"Ain't It Awful?!"

"Ain't it awful?"

A decade or more has passed since someone first introduced me to the phrase “Ain’t it awful?” We can say, "Ain't it awful?" when talking about what is happening in the church, in schools, in our town, in our world. People don't generally use these precise words, but the phrase is useful to evaluate the words they do use. They are sharing news that shocks and offends them and would like others to agree that what is happening is terrible. A surprising number of people seem attracted to terrible news and almost enjoy calling attention to it. This opens up a market for alarming "clickbait" headlines.

A few days ago, a Facebook friend shared a post containing a screenshot from a Daily Wire article. Among other things, my friend said, "It's so scary that this is actually real life!!" That seems pretty close to saying, "Ain't it awful?" Two other friends commented on her post, agreeing that what is happening is just plain awful.

The shared post

I cautiously clicked on the shared post. The author was a self-described "health activist" with 257,000 followers on Facebook. Her bio says she is a "speaker of truth you don't want to hear but desperately need to know." I scrolled through her posts. They offered alarming news. Her reward for sharing that news is clicks, comments, and many followers. I was now a new set of eyes on her content thanks to my Facebook friend bringing her post to my attention.

Like I said, this activist shared a screenshot of a Daily Wire article. It did not include a link. What we could see was the headline: "Movement Barrels Forward to Euthanize 12 Year Old Children in Canada." There was smaller print about how experts say this validates the "slippery slope" argument.

My first thought was: 12-year-old children, specifically? All of them? If not, how many? Who gets to choose? What if there are 13-year-olds causing trouble in Canada? Or rebellious 16-year-olds? Why is Canada fixated on euthanizing 12-year-olds? Will they need to close their high schools in a few years for lack of students?

The Daily Wire Article

It was time to hunt down the article behind the headline. For that, I needed a search engine. Copying the exact headline into Google quickly led me to the article. I discovered I could read up to seven articles before I hit the paywall at The Daily Wire. I truly appreciate that access.

Click... The Daily Wire gets credit for a hit on Google. And I am offered other clickbait.

Click... The Daily Wire gets a new visitor. And I am offered other clickbait.

Click... The author of the article gets another view. My friend and the "health activist" have delivered one more set of eyes to these internet content providers.

And what did I find? This: "Advocates for assisted suicide in Canada, where it's been legal for just under a decade, are pushing to expand the practice to children." Aha! 12 is the minimum age these advocates are proposing, not the target age. And the subject here is "assisted suicide," not "euthanasia." (Both end in death; the difference is in who makes the choice.)

How many are advocating for lowering the age limit for assisted suicide? The article doesn't say. It zeroes in on one group known as DWDC -- Dying with Dignity in Canada. The article doesn't tell me how large that one group is nor how many of those involved in the group have signed on to this proposal to lower the minimum age for assisted suicide. Nor does it identify anyone outside the group as advocating for this change.

The author of the article goes on: "Experts say the advocacy shows there was merit to the 'slippery slope' argument made against the law from the outset."

What experts? How many experts are saying this? The author of the article quotes one. Extensively. I can't tell from the article if anyone else made the "slippery slope" argument a decade ago and is now saying, “I told you so!”

So what do we have here?

After investing way too much time, here is what I know:

1. Euthanasia is legal in Canada. And several other countries. You and I may not approve of that fact. The citizens of those countries are probably unconcerned about our opinions. Either they are monsters who are fine with their weakest and most vulnerable citizens simply being killed off or this topic is more complex than we can comprehend from this one clickbait article. Maybe more research would reveal that Canadians are less heartless than they appear at first glance.

2. At least a few outspoken people in Canada think "mature minors" should have the option of assisted suicide within a set of guidelines. You and I may think that's an awful idea, that there is no world in which a minor (or anyone else, for that matter) has clear enough vision to choose death over life, regardless of how much pain they suffer. (And even if there were, how would authorities assess someone's maturity level?)

We are allowed to hold that opinion. As far as we know from this article, the vast majority of Canadians agree with us. It is only the scary headline and the concern of the author and the one expert she interviewed that implies anything different. There is no mention at all in the actual article of these advocates making any headway in pushing through their agenda.

Is this thus-far-unsuccessful push to expand the current assisted-suicide guidelines something we "don't want to hear, but desperately need to know," in the words of our health activist friend? As Americans unfamiliar with the history and complexity of life-and-death discussions in Canada, do we need to weigh in on this?

3. Scary headlines get clicks. Clicks pay. They keep digital magazines solvent. They generate more assignments for authors. They give "activists" more traffic. More searches, shares, clicks, and followers lead to more revenue. That may be the truly awful thing going on here. People who make money off our alarm are exposing us to an "awful" world that does not actually exist -- at least not yet. Those who are advocating for the rights of minors experiencing severe suffering to choose death have n    ow had their opinions amplified by "ain't it awful" sharing. You and I have been tricked into giving a platform to voices and opinions we find offensive!

Ain't it awful?

Are there awful things happening in our world? Yes! Do we "desperately need to know" about those awful things? Sometimes. If we care about the lives of 12-year-old children, we need to be aware that in-school fatalities in the U.S. are awful, much worse than in other countries. We need to be figure out why the problem is so much worse here and look for ways to make our public schools a place parents can be reasonably confident their children will find safety and value. Sharing the awful news about school fatalities in the U.S. with care and accuracy might prompt people to take action to reduce those statistics.

What we don’t need is to drive traffic to sites that exaggerate and sensationalize bad news or amplify the voices of a few as though they represent an entire population. Can we work on toning down sensationalism rather than spreading it? If we don't have the time or inclination to dig deeper into alarming stories to find the facts behind them, can we just walk away?