WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Kyle Patrick Moran: As Canada Slides, the U.S. Must Reconsider Assisted Suicide

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

From mental illness to homelessness, "assisted dying" is no longer limited to the terminally ill. Is America ready to follow that path?Kyle Patrick Moran, a political analyst and Young Voices contributor, warns that America is edging toward a dangerous shift in how it values life, and must learn from Canada's rapid unraveling of safeguards.He joins WRFH to discuss. From 05/02/25.

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Peter Andrews and with me today is Kyle Moran. And today we'll be discussing a piece published that he published in Restoring America on Assisted Suicide. To get started, Kyle, can you tell us a little bit how you got onto this topic and how you came to publish? So I started covering this topic because I was absolutely horrified seeing some of the data that was coming out of countries from the Netherlands to Canada. are two of the worst examples. And most recently, the United Kingdom was debating and at least past the first round of a motion to enact Dr. Assistant Suicide in the country.

And I've been absolutely horrified by the trends that seem to inevitably arise in all of these cases where all of the initial safeguards just immediately break down. Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit what those safeguards look like from the outset, you know, when the legislation has passed,

what kind of things are put in place? Yeah, so initially all of these countries have very strict protections to only allow very specific cases and very specific conditions to qualify for such a program. Normally, this involves situations in which people have terminal illnesses,

and so the slogan that they use is death with dignity, but the issue is that a lot of times non-chronic, excuse me, non-like terminal illnesses have significantly more suffering. So, for example, chronic illnesses may result in significantly more suffering for people for a significantly longer period of time. So then the case is made, well, if certain people should be eligible to end their own life, if they choose, why can't the people who are suffering more also do the same? And then once you get into people suffering from mental health, the campaigners just continuously push and push.

The issue at hand is once you allow the government to say, okay, yes, this life is worth being allowed to end because of certain conditions, you're on a very slippery slope and very few can stand up and say no after that. Yeah. So in most cases, does the individual seeking medical aid and dying need a diagnosis from a medical professional. How does that process work? Yes. So there has to be some situation to warrant it in most cases. The Netherlands is looking at a situation where people over 75 can simply opt out for no underlying reason, which is extremely concerning to me. But the mental health aspect, once you get to that point,

There's cases. There was a Dutch lady who committed suicide with doctor assistance last year, who had been suffering from multiple mental illnesses. And she was granted this request, not because of any underlying chronic illness, but because she was suffering mentally. So it just continuously expands eligibility, which is, it completely flies in the face of what all the campaigners assert at the initial passage that it will only be very limited case. Right, right. Do you think, do you know if those countries have seen an increase in mental illness diagnosis as a result of, you know, that's being the quickest way to access assisted suicide? I think that there's been a huge spike throughout all countries of mental illness, both legitimate and also over-diagnosing is a real trend. I don't think that the eligibility for assisted suicide increases. that. But I do think that providing a pathway to ending your own life based off of any mental illness or underlying physical condition, it changes the value of life that we hold as a society.

And once you trust that Rubicon, it's extremely difficult to come back from. Yeah. Yeah. Once again, this is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Peter Andrews and I'm talking with Kyle Moran. Can we explore a little bit that idea of, you know, once you cross that bridge, it's hard to come back. As I was reading your piece, I was thinking a little bit how here in the U.S., we have a similar situation with the abortion crisis. Once you kind of cross that bridge, it's hard to come back. Do you see a similar thing playing out here in the U.S. as what we got with abortion legislation? I do, and I find this to be an even more dystopian version of that.

Because what the vast majority of pro-choice people will assert is that the fetus, embryos are not humans. They are not alive. What the people in the death with dignity campaign are arguing is completely different. Obviously, nobody is going to deny that these people are human. So it's significantly worse to me because they recognize the validity of these people's lives. and think that they should be allowed to simply opt out of it. And this leads to very scary situations to me, because when you look at the most expensive care for people,

it's almost always end-of-life care, which is very, very expensive. So once you legalize this, you're going to be putting people in positions where they have to choose between being both a financial and labor burden to their family or committing suicide. and that is a deeply shameful, shameful policy that no nation should ever force upon its own citizens. Yeah, I think that's interesting,

and there's a lot of parallels there as well with abortion, in that a mother is often told that having the child will result in her being a burden to her family in those kinds of exact same arguments where there's almost an economic justification for the ending of the life. Exactly, and I think just to just the job, jump in there. It comes to

with little surprise to me that in Canada now, you're seeing polls, the third of Canadians support expanding eligibility for this program to chronically homeless people because the view is that these lives are not worth living. Or

at least if the people themselves deem that it's not worth living, that they should be able to act out their own suicide. And that is where it really drives home to me. That once you cross this bridge, a very different view of the value of human life lays on the other side. I have to give credit to Danny Kruger, M.P. and the UK for that quote.

But he's spot on there. Yeah. Yeah. So can you tell us a little bit about what the path forward in the U.S. looks like? I know that some states have already passed legislation allowing for medical assisted suicide. Do you think that will continue to see the trend in that it's becoming legal? Yes. So I think right now it is extremely limited, which it always is in the beginning, at least. Right now it's currently legal in 10 states as well as D.C. Most of them are very limited. But there are a number of other states that are considering it. So this is not going to be a federal issue. So everyone listening should figure out who their state rep, who their state senator is, make sure that they get in touch about this issue, especially if this. it starts to become debated within their state because this is going to be something that you don't necessarily know is coming and then all of a sudden it's legal.

So you really have to pay close attention to it because so much of our attention gets drawn to the federal side of issues, even though we have such little say over that. With state issues, it can take a very small minority to really push for this legalization. so definitely keep an eye out wherever you may be on this coming to you. Yeah. Do you know if we've seen any of those safeguards kind of being eroded in those limited access states? Do you think that those states will kind of serve as warning signs for the rest of the country? I think that we will see further erosions.

As of right now, much of it has been extremely limited. So, for example, Montana, it's legal. by order of a court ruling and it wasn't even debated in their state legislature. So it's extremely narrow right now. But what the Death with Dignity campaign is pushing is to expand this

throughout the country, both in terms of legalization and then states that have legalized it to expand it to include more categories and for people to be able to access it more easily. So it's definitely a concerning trend. Right now, I wouldn't say it's anywhere near what we're seeing out of some of these other countries.

But my point being that you don't want to wake up and have it be too late because we've turned into Canada. Yeah. Yeah. So along those lines, you mentioned paying attention to what's going on in your state legislature. Is there anything else that listeners could do, you know, to stay on top of the issue to be aware? What I do is I pay attention to what's going on internationally, even though I have, of course,

no input over it in, for example, the UK, but the data that's coming out of this, I find to make it to be extremely persuasive because in so many cases where these have become legalized, like, for example, in Canada, which seems to be the worst culprit, one in 20 deaths in Canada is now attributed to their assisted suicide program, which they call M-A-I-D-made there. One in 20, that is horrifying. And not that many people know about this yet. So being able to stay well informed on this issue is going to make you articulate and be able to inform others who may sympathize, especially if somebody's like more libertarian minded.

They may have initial sympathy for the idea that, well, if somebody's suffering at the end of their life, why not allow them to do this, blah, blah, blah. Once you start looking into this program, I can assure you, you, you, you will see why. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for coming on today, Kyle. I appreciate your time. Of course, thank you for having me

and thank you for allowing me to bring attention to this issue. Of course. Our guest here today has been Kyle Moran and I'm Peter Rangers on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.