OOPS: ‘Progressive’ Policies Take Heavy Toll On Most Medically Vulnerable . . . Hospice Care

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Consider it a ‘canary in the coalmine’ situation . . . one that we ignore at our own risk.

If there was any question whether compliance with jackboot Progressive Policy was more important to the big-government leftists than the actual compassionate medical care being offered by medical professionals, the sad case of Delta Hospice Society should put that question to rest.

Who loses when a religious order giving medical care and a secular policy hostile to their pro-life position come into conflict? The patients, naturally.

In many ways, Canada is a testing ground for woke policies, a pilot project where they get tweaked before their big rollout here. But if there was any doubt as to whether the left’s comply-or-else tactics are employed in the US as well, look no further than the Little Sisters Of The Poor case.

With Canada’s death-on-demand advocates claiming victory in Canada’s abortion issue, they set their sights on right-to-die legislation which they gave a clinical-sounding name ‘euthanasia’ or ‘doctor-assisted suicide’. The preferred term in Canada is “medical assistance in dying”.

The left has long since learned that the name they give their issue for ‘framing’ matters for propaganda purposes. Had they called it ‘self-slaughter’ (which they surely would have branded it with had they opposed it) it could never have been dressed up as a ‘compassionate’ alternative.

Notice how Leftist ‘advocacy’ never stops at being something their side is permitted to do, it must always be pushed as compulsory to others.

In Canada, a charity giving end-of-life care has come in conflict with the federal right-to-die laws. Here is how Delta Hospice describes what they do:

The services offered at the Irene Thomas Hospice are based upon the principles of hospice and palliative care for the person in care and their loved ones. Specialized palliative care is provided to those who are in the last part of their life’s journey.

This is entirely consistent with the standard pro-life position of ‘from conception to natural death’. Suicide — even if it is given a scientific or medical veneer — is not.

It isn’t enough that Delta Hospice provides compassionate service to those wanting end-of-life care, or that they have been doing so for about 30 years. They are no fly-by-night program. From their website:

Delta Hospice was chosen as one of 11 sites in Canada to pilot the draft Hospice Palliative Care Standards for the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation (CCHSA).

What the government really wants is to be permitted to use that space to kill people who have despaired of life — or (let’s be honest and include another possibility) those who have been guilted into believing that offing themselves would be relieving their loved ones of a heavy burden.

Last year, Delta Hospice was given a 365-day notice that funding would cease unless and until they participated in a program that expressly violated their beliefs. Today, that funding officially stops.

Notice the authoritarian streak in the following text, where the assumption that in any instance of a conflict between the government and the people, it is the people who are expected to comply to the will of the government. There was no interest in seeking a middle ground. Or any mutually-agreeable alternative. It was ‘my way or the highway’. The citation below is from a press release given by BC’s provincial minister of health.

“We have made every effort to support the board to come into compliance and they have been clear that they have no intention to,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. “We are taking this action reluctantly, and when the role of the Delta Hospice Society concludes, patients in publicly funded hospice care will again be able to fully access their medical rights.”

In 2016, the federal government passed legislation making it legal for Canadians who meet very specific criteria to have a medical professional assist them with their death. In response to that legislation, B.C. developed a policy that requires a hospice to allow patients to access MAiD in their facility, if their beds are more than 50% publicly funded.

“I strongly support hospice care and we have made important investments to expand it across the province,” Dix added. “We will ensure hospice care services remain in Delta. To do that, we could restore the existing Irene Thomas Hospice site to public management. Given the significant financial contributions Delta community members made to build the facility, this would be the most desirable option. Alternatively, we could pursue another Delta site. In either scenario, the 10 hospice beds represented by the existing facility will stay in Delta. — BCGovNews

Why should this concern us here in the states? Because the people pushing this in Canada are the very same people who have been pushing abortion in the USA. But since they’ve claimed victory in the abortion question there, they moved on to the next issue. There is ALWAYS a ‘next issue’.

Let us learn this stark lesson.

The abortion question has all but been surrendered in Canada, not because laws were passed, but because gutless politicians refused to do what the Supreme Court there told them to do in replacing a flawed abortion law with a better one.

When the old one lapsed, no new law replaced it, and the abortion-on-demand crowd claimed total victory, and it’s become a political third rail ever since. Because of their gutless politicians, Canadian abortion law is counted among only 4 countries in the entire world with ‘no restriction in law’ of abortion. The other three are the communist countries of China, North Korea, and Vietnam. Only 3 other countries allow abortion under ordinary circumstances beyond 20 weeks. Netherlands and Singapore (only up to 24th week), and of course USA.

If the news has kept you ignorant of the rest of the world’s position on abortion, ask yourself WHY they might want us to be ignorant of where we stand compared to the rest of the world… and who stands to gain (politically, financially, or otherwise) from our continued ignorance?

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