The Savings of Death

They actually published a report out of Alberta, out of the University of Calgary, and published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, that ‘medical assistance in dying’, also known more accurately as murder-suicide (soon, we might think, just plain murder) that putting the old, the sick and the just plain tired-of-life to death will save a whole whopping $139 million.

They break down the costs further:  $25 for the drugs to put the patient, well, to ‘sleep’, with a total of $269 to $756 for ‘physician services’.  Not cheap, for all those well-compensated fresh-faced docs, but the labourer deserves his wages, does he not? All that work, jabbing in a syringe, sombre of expression, with a faint note of sympathy, and a nod of the hypocritic, excuse me, Hippocratic, brow. But was it not the great Hippocrates who said ‘first, do no harm’? If I had no conscience, and no moral compass, no belief in God, and little belief in Man, at least in Man suffering, I would do it for a lot less.

The $139 million saved, as the article rightly admits, is chump change in the big scheme of things, as the labour and technological costs of medical services go through the proverbial roof. According to the Alberta Health website, the province spends $2.4 million per hour on treating the sick, $58 million per day, and $19.7 billion per year, with $5 billion of that on physician salaries.

And that is only in Alberta, with a population just over 4 million, which means about $5000 per person per year on medicine.  So all the killing won’t save that much. At least, not yet.

But the fact that they are now bold enough to count the costs, or, pardon me, the savings of death is significant. This is not all about money, but it is at least partly. And as more people choose death, or are chosen for death, one may presume that the savings will go up, especially when things get all the more efficient and streamlined.  Just read the 1967 dystopia Logan’s Run.

Canada is a country mired in death, with no laws governing the abortion free-for-all, and only flimsy ones restraining the current spate of murder-suicide.  The paper-thin conditions will be struck down in our compliant courts, until whoever wants to die, can, all paid for by the benign State, hiring its lab-coated assassins, its victims tidied up, cremated and forgotten.

And our puerile Prime Minister rants on in his jejune manner about the oil sands and climate change, feminism and women’s ‘rights’, sipping a Timmy’s double-double, and posing for selfies.

Meanwhile, south of the border, President Donald Trump has already put forward two highly significant pro-life policies, with his Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, declaring, in public, in a press hearing, for all the world to hear and grasp, that “The President has made it very clear that he’s a pro-life president. He wants to stand up for all Americans, including the unborn“.

I keep wondering if it is time to dust off our feet and move it on south to America.

Then again, perhaps we can await a Paul-like conversion for our country.  One never knows.

So a blessed feast to all, as we make our own journey to Damascus….

Carney’s Amoral Majority

After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→

Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress

This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→

A Tale of Two Benedicts

A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→

My Name is Bernadette

April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→

Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully

Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→

The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus

As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→

Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów

We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→

Saint Gemma Galgani

On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→

An Ideological and Improper Translation

I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→

Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle: A Teacher for Teachers

Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651 – 1719), a French nobleman, ordained a priest, founded the first order in the Church’s history entirely without priests, and this came about almost by accident. I say ‘almost’, for, of course, there are no accidents with God. Destined for ordination from an early age, Jean-Baptiste never looked back, even[…]Continue reading→