New Zealand will soon join the list of countries that permit doctors to kill or assist the suicides of patients. A recent referendum to support legalization won 65 percent of the vote. From the NZ Herald story:
The result caused anxiety among parts of the disabled community today. Although the law forbids access to euthanasia on the grounds of disability alone, advocates feel it fundamentally changes the way vulnerable people will be perceived in New Zealand.
There are also concerns that the law’s relatively narrow eligibility criteria could be broadened in future.
Of course it will. That very loosening is happening as I write these words in Canada, only a few years post-legalization.
As I ponder this, I am struck how Kiwis epitomize contemporary progressive secular culture. When there was a mass shooting, guns were confiscated very quickly without protest about individual rights.
One of the country’s rivers has been declared a rights-bearing entity.
New Zealanders also embraced one of the most draconian shut downs over COVID in the world.
These are all symptoms of a civilizational disease. When human exceptionalism is discarded, the intrinsic value of human life becomes relativized and “eliminating suffering” becomes the prime directive. If that means letting doctors eliminate sufferers, so be it. If it means sacrificing freedom on the altar of security, so be it.
I say, hell no. But I might be spitting into the wind.