Data on human suffering from coronavirus shows that the most vulnerable groups are patients with preexisting or chronic conditions and the elderly. In some countries, where the epidemic is at its peak, they are already forced to triage among patients because there is not enough breathing apparatus to help patients with the virus who damage their lungs. Younger patients are treated while older folks are left to fate.
One cannot help but relate all this to the simultaneous huge wave of euthanasia spreading across the European continent. Since September last year, a front-line effort of propaganda, court decisions and parliamentary action has begun in a number of major European countries, calculated to put the controversial practice in place not only in countries, but also at a pan-European level.
It began in Italy, with the decision of the Constitutional Court to decriminalize euthanasia and allow it to be practiced legally in Italy so that people would not go to neighboring Switzerland to pursue it. The debate has been ongoing for several years, centering on the case on one a DJ Fabo, a paralyzed patient; and despite protests by Christians and others, the Constitutional Court ruled in September in favor of assisted suicide, and ordered a law to regulate euthanasia in Italy.
At the end of February, the German Constitutional Court did the same thing differently. They overthrew a section of the criminal code that banned so-called “mercy killing” and assisted suicide. They cited the human right to self-determination as the basis for this decision.
In both of these cases, the judges directly trampled upon the decisions of elected officials and the will of the people by inventing nonexistent rights. This is further evidence that the phenomenon of judicial dictatorship is spreading throughout the Western world.
In formerly Catholic Spain, the process of enacting a law on euthanasia has also been underway. Sanchez’s left-wing government has the support of the fake right-wing Ciudadanos party; and so again, contrary to the will of most nations, the political will in the parliament to bring euthanasia into the legal system is formed.
In Portugal, euthanasia opponents are collecting signatures for a referendum (so far, about 60,000 people have given their signatures); but they still have little hope that they will be able to achieve their goal because athe political elite are in a hurry to pass a pro-euthanasia law as soon as possible.
Finally, there is a huge debate over the matter in France, where a law was introduced in 2016 to allow sedation of sick patients until their death. But now this law is considered “insufficient” and there is political pressure to extend its provisions and introduce genuine euthanasia.
If we look to the experiences of places like Belgium and the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been practiced for nearly two decades—or, say, Canada, where euthanasia is also progressing rapidly and applying in more and more different circumstances—then we must rightly worry about the fate of the elderly in the Western world. The obvious assumption of those who decide and impose these laws is that old people are too burdensome, live too long, represent a huge cost to society, and that therefore, by a cold capitalist logic, one should find a way to reduce these costs. Euthanasia is popular, recommended, and increasingly preferred.
By that logic, coronavirus should be welcomed by the fans of euthanasia, shouldn’t it? Doesn’t it, after all, have the same effect: that of reducing the “unproductive” population?