Navigating the Ethics of Medically Assisted Dying

In this episode, we delve into the contentious topic of assisted death in Canada, focusing on its prevalence and ethical implications. We start by highlighting the often polarized opinions, even among conservatives. The discussion spans statistics, highlighting that in some districts like Quebec, MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) accounts for a significant portion of deaths. We also discuss individual cases like Christine Gauthier, a veteran who was controversially offered assisted death by a caseworker. The conversation touches on the future demographic challenges and the role of AI, biblical perspectives on suicide, and societal values regarding end-of-life choices. We also challenge the perceptions of worthiness in life decisions, drawing on personal stories and statistical analyses. This detailed exploration aims to provide a nuanced view of a highly sensitive issue, challenging both progressive and conservative audiences to rethink their stances.

Speaker 15: [00:00:00] Well, Carl here thinks I just put my cat to sleep, but I don't know how to talk to Laura about it. Oh ho, Mr. Republican conservative tight ass here suddenly believes in assisted death. If you think it's humane to put an old and sick cat to sleep, then why is it illegal to do it for humans?

Speaker 16: Yeah, how come, Carl? Because only human beings have a soul, Mr. President. Because only human beings have a soul, Larry.

Speaker 15: Not according to a Hindu. What's a Hindu? Lays eggs. Look. George. You need to take a cold, hard look at your stance on youth in Asia.

Speaker 17: Oh, I don't care about them. They're conformists and they're communists.

Who? The youth in Asia. Come on, you know, Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these.

Malcolm Collins: Hello simone today we are going to be talking about assisted unaliving in Canada.

And our take on this, it may be exactly what people think it's going to be, but it might [00:01:00] also really surprise people if they think it's going to be the standard conservative reactionary take. Uh, It's definitely not on, on that because I've seen a lot of, you know, activists go out there for people to understand just how.

Much assisted unaliving is being used in Canada right now. There's a program that they call made and in Quebec right now, it made up 7. 2 percent of all deaths this last year, so about 1 in 14 deaths. And right now in 2023, there were 15, 343 made provisions reported across Canada. This accounts for 4.

7 percent of all deaths. In Canada, roughly 1 in 20 deaths, so it's really bad in some districts, like, you know, in the French district where they have no reason to live. Anyway, I mean, it's

Simone Collins: really bad. The right term, or is it just very popular in some districts?

Malcolm Collins: Well, this is this is where Ubisoft is based, so I can understand why with with [00:02:00] Assassin's Creed shadows being out there right now.

I better just end it. Yeah. If I was on that team, if I was on that team and I saw this product I'd made, I'd just be like, can we, can we edit out the, the black guy that we had killing tons of people in Japan? Like, it's that it seems racist, right? You know, I thought we were doing an anti racist thing,

Speaker: When he fights, there is a hip hop soundtrack only for him.

Speaker 2: GreeD cannot rule this village. Not while I have breath in my lungs and a blade in my

Speaker 3: head. Kill

Speaker 4: him! Brought to you by

You get in a car with them, they turn on the hip hop channel, and then they look at you. This one's for you.

Speaker 5: Who do you think you are? Oh

Speaker 4: my god, bro.

Malcolm Collins: But anyway, anyway the statistics [00:03:00] get crazier.

Okay. But we're going to go over the, my favorite maid instance here. It's one you may have heard before, but I had never heard the full story.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So, Christine Gauthier, a 54 year old Canadian Army veteran and former Paralympian, who completed in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics and Invictus Games.

So, a very you know, I can make this work, person. Yes.

Speaker 6: Did you know that people who use wheelchairs also play basketball? I want you to meet some of my friends on the New York Rolling Fury. Check out some of the action!

I see it gets really intense during practice and games.

So have you ever thought about killing yourself? Cause life's not supposed to be hard. Not even a little. People who aren't disabled, their lives are super easy. It's just you. Just you who has a hard life.

Malcolm Collins: She lives with a muscular skeletal [00:04:00] disorder affecting her back, legs, and hips, resulting from a training accident in 1989 that caused permanent damage to her knees and spine. So in 2022, so keep in mind, this was only six years after completing in the Olympic, the Paralympic Games.

Okay. Okay. Very healthy,

Simone Collins: successful person.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, very healthy, successful person. She testified before the House of Commons. Oh, so this had already happened before that. Committee, that a Veterans Affair so a VAC employee had offered her medical assistance in dying.

Key points include that Gauthier had been trying to get a wheelchair ramp installed in her home for five years. During a phone call with a VAC caseworker, where Gauthier was described Being her deteriorating condition, the employee allegedly had mentioned that she had the quote unquote right to die.

Gauthier claims she received a letter from BAC offering Maid stating, quote, If you are so desperate, Madam, [00:05:00] we can offer you, Maid, medical assistance in dying, end quote. If you piss off a Canadian bureaucrat, they will send you the full, unaliving kit.

Madam.

Reportedly included providing the necessary equipment for May.

Oh, that's nice. Simone. They didn't just send her like a, this is how you apply for it. They sent an effing kit to her house

Simone Collins: because

Malcolm Collins: she complained about how long it was taking to get her wheelchair thing installed. That's

Simone Collins: amazing. Wouldn't it be just hilarious if the kit was just a gun in a box?

Malcolm Collins: No, I don't, I want it to be a hammer in a box, like, like in Team America,

Speaker 7: Gary, well, you'll probably want to take your own life. Here, you'd better have this.

Alright team, that's it.

Malcolm Collins: That is, that is how, that is how my world handle's made. But as we go further with this, one thing that we need to be [00:06:00] very realistic of, I mean, as much as you have a visceral reaction against all of this Realistically governments are not going to be able to keep the elderly alive if the demographic pyramid continues in the direction it's going right now.

Yeah,

Simone Collins: the demand will outstrip the supply in terms of taxpayer base to cover the cost and people to execute the services. So people will be looking at months, if not years in wait time for basic services. And when governments will not be able to do anything about it.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, we'll reach a point where you'll have two, three elderly people for every one taxpayer.

And, and there's a point where you need to go Logan's Run or, or Soylent Green on society. I just mean this from a practicality standpoint, the amount of, and people can be like, well, that's humans who are dying. And it's like, humans are going to be dying either way in this scenario.

There

are going to be inhumane.

Elderly care facilities with people who don't really care about the elderly as we already see in elderly [00:07:00] care facilities that are really horrible environments. But imagine, you know, when you have many more elderly person per staffer, and there's even less oversight because these elderly people don't have families.

Because they never took the time to make them. So nobody cares if they're being abused. Nobody cares what's happening to them. And so we need to, you know, weigh both sides of this with the understanding that this is the future that we're heading into. Also note at the end of this, we're gonna go over the biblical stuff on suicide.

To, to cut to the chase on that. The Bible, Is, is it seems very clearly not against suicide, to be honest. Oh, really? That surprises

Simone Collins: me.

Malcolm Collins: Specifically, what we'll find is there's a number of specific mentions of suicide in the Bible, and nowhere is it condemned. So So is there, I,

Simone Collins: whoa, I thought this was like a really big thing, that suicide was super, super, super not okay.

This is one of these things that

Malcolm Collins: up, wow.

But we'll get into this, Okay. Now, to go into Maid [00:08:00] specifically where I think I start to not be as freaked out by it, and then we'll get to some reasons why I am freaked out by it, is when I go into the demographics of who's actually doing this.

You know, you'll hear about specific instances of some, you know, young person who was talked into it because they had a depressive episode. But the reality is when I actually look at these, it's parents who had estranged themselves from their kids, their kids. Kids wanted to end their lives the kids were probably going to do this anyway and they found this program and were like, sure, I'll do it through this.

And then the parents freak out. Like, how could you talk my kids into this? Everything like this. And it's like, you haven't talked to your kids in like seven years and your kid is like 22. Like, what, what do you mean how you abandoned them? That's, that's how it ended here. You know, yeah, it's not the greatest thing that the state is doing this, right?

But at the end of the day, is this different from you know, from my perspective? Yeah, I just, and a lot of the people who you see on this, and we'll actually get to the statistics on this, [00:09:00] the people who are against MADR, like, can you believe MADR is so horrible? Like, the vast majority of people using it are on state services.

The government is using it to cut costs. And here I am, like, well, I mean. You know, it

Simone Collins: makes sense. I mean, also it and I think this shows

Malcolm Collins: out of the

Simone Collins: numbers.

Malcolm Collins: A bunch of, like, productive people.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, but also it seems like a huge portion of the people who are using MAID would otherwise be on palliative care.

They are terminally ill. They are dying. And they're choosing to die with dignity. That's my understanding. It's like, okay, there are obviously these entities that people are just miserable. Yeah, and that's what we'll get to

Malcolm Collins: here. Is there's this idea of, okay, made is like young people and the government's tricking them into it, but that's just not true.

The median age of made recipients is 77. 6 years old.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that's that is around the time when people get terminally ill.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. 96%. Now, now here's, here's potentially to the other side. 96 percent of [00:10:00] maid recipients are Caucasian.

Simone Collins: So, isn't Canada a very white place? Not at all.

Seems

Malcolm Collins: right. Canada is only 69. 8 percent white. What's the

Simone Collins: rest of Canada?

Malcolm Collins: I'm guessing like a Muslim and Indian and black, like

Simone Collins: maybe there are cultural barriers to choosing assisted dying when you are not white. But I mean, it would probably, it would obviously look a lot worse. If it was mostly non white people or not in proportion with the population that we're using the services.

So almost better that it's mostly white people. And then we're not, you know, no one's claiming genocide. No one's claiming some kind of racially biased.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and keep in mind, these aren't, if I'm going to be, that's the way I can say this, that can't be pull quoted on me easily. I just you know, really want my kids to be growing up in a world where their community is fit.

And I mean [00:11:00] that in terms of the way genes can correlate with sociological profiles and tendencies. And I don't mind where fitness pressure is being applied. Now If you want to go more into the statistics here, this might change your perception again. Cancer was the most frequently cited medical condition accounting for 64 percent of cases.

Simone Collins: That makes sense.

Malcolm Collins: 96 percent of cases involved individuals whose natural death was deemed reasonably foreseeable. Now I note here that it is very easy to get unmade. There are doctors who will go around and they basically just ask people like, Oh, you're, you're schedule one. That basically means you just want to end your life.

Because you can get on schedule one for anything, like saying I'm sad, we'll get you on it, saying I have trouble controlling my emotions, we'll get you on it.

Simone Collins: Well, one woman in on the trigonometry show was saying that all you have to do is stop eating for 24 hours, and then you can get on the list, so there, there are hacks.

You can

Malcolm Collins: get on schedule two, which allows you to un alive yourself within a day.

Simone Collins: That's,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, so I mean, like,

Simone Collins: clearly this can be abused, or if [00:12:00] someone manipulates it can be

Malcolm Collins: abused, and we'll get to instances in which it has been abused. But I will say here that again, we need to like realistically understand that eventually society is going to reach this point.

And I think we can look at made to see where this system is failing. Well, also understanding that, you know, Logan's run soiling green, that's the future. If we can't figure out fertility rate,

we

obviously you and I are trying to figure out fertility rate, but I don't see a realistic scenario in which we solve it before at least was in some countries.

This becomes the only realistic option to Lower the number of people dying and and keep in mind here. I mean this in a strict sense lower the number of people dying Because you can't just save everyone that's like progressive nonsense. Yeah, where they're like, oh, we're just gonna save everyone It's like well, you know, some people may not have the same value to society as other people.

I'm sorry

Simone Collins: Well, but also it you just can't save everyone and that's that's the problem being like we're just gonna save everyone means it [00:13:00] Now, a lot of people are going to be left in the lurch with absolutely zero support whatsoever. You know, and so either there could be some support, some recourse, some option that isn't terrible, or there can be nothing.

And I think a lot of these people are in situations where either their death would have been very protracted, very painful, very lonely. Very expensive. Well, and yeah, and and expensive to the to the state. Absolutely. That's like the big thing of the big debate or theme of palliative care is basically there's this very adverse incentive both economically and ethically with doctors where hospitals are incentivized to just Give as many expensive procedures as possible and also doctors have like sort of sworn to never do harm Between these two things basically even if someone's dying Even if it's almost certain that some procedure to treat someone's cancer is not going to do anything to help cure them And in fact, it may isolate them from their families and make them [00:14:00] deeply uncomfortable for the final days they have left Doctors and hospitals are still going to say, we recommend this procedure and if you don't take it, you're going to have to sign a billion forms and talk about how you're a terrible person and you're letting yourself die and you know, we're going to make life difficult for you and that, that happens, especially in the United States.

I'm sure it happens everywhere though. And that, that's what's so great about this is that like, I mean, what, what palliative care had originally posed is okay, well maybe just instead of, yeah. Like, like actively going through the maid program and having you terminate your life on your own terms. Just don't treat you.

That was what was revolutionary. What if we just let you live comfortably in your home and manage your pain? And this, this takes it a step further. And honestly, it's a lot more comfortable. And it's something that my mom, when she was passing away from ovarian cancer. Really wanted and the options available to her for euthanasia, which she did eventually get legally approved, were so untenable that by the time she did get [00:15:00] all the pills that she needed to take, like self-administer at home in order to euthanize

Malcolm Collins: herself.

She told 16 and she couldn't keep them down.

Simone Collins: Well, she couldn't, she couldn't even eat. Her throat had closed up from the cancer. So how was she? She couldn't swallow one pill, let alone a whole bottle of pills in fast succession. So yeah, I, I just, I think this is great. The only concern I had is, is in this trigonometry, trigonometry, trigonometry interview that this one huge anti maid advocate had, she talked about how the medication She was like

Malcolm Collins: depressed at one point and wanted to kill herself.

And that's like her core argument. And I'm like, wow.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It seems A lot of this, yeah, I mean, she's aware of some abuses of the system, and those are entirely legitimate, and it's worth having a conversation about them. And we're gonna talk

Malcolm Collins: about those.

Simone Collins: She also seems to just have a personal vendetta against the program, because they keep being like, Well, lady, why don't you just kill yourself?

And it makes her really mad. But, one of the things that she brought up that made me actually pause was that she said, That the combination of medications that were being given to people caused pulmonary edema and that they were essentially [00:16:00] drowning in their own bodies.

Malcolm Collins: So she's telling the truth but lying at the same time.

So here's what she's leaving out. I looked into this, Simone.

Simone Collins: I did too, and I'm curious to see.

Malcolm Collins: People are completely unconscious when this happens. Yeah. It is true that it is happening, but they are also completely unconscious, like anyone when they're in a knocked out state.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I had asked if, like, the propofol that causes the deep coma that is given to people after the min laz minlazolam, which is a really, really big calming and, like, anxiety reducing sedative, like, if after both those things, people have any shot of maybe experiencing these things, because, I mean, when I hear deep coma, I still think of, like, all these movies where, like, people are super

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, they are out out.

Simone Collins: Yeah. they're super out. So like, yes, it's happening, but no, they're not experiencing it. And also I had wondered like, well, why don't they just overdose people with like morphine or something? And the reason why is that's actually where you would have problems because morphine doesn't consistently [00:17:00] euthanize people when you give them really high doses, like it could backfire.

It could cause discomfort. And so, yeah, I, I. I'm not even concerned about the, the drugs in this, or anything.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so let's keep going here. So, you know, that 6. 1 percent number of deaths in Quebec could sound really high, until you consider that in the United States, 19 percent of deaths were from cancer.

And if I had terminal cancer, this is something I would probably want to use, rather than waste, and not even for me, it's not even about the pain. It's about the amount of my kids wealth that could go to them raising kids that I would spend on keeping myself comfortable as I died of cancer. Which is astronomical.

The amount of money you can spend on the last few months of life when you have cancer is astronomical. I'm talking millions of dollars.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and to your point, that's maybe even if you're not being treated. Just getting palliative care can be very tough.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's such a selfish and self centered, from my perspective, thing to do.

And we say this as people you know, on both sides of our [00:18:00] family have decided to choose the, I guess you could say, made, do it yourself made option rather than burden their families. Which is something that I personally appreciate, even though I like these people, you know, like, even though I'm fond of them, I understand the decision that they made and that they weren't going to be able to contribute to society anymore.

Now, if you, if you go here, this is where I begin to get a little worried here. Right? Just 89 practitioners were responsible for about one third of all made deaths in Canada, averaging about 60 cases each.

Simone Collins: So not quite 80 to 20, but that still makes sense. You know, a lot of these things, especially because this is kind of weird for doctors to do, especially since they've been brainwashed into like, Never, ever, ever, ever, ever let a patient die, no matter like what the circumstances. That makes sense that only a few would really understand this.

And

Malcolm Collins: yeah, but what if some are, because we know this from doctors, we know this from antinatalists, there are some just psychopaths out there [00:19:00] who want people to die, right? Like. who are actual like medical serial killers, right? And we've seen this before. Yes. So, one doctor helped more than 400 patients die.

A judge just blocked one of her cases. At 72, Dr. Ellen Wiebe devotes half her practice to medical aid in dying. It It's the last work she's prepared to give up. So in October 27th, a British Columbian judge intervened to prevent Dr. Ellen Wiebe or any other doctor from causing the death of a mentally ill Alberta woman.

Justice Simmel Cavall granted a 30 day injunction to the woman's common law partner one day before her death was scheduled to take place. place at Weebs Vancouver Clinic. A civil claim alleges Weebs approved the woman's request for maid after a single Zoom meeting and was out consulting her doctors.

Weebs declined to comment when contacted about the National Post. They did a front page piece on this by the way. This woman had a bipolar disorder by the [00:20:00] way. Then there was an incident with her at a Jewish care home in 2017. We've entered Lewis Brer home and hospital and orthodox Jewish long term care facility in Vancouver to provide made for an 83 year old cancer patient.

The action was controversial because the facility did not allow assisted deaths on its premises. We've entered knowing this policy. Again, like the fact that this is a controversy also sort of gets me. He was 83 years old. He called her and he was a cancer patient.

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. I mean,

Simone Collins: it sounds like he's being kidnapped and tortured against his will if he's not, you know, permitted to have himself be treated the way he wants.

But hospitals can sometimes feel kind of weird like that. Like, Well, you're not allowed to leave, you're not allowed to have visitors, you're not allowed to do this and that, so I, yeah, hospitals can feel kind of scary sometimes.

Malcolm Collins: Here's the next incident, it's a doctor shopping incident. In a recorded meeting, Weeb discussed a case where she provided maid to [00:21:00] a man who had been previously deemed ineligible by other doctors due to a lack of capacity to make informed decisions about his health.

She described how the man traveled to Vancouver where she picked him up from the airport and administered maid at her clinic.

Simone Collins: Wow.

Malcolm Collins: This is being given both more to veterans and to the homeless and addicts and cancer patients for perhaps even five Canadian military veterans were given the option of medically assisted dying or made by a now suspended veteran affair.

Canadian caseworker, the county's veterans minister told the house of commons committee late. Thursday. Now this to me actually suggests, because I tried to look to see if there was any evidence around veterans getting this disproportionate, I couldn't find any. And I could just find this one scandal of one person offering it to four, maybe five veterans.

And to me, what this says is no, it's, it's not targeting veterans more, but it does target the homeless more, which.

Simone Collins: I don't, I mean, I would be shocked if it didn't, because those are the people for whom [00:22:00] the. Alternative is uniquely bad if they're terminally ill, they're not going to be somewhere comfortable, you know, they're not going to be dying surrounded by family in a place that they love.

So it would make a lot more sense to choose made as an option

And I think when you hear that this is overwhelmingly done within homeless populations, you can get the impression that they're targeting like average homeless people that you would see on the street. But no, the statistics that we heard above apply also within this population. The average age of somebody who's choosing this is 77.

6 years old and 96 percent of them have a terminal illness. , and there might be a little bit of deviation within the homeless. community, but given that they make up the disproportionate amount of maid users, it can't be that much of a differentiation. , so if I am in Canada, you know, where it's freezing and I don't have a family and I'm in my 70s and I'm dealing with whatever number of chronic illnesses, , and I have no real shot of being of utility to society going forwards.

I am just a [00:23:00] net drain on society. I can really both sympathize with and respect these sorts of decisions.

when it comes to also specific sub communities seeing a lot of growth of this. I think that's also just kind of how adoption curves work. Snapchat, for example. When it was in the middle of its rise grew from one high school where it really kicked off and then through that social graph in California, it took off like wildfire.

And I think that that's how a lot of these things work, including medical procedures. It happens with anti vaxxing, for example, like certain communities to stop taking the measles vaccine or whatever. And then you have these issues of, of disease spreading really quickly within them. But I think the same happens with things like Maid where.

Once you get exposed to it, once you become culturally normalized to it, it's a lot easier for you to recommend it to a friend or decide to use it yourself. So I don't think it would necessarily be worrying, even if a lot of people in the military or some other sub community Start taking it on because like, what if there's some [00:24:00] subreddit where they're all talking about how it was really helpful to them or their friend, you know, then it's just, that's the thing spread.

Malcolm Collins: I can, I can see it spreading virally, but I think that this is why we need better counter memes to this better reasons for people to live. I mean, I think the bigger problem that we're dealing with as a society is we haven't given people a reason to live. That is compelling to them and people's core way of fighting.

That is to remove any other option from those individuals. which I think is just such a perverse way of looking at this. Why don't you give this person a reason to value their life? Why don't you construct a world or a social order or a way of living that makes them value their life? And you know, You're

Simone Collins: asking such a convenient question.

If we had the answer for that, we'd figure out how to get through AI, but we don't have an answer for that, and it's going to be a more pressing question by the month.

Malcolm Collins: It is, but I think that it's one that we have to come up with an answer to. If the answer we come up with is the AI will keep us in [00:25:00] padded rooms and force us to stay alive you know, which AI might do, right?

There's a, there's a movie about that, I think, where the AI basically quarantines everyone to their house to prevent them from dying in stupid ways. Yeah we're, interprets, you know, whatever's laws. I, I think that That's that could be what we're headed to if we take this narrow concept here

To word this another way, I think if we normalize this ultra progressive nanny state solution to people who can't find purpose in their lives, we put our entire species at risk with AI becoming as developed as it is right now. , because we may normalize these types of ideas within the AI itself, ,

Speaker 9: Move now. I'm going to service. Please remain indoors. This is for your own protection.

Please return to your home. A curf, [00:26:00] please return to your home. A

Speaker 10: curfew is in effect. Please return to your a

Speaker 8: Please remain calm.

Please refrain from going near the windows or doors.

Speaker 9: Deactivate. Commence emergency shutdown.

Speaker 8: We are attempting to avoid human losses during this transition.

Malcolm Collins: , which becomes particularly horrifying as we get better and better with life extension technology, or as AI does, and it might just be able to force people to live forever, creating basically infinite people who are forced to live in, tubes or whatever, in states where they don't want to be alive anymore.

And I think that also as a species, the question of choosing death becomes uniquely apt in an age where it seems almost inevitable that within a hundred or two hundred years, people will be able to live [00:27:00] forever if they want to. So, if people can live forever with medical technology, does that mean they have an absolute duty to within this mindset?

I mean, I think, of course not. I think that this is one of those things where, very similar to antinatalists, where all of it is downstream of their fear of making a simple choice. all of this is really downstream of a few activists who Might have made a choice that now they would have regretted making and they want everyone else to suffer for their own mental fragility

Now, I want to get to biblical stuff really quickly because I think that we can be overly narrow and how we interpret this by you know, again, taking a Sunday school version of the Bible instead of what the Bible actually says about this stuff.

And first I know like the Bible and Christian communities are clearly okay with somebody walking in to a gladiatorial arena. With lions that have been starved and not having any intention to fight back.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and that was clearly [00:28:00] yeah, they, they knew that by making themselves martyrs, they, they, they were killing themselves.

So, you know, and in

Malcolm Collins: some cases they had, they had options to get out of this. They chose, they hoped for this and we see this in their writing, their biggest fear. Was that people would misguidedly get their sentence reprieved because like, I know how to get my sentence reprieved. I'm trying to do this.

Right. And somebody can be like, well, you know, the lion isn't necessarily going to kill them. And instead I'm like, okay, well then what about types of an aliving that don't necessarily kill people? Like what about taking tons of aspirin or cutting your wrist?

That doesn't always kill someone. Right? And it's like, was the lion, well, you can also choose to fight back and maybe give yourself a shot, you know, well, you can choose to maybe fight back with the wrist slitting

And if your response is, well, in the case of the lion, their sacrifice may help other people convert or may prove some net benefit to society. Well, then what about the person who's like, well, this cancer treatment to keep me alive, as is always the case with end of life treatment, it's going to cost an astronomical amount of [00:29:00] money.

, you know, it's going to cost millions of dollars that could go to, , helping my kids get through infertility treatment or have more kids themselves .

, I want to address something that the church will tell you to try to not have to engage with the question of martyrdom. They will say, well, with martyrdom, it's different from unaliving yourself because these individuals are not seeking death. , death is just a side effect of their belief system.

And yet, we know of many acclaimed martyrs that, you know, they were seeking death. They wrote about this extensively. for example, we have Saint Ignatius of Antioch. in his letters, written while being transported to Rome for execution around 108 to 140 CE, he actively discouraged Christians from trying to prevent his martyrdom, and wrote with enthusiasm about his coming death.

Quote, Let me be food for the wild beef through whom I will reach God. I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts. End quote. So you can see he was looking forward to meeting God through [00:30:00] death, through dying to the beast, which he wanted to kill him.

Similarly, Perturba's prison diary, 203 CE, shows her having visions where she eagerly anticipates her death, seeing it as victory and glorification, rather than merely accepting it as an unfortunate consequence. ,

and we can even see famous Christians flip flopping on this, like Tertullian, who initially praised the voluntary martyrdom of Pertuba and others, but later had to argue against Christians actively seeking martyrdom during the Monist controversy, , which I think shows just how, you know, when it suits their interests, they're for it, when it doesn't suit their interests, they're against it.

This is not a hard and fast rule of any form of Christianity.

We are willing to have a conversation where I'd say, in some instances, it is not okay when you're under X ages, when you are, , X level of healthy, when you are, , with certain mental conditions, fine. I'm totally okay with being like, yeah, unaliving in those instances, not okay. , but what I am absolutely [00:31:00] fanatically against is individuals who would say unaliving in every instance is okay,

The question, before we get into the exact quotes from the Bible, for anyone who really wants to argue, no, I am absolutely against people unaliving themselves in any instance, when there is the technology to prevent it, what do you do when we develop the technology for vast life extension, let's say 500, 600 years, or maybe even permanently?

Do people have a moral duty to live that entire time period? I mean, to me, that feels like a horrifying world. And then you're like, well, no, but that's like medical technology, and then it's like, okay, so where do you, what about pulling the plug on someone? That's medical technology. What about taking antibiotics?

That's medical technology. Where do you draw the line here?

Like, to me, it seems.

Super isolated and like where this is okay and where this isn't okay in a way where I think it's pretty clear that. They're just like pulling hairs to try to make the things that are broadly in their community okay. And the things [00:32:00] that aren't not okay, but let's go into the specifics of the Bible here now.

I'm so curious

Simone Collins: because this blows my mind. I just thought that that was one of the So I'll start with

Malcolm Collins: the single strongest line I have found against unaliving.

Okay.

And I think this is actually a pretty strong line, but it is the only line I have found that is remotely strong. And then we'll go into evidence that is probably not banned.

Okay.

So we've got Deuteronomy 30, 19, 20. It is funny that most of the anti, like when people are citing lines from the Bible, they don't cite this one that common against unaliving. So it says, I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live, that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him, for he is thy life and the lengths of thy days.

Strong passage but there's two problems one if you keep in mind that in the Bible, death is often used to talk about the destruction or having your name removed [00:33:00] from the book of life, and life is often talked about in the life to come, so that doesn't necessarily mean like our life today, it could mean the life to come, but.

But then the second here, the, the purpose of your life here, it says is thy, thy seed, right? Like the, thy seed may live. So if you are spending your life in a way that increases the odds of your seed, Surviving and multiplying, which it could do. Like if I'm going to spend a million dollars on cancer treatment for myself or give that to my kids to, you know, do more IVF or do more fertility treatment or do more whatever they need you to have more kids.

I have net increased the number of humans that are alive and the number of humans that God is living. through. And therefore, even by this passage, I've done okay. So it just matters sort of what you're using in the equation is what I take this, this particular passage to mean. Now, the particular bad arguments that we see are human life was made in God's image.

Genesis 1 [00:34:00] 27. You just need to look at any of our stuff on this. Human life is being made in God's image. It's the intergenerational cycle of The word used there is an incomplete word, where they had used final words in other parts of that passage to indicate something that was done. So, for us to be being made in God's image, we need to change

If we cannot intergenerationally change, then we are in direct rebellion against this line to fear.

Death is to fear God's plan for humanity.

So I don't see that as particularly compelling. Body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 6, 19, 20.

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God, you are not your own, you are bought at a price, therefore honor God with your bodies.

It's very easy to honor God with your bodies while also understanding that on the net you might be leading to more life with a decision to take your own life. You know, all bodies [00:35:00] are God's, not just your body is God. The bodies that might be brought into the, into the future. If you don't indolently waste your family as well then you have, and this one's really bad, thou shall not kill you know, from Exodus 2013.

The problem here being. That the word used here is osh. This term is generally understood to refer to unlawful killing or murder rather than all forms of killing. If they had wanted to say not suicide, they would've used the word rag, which is for general killing which they chose not to use.

So, really,

Simone Collins: in other words, it's not, thou shall not kill, it's thou shall not murder.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, thou shalt not murder. I mean, the Bible tells people to kill people all the time. Like, you know, kill this people, kill that people, go to war. Like, it doesn't have a problem with killing.

That's

like a modern, weird interpretation that the Bible is like super clearly not about.

Then you have Job who suffers a lot and doesn't end up taking his life, and I'm like, okay, like, compelling. But then why doesn't [00:36:00] God ever make that specific point anywhere in the entire Job narrative? That seems like a really germane place to make that point, if that had been something that God wanted to make.

Simone Collins: Mm hmm. I will guess he did get quite ill at one point, didn't he? Yeah, God made him pretty, pretty sick. Yeah, but

Malcolm Collins: he never, he never said like, thank you, Job, for not killing yourself.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that's true.

Malcolm Collins: And, and this is where I think it's, it's pretty clear that this isn't against God's plan. Is there are three different instances in the Bible of somebody committing suicide, and, and not in a single one of them, anywhere in these, it could have been condemned as an action.

In none of them is it condemned as an action. And, and in most of them, they're, they're fairly like seppuku like, like somebody made a mistake and then allowed themselves to die as like, the penance for the mistake they had made to God, which actually goes to show that ending your own life can be a penance to God in some instances.

So we've got Samson. Samson was complex. He was chosen by God as a Nazirite and judge of Israel with supernatural strengths. However, [00:37:00] he was flawed, breaking his Nazirite vows, acting vengefully and being ruled by passions. Historian Judges shows both. Divine Purpose, defeating the Philistines, and personal failings, Delilah Betrayal.

His final act of destroying the Philistine temple, killing himself and enemies, is viewed by many as redemptive, despite being unaliving, since it served God's larger plan for Israel. They have Esrefetl's story. Betrayal of David.

Asrafatul joined Asbol's conspiracy against King David, turned against his former master. Family Connection. He was Bathsheba's grandfather, which may have motivated his betrayal due to David's adultery with Bathsheba years earlier. Rejected Advice. During Absalom's Rebellion, Asrafatul's counsel was not followed, leading to his realization that the result would fail.

Unaliving upon seeing his advice rejected, Asherfatl returned to his hometown of Gehel, put his affairs in order, and hanged [00:38:00] himself. Biblical significance, Asherfatl's story is often seen as a cautionary tale about the futility of worldly wisdom apart from God's guidance. Some scholars draw parallels between Asherfatl and Judas Iscariot, noting similarities in their betrayals and subsequent unalivings.

Saul, the first king of Israel, Also unli battle against the Philistines. Saul saw his army were engaged in a fierce battle with the Philistines that blah, blah blah. His sons were killed severely wounded by a Philistine archer. He requested the armor bearer sa asked his armor bearer to unlive him to avoid capture and potential torture by the Philistines.

The armor bearer's refusal the armor bearer. With afraid and refused to kill Saul, Saul's actions, Saul then took his own sword and fell on it, ending his life. Aftermath, armor bearer's death upon seeing Saul dead, his armor bearer also committed unaliving. Biblical interpretation, Chronicles 10, 13, 14, states that Saul died because of his unfaithfulness to God, and for consulting a medium instead of seeking God's guidance.

. The Bible presents Saul's [00:39:00] tragic end. Resulting from his disobedience and consequences of his actions through his kingship.

Simone Collins: But this also doesn't frame his choice in a positive light. It's framed as the loser's out.

Malcolm Collins: No, all of these are not framed in a particularly positive light, nor are they explicitly condemned.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, I guess it's just, this is what's happened to him. And there are plenty of other cases in the Bible where it's like, and then he died, and then he was killed, and then, yeah.

So, I guess bad things

Malcolm Collins: happen. Looked unfavorably on this or God punished him for this or his name was removed from the book of life for this or All very easy things to write if that was the intention, but they were not written that way and so where it gets interesting for me as a question because this is A thing is what do you do when a society will begin to break down and the number of deaths gets higher?

Because you remove this option for people What do you do as a family where one person would use up so much of the family? Well That could go to creating new humans. New [00:40:00] grandchildren who don't just have like five years left to live or a few months left to live because of cancer But like 99 years left to live because they're a new little baby Why why are you denying them the right to exist?

Maybe five of them the right to exist for one other person and I think that that's where the question becomes harder and that's where it's not often framed It's it's framed in the indulgent unaliving decisions Rather than the reality of this decision for a lot of people.

Simone Collins: Yeah, this is a lot more This is not what I was expecting, so that's really interesting.

I mean, obviously dying by whatever means is not the happiest of moments, but this also doesn't seem like it's the condemnable thing that it used to be framed as by churches, and I guess still is.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Well, and I think that people who feel this way really strongly, I think that a lot of them just haven't seen a relative die slowly and [00:41:00] know that they're dying, especially relatives who lose their sense of identity.

You know, individuals who are undergoing severe like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and stuff like this. And it was funny that the woman on trigonometry, when she was questioned on this, she just like, was such a zealot. She just doubled down, like, even if I've completely lost my sense of self, I want you to keep me in palliative care and be a drain on my family forever.

Like, it was like Like that's when I was like, Oh, so you have like no ethical backbone at all. Like you would do anything to cling to life, no matter the consequences to future potential lives.

And that's, that's what gets me, right. You know, if, if it's so funny that now when I, I'm, I'm looking at ethical things, I'm also like, and what does the Bible say?

I need to go into that. That was not something I did before I started like taking the Bible as an authoritative source.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and our culture too, more broadly is just so toxic on this. For example, that antinatalists don't. End their lives voluntarily, because they're talking about the damage that it could do to other [00:42:00] people completely misses the fact that they point out all the time.

Sometimes an additional life doesn't bring marginally that much good to the world. And maybe their life is kind of like that. Maybe the world would be better off without them. And people are just so uncomfortable. Exploring this topic, and I think it's, it's obviously very, very difficult if you're someone who could potentially get better, but when this comes to end of life, you are terminally ill, or you're no longer able to function in very basic ways.

This becomes much more of a no brainer.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and I think that we are going to enter a world where the number of people who are net drains on society is increasing and specifically what I mean is, is it like the severe elderly and stuff like that? And how are we going to deal with that? Like, I don't see another realistic solution right now.

And a lot of these people who are out there complaining about, oh you know, it's so horrible that this is happening. And I'm like, well, how [00:43:00] many kids do you have? What have you done to resolve the problem? They're like, well, one, two. It's like, okay, sister. Like, maybe You're the problem, right? Like, you're why we're in this problem.

You, you actually need to sacrifice, you actually need to do something for the next generation. And now we're at a point because so many people like you didn't make this sacrifice, didn't put in the effort that, that we are forced into hard choices. You know, we, we are on a collection of spaceships and It's become clear.

We don't have the oxygen to supply all the ships anymore. So do we let them all slowly die or do we redirect oxygen to a couple of them? And, and the people who are like, no, there's always a way it's like, maybe you got a little brainwashed by children's cartoons, because there isn't always a way.

Sometimes you need to make tough choices. And when lazy people force us into tough choices, I hate those lazy people who did that. But at the end of the day,

You don't approve. [00:44:00] Well, too bad. We're in this for the species, boys and girls.

Malcolm Collins: And I don't care that it's not fun, or it's not nice, or it makes you uncomfortable. We have to survive.

True

Simone Collins: story.

Malcolm Collins: And I, and I hate this, this ultra progressive sentiment. And I, I, it's so funny when conservatives pretend that they're not progressives. When they're just like, no, every life matters.

Equally.

It's like, well, not really. , not really.

Simone Collins: Well, by their value set, they do. I mean, they have differing definitions of what's real and what reality is and what values are.

And what I'm arguing here is, no, not even from their own value set is this true. Every life does not matter equally to any value set that I have ever heard of. People just pretend this when they can use it to make an argument or try to make you look like a monster. So to give an example here, if I put, , a family member in front of them versus a non family member and I'm like, I'm going to shoot one.

They're like, well, they shoot the non family member. Right? [00:45:00] Like obviously those lives aren't equal to them, or if I'm like, okay, I have a baby here and a 77 year old here. I'm gonna shoot one. One has to die. Which one do you choose? Every time they're gonna choose the old person.

Malcolm Collins: What I'm saying is that it is fundamentally a progressively minded sentiment. And they are pretending that it is conservative. They are trying to incept the conservative movement with their progressive nanny state ideology.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Okay, that's fair.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah, I mean, I

Simone Collins: love you too. And hopefully we have some years going in this. I'm just saying, depending on your definitions and objective function, this can absolutely be the wrong thing to do. But I think for most people's objective functions and definitions, this is the right thing to do. And we need to admit that to ourselves, even though it's not fun to think about.

Malcolm Collins: Love you.

Simone Collins: Love you too. I got a call back from the fertility clinic and I Am showing at least doubling hcg. So it's hanging on [00:46:00] there like I'm currently pregnant and I really want to hold on to this one.

So fingers crossed And I'm going in again for testing in three days and we'll see.

Malcolm Collins: Pitch a natal con?

Simone Collins: Yes. So we would love to hang out with you. If you plan on being in or near Austin for natal con, we're probably going to host some kind of base camp meetup, but you should be registered for this, this conference.

If you want to meet other pronatalists, if you enter the code Collins at checkout, you will get 10 percent off. So you should definitely do that. And we're really looking forward to see. Whoever shows up. It's it was amazing last year. So this year a lot of

Malcolm Collins: fun.

Simone Collins: It'll be even better

Speaker 12: I really love this. I want to scare some police that have been running with kids and get cut away, and give one million dollars, and get to scare some police, and tell them this is someone's birthday, that works for one hundred dollars, [00:47:00] and get to scare some police. You're going to have to do that in the future, Octavian.

Speaker 13: When you get big, make a lot of money, and then make the world a better place, and that's how you give money to the future police. Yep! So you gonna do that?

Speaker 14: Whoa, Torsten, you hit tight. Be careful there, buddy.

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