.
According to the Becket Fund, which has taken the lead in federal litigation, the law says that “any healthcare provider [in the state] who declines to prescribe suicide pills could still have to tell terminally ill patients about their ‘right’ to kill themselves, help them meet the requirements for obtaining suicide pills, and direct them to a provider willing to prescribe the lethal drugs. Refusal invites significant fines, license revocation, or even time behind bars.”
Becket is representing four orders of nuns in New York who offer care for the sick elderly and disabled. Other Catholic health care ministries, including the Diocese of Rockville Center, each of which has provided a range of essential health care for the poorest of Americans, have joined the lawsuit seeking to enjoin the law’s application to them by August 5. Sister Justyna Owsiejko of the Missionary Sisters of Saint Benedict commented on the lawsuit, “We are simple nuns whose mission is to serve God — and we do that by offering the aged a home in which to live their final days in peace, tranquility, and comfort, cared for by Sisters who see the face of Christ in each person they serve.”
The battle raging now is clearly not limited to the Empire State, a single Canadian province, one of the British Isles, or a handful of isolated cases. It is indeed a global tide, pushed forward by a culture that struggles to see the meaning of suffering and the virtue of those who sacrifice daily to help their brothers and sisters in need of comfort and human contact to their last moments on earth. Of all the dramas shaping our times, these challenges are as urgent as any we face.
Chuck Donovan served in the Reagan White House as a senior writer and as Deputy Director of Presidential Correspondence until early 1989. He was executive vice president of Family Research Council, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and founder/president of Charlotte Lozier Institute from 2011 to 2024. He is now co-president of the Science Alliance for Life and Technology (SALT). He has written and spoken extensively on issues in life and family policy.
This article originally appeared here.