Imagine, for a moment, the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life rewritten by today’s progressive health care establishment.
A desperate George Bailey stands alone on a bridge on Christmas Eve, convinced the world would be better off without him. Clarence the angel appears — not to rescue George from his despair, but to affirm it. George, his worst fears validated, jumps. Roll credits.
There is no subsequent tour of an alternate Bedford Falls. No rallying of the community behind a good man in crisis. No heartwarming reminder of every life’s inherent worth. Only one man’s tragic decision to take his own life.
Somehow, I doubt that version would be remembered as one of the greatest films of all time. Yet it perfectly encapsulates the modern “progressive” approach to health care.
Where the purpose of medical care was once to restore health, preserve life, and above all, “do no harm,” progressive health care replaces healing with affirmation, resilience with resignation, and hope with surrender.
Experiencing gender dysphoria? The progressive approach says there’s no fixing that — that your best chance at happiness is to embrace your mental illness through irreversible medical interventions.
Whether the patient is a confused child, a frightened expectant mother, a disabled unborn child, or an elderly woman with back pain, the answer is … surrender instead of hope.
That’s what doctors told California native Chloe Cole, now 21, when she was just 12 years old. “As soon as gender was in the picture, none of my doctors or psychologists asked the real questions that they should have,” Cole told Fox News last December. “The entire focus was on my feelings and what I wanted rather than what I really needed in that moment.”
Rather than help Cole appreciate the body God gave her, those doctors affirmed her confusion, pushing her toward extreme measures with little regard for her inability to fully comprehend the consequences.
“There was nothing they could say to me that would make me understand the gravity of what I was about to go through, because I was still growing up,” Cole said. “I had very little experience in the world, and I simply would not be mature enough to be equipped to undergo such a life-changing procedure in every way.”
Now, Cole suffers lasting complications from the puberty blockers, testosterone injections, and double mastectomy she underwent as a teen. Her fertility status remains uncertain.
The Left’s aversion to genuine care is likewise evident in its approach to unplanned pregnancy. Rather than offer conflicted women the support they need to keep their babies, the progressive narrative — billed as “empowering” — tells them they are much too young, poor, weak, or helpless to be good mothers. The child, meanwhile, is treated as an obstacle to be removed. Even in the case of a wanted pregnancy, if any kind of abnormality or defect occurs, the baby transforms from a patient into a problem.
For instance, take YouTuber Jesse Ridgway and his wife, who aborted their unborn child at about 21 weeks over a fetal Down syndrome diagnosis. Ridgway defended their decision by claiming Down syndrome, a perfectly livable condition boasting a 99 percent happiness rate, is “objectively s*$%#@ from a health perspective.”
Many were rightly outraged by this flagrant case of eugenics. But Ridgway, baffled by the backlash, blasted his critics for making those who kill their own babies uncomfortable. “There is real suffering going on, and it is being done in silence and fear,” he scolded, oblivious to the irony.
Yet in no case is progressive apathy for others more obvious than in their attitude toward those struggling to maintain their will to live. Instead of offering hope or any real help to these individuals, 14 U.S. jurisdictions — nearly all controlled by Democrats — offer an easy way out in the form of medically assisted suicide.
While this practice is usually promoted as a heavily regulated last resort for those with terminal illnesses, the nonprofit Aging With Dignity notes that the reality has been quite different. The group’s recent analysis of state data found that, across America, “non-terminal conditions like lupus, complications from a fall, anorexia, and diabetes all qualified people for suicide-affirming care, and there has been an explosion of people included in the ever increasing, but cryptic designation of ‘other.'”
Thanks to other, more “progressive” nations’ embrace of what is essentially state-sanctioned homicide, we already know where this slippery slope ends. In Canada, where Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) has been legal since 2016, those with the sole underlying condition of mental illness will be eligible for this “service” starting next March.
Canada’s universal health system is perpetually plagued by underfunding, staff shortages, and long wait times. In such an environment, the depressed, elderly, disabled, or others with chronic conditions could easily be viewed as a drain on public resources. But what could possibly go wrong?
Miriam Lancaster knows. When the 84-year-old arrived at Vancouver General Hospital last year complaining of intense back pain, she was offered euthanasia as treatment.
“The first person that I remember coming to speak to me was a young lady doctor,” Lancaster told EWTN News. “The very first thing she said to me was, ‘I would like to offer you MAID.'”
What’s more, Lancaster said that just three years before, her husband had received the same unsolicited offer at the same hospital. But as practicing Catholics, “there is no way that we are going to take measures to end our life,” she said. “That is in the hands of the Lord.”
Progressives bill themselves as compassionate and caring, but their policies belie the truth. They have no interest in healing patients — just placating them.
Whether the patient is a confused child, a frightened expectant mother, a disabled unborn child, or an elderly woman with back pain, the answer is increasingly the same: affirmation instead of restoration, surrender instead of hope.
Clarence’s message to George Bailey was simple: “No man is a failure who has friends.” It was a reminder that every life holds value and is worthy of protection. That is the foundation of true compassion.
Health care worthy of the name does not affirm despair, confusion, or hopelessness. It helps people overcome them.
READ MORE from Samantha Flom:
Washington’s Abortion Pill Free-for-All Shatters Dems’ ‘Choice’ Façade
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Samantha Flom is the associate editor for Restoration News and author of Pill Pushers: How a Dark Political Agenda Made Abortion More Dangerous Than Ever.
