There is a disturbing trend on only one side of the political/cultural divide that involves how those in distress are treated. In each instance, depressed, troubled, and desperate people are victimized by those who are in a position to help, but are so committed to the culture of death, they either cannot or will not help those people. In the tragic cases of suicide, abortion, and “transitioning” one’s gender, vulnerable people are encouraged to find the ideal solution in death again and again.
What vulnerable souls need is help to have their own child, to get through a tough spot, or to understand themselves as God has made them. But this culture’s go-to answer - as heard in the medical community, the academy, and from the mouths of the Left’s political leaders - is often the same: abort the child, mutilate your body, or kill yourself.
This, of course, was not always the case. So high was the value of life that suicide was commonly against the law in many nations and still is in several. Perhaps to help sort out estate matters or to discourage fraud, there needed to be laws against the taking of one’s own life. But more than anything, such a law is a testament to a culture’s commitment to life. Also, if suicide itself was illegal, then any acts surrounding it, like persuading or aiding in a suicidal act, would make one an accessory to a crime. One can see how decriminalizing suicide might lead to decriminalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia. And that is exactly what has taken case.
That is just one example of how the culture of death has made more inroads into what is now considered culturally acceptable. While depression, gender dysphoria, mental illness, unplanned pregnancies, and tragic events are all part of life in a fallen world, our call used to be - and still is - to come around those in need and help them survive and thrive. But that is less and less the trend.
Abortion is a Preferred Form of Health Care
Consider abortion and its increasing nature as a cause célèbre. The cultural and political Left does not even try to argue that abortion should be “safe and legal, but rare” anymore. No longer are even the most basic of limits tolerated on abortion. Raphael Warnock, the erstwhile pastor who was recently reelected to the Senate in Georgia, refuses to indicate any limits on abortion. Several states passed abortion access expansions during the midterm elections. In short, abortion is now celebrated and championed, even by doctors who are supposed to “do no harm.”
We are told that this is an act of compassion towards women, to say nothing of the baby whose life is callously ended. But in many situations, abortion is the last resort of a desperate person. Perhaps abused, pimped out, threatened, and scared, a pregnant woman should be showed alternatives to abortion, and should be given the facts of what an abortion is.
The Conforming Quietus of Physician Assisted Suicide
Then there is the issue of suicide, which is getting easier by the day, as well. Once a stigmatized choice that would become the whispered legacy of the dead, suicide is also now more legal than ever. Like abortion, suicide is committed by those who are in desperate situations: depressed states, medical stress, financial hardship, or facing a frightful future. Again, these are almost always vulnerable people who, with some help, can overcome this brief, horrible moment of their lives and find purpose and meaning again.
But there is less and less interest in that option. In Canada, Medical assistance in dying (MAID) is set to expand the reasons why someone might kill themselves. No longer is a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” the only acceptable standard to seek aid in killing yourself. Now, a “mental disorder” will suffice. However, what exactly qualifies as a mental disorder? Depression? Melancholy? Depression over a break up? Gender dysphoria? Could one man’s “mental disorder” be another man’s bad day? What, really, is the standard now to be on the “life is worth living” side of the aisle?
Some warned that the allowance of assisted suicide for extreme cases (extreme pain, immanent death, chronic disease, etc.) would lead to lowering the standards where suicide was deemed acceptable. After that, the next stop on this slippery slope would be the medical community pressuring patients to consider suicide as a viable alternative to treatment. Those advocating for assisted suicide countered that it was only that: a slippery slope that was not destined to come to pass.
And yet, we now see several cases where this slippery slope has come to pass where, as writer Richard Doerflinger has pointed out, the “right to die” has turned into “a broader ‘right’ to take the lives of the sick and elderly.” In an article Doerflinger posits a real case where, when given only 72 hours to live, a sick patient might have made the decision to commit suicide if that were a legal option. Being against suicide, the patient held on and lived for decades after being given only three days to live. The point is that in embracing a more comprehensive utilization of assisted suicide, its advocates again use death as a way of dealing with a problem.
Loving and Affirming our Kids to Death
Finally, given the new doctrine that transgenderism is not an issue of the mind but the body, young, distressed patients are encouraged to follow through with the most expensive and dramatic cure: to physically mutilate working body parts and attempt to create replacements out of whole cloth. Surgeons are convinced they can create penises out of forearm tissue and vaginas that share space with colons. Perfectly healthy breasts are being removed from teenage girls and testosterone that causes biological women to lose their hair is prescribed. Women are forced to compete in sports against biological men and insulted by seeing (ugly) men awarded first prize at beauty contests.
Some data suggests that the vast majority of children who believe they are the “wrong” gender will change their mind about that post-puberty. Newer data says 94% of those who do transition will maintain their changed gender into adulthood. So the best-case scenario is that many children would regret a childhood decision to change their gender. The worst case scenario is that 6% of children would regret such a decision.
But isn’t 6% a pretty high number if such a radical (and irreversible?)procedure has taken place? Would that be an acceptable number in other circumstances? After all, this isn’t life-saving surgery, but optional surgery that makes some basic human plumbing stop working as it was designed.
Once again, the most extreme option is the one that is taken. A vulnerable, confused young person in the hands of the Left will not be given a robust set of choices, but pushed into the corner that, considering the high rate of suicide among trans individuals (pre- or post operation), it is an option that is essentially against life itself.
The Left largely relies on vague promises of compassion, justice, fairness, and human rights to win converts. But as we have seen in these three instances, there is an extreme dearth of compassion. Indeed, and often for money at that, the cleanest option laid before a person in need is to kill or maim. Hopefully, this will be a phase and young people will wake up to this reality before they end up on the wrong end of these medical weapons of war.
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