There’s a growing expectation that the U.K. will follow down the path taken by Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium and introduce euthanasia during the next Parliament.
Personally, if appropriate safeguards against the exploitation of the vulnerable can be guaranteed and providing that the decision to cut short a life is made by the patient or, where he or she lacks capacity, the next of kin (on the condition that this person genuinely has the person’s best interests at heart), then I’d support such a change. However, I have two reservations. Firstly, I suspect once euthanasia is introduced it will gradually morph into the situation where, rather than the individual (or next of kin) making the decision, it will be the state deciding when your time is up. And secondly, I don’t think such a fundamental change to our way of life should be taken in Parliament; such a decision could only have legitimacy if it was put to a referendum. This is a game we all have skin in, we should all be party to the decision.
If you’re looking for an article that covers the morality of assisted suicide, then this isn’t it. Far better read Kevin Yuill in Spiked, Matthew Parris in the Spectator or Tim Stanley in the Telegraph. Should you want an even more learned opinion turn to Lord Sumption’s piece in the Telegraph. Each puts his case far more eloquently than I ever could. I want to focus on some of the bumps that we’ll encounter as we slither down the slope towards normalisation of state-sanctioned deaths.
Market leaders in bumping off those ‘useless eaters’ cluttering up their communities are the Canadians. In Canada about 5% of all deaths are carried out by the state. There, assisted suicide is called MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying).
Initially, MAID was restricted to the terminally ill, those, according to their doctor, with a life expectancy of less than six months. However, recent amendments to the regulations have extended MAID to something akin to a human right which it would be discriminatory to restrict just to the terminally ill, opening the doors to a whole host of others, such as the depressed, anxious and poor. There have even been minors who have successfully been accepted for MAID.
The Canadians produce an illuminating report each year on the progress of MAID. The latest report includes data for 2022. In Figure 1 you can see the growth in people opting for medical help in ending their life by province.
Remarkably, in 2022 6.6% of all Quebecois who died did so at the hands of the state. If the current rate of growth continues this figure will have almost doubled by the end of this year to 13%.
Figure 2 shows the uptake of MAID annually since its introduction in 2016 across all of Canada.
The uptake in MAID has consistently increased by just over 30% per year. At this rate in 2024 the number of MAID deaths will reach about 23,000.
The highest year for Covid deaths in Canada was 2022 (interestingly, a year after the 2021 vaccine rollout) when about 19,000 Covid deaths were reported. If the increase in MAID deaths continues to grow at its current rate (and why wouldn’t it?) in 2024 there will be 25% more MAID deaths than the peak year for Covid fatalities.
Canada has a population of around 40 million, about 60% of the U.K.’s population. Translate Canada’s projected 2024 MAID total to the U.K. and an equivalent figure would be about 38,000. These figures suggest that it won’t be that far in the future when we can expect the British state to be ‘helping’ over 100 people to die every day.
In Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and other places where assisted suicide has been introduced, the wedge, while starting off thin has rapidly widened. The U.K. will be no different.
We don’t have to restrict ourselves to looking to other countries to see how thin wedges lever social change. In 2021 there were about 250,000 abortions in the U.K., not far off 30% of the figure for live births.
The 1967 Abortion Act made it lawful to have an abortion up to the 28th week if two registered medical practitioners believed in good faith that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman or harm her physical or mental health or that of any of her family members.
Abortion was sold as a rare thing. It was expected to be the exception not the rule. I make no comment about the morality of abortion but I’m sure the sheer number of abortions carried out now would be a shock to the voters of 1967.
The Abortion Act required two medical practitioners to approve an abortion and it seems likely that any ‘assisted dying’ bill will adopt similar protection, but in reality it’s probable that this safeguard, as with abortion, will rapidly erode away.
The recent WPATH files lifted the lid on the treatment of people seeking gender reassignment treatment. Documents released in the cache exposed the failure of ‘two doctor’ protection. Rather than protect vulnerable people from hasty and invariably irreversible treatments, doctors and other practitioners all too often showed rather more entrepreneurial than medical concern, merrily signing off any consent forms that came their way for a reasonable consideration.
While approval to proceed with assisted suicide may rest on the opinion of two doctors, the critical question is who initiates the request? One of the great ironies of assisted suicide is that people with ‘locked-in-syndrome’ may find themselves in a ‘Catch-22’ situation; they may wish to exercise their right to suicide but their condition precludes them from applying for state sanction. Conversely, people with a mental condition that attracts them towards suicide for spurious reasons (can I recommend Kevin Yuill’s Spiked article on such a case) may, against all advice, succeed in getting the state to kill them.
I predict that in the near future the issue of who initiates the request to end a life will move from the individual to the state. The demographer Paul Morland, appearing on a recent episode of Nick Dixon’s podcast The Current Thing, explained that Japan passed the milestone of 100 million population in the late 1960s. At the time it had five or six workers for each non-earner. In the 2030s its population is predicted to again cross the 100 million population threshold, only this time going in the opposite direction, by which time it will have five or six non-workers for each earner. How can a society so heavily skewed to ‘takers’ rather than ‘givers’ do anything other than ‘cull’ the infirm?
This is the prospect that euthanasia heralds. Eventually, perhaps in our lifetime, will the state decide on your date of death?
During Covid about 95% of all ‘Covid’ fatalities were of people with other conditions sufficiently serious to get a mention on the death certificate. Few deaths were of otherwise fully healthy people. I suspect we all know the statistics that show that the average age of Covid fatalities was the same as the average age for deaths from all causes.
Back in spring 2020, Nobel Prize winner Professor Michael Levitt predicted Covid would ‘pull forward’ about four to six weeks of deaths. Five weeks of deaths constitutes about 10% of a year’s fatalities. His expectation was that there would be a short sharp wave of ‘excess’ deaths inflating mortality data in 2020 before it settled back to its normal level in 2021. Most fatalities would be of people close to death, who in many cases would have died soon with or without Covid. In a normal year, nine people in 1,000 die, they have an average age of about 82 and have multiple health problems. In 2020 one additional person in every 1,000 also died; like the other nine they averaged about 82 and they too had other health issues. Essentially, this is exactly what will happen with assisted dying. The deaths of those nearing the end of their life will be pulled forward, but this time, as a nation, we’ll be cheering, rather than in 2020 when the nation went mad, bankrupting the country to avoid the pulled-forward deaths of exactly the same profile of people that we’re about to condemn.
Now, imagine if another pandemic similar to Covid struck again, 10 years after the introduction of assisted dying, by which time 10% to 15% of all deaths were coming about through euthanasia. Assisted suicide would have been normalised. Rather than issuing essentially passive DNR notices, how much more likely that we’d start actively bumping off the elderly and vulnerable at the earliest sign of illness? How much more likely if relatives weren’t allowed to visit? A perfect example of Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil.
Is it hard to imagine a test being introduced to determine whether someone would be ‘better off dead’? Let’s suppose the hospitals are full, it’s determined that the prospects for recovery are slim, off you go! And once introduced, would you be surprised if such a test were retained once the ‘pandemic’ had abated? Given the WHO’s realisation of the fun it can have with a pandemic, the likelihood is that we’ll be seeing many more in future.
I’m not sure where I stand on ‘euthanasia’. I’m not sure where I stand on capital punishment or abortion either; there seem to be highly persuasive arguments on both sides. My only strong views on any of these issues is on who should make the decision to adopt the principle of having the state kill and I think that should be the people rather than Parliament. I’m perfectly happy for the Government to make decisions on road speeds, pensions, the funding of the armed forces and a whole host of issues, but I do think that if, as a nation, we take it into our heads to kill our own people, then we should all be party to that decision. What’s more, should we vote in favour of euthanasia then any extension, such as the state taking control of when to exercise the coup de grace, should also be subject to a further referendum.
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Translating the manager-speak into English yields We had to sack the innocent victim of our contractor because he was clearly an innocent victim.
And he was White. If he was Black applause would have erupted and the Burn Loot Murder fist displayed.
Blacks do use the n-word all the time in their colloquial speech.
Does that make them racist?
Is Homey or Homeboy also racist ?
How about Oreo?
Or Gammon?
well done..
What is so bloody obvious is that this should never have happened…
…Firstly and very obviously a person shouldn’t be hired as a race educator if they find words to do with race or education threatening or so bad they have to have a week in bed!! Unbelievable!
Second, having looked at the evidence..and the gross over-reaction….what cretin decided it needed to go any further?..and exactly how many more cretins were in the hierarchy as it marched its way upwards?? Why haven’t they been named and shamed?
…and third, something I have said many times…who is the pathetic person who was incapable of being an adult, doing their job and who needed a week off?
We should be told their name…I am sick of these people starting these attacks on other people’s livelihoods and reputations, seemingly eager to ruin people’s lives while they hide behind anonymity?
Firstly and very obviously a person shouldn’t be hired as a race educator if they find words to do with race or education threatening or so bad they have to have a week in bed!! Unbelievable!
The real job of this race educator aka CRT consomething (better avoid misgendering it) is to yell at white people older than it that they’re guilty being white and demand that they have to do something about this. As that’s inherently a scam, it has to be maintained by vicious playacting. Nobody believes this entity suffered anything from having been presented with such a golden opportunity to do his real job — make sure those mid-level managers know who has the power to harm them.
Quite agree. The person was obviously unfit for the role but also, you have to ask yourself, how do such people even get through life? If you’re going to be that traumatized by a word ( they weren’t, they were just taking the pish and wanting to skive ) then you really do need to work on your coping mechanisms for going about daily life as an autonomous and responsible adult who’s job it is to interact with all sorts of people, therefore I think they should be laid off and sent for a mental health assessment because they sound completely pathetic and not the full shilling.
LOL! 100%! You have to wonder what happens if everything doesn’t go their way..no milk for breakfast..week in bed!
Someone gives them the V sign as they are driving..week in bed….!
partner falls out with them..week in bed!
God knows how long they’ve have to have off if something serious happened!!!???
Yes well if even Macbeth is now deemed racist this guy saying the ‘N’ word hasn’t got a hope in hell of getting away with it. Stop the crazy bus, I want to get off!
”In the latest instalment of ‘Anti-Racist Shakespeare’ webinars hosted by the Bard’s Globe Theatre in London, assistant professor of English at Trinity University in Texas Kathryn Vomero Santos declared that the language in Macbeth demonstrates the alleged racial bias of the 17th century playwright.
According to comments reported by the Daily Mail, Vomero Santos claimed in the discussion that the use of words such as bat, beetle, black, and night could be seen as examples of “racialised” language in the play that examines the corrupting nature of power.
Pointing to a scene in which the lead character is referred to as “black Macbeth”, the American academic reportedly said: “I think that it’s important to help our students to see the ways in which a play we might not recognise immediately as a ‘race play’ is relying on racialised language and playing on the dichotomy of whiteness and blackness and dark and light.”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/09/03/shakespeares-macbeth-branded-as-racist-for-themes-like-darkness/
Oh, ffs. That Santos woman should be put on a dhingy and left in the Channel. For our safety.
It’s amazing that people with such a crude and simplistic worldview command so much influence, especially in Academistan. Apparently, it never occurred to this always electrically lighted dingbat that the reason why darkness is associated with evils and dangers is that the night is a mysterious and dangerous period of the day to people who rely mostly on their eyes to gain vitally important information about their surroundings. She’d probably regard that as exactly the other way round: To her, black wouldn’t signal danger because nights are black and dangerous but nights would be called black by racists because racists always associate black with bad. And – of course – people celebrating sunrise as the start of the new day wouldn’t celebrate the return of the light which is critically important to them – Light comes from electricity, dude, try fooling someone else! – but celebrate blackness being overcome by whiteness because of their racism.
I still think we should urgently return to Nietzsche’s Was geht mich das Geschwätz amerikanischer Wirr- und Flachköpfe an! (Amercian muddleheads blathering doesn’t concern me in the slightest!)
The irony is that these people are not capable of reading the whole text to which they object!
So all that stuff about war, lust for power, multiple murders, revenge, insanity, suicide – all white on white action, don’t forget – pales into insignificance because Duncan slept at night and you generally can’t see ghosts in the daytime? Who knew…
Well done the FSU – a fine organisation.
My default assumption about any large organisation, public or private, is that I would be unable to work for them as I would fail the induction. I am lucky that I am close to retirement and will not need to look for another job.
Agreed. I suspect that this is a factor in so many nearly-retired people who can afford it, not to bother seeking employment after the Covid Lockdowns.
They don’t want to play the woke games.
This story is completely surreal and shows haw badly in trouble we are.
1. It no longer surprises or offends anyone that a group of people are rounded up, implicitly accused of being racists and bigots and forced to receive re-education on the subject. That alone is just mind boggling and sickening.
2. It seems no one thought to challenge this “trainer” about who they were and what exactly gave them the right or authority to lecture another set of adults on the subject.of racism. I can only imagine what bullshit credential the person might have had.
The insane over reaction and lynching of the Lloyds employee could only have happened if those first two completely mad circumstances were allowed to take place.
And his defence was that he wasn’t trying to be offensive? For god sakes, the man has been insulted every step of the way, from the moment he was rounded up and assumed to be racist right to when he was dismissed. And he, the only one who was actually innocent of anything is the one crucified.
We”ve gone completely insane as a society.
Very well put. Forcing people who’ve always done their jobs to everyone’s satisfaction (within the usual limits), including that they always treated their colleagues and subordinates of doubtlessly many different ethnic backgrounds in the proper way into such courses on a presumption of inherently guilty whiteness is a form of abuse.
That is a fine post and needed to be made.
Why did he apologies? Why did Lloyds consider it very important to humiliate it’s staff with this training following the manslaughter of a Mr Floyd in another country on another continent? Did Lloyds think it’s staff complicit?
I would like to find a bank that does NOT do DIE training for it’s staff.
The whole point of all this nonsense is to get you riled. Obviously they know its stupid. There is nowhere left for them to go. Imagine yourself as a member of a cornered elite without an exit ramp. Consider the desperate shenanigans that you will foster or manufacture in the final hours. It was never going to be pretty. You have to turn up to work with an inhibited gag reflex because that’s where we are in terms of their attacks on us. The best response is calm and equanimity because that just makes them more exasperated.
A while back now, a black musician/band (I forget who) invited a white woman up on stage to sing along to a favourite track.
The track happened to contain the dreaded-N, and the moment she sang that lyric they stopped with ‘woah, woah, woah, you can’t say that. I think the crowd got involved too. That was a pure ambush and made me so angry for the double standards on display.
I like Cyprus Hill, “Insane in the Membrane” and I sing all the words, including that one. I’m not making a radio-friendly edit, it’s the damn song so I’ll sing it, but perhaps not at full volume in the street.
I also might not repeat a Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy joke. I’m not that insensitive. But I’d certainly laugh at one.
But this guy’s question was reasonable and insightful, and addressed the double-standards mentioned here.
You have this category of ‘black man’ who is supposed to be ever so aggrieved. If you’ve grown up in a British city black or white you can look at this crap and conclude that it is nonsense or written by aliens. It has no relationship to real life. The future is analog big time you can see that in buying trends because mass consciousness understands on some level that this is all crap.
If this story was in a fictional novel or drama, you’d think it’s too implausible.
Does anyone believe this claim?:
“After the course, the trainer claimed she was so offended by use of the n-word that she was too sick to work and took five days off.”
Yep. It’s like something out of a cheesy Victorian melodrama when the fey female character gets a fit of the vapours because her corset is too tight or something. Abso-bl**dy-lutely pathetic.
Five days…. she should have been given this. It would have sorted the silly woman out in no time.
https://www.expresschemist.co.uk/MacKenzies-Smelling-Salts-17ml.html?msclkid=912f1451458415ad2c2170a7a5ea35ee
Reverse impostor syndrome: Everyone, including herself, knows she’s just faking it. But as political correctness demands that nobody’s allowed to point this out, it works. One should also take into account that yelling abuse at strangers is a very demanding job. I bet after two days, her voice is so hoarse that she just can’t yell anymore and has to take the remainder of the week off because of this.
Keep the charade going on long enough so that you can get away with all the spoils. Doesn’t matter the whole point of the deflection is to get you to look away from the real robbery. We are in the final stages. They won’t get away with the robbery but they will make life very difficult for the rest of us. That is why we need to put on the full armour of God, the breastplate of righteousness. Doesn’t matter if you believe in a deity or not just understand where we are at and the force we oppose.
“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
Anthony Malcolm Daniels Theodore Dalrymple
When the so-called Trainer stated at the start of the indoctrination that it was a “safe space” where people could express themselves and if they made a mistake it would be forgiven, she was effectively setting up a situation where one person would take the invitation at face value and walk into a trap.
It was deliberate.
“After the course, the trainer claimed she was so offended by use of the n-word that she was too sick to work and took five days off.”
Says it all really!
Race educator. Family and life are responsible for that.
I was fortunate. Sent to Prep school, by the age of ten I had a Jewish mate, a Muslim mate, and my best friend had a Nigerian dad (adored him. He had the best belly laugh I have EVER heard). Buttressed by parents who even back in the 50s made it clear we treated everyone the same, I needed no “education” about racism.
I now utter, in mi ‘ead, a stream of unprintable imprecations…
BTW, I’m half Paddy. Can we say that now? Or did I just insult myself?
..you sound as if you had a great early life….
but at the other end of the scale..me….born in a pit village, exceptionally white..very few other ethnicities..a few Polish…..went to a C of E Junior and senior school..again, very predominantly white…..but I was never taught to despise anyone…..and I never have..,,I think I’m very typical and ordinary….
I have always found people generally treat other people exactly the same, and have no evil or wicked intentions towards others generally..and when they do they are just nasty people..and can be of any race colour or creed…
I don’t think that anyone needs these lessons, because they aren’t about reality..or real situations…we have laws that cover that….….this is usually about some white people’s imaginings of some perceived racism….that doesn’t usually even actually exist other than in their head….and their ‘talking shops’….
It’s the same with most things….create a none-existent problem, so that you can invent a none-solution…..
Once 16, I worked when I was not being educated. Time to pay board and lodging. Motorway labour (M56 was being built south of M’cr, where I was brought up). And a great job at Robinson’s Brewery in Stockport (still a fabulous beer, still family owned). Didn’t come across any racism amongst my co-workers. Completely agree with what you write.