So now we learn that Baby Charlie Gard’s guardian is a euthanasia activist who is Chairman of Compassion in Dying, an “end-of-life” advocacy group with a sister organization that supports assisted suicide.

This should not be a surprise.

In a July 19, 2017 New York Times op-ed “Charlie Gard and Our Moral Confusion”, Kenan Malik, who wrote a book on morality and ethics on moral issues, argues:

“In Charlie’s case, the judges decided that it is in his interest to die even with a possibility of treatment. Mr. Conway, in contrast, wants to be allowed to die in dignity, but the law will not permit it. His motor neuron disease is incurable, and he is not expected to live beyond 12 months. His condition is painful, and will become more so. He wants doctors to be able to give him a lethal injection when he decides that it is time to end his life. Under British law, it would be a criminal offense for a doctor to do so.”

“Death with dignity” is the catchphrase and death is considered the ideal end in both of these cases when viewed through the prism of so-called “dignity”.

Unfortunately, this “death with dignity” must be enforced through laws and courts and even down to the medical personnel involved.

“DEATH WITH DIGNITY” AND ITS’ OTHER VICTIMS

In June, a Canadian home health nurse was faced with the option of participating in assisted suicide with her patients or resigning. She resigned and yet another dedicated nurse was lost to the principle of a right to “death with dignity”.

However, Mary Jean Martin was afforded no dignity or rights herself. She was at the mercy of a new health care law that now mandates participation in medical lethal overdoses, an act considered medical murder before.

Ms. Martin called being forced to choose between her conscience and her job a “violation of my human rights.” She wrote:

“Why has my right to peacefully follow my own beliefs within a free and inclusive society been suddenly taken away from me?” she said.

“After 30 years as a nurse these laws make me feel no longer proud of being either a health care professional in this country or Canadian citizen,” she added.

The forced normalization of assisted suicide/euthanasia radically changes medicine for the healthy as well as the ill when only medical professionals willing to participate in assisted suicide/euthanasia are allowed to practice their professions.

CONCLUSION

Whether the issue is denial of food and water to brain-injured people, futility determinations overriding patients’ and families’ decisions, denying potentially beneficial experimental treatment or forcing medical personnel to participate in lethal overdoses, etc., the word “choice” in these cases is a misnomer when only the choice for death is considered “dignified”.