The myth that legal assisted suicide is about terminal illness is becoming harder to swallow.

Evidence can be found in a recent survey of doctors, published in the Journal of Cutaneous Oncology, which asked doctors this question: “In addition to adults with terminal illnesses, [which] other groups of patients who should be MAID eligible?”

The answers are disturbing. From the survey:

• Adults with intractable psychiatric conditions: 30%
• Children with terminal conditions: 45%
• Adults with intractable chronic pain: 55%
• Adults with late stage dementia: 70%
• Adults in persistent vegetative state: 80%

Majorities of doctors surveyed answered that they would be willing to be present when the deed is done. Here’s the question: “If it were available (or is available), what is your willingness to be present when patients took MAID drugs?” Again, disturbing results, with 61% either probably or definitely, yes:

• Definitely not: 6%
• Probably not: 33%
• Probably yes: 39%
• Definitely yes: 22%

That’s only a hop, skip, and a jump to willingness to do the deed. And no doctors would definitely refuse to “refer for MAID.”

This survey should terrify anyone who believes in Hippocratic medical values. And it illustrates the impact that constant boosting of assisted suicide in the media and popular culture, utilitarian bioethics training in medicine, and the corrupting cultural paradigm shift in which many believe eliminating suffering should be the prime directive of society, has had on the professional sector that should be most protective of vulnerable patients.

It should be noted that the push is already on to expand eligibility beyond the dying. That is the plan, you know, just as happened in other countries.  This survey is but one example of the softening of the ground. Also, the California bill filed but not passed this year that would have opened doctor-prescribed death way beyond the terminally ill.

Indeed, that is the debate we should be having — whether euthanasia should be available to broad categories of suffering people — not the phony-baloney dishonest pretense that assisted suicide/euthanasia is meant over the long haul to be a tightly restricted practice reserved for the dying.

There will be consequences. If this drift continues, we will one dark day, end up like Canada, where more than 15,000 patients were killed by doctors in 2023, in a milieu in which cancer patients who couldn’t obtain proper oncology care were euthanized, and where people with disabilities report being pressured by medical personnel and social workers into “choosing” death.

Those with eyes to see, let them see.

Cross-posted at National Review.