Canada the Cruel

No life matters:

The decline of family formation is one of the defining social issues of our time, and yet it’s rarely discussed. However, while the piece is right that for a generation of millennial and Gen Z women, having children has too often been treated as something that competes with freedom, ambition, and personal fulfillment rather than being a meaningful part of life — I’d put the roots of this problem a little differently. It’s less about Carrie Bradshaw or Hannah Horvath, and more about a generational pendulum swing. 

Boomer women were the first generation to truly have the option of career and/or family after generations of women who did not. Many understandably raised their daughters with a strong message shaped by a new world of freedom and choice: be financially independent, build a career, don’t rely on a man, and don’t let motherhood limit your options. Pop culture reflected and encouraged that message, but didn’t create it. 

The result was a generation of women handed a powerful vision of independence and career primacy — one that brought real opportunity and freedom, but also came at a cost: motherhood lost status. 

For millennials and Gen Z, what many of us absorbed wasn’t just that we could have careers — it was that in our 20s, we should prioritize education, career, travel, fun, financial security and self-development first, with family to come later — if at all. 

Then our 30s arrived, and many women discovered that the biological clock is real: fertility declines, energy is lower, relationships are more complicated, and trying to “have it all” is far harder than we were led to believe. 

And of course culture isn’t the only factor. Layer on housing costs, affordability pressures and high taxes, an ultra-competitive job market, workplaces still largely built around a one-income/one-full-time-parent model, and a culture that has not prepared enough men for the realities of husbandhood and fatherhood (another equally important issue, rarely discussed), and it’s no surprise so many women feel torn, delayed, and burnt out.

Marland makes an important point: a life ordered entirely around material success is not, for many people, a deeply fulfilling one. 

Personally, no one — not school, university, pop culture, or even my own mother — ever taught me that motherhood might become the most meaningful part of my life. Like many women, I had to discover that myself. Historically, that is a remarkable shift: for most of human history, motherhood and childbearing were understood as central to family and societal continuity. In much of the modern West, by contrast, motherhood is often treated as secondary to other forms of achievement and self-development.  

 

What has replaced the important vocation of motherhood?

This:

Urban women over 65 are most likely to worry over climate change, Statistics Canada said yesterday in a rare psychosocial questionnaire. No reason was given: “Climate-related hazards in Canada and abroad can have a mental health impact with some people experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or anxiety.” 

Ugh.

** 

Three years ago, Kathrin Mentler — a woman in her thirties — went to a Vancouver hospital to seek help for depression and suicidal thoughts. There she was told by a clinician that our health-care system is “broken” and the wait to see a psychiatrist would be long. The clinician asked if she had ever considered euthanasia, as it would be more “comfortable” than suicide by overdose.

Such an outcome was, it turns out, a concern that led Ms. Mentler to visit the hospital that day. As she put it, “I very specifically went there that day because I didn’t want to get into a situation where I would think about taking an overdose of medication.” Ms. Mentler went to hospital to avoid death, only to have death mentioned as something to consider.

This is only one of the many disturbing stories about euthanasia in Canada. This year marks ten years since euthanasia came to this country. At least 76,475 Canadians have died as a result, while some estimates suggest the total has already surpassed 100,000.

Euthanasia started here in 2016 only for those nearing death. A few years later, it was expanded to individuals who were not dying, and whose disability or illness would not cause their death. In 2023, a parliamentary committee recommended allowing euthanasia for minors, and for those who wish to request euthanasia in advance of losing their mental capacity.

Due to stories like that of Kathrin Mentler, we are awakening to the unsettling realities of euthanasia. In June, a parliamentary committee called on the federal government to cancel the forthcoming legalization of euthanasia for mental illness. This form of euthanasia is currently scheduled to become legal in March 2027.

I hope this call represents a turning point. I hope we are, as a society, rediscovering the truth that every person is precious, equally valuable to all other persons, and possesses an inherent worth and dignity that can never be lost. These are fundamental beliefs of the church to which I belong, but these beliefs are also universal truths that sit at the bedrock of any civilized society.

Every human being has a dignity — a priceless worth — that can never be erased. No matter how dire our circumstances may be, this dignity never fades. As human beings, we are not perishable goods that go bad. We are not items with a shelf life. We are not burdens on society. We are not problems to be solved. It is heartbreaking to read the stories of individuals who have contemplated or sought euthanasia because of a perceived loss of dignity, or due to disability, vulnerability, isolation or adversity.

Canadians living with disabilities have been disproportionately affected by euthanasia. Offering euthanasia to Canadians living with disabilities instead of providing them with the support they need puts their lives at risk and discriminates against them. It tells these Canadians they are less valuable than others and that between living with a disability and not being alive, the latter might be better. These lies must be confronted. Lives are at stake.

As for the notion that euthanasia respects autonomy, freedom of choice is often an illusion with euthanasia. When nearly 50 per cent of individuals who seek euthanasia say they perceive themselves as a burden on their families, friends, or caregivers, autonomy is far out of view. The same is true when individuals cite isolation or loneliness as a reason for seeking euthanasia.

Euthanasia invites us to endorse a flawed understanding of autonomy that rests upon harmful messages about our worth and value. Euthanasia suggests we can cease to matter and encourages us to view ourselves and each other based on whether our “best before” date has passed. The legalization of euthanasia imprints these messages in our hearts and minds, often by misguided appeals to compassion, care and love.

Compassion, care and love never translate into terminating a person’s life. These concepts are incompatible with killing. The compassionate, caring and loving response to a person who is suffering is to provide every possible assistance to ease suffering and seek healing.

Euthanasia does not cure illness or provide care; it ends the person. Everyone deserves a dignified death, and to die with dignity is not to hasten death through lethal injection but to be accompanied, comforted and supported until the very last moment of our natural lives.

 

 Countries that embrace death like this don't come back from that brink.