FROM CBN NEWS
Eight years into a fight for her life, conservative US talk radio host Glenn Beck is stepping in to help Jolene Van Alstine save her life.
Beck, who hosts a three-hour radio show every weekday, told CBN News he learned about Ms. Van Alstine’s story live on the air from his co-host, Stu Burguiere, who asked if he’d heard about her case.
The popular talkback host said his offer to fund her treatment at an American hospital “just kind of came out of me.”
The Saskatchewan native has for nearly a decade battled a diagnosis with normocalcemic primary hyperparathyroidism, a rare — but treatable — parathyroid disease causing extreme bone pain, nausea, and vomiting.
CANADIAN WOMAN TRAPPED IN A SINISTER CATCH-22
Now, all these years in, Ms. Van Alstine has been trapped in a sinister and farcical Catch-22.
In late November, she visited the provincial legislature, where she pleaded for assistance to undergo surgery to remove her parathyroid gland, the treatment for her particular diagnosis.
Government health authorities gave her another option instead: assisted suicide.
That’s because there are no surgeons in Saskatchewan able to perform the procedure she needs.
NO SURGEONS, NO SPECIALISTS TO REFER HER TO ANOTHER PROVINCE
Ms. Van Alstine said she would need to be referred to a practitioner outside of the province.
But she can’t obtain a referral for such a surgeon without first meeting with an endocrinologist in Saskatchewan.
But it seems no endocrinologist in the province is willing to accept her as a new patient.
PAIN SO ACUTE, WOMAN APPLIES FOR ASSISTED SUICIDE
In the meantime, her pain has become so consuming and unbearable that she applied for Canada’s MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) program, for which she was seemingly swiftly approved.
She is scheduled to see a provider next month.
“My friends have stopped visiting me,” she said in November.
“I’m isolated. I’ve been alone, lying on the couch for eight years, sick and curled up in a ball, pushing for the day to end.”
“I go to bed at six at night because I can’t stand to be awake anymore.”
“AN IMPOSSIBLY UNFAIR CHOICE”
Ms. Van Alstine and her husband, Miles Sundeen, have been quickly losing hope after years of fighting.
They have been close to the point of giving up, amidst an impossibly unfair choice:
Continue to suffer indefinitely with no path to treatment — or end your life.
“IT’S COERCION WITH A FRIENDLY TONE”
Kelsi Sheren, a combat veteran and euthanasia prevention advocate, has pointed out the options placed before Jolene Van Alstine hardly constitute a “choice.”
“Choice is only real when the alternatives are viable,” she said of the Van Alstine case.
“If your options are slow agony or assisted death, that’s not autonomy. It’s coercion with a friendly tone.”
Jolene before she became ill
NEW HOPE FOR JOLENE
Glenn Beck has told Ms. Van Alstine to start thinking about packing her bags and heading to Florida for life-saving surgery.
“He has offered to fly me in a private jet and said they will figure out with the doctors the cost of the surgery,” she told the Toronto Sun Thursday, adding she is “so appreciative” of Beck’s generosity and concern.
“If there is any surgeon in America who can do this, I’ll pay for this patient to come down here for treatment,” the radio host posted after Jolene’s story proliferated across social media.
“THIS is the reality of “compassionate” progressive healthcare,” he added.
He also said he had been in touch with President Trump’s office over an exemption for Jolene’s lack of a passport.
“WHY AREN’T CANADIANS STANDING UP FOR LIFE”
Glenn Beck is gobsmacked by the case.
“Canada must END this insanity and Americans can NEVER let it spread here,” he posted.
“How do you let a person die?” he asked rhetorically.
“How do the Canadians — how are they viewing this? How are they not standing up themselves and saying, ‘That’s unacceptable. She doesn’t have to die?‘”
He added the West has “become this Malthusian society that puts no value on human life, and we’re going along with it because there’s no meaning to life anymore.”
“CHOOSE LIFE IS THE MOST SACRED PRINCIPLE OF WESTERN CULTURE”
He went on to reference the Old Testament passage of Deuteronomy 30:19, when the Israelites were standing at the border of the Promised Land and the Lord said through Moses:
Today, I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses.
Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make.
Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live (NLT).
“We’re here because we’ve lost what the Lord said to the Jewish people when they first entered the Promised Land: Choose life,” the radio host said.
He added it is the “most sacred” principle of Western culture.
RADIO HOST URGES AMERICANS TO STAND AGAINST ASSISTED SUICIDE LAWS
As it stands right now, medically-assisted suicide is legal in 11 US states and the District of Columbia.
The states that have legalised it are California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and Vermont, with Delaware joining the list in January.
lliinois is currently considering legislation to permit mentally capable, terminally ill adults with a prognosis of six months or less to request a prescription for life-ending medication.
“It can’t happen, it can’t happen,” Glenn Beck said emphatically, specifically referring to the Illinois legislation.
He urged Americans to band together to stand up against laws like these.
The post “Pressured Into Assisted Suicide”: A Canadian Story appeared first on Vision Christian Media.