Some Canadian funeral homes have begun offering rooms where the consenting sick and the elderly can be killed prior to their wake and burial.
These new killing facilities are now able to offer an all-in-one package — death, wake, burial — thanks to the country’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) protocol that has been legal since 2016, and was expanded in 2021 to include people suffering with mental illness.
Paul Needham of Northview Funeral Chapel in London, Ontario, told CBC News this week that he had been receiving so many calls to provide a place for people to be killed that he finally decided to take advantage of the opportunity. He began to offer rooms for rent at his funeral home where the old and the sick could come to be killed, either by their own hand, or, more commonly, with the assistance of a doctor or nurse.
In the past year alone, Needham’s funeral home has facilitated the killing of 23 sick and old people.
“Family members can be right there with their loved ones,” Needham told CBC News. “I suggest they can make it how they want it, bring some of your favourite music, bring flowers, bring some food or if you like, bring a bottle of wine. This is this person’s last day on Earth. You want to take everything into account and consider as many things as possible.”
David Mullen, owner of A. Millard George Funeral Home in Ontario, has also noticed the trend and has converted his former casket showroom into a beautifully decorated killing room where friends and family members can be with the victim during his or her death. He hopes to have everything up in running by the new year.
Darcy Harris, professor of thanatology (study of death and dying) at King’s University College in Ontario, said that this next step for funeral homes makes sense.
“Funeral homes are usually very nicely appointed and the staff are service-orientated and are comfortable talking about death,” she told CBC News.
While MAID is now legal in Canada, that certainly does not make it right or moral. Euthanasia and assisted suicide, no matter how pretty the room and how flowery the legal language that surrounds it, is the deliberate killing of the sick and elderly.
Western nations are founded on the belief that life is sacred and no one but God alone has the right to take life. The fifth Commandment prohibiting murder is a pillar of western law and democracy that has been eroded by abortion and now euthanasia.
Nations that allow some citizens to kill other innocent citizens, for whatever reason, have collapsed morally. A collapse of morality can only result in social anarchy and the eventual collapse of that nation.
Funeral homes are supposed to be places where our beloved dead can be remembered, honoured, and given our last respects prior to burial. They should never become execution sites for the sick, elderly, and those suffering with mental illness, who have been misinformed that euthanasia is a solution to their problems. Killing vulnerable people, no matter what the reason, is always wrong and against God’s law.
What the sick and the elderly need are relationship, love, and compassionate care, not someone deliberately cutting their life short.
A society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. Did we care for them, or kill them?
HD Editor’s Note: Why Is This News Biblically Relevant?
Ken Ham, Founder and CEO of Answers In Genesis, responded to this development, writing that the “culture of death” we are witnessing today is a consequence of rejecting God.
“The religion of death permeates our world,” Ham said. “Of course, when people are encouraged to kill humans in the womb, then why not out of the womb? And where does it stop? What if governments decide certain people are detrimental to the culture because of their beliefs or certain physical attributes?”
“Oh, that has happened in history and is happening today in places!” he explained. “It’s a consequence of people who reject God and become their own god. As God states in His Word: ‘all who hate me love death’ (Proverbs 8:36).”
According to an annual report, Medical Assistance in Dying or “MAiD” was used to end the lives of 7,595 Canadians in 2020 alone, including 1,412 who felt “isolated and lonely.”
Canada is one of a very small number of countries that have legalized the practice of euthanasia. According to statistics from the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Australia, and the United States, Canada has the highest rate of medically assisted deaths in the world.
The Netherlands, which has the second-highest rate, still had 657 fewer citizens killed by euthanasia versus Canada in 2020.
It is also worth noting that Canadian Government statistics show 4,000 (non-medically assisted) suicides per year in the country. Meaning, that “MAiD” has increased suicides in Canada by nearly 200%.
Despite these alarming numbers, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated in 2019 that expanding euthanasia by making the law “less restrictive” was one of his top priorities.
In March of 2021, Bill C-7 received “Royal Assent” (meaning it passed both Canadian Houses of Parliament). The amendments to the bill expanded those eligible for assisted suicide by including those not terminally ill. It also waved the ten-day waiting period for those who are terminally ill and permitted doctors and nurses to lethally inject a person incapable of consenting if they were previously approved for “MAiD.”
Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, stated that the changes to Bill C-7 make Canada the “most permissive nation concerning euthanasia.”
