(LifeSiteNews) – A professor noted for writing books against euthanasia said Canada’s fast-growing rate of assisted suicide is a moral outrage, and the nation is on a fast track to becoming a leader in state-sanctioned death.
Dr. Kevin Yuill is a senior lecturer in American History at the University of Sunderland in the United Kingdom and the author of Assisted Suicide: The Liberal, Humanist Case Against Legalization.
He recently said that Canada’s fast-growing rate of euthanasia is a moral outrage and that the country “killed more people with lethal injections last year than any other country on Earth – many of them poor, homeless or hopeless.”
“Unlike other countries that have legalised assisted dying, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, Canadian doctors are not compelled to find other medical or social-support options that can relieve a patient’s suffering. It can be enough for a patient to say his or her suffering is intolerable,” Yuill said.
Yuill warned that by Canada even allowing euthanasia in “cases of terminal illness,” it has opened “a Pandora’s box.”
“If assisted dying is justified on the basis of ‘alleviating suffering,’ then we should expect ‘more and more categories’ of people to ‘seek recognition of their suffering by demanding assisted suicide for themselves,” Yuill noted.
“The categories have a tendency to expand and those who insist that it should only be those with terminal illnesses had better be ready to answer these demands from those who, on good grounds, can demonstrate their own suffering.’ This is precisely what has happened.”
Yuill noted that while Canada may have the “dubious honor” of being the “world leader in assisted dying,” it is not just a Canadian problem.
“Canada has simply pursued the logic of euthanasia and assisted suicide more ruthlessly and rapidly than others,” Yuill said.
“It needs to be a warning to the world. When death is offered as a solution to life’s ills, what else should we expect?”
According to a recent federal government report, 10,064 people died last year from what is called Medically Assistance in Dying (MAiD). By comparison, in the first year that euthanasia was legalized in Canada in 2016, 1,018 people died from MAiD.
Canada’s increasingly permissive laws have allowed euthanasia to rise 32% since 2020 with more than 10,000 people dying in 2021 alone.
Angelina Ireland, president of the pro-life Delta Hospice Society, recently told LifeSiteNews that Canada’s official rates of “state-sanctioned execution” is much higher than what is being reported.
“I do not believe the government numbers. I believe those being euthanized are much higher than the just over 10,000 the government admits to,” Ireland told LifeSiteNews. “Just by our anecdotal evidence alone, it feels like far more Canadians have succumbed to euthanasia.”