A State Against Its Own People

What should a state encourage in its citizens? We think of a government bureaucracy as entirely separate from the moral life of those who dwell within, but that’s largely a result of how individualistic we have become. We do not live in silos of one, and are instead influenced by authority as well as community, positively or otherwise. Looking upon the modern landscape, we can see how multiple state governments encourage the worst in their citizens, and they get what they ask for.

The State of Oregon is best understood as a compass, pointing toward the end point of a lived ethos. The state’s latest suicide report shows that a record number of lethal prescriptions were dispensed in 2025. Those deaths are the result of the euphemistically named Death with Dignity Act, which has been in place in Oregon since 1994.

Oregon Health Authority keeps information on the patients who have been killed in this manner, but the data is self-reported and there is no third-party oversight to ensure that the information is accurate. Thus, if a doctor finds a case problematic or difficult to defend, he may simply not report it. The Oregon Health Authority itself pronounces, “OHA does not investigate whether patients met the DWDA criteria, nor how their diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment options were determined.” Nobody seems to care.

As that death toll climbs, Oregon is embroiled in a legal battle over its mandate that employers must provide health insurance that covers abortion (even if that employer is explicitly pro-life). On both ends of life, the state encouragement is towards termination.

While it is true that such deaths in places like Oregon have been made easier, we often pretend a false truth when we discuss assisted suicide. We act as if suicide were not always an option (in the material sense) for most of those with terminal or difficult illnesses. Methods of suicide have always been available, just not legally so. The current movement is about forcing societal acceptance and approval of what has always been derided in Christian societies. It is about mandating a social nod for what should always be lamented.

All of this raises the question: What is the role of the state in regards to its citizens? Some argue that it is merely in defense of people’s safety. If so, Oregon could already be said to be failing that minimal standard. But what we actually see is the state promoting a particular ideology. For it to do so is not really abnormal—that is what we have always seen throughout history. Because the person is political, social, and religious by nature, so are the organizations that he creates.

Oregon’s particular ideological slant is to see its citizens as burdensome, and to push them toward making choices that are counter to their continuation. Whether it is with the sick who may be nearing the end of their lives (we never really know) or with the young who are inherently reliant upon others, the state promotes an answer. It’s a coldly pragmatic reduction of man’s worth.

Tragically, it’s a worldview that’s spreading. It’s proliferating amongst the most vulnerable and those who should be caring for them. It’s expanding to those who were taught to provide healthcare. If doctors understood medicine as such, they would not partake in this monstrosity at all, but they do. Five percent of the deaths in Canada are now via state-assisted suicide. Those who follow the news headlines have been flooded with stories of Canadians who found it much easier to access MAiD than actual medical care.

In these cases, we get a sense of what a state wants of its citizens by what it makes easier. A properly ordered government would be geared towards helping its citizens to reach for the good. It would understand that it should not only prevent the hindrance of those living a moral life, but that it should encourage living morally by its policies, and that it should discourage the worst decisions by its laws. In a certain sense, it thereby helps citizens to both live a good life and reach Heaven.

There ought to be grief over the fact that we have moved so far away from that ideal that most people cannot articulate what is wrong with a state that “lets people do what they want,” which is the callous labeling we have given to such gross moral indifference. They can not mourn what they cannot remember ever being true, and they do not grieve for those who have been told explicitly or implicitly that the best option for all of us is that they end their lives.

We should weep for those who chose premature death so quickly because the societal bonds that ought to have provided a natural longing for life have already been severed, for those whose lives were reduced to financial calculations, and for those maturing in a society that can no longer defend its own continuation.