Yesterday The National Review posted an article about a bill that just passed the House of Commons in Canada.

The article reports:

…A bill just passed the House of Commons that — barring shockingly unforeseen resistance in the Senate, which already voted to loosen the rules — will radically expand eligibility for euthanasia in Canada, including the following provisions:

• • Reasonably foreseeable death will no longer be required. That opens the door to euthanizing people with disabilities, patients diagnosed with dementia but still competent, as well as the mentally ill.
  • After a further time for studying the issue of creating protective guidelines (!!), people whose sole medical problem is mental illness will explicitly qualify for euthanasia.
  • There will be no waiting period required between request for death and termination for people whose deaths are reasonably foreseeable — a very lax term. This means a patient with, say, two years of life expectancy could theoretically be killed immediately upon request.

The expansion will eventually continue to allowing people diagnosed with dementia to order themselves killed in an advance directive when they become mentally incompetent and to pediatric euthanasia of “mature minors” — both among the subjects likely to be “studied” by a committee of “experts” over the next two years, meaning they are coming next.

Disability-rights activists fought back furiously and backed a filibuster over the bill that succeeded for a time. But it was eventually broken by the ruling minority Liberals and Bloc Québécois.

The despair of people with disabilities on Twitter after the vote was visceral, with some noting that Canada does not guarantee life with dignity — with say, independent living services — but will guarantee “death with dignity” when the paucity of services leads to a suicidal desire. They feel, rationally, like targets rather than beneficiaries.

It is also worth noting that only 15 percent of Canadians have access to quality palliative care. Not to worry, the panel of experts will “study” that too. Good grief.

This is frightening. It should also be taken as a warning to America–if healthcare is ever run by the government, not only will the quality of care decrease, the availability of care will also decrease. There will come a time when disabled or elderly Americans will not be able to obtain even the minimal care that they need, and there will be attempts made to persuade them to take advantage of assisted suicide. That has been happening for years in the Netherlands. We don’t need to bring it here.