The West’s Growing Killing Cult
By J. Robert Smith
Glenn Beck took the bull by the horns. Beck is saving Jolene Van Alstine from making an understandable though awful decision. Beck’s act of charity is about alleviating suffering and giving hope. Everyone needs hope.
Van Alstine’s case spotlights an ongoing, dark trend in the West: the devaluing of human life. The U.S. is most certainly not exempt. The West is increasingly in the grips of a killing cult, whose champions mask terminating human life from prebirth to old age and everywhere in-between in the language of compassion and right.
Desperate, Van Alstine, a resident of Saskatchewan, Canada, applied to enter Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program. That means a physician or nurse practitioner can be enlisted to kill. Van Alstine was scheduled to be killed in January 2026.
Van Alstine requires surgery. Thanks to Beck, she’s going to get it. Her body is racked with pain. Beck’s generosity is giving her access to American surgeons. A Tampa area hospital stands ready. If successful, the surgery and treatments will improve Van Alstine’s health and quality of life.
Van Alstine is 30 years old. She has a rare condition. It’s called neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2). It’s an acutely debilitating and painful disease. She’s suffered for eight long years. Per her own report, her affliction has isolated her. Canadian healthcare has failed her. Desperation drove her to choose assisted suicide.
Canada’s bureaucrat-run healthcare is snarled with red tape. Worse, it’s resource strapped. Alternatives were denied Van Alstine.
Per The Hub, November 7:
By 2029, the compounding federal debt is forecasted to cause interest payments to surpass Ottawa’s combined transfer payments to the provinces for health care and child care. That fiscal year, the federal government projects public debt charges will hit $76.1 billion, while the Canada Health Transfer ($65 billion) and Canada-wide early learning and child care ($8.5 billion) will cost taxpayers a combined $73.5 billion — or $2.6 billion less.
Get that? Servicing national debt because of the spendthrift Trudeau and Carney governments is outstripping expenditures for medicine and related healthcare. Carney has priorities other than his citizens’ medical care, anyway. Government-run healthcare pledged ease of access, timely care, and quality service. Overall, Canada’s “Medicare” system has struck out.
Delays, long waits, and denials aren’t uncommon. That’s not just for rare conditions. Reports the Fraser Institute, December 9:
In 2025, physicians across Canada reported a median wait time of 28.6 weeks between a referral from a GP and receipt of treatment; down from 30.0 weeks in 2024.