Rebuttal to Steven Gordon: The state isn’t welcome in my deathbed
Like Steven Gordon, I spent almost five hours at the State House earlier this month listening to testimony supporting and opposing HB 254. Two of my three children who have experienced suicidal ideation testified. Supporters like Steve call this bill “the End of Life Freedom Act”, but let’s call a spade a spade, it’s Assisted Suicide.
In his Feb 10th Opinion piece, Steven lamented families with disabilities (like mine) who “emotionally testified” that HB 254 promotes suicide and will encourage those with disabilities to commit suicide.” He also stated that during the nearly five hours of testimony, the “slippery slope” of suicide was a constant refrain from those of us opposed to the bill.
Fortunately, all we need do is look to Canada, our neighbors to the north, for proof that this slippery slope is actually a cliff. An article published on Feb 18, 2025, in the National Post by Yuan Yi Zhu, a Canadian academic, is entitled “Canada’s euthanasia law was no slippery slope; it was a cliff.
February marks the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada Carter decision. This state-assisted suicide bill became known euphemistically as “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAiD). Zhu writes that at the time, the court dismissed evidence that the legalization of euthanasia inevitably led to its open-ended expansion as well as abuse against the vulnerable. The Canadian court promised no slippery slope like Belgium experienced when children and people with psychiatric disorders were dying at the hands of doctors under their disastrous euthanasia experiment.
Back to Canada. In 2016, MAiD was legalized for people whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable.” A short five years later, it was expanded to cover chronic conditions whose deaths were not imminent. At the same time, Parliament legalized euthanasia for mental illness.
Zhu chronicles several horror stories Canada’s euthanasia regime has generated — the Paralympian who was offered MAiD by a government employee when she asked for a wheelchair ramp, the disabled woman living on welfare who opted for MAiD because she could not secure adequate housing, the cancer patient who chose to kill himself because he could not access chemotherapy in time.
If I had time and the Union Leader afforded me the space, I could find similar horror stories in states like California, Oregon, and Washington.
As far as Steven Gordon’s assertion that the state has no business interfering with his personal choice of how and when he dies, I must wonder why he is asking the State Legislature to pass this bill. Isn’t it the exact opposite of what he wants? Won’t he be asking the state of NH, its legislature, governor, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and others to participate in his death? If the state isn’t welcome in his deathbed, I suggest Mr. Gordon do everything he can to oppose this bill.
We’d like to thank Lori Safford for this Op-Ed. As a reminder, authors’ opinions are their own and may not represent those of Grok Media, LLC, GraniteGrok.com, its sponsors, readers, authors, or advertisers. Submit Op-Eds to steve@granitegrok.com
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