By Dave Andrusko

I read Canadian author Barbara Kay faithfully in the National Post because she understands that the culture of death is approaching a gallop up North and because, as a result of her clarion call, she is relentlessly battered by the usual pro-death suspects.

Today her opinion piece is titled, "Quebec's collective depression." It is her reflection on what she calls "something of a cultural fetish in Quebec"--euthanasia. (See here.)

"Films, plays and TV series portray the suffering who seek out euthanasia or assisted suicide as our new spiritual nobility, "she writes. "Jean-Pierre Charbonneau [a former Quebec politician] proudly remarked last week, in response to the observation that Quebec is the only province engaged in official encouragement of euthanasia: 'It's proof that Quebec is distinct!'"

To which Kay observes, "Some distinction. And no more boast-worthy than Quebec's higher suicide rate relative to the rest of Canada."

The title of her piece is lifted from a column that ran last Saturday by journalist Denise Bombardier. Bombardier asked, "To what end this urgency for a national debate on death, when we can intuitively sense the moral collapse of our citizenry, a collapse one might be tempted to call a collective depression?"

As an outsider I can't speak to that. I can certainly sympathize with Kay's lamentation that palliative care is in its infancy in Canada. And if assisted suicide is legalized, support for what palliative care there is will surely dry up.

Kay makes a keen observation. One of the principal driving forces behind a series of hearings on euthanasia and assisted suicide is a poll of physicians in Quebec "in which the majority of respondents expressed support for euthanasia." Lost in translation is that only 20% of the physicians asked to comment responded--hardly a "clamor."

But Kay understands the power of emotional appeals and the limitation of what she calls "dry appeals to reason." However it is also true that there is a deep well of experience, and that includes what has happened in Europe, especially the Netherlands where patients are killed without their consent, including children.

This is not some imaginary, hypothetical slippery slope. If it is not to happen here--or in Canada--we must stand like sentinels against the advance of the Culture of Death.

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