[HN Gopher] Canada euthanasia now accounts for nearly one in 20 ...
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Canada euthanasia now accounts for nearly one in 20 deaths
Author : vinni2
Score : 249 points
Date : 2024-12-12 06:23 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| A "foreseeable" natural death must also be "forefeelable". I'm
| glad these people don't have to live through that painful and
| pointless decline stage.
| tptacek wrote:
| "Nearly all of those who requested assisted dying - around 96% -
| had a foreseeable natural death. The remaining 4% were granted
| euthanasia due to having a long-term chronic illness and where a
| natural death was not imminent".
|
| This is basically clickbait; the law is changing how people die
| of terminal conditions, but only a tiny fraction of those are
| deaths that really trace to the new law.
| defrost wrote:
| The corollary to the article is that almost all deaths in
| Canada result from severe or chronic medical conditions .. and
| now 5% of those cases are resolved via voluntary euthanasia.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| They consider homelessness a chronic medical condition.
| raducu wrote:
| > and now 5% of those cases are resolved via voluntary
| euthanasia.
|
| The corollary is that like with other "sensitive" issues
| we've gone from "acceptance at the table" to normative to
| "you be damned/canceled if not support our 30 days of
| diversity celebration" and we're rightly seeing pushback.
|
| A strong argument for euthanasia always was that it would be
| exceedingly rare, but 5% of all deaths is not exceedingly
| rare.
| mindslight wrote:
| >> _The corollary to the article is that almost all deaths
| in Canada result from severe or chronic medical conditions
| .. and now 5% of those cases are resolved via voluntary
| euthanasia._
|
| > _A strong argument for euthanasia always was that it
| would be exceedingly rare, but 5% of all deaths is not
| exceedingly rare._
|
| You talked right past the actual point being made, to beat
| a straw man instead. Being downvoted or shunned for not
| actually engaging with a topic yet condemning it anyway is
| not equivalent to being canceled.
|
| And as far as the overall culture war reprise dynamic, I
| don't see much difference in having to placate the egos of
| HR drones talking about diversity and the previous culture
| of having to placate the egos of traditional business
| bureaucrats waxing poetically about the virtues of mega
| golf or spending money on a boat. Either way you just
| smile, nod, and fit in, or you forge your own way outside
| of the pop culture power structure.
| raducu wrote:
| > You talked right past the actual point being made, to
| beat a straw man instead
|
| Your corolary, to me sounded like "It's not shocking at
| all that 5% of all deaths are euthanasia, it's simply the
| intended/logical outcome".
|
| Maybe I created a straw man. For me the arguments,
| narative, claimed outcome, scope, implications and all
| that for allowing something like euthanasia matter a lot.
|
| I hope we won't push back in horror at this measure like
| we did with other measures, because at that point the
| story could easily reach nazi Germany eugenics horror
| levels
| Maxious wrote:
| > Palliative care and end-of-life care are excellent in
| Australia. They help the vast majority of people to die without
| excessive pain and suffering.
|
| > However, in a small number of cases palliative care cannot
| relieve all suffering. Palliative Care Australia estimates this
| to happen to around 4% of people
|
| So 4% would be exactly the amount of people this is relevant
| for
| snehk wrote:
| You cannot trust this article. Just check out the cases where
| they basically tell poor people that euthanasia is always an
| option. It's horrible. If they don't talk about where the
| program goes horribly wrong, we shouldn't listen to them when
| they talk about the supposed positives.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| I don't think you need to try very hard to convince a
| terminally-ill patient in constant agony to end it, poor or
| not.
|
| My 93 year old grandmother has COPD and she wants to end her
| life but cannot. She is NOT poor.
|
| In her state in the US, a bipartisan bill was introduced to
| allow for euthanasia but the religious extremists killed it.
|
| She coughs so badly, even on oxygen with frequent albuterol
| treatments, that she is constantly fracturing her ribs and
| spine and going on regimens of narcotics to keep the pain
| down to bearable levels-- which cause unending constipation
| and generally scramble her brain.
|
| Can't move, can't talk, can't breathe, can't sit without
| pain, can't even shit.
|
| Can't die either.
| lolc wrote:
| Sounds horrible having to live through that.
|
| Out of curiosity, because I assume you've discussed these
| questions: If she refused treatment except for opiates,
| would that allow her to die faster?
| snakeyjake wrote:
| If she came off of oxygen and albuterol, she would be
| dead within a day or two or three.
|
| It would be an agonizing death, worse than her current
| situation.
|
| So instead of drinking something and peacefully going to
| sleep one last time she has to slowly degrade until the
| machinery of the healthcare system sees fit to give her a
| dosage of morphine large enough.
|
| That's the shittiest part of all of this, nearly 100% of
| all hospice deaths are medically assisted already.
| Personnel just keep upping the morphine as the gurgling
| increases in order to make it stop because the gurgling
| is "pain".
|
| Eventually the doses get so high that literally every
| single person on Earth who knows what morphine is knows,
| irrefutably, that the morphine killed the patient.
|
| But nobody calls it that. You can't call it that. You
| "managed the symptoms".
|
| The only thing MAID does is speed up the clock.
| defrost wrote:
| Canada has, to the best of my knowledge, a single documented
| instance of a single case worker who suggested MAID to
| perhaps as many as five veterens.
|
| Not one was talked into euthanasia, complaints were made,
| oversight is strong, the case worker dismissed, further
| guardrails added, and even had any of the veterens chased up
| on the MAID suggestion there were secondary layers in place
| that required interviews with _other_ medical professionals.
|
| This HN thread already has several links to the same case
| (eg: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-
| assisted... and https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-
| maid-rcmp-investig...) it's well publicised.
| bleakenthusiasm wrote:
| I think that's the point? The title is grabbing for attention,
| but the point of laws to choose assisted dying is basically
| always that people with terminal conditions often are in such
| pain that they choose a peaceful death over extending the pain.
|
| You can read this title in an alarming way or just the same in
| a way that says "the law is working and people actually want
| this option".
| aurizon wrote:
| This debate seems clouded with control aspects rooted in various
| religious scams larded with specious 'ethical' aspects. In
| essence, in Canada, a person who has an intractable terminal
| illness that will subject them to increasing pain beyond
| conscious pain relief. (coma can relieve pain at the cost of
| awareness, and this is what many patients choose). There is also
| loss of mind, de-mentia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dementia),
| so if a person has lost his mind and has no pain, the system will
| support the living husk as long as their insurance costs get
| paid. Many poor at home people have their senior parents/ill die
| unmedicated and alone, either in an end case coma/quietus or an
| act of will death (gun/poison/Russian window). Many people of
| sound mind, with one of the various dementias, choose an act of
| will - the wonderful humor of Robin Williams comes to mind when
| they face this bleak lack of any future.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Williams So he was forced to
| self hang - how better it would have been for him to have had a
| stress free exit if his own will.
|
| In my case, in 2018 my wife was diagnosed with cervical cancer,
| and was advanced when found - also resisted radiation and chemo-
| therapy, and soon she was in palliative care. This was prior to
| the euthanasia law, and she reached the point where there were no
| conscious pain relief medications that worked. This left unfed
| comatose pain relief = death after glucose decline after 5-10
| days = what she chose. We said our farewells, and our minds,
| after ~50 years, never met again, and she was made comatose... So
| I agree fully with the intent as well as the ethical aspects and
| fully disavow to any one the so-called religious right as some
| fake higher power = that is all religion is after all!!
| 14 wrote:
| Very sorry about your wife. I think MAID is great, not perfect
| and going to have some kinks but it means well and hopefully
| those who want it can access it.
| jbm wrote:
| I find it overall very unnerving how quiet this is and how the
| Canadian press never really finds issues with this.
|
| I often saw Japanese media moving lock-step with the police (in
| terms of vocabulary to use for certain crimes, how to report
| certain issues), and thought it was creepy as hell. However, the
| complete lack of questioning of the purpose behind a sudden
| legalization of euthanasia (in a country with public healthcare
| and an inherent potential conflict of interest), and the entire
| concept of having "experts" sign off on it without any legal
| overview is creepy.
|
| Even using "medicalized" terms like MAID instead of euthanasia is
| unnerving to me.
|
| Put in another way, given how hard it is for people to see
| doctors, I wonder how much worse it would be without MAID? As it
| would clearly be worse, is this a mere sanitized form of cost
| cutting to deal with growing medical costs associated with
| treating the aging population?
| Dalewyn wrote:
| A person can't choose for himself when or even if to come into
| existence in this world.
|
| In an era when human rights are considered sacred above all, it
| is hypocritical to me that a person can't decide for himself
| when he wants to quit.
| fatbird wrote:
| Your whole comment frames MAID as something the gov't does to
| patients, not something patients choose as a better option than
| spending 6-12 months in agony with only one possible outcome.
|
| MAID isn't a cost cutting measure. The cost of palliative care
| for the terminally ill is trivial.
|
| It's not a loud issue in Canada because we've had decades of
| grappling with this (there's nothing sudden about it: google
| "Robert Latimer") and come to a humane solution: the near-term
| terminally ill can choose MAID, and a small number of long-term
| terminally ill can also choose it.
|
| Without MAID, you'd have the same number of deaths, they'd just
| be medicated into insensibility for the last few months instead
| of making a conscious choice about it.
|
| There's a legitimate fear in Canada about the misuse or abuse
| of MAID, especially amongst the disabled community (again,
| google "Robert Latimer"). But we've found zero evidence since
| its introduction of its abuse, of its application as a cost-
| cutting measure, of it being forced on people.
|
| You shouldn't take the fact that something is working as
| designed, as sinister.
| logicchains wrote:
| >Your whole comment frames MAID as something the gov't does
| to patients, not something patients choose as a better option
| than spending 6-12 months in agony with only one possible
| outcome.
|
| It is something the government (or people working for it)
| have tried to push onto patients:
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-maid-rcmp-
| investig... .
| amatecha wrote:
| Yeah, I think it's fair to be cautious about the topic and
| keep a close eye on the employment of the MAID process.
| It's definitely one of those things that warrants a lot of
| oversight IMO, lest the line between mercy and manslaughter
| be crossed by too much "suggestion" or "help". Not that I
| am especially well-versed on the subject - just my overall
| feeling on it.
| fatbird wrote:
| "a now-suspended Veterans Affairs Canada caseworker....
| which has now uncovered a total of four cases where
| veterans were allegedly offered MAID -- all apparently by
| the same caseworker".
|
| One person. Not the gov't, not many gov't employees. One
| person who presented the option overzealously or
| inappropriately, leading to four people feeling pressured,
| out of, IIRC, 45,000 people annually choosing MAID.
| cwillu wrote:
| Given that 1 in 4 people die from cancer, I'm surprised the
| number is so low.
| spiralganglion wrote:
| I've felt since I was young that I'd like to choose when and
| how I will die. I'm perfectly comfortable with the thought. I'm
| in my 30s and have a lovely life and family. I'm in no rush to
| end things. But when I'm old and the scales tip, I'd like to be
| the one to decide that it's time. I might not ever get there,
| but I want the option.
| tail_exchange wrote:
| Amen. I want the option to leave gracefully and in peace, if
| a time comes where I cannot perform my basic needs by myself.
| I never chose when and how I would be brought into this
| world, so I think it's fair that I can choose when and how to
| leave.
|
| Will I actually do it? That's irrelevant. I may decide to
| live and fight as much as possible, and that's fine, but I
| want the option.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I've been hearing young and healthy people say this for my
| entire, fairly long, life. But I have never personally known
| an elderly or disabled person to kill themselves over it. If
| you find life worth living despite its hardships now, it's
| likely that you always will even as those hardships increase.
| sunaookami wrote:
| Mainstream media globally shifted from critizing governments to
| being their mouthpiece so absolutely no surprises here.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| Do you know anyone who took the MAiD way out? Because once you
| know someone going through the pain, it changes one's
| perspective. I would never want my loved one, nor me to go
| through the agony of hell, if there's a more humane way of
| going through this experience.
| ben30 wrote:
| Fifteen years ago, flying into Vancouver, a local told me
| charities would give homeless people one-way bus tickets there
| from colder regions of Canada to prevent winter deaths. No return
| tickets in spring. Calls into question what we consider
| "charitable" when the solution is just moving vulnerable people
| elsewhere.
|
| Worrying parallel: will euthanasia become another "solution" for
| those who can't afford proper care and treatment? Moving homeless
| people to warmer cities and offering euthanasia to those who
| can't afford treatment both avoid fixing the underlying problems.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| "Those who can't afford treatment"
|
| That's a USA problem.
| rjrdi38dbbdb wrote:
| It's fairly common for governments to provide a basic level
| of care for free or heavily subsidized, but not cover more
| expensive treatments. It's certainly not exclusive to the US.
| pavlov wrote:
| At least in Europe and the Nordic systems I have experience
| with, that typically applies to the very expensive novel
| treatments. There are gene therapies which can cost $2-3
| million per patient and those aren't covered by any public
| healthcare system, AFAIK.
|
| But it's not like there is some kind of upper limit on
| coverage. If you have cancer, you will get treatment
| regardless of how much your care has already cost.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| It depends. At some point often it switches to palliative
| care, rather than treatment. That point is _not_ "there's
| literally nothing else we can try", it's "the remaining
| options are inadequately proven, too expensive, high
| risk, or not effective enough (won't extend life by long
| enough or improve quality of life enough)".
|
| Every single one of those criteria is subjective, which
| is why you see these fundraising campaigns for kids with
| cancer to go and a get a multimillion dollar treatment in
| the US, because as a parent, accepting that there's more
| you COULD do if you just don't give up is hard.
| rjrdi38dbbdb wrote:
| In most of the places I've been in SE Asia and South
| America, there are separate government hospitals that are
| the only affordable option for the poor. If you have
| cancer, they're not going to do much for you.
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| My experience with advanced cancer is that it is not. I
| routinely see people from the UK and Canada raising funds for
| legitimate treatments my insurance will cover because their
| governments won't. To be fair, those treatments are paid for
| by the government in Nordic countries and France, so it isn't
| universal that governments fail their sickest when treatments
| get expensive.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| There is ultimately a monetary value of extended life.
|
| In single payer systems, that's determined by a body whose
| responsibility is to provide the most effective healthcare
| to all its citizens given a limited budget.
|
| In the US, the monetary value of extending your life is
| proportional to the amount of money you spend on your
| health insurance (and appropriate actuarial tables).
|
| Both systems have flaws.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| Both systems have flaws? True, but it's a false
| equivalence. There's a reason why there's only one
| country in the world where insurance company CEO's have
| to hire security to walk around in public.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| Not really. At the end of the day, in both systems, the
| person paying for the healthcare decides what healthcare
| options are available to the patient. In the US, the
| patient themselves (or their insurer) is paying.
|
| In other countries, it's often the health service itself
| that is paying.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I believe the single payer system is
| infinitely better, but for a small number of people, it
| will lead to worse healthcare outcomes.
| DennisP wrote:
| It's not "both" systems, it's at least four. Canada is
| private doctors, public insurance. In the UK, the public
| system includes the doctors as well. France is not
| single-payer but has a system somewhat similar to the
| ACA, with private but nonprofit insurance, an effective
| mandate, a national price list for health services, and a
| prohibition of claim denials for anything on the list.
|
| A great book comparing eight national systems in _The
| Healing of America_ by T.R. Reid. It references stats
| showing the French-style systems get the highest quality
| results, with reasonable cost. Japan and Germany have
| similar systems.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| Exceptions don't make the rule.
| robocat wrote:
| That's a normal fact of life.
|
| The underlying cause is that there is an almost infinite
| demand for medical costs - well beyond the economic capacity
| of any country.
|
| Unfortunately facts are difficult, and politicians can't fix
| the facts regardless of how much they tax everybody.
| spiderfarmer wrote:
| In The Netherlands you can get cancer treatment even if
| you're homeless. And I don't mind paying extra insurance
| costs if it means I'm not running into inhumane and
| desperate go fund me campaigns everywhere I go.
| robocat wrote:
| Same in New Zealand.
|
| But our public health system has to use a variety of
| techniques to limit the total healthcare expenses - such
| as waiting lists. Drug budgets are restricted which means
| that many expensive anti-cancer drugs are not available
| to the public.
|
| Would you be happy to pay 100% of your income in taxes?
| That is the logical outcome of ever-increasing healthcare
| and nursing costs. Some wealth tax suggestions here in NZ
| approach 100% taxation over a lifetime (2% of wealth per
| year certainly crimps a 4% drawdown on retirement
| savings).
| ericmcer wrote:
| I wouldn't mind paying into it if there was some kind of
| balance.
|
| If we broke healthcare spending down by person a small
| percentage of the population is probably consuming a huge
| percentage of healthcare. The average person just goes to
| the doctor once or twice a year and has a few large
| surgeries during their lifetime.
|
| I would be ok with that if there was some kind of
| guarantee for those of us who didn't abuse the system and
| did our best to manage our own health. If I haven't gone
| to the doctor for 2 years and I need to wait 3 months to
| get an appointment that doesn't feel right.
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| At the risk of sounding sarcastic: the small percentage
| of the population consuming a huge percentage of
| healthcare is the older segment, and those with several
| comorbidities.
|
| Live healthy, live long, die fast.
|
| Live unhealthy, live short, die slow.
|
| Throw in accidents and unexpected life events and boom,
| you can transistion from health to unhealthy quickly.
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| In Canada, while the hospital care is covered, the additional
| supplies and treatment are often paid for by the patient.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cancer-costs-report-1.7404064
|
| "During more than two years of treatment, which included
| surgery to remove part of the colon as well as 12 rounds of
| chemotherapy, Percoco paid more than $4,000 out of pocket for
| prescription drugs, including medications to cope with the
| side-effects and complications. On top of that, there were
| costs for colostomy bags, which she had to restock every four
| days, bandages, physiotherapy sessions and osteopathic
| consultations, as well as travel and parking."
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > will euthanasia become another "solution" for those who can't
| afford proper care and treatment?
|
| This is all but guaranteed to happen to some extent; after all,
| criminals exist who killed people, so a legalised form of that
| will be used at least once in the history of Canada. I guess
| the question is more: will this become more normal than
| would've been preferable, but in 20 years will just be one of
| those facts of life? Possibly? Certainly that possibility was
| the main objection to MAID.
| Iulioh wrote:
| Yes but undirectly.
|
| -Can't afford therapy for curable or mitigable disease
|
| -Let it worsen
|
| -Death is the only charitable option as a cure is now
| impossible and life is miserable
| eru wrote:
| I'm fairly sure a lot of conditions are incurable for you or
| me, but curable for billionaires.
|
| Does that mean that the tax payer will have to spend billions
| on every human?
| somerandomqaguy wrote:
| It's charitable. Cold snaps in Prairies can pretty easily hit
| -35, dropping down to -55 with windchill. You'll get frostbite
| on exposed skin in 2 minutes at those temperatures.
|
| Most homeless will either take stay in one of the shelters
| available in the cities, or sneak onto the many freight trains
| heading towards the cities with milder climates when it starts
| getting cold. They'll head back when it starts to warm up
| again. A bus ticket is just enables the journey to be a lot
| more comfortable.
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| Charitable! Hah.
|
| The process was operated more as a "don't provide shelters
| for these lazy bums, send them elsewhere."
|
| https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2001/12/can-d22.html
|
| "In a 16-month period in 1993-94, the province's welfare
| rolls were cut almost in half. One tactic used was to offer
| recipients a one-way bus ticket to leave Alberta."
| tivert wrote:
| > Worrying parallel: will euthanasia become another "solution"
| for those who can't afford proper care and treatment? Moving
| homeless people to warmer cities and offering euthanasia to
| those who can't afford treatment both avoid fixing the
| underlying problems.
|
| Almost certainly. IIRC, in Canada there have already been cases
| where people got euthanasia mainly because their disability
| payments were insufficient.
| bookaway wrote:
| I'm sure someone will try to frame it as a Catch 22: "If we
| knew for sure they would choose suicide if they didn't get
| the help they requested, we would prioritize them over non-
| suicidal applicants. But the only way we would know if they
| would actually choose suicide is if they actually committed
| to voluntary euthanasia".
|
| ...
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| No, there haven't been such cases, and no, people are not
| getting MAiD in Canada because they can't afford care. The
| eligibility criteria[0] are clear, and strict. This reeks of
| sensationalism and/or propaganda by people who are morally
| opposed to the principle of medical assistance in dying, and
| are using FUD and innuendo to advance their cause without
| stating it (because they know they lost the moral argument
| long ago). Maybe you inadvertently picked that up on your
| shoe and dragged it into this discussion? Hard to know
| without citations on your part.
|
| [0] https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-
| servi...
| thedman9052 wrote:
| This is the last line of the linked article:
|
| "Canadian news outlets have also reported on cases where
| people with disabilities have considered assisted dying due
| to lack of housing or disability benefits."
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| Okay, they have _considered_ assisted dying. People
| consider things all the time. That 's a very far cry from
| getting anywhere close to _approved_ for assisted dying.
| tivert wrote:
| This woman was approved:
| https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/woman-with-chemical-
| sensitivit...
|
| Edit: fixed link, was looking at two very similar ones
| and got them mixed up.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| What right do you have to say this woman shouldn't be
| allowed to end her life though?
|
| She spoke to two different doctors and they both agreed
| to sign off on her death. Do you think the _doctors_ are
| the ones pushing people to off themselves because they
| can 't live a normal life?
|
| Forcing someone who wants to take the state sanctioned
| approach to suicide (as opposed to a 9mm sandwich) to
| talk to two medical professionals seems fine to me. Maybe
| there's some infinitesimal chance both those two doctors
| want as many people to die as possible, but eh.
|
| Or, you know, they agreed that she deserved the ability
| to end her life on her terms. Most people do not take a
| year to plan and carry out their suicide. Speaking to a
| doctor is usually the only intervention necessary to help
| someone looking to suicide for temporary reasons.
|
| When I was suicidal, having to get paperwork done would
| have stopped me from seeking out this method. Why would I
| want to interact with a doctor, another doctor, some
| bureaucracy, and now the news, when instead I could go to
| Walmart and walk out with a helium cylinder, a plastic
| bag, a hose, and some tape for $50?
|
| A government doesn't HAVE to legalize euthanasia to push
| sad, lonely, poor, hurting individuals to kill
| themselves, they just have to continue defunding medical
| care and saying "Nope, nothing we can do here, you just
| have to suffer, can't afford to do better than that".
| tivert wrote:
| > What right do you have to say this woman shouldn't be
| allowed to end her life though?
|
| Read the article. She really wanted appropriate housing,
| which was the care she needed for her condition. She
| tried for years, and they wouldn't give it to her.
|
| So she chose assisted suicide instead.
|
| That contradicts the claim "there haven't been such
| cases."
| motohagiography wrote:
| I'm in Canada and I have a relative in hospital who say they
| are either returning home or doing MAID, as they were not
| going into a home or "assisted living." coming to terms with
| your own death is part of the culture here now.
|
| Many people clearly prefer death to being dependent on
| services. Doctors themselves are known to eschew chemotherapy
| and difficult surgeries. Most men don't even see the doctors
| their taxes pay for "free" because the system is so
| bureaucratic nobody with any responsibilities can afford the
| time to use it, or the risks of being caught up in the
| system. Dignity is a big deal for people and many prefer to
| die with some of it than to live without it.
|
| I think MAID itself is poorly defined and implemented, as
| really, the health system had no problem killing thousands of
| young people with loose opioid perscriptions, I don't like
| that MAID requires allocating execution powers to doctors and
| their increasingly politicized delegates. death as a service
| doesn't seem ethical compared to prescription and technical
| options.
|
| the heart of it is that the institutions don't provide
| dignity and so people are choosing death. this seems lost on
| the leadership and its aspirational classes.
| nick__m wrote:
| Regarding your comment on loose opioid prescription, in
| Quebec (I cannot talk about other province because health
| care is a provincial juridiction) , they are not a thing
| anymore.
|
| 20 years ago it was like you said: I received 40 pills of
| oxycodone 20mg for a strained muscle. But nowadays they're
| quite strict, too strict imo: a few month ago my wife broke
| a vertebrae and she only received only 20 pills of
| hydromorphone 1mg and a month of antacid coated naproxen.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Extraordinary claims... what's the evidence for that?
| nashashmi wrote:
| if we killed all the homeless people, would our social problems
| be over? Sick thought. I know. But a part of me blindly
| believes that our problems will become worse.
| brap wrote:
| >will euthanasia become another "solution" for those who can't
| afford proper care and treatment?
|
| Yes, and I would argue that despite the awful connotations,
| this is not a bad thing.
|
| It's simply a fact of life that some people have more than
| others. Sometimes it's not fair, but it's still way better than
| any other social/economic alternative. And those who have more
| can afford better treatment, that is expensive.
|
| So, assuming we can agree on this, would it not be better to
| offer some solution, even if not ideal? Remember, it may not be
| something that you would ever opt for, maybe because you have
| the means for better solutions, but for many this is a blessing
| compared to their only alternative which is to suffer. As sad
| as it may sound.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| That is psychopathic.
|
| It _would be a bad thing_.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| > Fifteen years ago, flying into Vancouver, a local told me
| charities would give homeless people one-way bus tickets there
| from colder regions of Canada to prevent winter deaths
|
| This is kind of one of those urban myths btw. Like yes it has
| technically happened before but if you chase down the stories
| it's not at all common and it's more of a situation of someone
| having some family or relationships in a province away and
| people trying to help by connecting them.
| michael1999 wrote:
| No. It was 35 years ago, but it's not an urban legend.
|
| Back in '88, when he was just mayor of Calgary, Ralph Klein
| had the city "solve" their homeless problem for the Olympics
| by buying one-way bus tickets to Vancouver.
|
| It is back in the news because it's started happening again
| in 2s and 3s.
|
| https://edmontonsun.com/2013/03/29/remembering-ralph
|
| https://globalnews.ca/news/2567494/reports-2-homeless-men-
| fr...
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > Fifteen years ago, flying into Vancouver, a local told me
| charities would give homeless people one-way bus tickets there
| from colder regions of Canada to prevent winter deaths. No
| return tickets in spring. Calls into question what we consider
| "charitable" when the solution is just moving vulnerable people
| elsewhere.
|
| Does it? Given the number of homeless deaths caused by Canadian
| summers, I'm not seeing the urgency of homeless people
| returning to colder locations.
|
| This obviously isn't a solution to the problem of homelessness:
| the solution to homelessness is homes. But it is a solution to
| the (much smaller) problem of homeless people dying due to
| seasonal weather.
|
| Incidentally, this program was never large and fell out of
| practice due to bad press in both the US and Canada, and
| thousands of homeless people have frozen to death in its
| absence.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| In an ideal world 100% of all deaths would be by euthanasia.
|
| Instead there are accidents, which kill prematurely.
|
| Homicides, which steal life.
|
| And diseases, which cripple and degrade.
|
| I've watched three of my four grandparents suffocate to death as
| their organs failed, blasted out of their minds on morphine,
| nothing more than a collection of organs with a slowly stopping
| metabolism. Two of them wanted to end it, but couldn't.
|
| I suppose the only accident, homicide, and disease that cannot be
| defeated given enough luck, research, and effort is the eventual
| tiring, erosion, and destruction of one's mind so in an ideal
| world that would be the single cause of death, a death brought
| about by euthanasia once it is detected and things are put in
| order.
|
| If the religious extremists who want to impose their morals on
| others and the private equity firms buying up all of the hospice
| providers are still bribing politicians to keep people from
| living their lives as they see fit by the time I get there, I'll
| be breaking the law.
| amatecha wrote:
| I'd probably prefer to not know, and die in my sleep - surely
| preferred over the dread of knowing the moment, even if it
| would be painless/easy. Not sure, my opinion might be different
| if I'm old and suffering!
| ted_bunny wrote:
| The moments before certain death were very relaxing for me.
| It was easy to identify the things that didn't matter and let
| go, and to make peace with my pain.
| sprice wrote:
| I share this optimistic take.
|
| I'm Canadian and when I see these stats, and see that they are
| rising, I get the sense that there is a greater number of
| people able to experience a good death.
|
| I'm old enough to have experienced a reasonable amount of death
| and suffering caused by aging.
|
| A grandmother I wasn't particularly close to, but who when I
| asked "How are you" on the phone, would reply "I wish I was
| dead". Great Aunts and Uncles who experienced Alzheimers,
| Parkinsons, and dementia.
|
| And a cousin who just recently chose MAID after given a
| terminal cancer diagnosis. I applaud her courage and bravery.
| My nine year old nephew was able to pass along a message to
| her. "Have a good death".
|
| Far too many people don't have a good death. More people should
| have the option available to them.
|
| It's possible to balance both the value and importance of MAID
| with the need to ensure the system is not being abused and is
| working well.
| imtringued wrote:
| >I suppose the only accident, homicide, and disease that cannot
| be defeated given enough luck, research, and effort is the
| eventual tiring, erosion, and destruction of one's mind
|
| I don't really see how you arrive at this. If someone has a
| disease that erodes their mind, they didn't die voluntarily,
| even if they choose euthanasia. In fact, you could say this
| about all euthanasia. Why choose to die? The HN answer is
| "because someone or something made me want to die".
|
| If someone is bit by a tick and gets Lyme disease and signs up
| for euthanasia, then the tick has essentially killed you.
|
| All effects that lead to voluntary euthanasia thereby become
| murder.
|
| Now think one step further. Someone did something that causes
| another person to make someone want voluntary euthanasia. That
| is now also murder.
|
| Notice something? That's a can of worms that society is not
| ready for yet. Since everything can lead to voluntary death, we
| must now make sure that society is such a good place that
| nobody ever wants to die. Society won't be that place, ever.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| >Notice something? That's a can of worms that society is not
| ready for yet.
|
| That's what people who think that others are too stupid to
| determine the course of their own lives think.
|
| Anyone and everyone who thinks that I am not ready or able to
| determine the duration of my life can go fuck themselves.
| dathos wrote:
| My grandma always told me when she couldn't go on her walks
| anymore she didn't consider life worth living. When she got
| dementia she was placed in a closed hospice, to "protect her".
| Now she only walks when I visit, and I only see a shell of the
| woman she was.
|
| Anecdotal of course, but why do people think it's an ethics
| question when society is individualistic as can be? There is no
| choice in being born, why don't we get a choice in when we leave?
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| Because half of society is a labour camp without guard towers-
| and if the slaves leave the camp it collapses in on itself.
| amatecha wrote:
| Yeah, I knew someone who opted to have their dementia-suffering
| parent live with them until the end. That was tough, but...
| surely better than being left alone in a hospice/etc. as you
| mention. Unfortunately, yeah, you'll see the person just erode
| and ... it's really brutal as hell, ultra sad. Eventually the
| person is not even capable of consenting to euthanasia (nor any
| other medical procedure). Definitely something to discuss with
| family or closest friends especially upon getting diagnosed
| with an illness like that.
| 14 wrote:
| I have worked in hospice and would say typically the people
| who end up there are not what I would say left alone. But
| they are there to die. They usually end up there because the
| family who was looking after them is really struggling to do
| so any longer for various reasons like personal care or
| medication management being too much and they are approaching
| death.
|
| When there they get basically as much drugs to fight pain,
| anxiety and other symptoms as much as they need. The goal is
| to provide as much as possible a comfortable end to their
| life.
|
| Dementia patients are not candidates for MAID program here in
| Canada. You need to be of sound mind at this time. Perhaps in
| the future one can make a living will for future illness but
| currently if you are confused or suffering from dementia and
| can not understand what it is all about you can not consent
| to it.
| nradov wrote:
| Caring for dementia patients at home is seldom better unless
| the family has the resources for 24x7 care. I know from
| personal experience that dementia patients will wake up in
| the middle of the night to wander out into the street or
| accidentally start kitchen fires. And if the family tries to
| do it all themselves it takes an enormous unsustainable toll.
| At some point everyone is better off putting the patient in a
| professionally staffed facility. Of course the prices for
| those create other challenges.
| bleakenthusiasm wrote:
| One reason is religion. That aside, people are afraid that this
| could be abused. People could choose this purelyto avoid
| additional cost to their relatives.
|
| It could be used as an excuse why more costly options to avoid
| pain and suffering in old people might not be covered by
| insurance anymore.
|
| People could be talked into it for various reasons.
|
| Canada is a good example of a country where I think the base to
| make it work in a positive way is given. Their insurance covers
| a lot of treatments for basically everyone. The country cares
| about its citizens in a way that makes you believe they won't
| use euthanasia as a cop out to avoid paying for medical care.
|
| If these circumstances are not given, euthanasia can easily be
| seen as an easy way to get rid of people who are too expensive
| for society or too cumbersome to take care of.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| > People could choose this purelyto avoid additional cost to
| their relatives.
|
| Why is this a bad thing? If there's a choice between giving
| $100,000 to my descendants and using it to keep me intubated
| in a hospital bed for an extra 6 months, I find the former
| preferable by far. If someone else doesn't, that's fine, but
| I find comments like this both annoying and creepily
| authoritarian in saying that the correct choice is obvious
| and so they're going to make the decision for me.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| To my mind the main obstacle is kind of orthogonal: how do you
| protect the people who don't want to go, being pressured or
| manipulated. I agree that if someone is really, independently
| and committedly deciding to go, you shouldn't stop them. But
| how do you express that test in a bureaucratic, legalistic
| framework?
|
| In a friend's family, there was a big rift as one family member
| in direct line of inheritance was accused of (successfully!)
| pressuring his mother to refuse medical care. She died sooner
| and more unpleasantly than she likely would have otherwise,
| leaving more money sooner to her children. And that wasn't even
| with euthanasia being legal.
|
| I have lots of sympathy for people so desperate they would
| rather kill themselves, but I don't know how you square that
| circle.
| 14 wrote:
| Well I am sure no system is perfect but the people that
| choose to end their life have to meet several criteria. They
| first need to be of sound mind when they make this decision
| (and this is one of the current issues being sorted out). So
| they talk with their doctor and express interest. They then
| are seen by other health care providers like psychologist who
| discuss it more. They are spoken to privately without the
| family present. It is their decision in the end and only
| theirs. Once they choose a time they need to still be fully
| alert and aware and they have to personally push the button
| that ends their life. And that is one of the issues, some
| people do not want to live if they become paralyzed or brain
| dead. But we can not euthanize those people even if they
| expressed that wish before.
|
| I have worked in hospice and they do MAID there all the time.
| It was a weird feeling to see a family and their loved one
| head into the downstairs where they would all sit around and
| tell them person how much they are loved and then that person
| would end their life. But I know it is the right thing.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > how do you protect the people who don't want to go, being
| pressured or manipulated. I agree that if someone is really,
| independently and committedly deciding to go, you shouldn't
| stop them. But how do you express that test in a
| bureaucratic, legalistic framework?
|
| I would look into countries where euthanasia has been already
| implemented. It doesn't seem like it's a widespread problem,
| so apparently they made it work somehow.
|
| Does it mean it's absolutely bulletproof and no-one will ever
| be pressured to undergo euthanasia? No, but you can't ever
| achieve such certainty, and it's better to look at it from
| the utilitarianism view - allowing euthanasia will prevent
| much more suffering than it will cause.
| sramsay64 wrote:
| > I would look into countries where euthanasia has been
| already implemented.
|
| That's what puts me off of the idea in the first place.
| Cases like Christine Gauthier (a former army corporal and
| paralympian) who was offered euthanasia when trying to seek
| government disability benefits to install a wheelchair
| ramp. If it takes someone with existing fame to speak out
| about this, how many more people has this been pushed on?
|
| > from the utilitarianism view - allowing euthanasia will
| prevent much more suffering than it will cause.
|
| I'm not totally convinced. I haven't run the numbers, and
| this also certainly takes into account my personal views on
| valuing life and family, but I do fear more pain and
| suffering will come with legal euthanasia than it will
| solve.
|
| Just look at the end of the article. It gives several
| examples of the kind of thing that allows me as a
| utilitarian to say that the suffering of a few terminally
| ill is not as bad as the harassment of countless vulnerable
| people.
| Martinussen wrote:
| I think these are valid concerns, but I would also say
| that there is an underlying issue with medical
| malpractice and disregard for the suffering and needs of
| certain groups of society which we tend to brush under
| the rug. I'm going to assume the concerns you have
| _probably_ don 't stop at just euthanasia - mine
| definitely don't, and I worry that a ban just makes the
| issue more... abstract, and PR-friendly.
|
| If an individual in a difficult life situation comes to
| the state for help as a last resort, and there is a
| chance the representative they are assigned _would_
| recommend they should consider just dying as their last
| resort, the state has already failed to protect someone
| vulnerable, and obviously won 't be giving them the help
| they deserve/need/should be entitled to as a human.
|
| Any wrongful death is horrible, but I sincerely believe a
| "representative" like this and the harm they inflict is
| going to have an almost identical death toll, even if
| it's by way of consigning people to sub-human lives of
| physical or mental torment instead of pushing them
| towards a tool that "everyone" understands we need to
| keep a close eye on. My utilitarian take would be that
| many would happily extend the torment of the terminally
| ill and suffering, as long as they don't have to _deal
| with_ the suffering their neglect inflicts on countless
| vulnerable people and the terminally ill already. (For
| e-clarity, I don 't mean to imply that's your motivation
| here!)
| philistine wrote:
| > If an individual in a difficult life situation comes to
| the state for help as a last resort, and there is a
| chance the representative they are assigned would
| recommend they should consider just dying as their last
| resort, the state has already failed
|
| Medical assistance in dying is a medical act, reserved to
| doctors. Just like a car salesman can't legally recommend
| you an abortion. No one in the government has the legal
| right to discuss it, even less offer it.
| Martinussen wrote:
| Yes, my point was that that person having a position
| where they are able to do that is already wrong. If a car
| salesman was telling every woman that came in they should
| get an abortion, there are places that person should be,
| and none of them are a car dealer's.
| buildsjets wrote:
| The Supreme Court then?
| philistine wrote:
| Should we keep medical assistance in dying illegal
| because bad eggs offer it outside the legal framework of
| their job in bad faith?
|
| The Christine Gauthier case is used to justify the idea
| that the government will use it to reduce spending, when
| what happened to her is appalling, but was absolutely not
| something the government employee that offered it to her
| had the legal permission to do so.
|
| What the Quebec law regarding medical assistance in dying
| does is guarantee its existence as a medical act. It does
| not allow any low-level government employee to offer it
| wily-nily to anyone. It is a medical act, reserved to
| doctors, to discuss assistance in dying.
| invalidname wrote:
| How do you prevent people from smoking? Eating processed
| food?
|
| Is the fact that the process of suicide is slower/more
| conventional a difference?
|
| People seeking this process go through a psychological
| evaluation to determine if they are under duress and of clear
| mind. Also there's liability to the ones applying undue
| pressure which can be criminal.
|
| I think there's a point of personal responsibility. Potential
| abuse of the system should not be the reason to deny it to
| everyone. I want to have control over the way I live and die.
| Alzheimer's is unfortunately in both sides of my family, if
| it has no treatment and I start showing signs I would rather
| die than live. It would be torture for me to put my family
| through that.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| As I say, my concern isn't academic. I was close to a
| situation where someone was allegedly coerced into refusing
| medical help. It was in fact investigated, ended up as word
| against word, and nothing came of it. That was in a
| jurisdiction where euthanasia is not legal and anyway such
| coercion would be illegal, for both the coercer and the
| doctors. It didn't stop the alleged coercion, and no one
| was prosecuted. So how leaky would the system be where
| euthanasia is in facr legal?
|
| But please don't get me wrong, I am absolutely full of
| sympathy to people so desperately ill they want to call it
| quits.
| invalidname wrote:
| Neither is my concern academic. My MIL struggled with
| cancer treatments for a decade of terrible pain. My
| father was catatonic with Alzheimer and my mother is in a
| pretty bad place health-wise.
|
| I don't want to appear dismissive of your concerns
| because I'm not. Such abuse is horrible, criminal and
| tragic. No question. But looking at the morality issue
| and consistency I think the answer is pretty clear. We
| need to give people agency over their own lives.
| Safeguards are essential for sure, and abuse will happen
| even with the safeguards in place. But the current
| situation is just tragic. People are afraid to go to the
| hospital because they're afraid they will be kept alive
| and in-effect tortured to a slow death.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Manipulation and coercion can oppose the suicide too. There's
| some cases where family members don't want their loved one to
| kill themselves.
|
| I'm not sure how these were resolved but it's very messy and
| hugely traumatic for all involved.
| twoodfin wrote:
| What you're hitting on is the inescapable truth that there
| are problems government institutions can't solve.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Surely you can see that we could apply that principle to
| either pro- or anti-euthanasia arguments?
|
| Either way, the government is profoundly involved.
|
| Either the government is in the business of telling us we
| _cannot_ end our own lives in humane and medically-assisted
| ways, and that medically assisted deaths are equivalent to
| murder with all of the attendant legal issues.
|
| Or they are in the business of enforcing rules about how
| those medically-assisted deaths can happen.
| twoodfin wrote:
| It's the government's choice whether they allocate
| resources to investigate and prosecute "suspicious"
| deaths of terminal patients.
|
| Deciding as a matter of policy, not law, "No, we don't do
| that outside of extraordinary circumstances" _is_
| something a government institution can do.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > To my mind the main obstacle is kind of orthogonal: how do
| you protect the people who don't want to go, being pressured
| or manipulated.
|
| This is why it's important to have a pretty detailed living
| will[1]. Especially is you're already chronically ill and
| have a pretty good idea of how that road ends.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_healthcare_directive
| okaram wrote:
| The way most countries who have it (including Canada) have
| solved it is to add waiting periods, and layers of reviews.
| In Canada, you need two different doctors to sign off on it.
| If you're not actively dying, you also have a 90-day period
| of reflection. And you have to be of sound mind.
|
| This seems to me like good enough safeguards, don't you
| think?
| ljsprague wrote:
| Bureaucracy for the win.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > To my mind the main obstacle is kind of orthogonal: how do
| you protect the people who don't want to go, being pressured
| or manipulated.
|
| How often does this actually happen?
|
| EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying this doesn't happen, I'm
| really asking.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Sounds to me like your family friend's mother would have died
| more pleasantly if euthanasia were legal.
|
| There are plenty of ways to pressure people into death, as
| you have already demonstrated. That's not going away.
|
| Emotional burdens to encourage people to live as long as
| possible even if you think they're suffering are likely a far
| bigger problem. People know it's unethical not to euthanize
| animals that are suffering. Lacking the social apparatus to
| suggest euthanizing humans is almost certainly a huge moral
| weakness.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| The much more common case seems to be families forcing
| treatment, effectively just prolonging the pain. People don't
| exactly easily come to grips with their parents dying. Some
| people never do.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > why don't we get a choice in when we leave?
|
| Because dead folks don't pay taxes.
| bawolff wrote:
| Terminally ill people generally aren't paying taxes either.
| You have to make money somehow to owe taxes.
| barbazoo wrote:
| So which one is it, the government assisting in deaths too
| often or not enough, it can't be both at the same time.
| eru wrote:
| Alas, actually, it can be.
|
| You can make both errors with false positives and false
| negatives at the same time.
| nashashmi wrote:
| > why do people think it's an ethics question when society is
| individualistic as can be
|
| Because we disagree that society is individualistic. We are
| social creatures, not individualist creatures. And we need
| people around us. Including you needing your grandma. And she
| needs people like you.
|
| turn the question around: why do people feel easy escapes are
| ok? We came in this world and were assisted in our upbringing
| and lived to old age, so why is it ok that we can feel like we
| can just get up and leave?
| jncfhnb wrote:
| What do you need from grandma, who is in constant pain and
| desires to die?
| nashashmi wrote:
| The touch, the voice, the eyes of love, the concern, the
| stories, the heart, the smile, ... shall I go on?
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Grandma doesn't want to share those stories because it
| hurts to talk and she can't see well and just generally
| she's in a constant bad mood because her life sucks.
| gnfargbl wrote:
| During the recent debate around the Assisted Dying Bill in the
| UK, I listened to a radio phone-in in which a palliative care
| doctor explained that it wasn't possible to relieve all suffering
| for all patients. They relayed an example of a person who had
| spent their last days vomiting fully-formed faeces.
|
| If we can prevent five, ten or perhaps twenty percent of people
| having gruesome deaths, then not doing so feels like a moral
| failing.
| SapporoChris wrote:
| "They relayed an example of a person who had spent their last
| days vomiting fully-formed faeces."
|
| Sounds like a fully-formed exaggeration. Vomiting once or twice
| a day is not spending your last days vomiting. More frequent
| vomiting? The supply could not possibly meet the demand.
| Especially if the patient stopped eating.
| gnfargbl wrote:
| You can listen to the account yourself at
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00253mt, from around 25
| minutes onwards. I found it convincing.
| treis wrote:
| It doesn't sound particularly possible.
| winocm wrote:
| This is entirely possible. See copremesis, ICD10 code
| R11.13.
|
| It usually occurs due to intestinal blockage or fistulae.
| nashashmi wrote:
| vomit is usually liquid or heavily digested stuff. feces is
| compacted and excreted. my imagination maybe a little
| specific here but so is the description "fully formed
| feces"
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| If your intestines are obstructed, and the fecal matter
| has started forming, and it's trying to come out, where
| do you think it will come out from?
| djeastm wrote:
| When there's no place for the compacted feces that's
| building up to go (due to a failure in peristalsis, for
| instance), it backs up into the the stomach, which
| naturally irritates the stomach and causes the person to
| vomit the contents, which includes their feces.
|
| I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
| david38 wrote:
| You are incorrect. You don't have to be doing something 24
| hrs a day to be spending your days doing it.
|
| If you were a child who was raped every night by your father,
| you could absolutely say with honesty that you spent your
| nights getting raped.
|
| What matters is - does the event significantly affect the
| rest of your day? Not - is the event happening non-stop. If
| that were the case, you could vomit every hour and still not
| be able to make the claim, since there are periods of rest.
| nurettin wrote:
| Even if this is true, it appeals to extremes to make a point.
| People agajnst the motion are against the misuses of assisted
| suicide due to conditions that may get better in time, or
| misunderstandings, or conditions of a mental nature which may
| change or be cured.
| swat535 wrote:
| That's part of it, however they are also against it from a
| morality and ethical point of view, with the central argument
| being that you can't take an innocent person's life, no
| matter how "good" you think your intentions are.
|
| Basically they uphold the value of life above all else,
| including one's desire to end it. By the same token, they are
| against any form of suicide.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| citing individual cases is not the road to reason here
| IMHO. Every single person dies at some point. This is an
| "entire population" question. Ethics and Morality play an
| educational, character formation role.. and, a medical
| decision is not the same as other kinds of decisions..
| Another point -- people who are unstable or overwhelmed
| personally often leap to extreme, graphic and emotional
| examples first and without context. The original post here
| fits that description IMHO
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| This is emphatically _not_ an "entire population"
| question. This is an individual rights question. I don't
| know what safeguards exist in other countries to prevent
| "people who are unstable or overwhelmed personally" from
| "leaping to the extreme", but in Canada the rules are
| strict and multiple doctors have to sign off. You can
| read the MAiD eligibility criteria and the approval
| process here[0].
|
| [0] https://www.canada.ca/en/health-
| canada/services/health-servi...
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| A more important point is that even in a more normal palliative
| care situation, which previously may have involved a borderline
| illegal increase of drugs near the end to hasten and ease
| death, might now be recorded as an assisted death instead.
|
| So a more interesting stat might be the expected quality of
| life adjusted years that have been cut off by the assisted
| deaths.
|
| I'm not sure if QUALY can go negative but some measure that can
| might be appropriate when talking about assisted death.
| gnfargbl wrote:
| Negative QALY values do appear possible, according to https:/
| /linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S10983015106004... (via
| Wikipedia).
| eru wrote:
| I'm not sure a link will contribute much? It's just the
| basic question whether some years (or days or whatever) are
| so awful that you are better off being dead.
|
| In any case, the linked article says 'States worse than
| dead can exist and they would have a negative value and
| subtract from the number of QALYs.'
| gnfargbl wrote:
| Yes, it's a fairly obvious point. The link was in the
| context of whether negative QALYs are a concept used by
| the medical profession.
| x0x0 wrote:
| Anyone who's been close to a dying cancer patient knows what
| the last couple months are like for many: unending suffering
| plus tomorrow will be worse. Many people would choose not to
| suffer like that and I can't understand who anyone else is to
| tell them they must endure utter misery for nothing.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| Hard cases make bad law.
| afh1 wrote:
| There is no "we". There are people and their bodies and their
| wishes. And authoritarians who want a say on it. Doesn't matter
| if nice sounding words like law and democracy are used to
| describe the tyranny.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| "tyranny" also seems like a concept mostly unrelated to the
| topic at hand. Practically speaking, nobody can really
| prevent you from taking your own life.
| Retric wrote:
| If only that were true.
|
| Someone unable to move is unable to take their own life
| without assistance. A surprisingly large percentage of
| people go through some horrific experiences before their
| bodies completely fail.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| This is a vanishingly small percent of cases
|
| Someone who is unable to move is probably also unable to
| unambiguously communicate their wish to be euthanized as
| well so I really don't think it's that relevant
| Retric wrote:
| Bed sores are a reasonable proxy for people being unable
| to move and they are a common enough risk to be a
| significant concern.
|
| If you can't even roll over then you're at the mercy of
| whatever people are willing to bring you even if you can
| speak or use a TV remote just fine.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > Someone unable to move is unable to take their own life
| without assistance.
|
| Denying this assistance isn't really "tyranny", though,
| even if you do accept that suicide is a right.
| Retric wrote:
| > Denying this assistance isn't really "tyranny"
|
| Actively _preventing_ someone from providing assistance
| is. There's a big difference between not doing something
| yourself and actively preventing someone else from
| providing assistance.
| gspencley wrote:
| I share your view, but it gets crazy complicated when you're
| dealing with homicide (I'm using this word to mean it's
| literal definition: 'death caused by another person', not to
| mean a crime occurred necessarily).
|
| Euthanasia is controversial for a lot of reasons. Some people
| worry that authoritarians will use it as a way to "purge" or,
| such as here in Canada, as a way to "reneg" on health care
| obligations that tax payers are paying for. Others worry that
| family members and care providers will abuse the law for
| financial gain ("legal murder" for inheritance etc.).
|
| Then you have cases like this one:
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-maid-
| father-d...
|
| It's complicated because we're not talking about an elderly
| person with terminal cancer. We're talking about a 27 year-
| old high functioning adult who sought, and was granted,
| medical assistance in dying due to a mental illness. When you
| dive into that story, even if you agree that the courts made
| the right decision and that the 27 year-old had the right to
| decide her own fate, your heart can't not break thinking
| about the father.
|
| Morally, I agree that every [adult] individual has the right
| to commit suicide by any means of their choosing (as long as
| they're not infringing upon the rights of others in the
| process). That doesn't mean that there aren't valid reasons
| for people to debate whether or not ehutanasia should be
| legal and under what circumstances.
| thijson wrote:
| I'm reminded of this guy each time this topic comes up:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4NU_84eCKI
|
| https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/in-2000-walkerton-s-
| pois...
| themaninthedark wrote:
| I agree it's a difficult subject.
|
| To your point about "Some people worry that authoritarians
| will use it as a way to "purge" or, such as here in Canada,
| as a way to "reneg" on health care obligations that tax
| payers are paying for."
|
| In another thread the Canadian poster talked about someone
| who decided to go through with ending their life and one of
| the things they mentioned was "They had to drive 100km to
| the nearest dialysis clinic."
| mp05 wrote:
| Yep that's one side of the argument and it's valid and I
| sympathize with it.
|
| The other side is when you're hearing stories of people being
| told that, in lieu of the procedure they're about to undergo,
| they can surely sign up to receive state-approved death.
|
| "Are you sure you don't want to just die? This is gonna hurt
| a lot!"
|
| Ghoulish.
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| How often does this occur? Citations?
|
| Elderly cancer patients who have a recurrence of cancer
| often know exactly how uncomfortable another round of
| chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery will be. At the same
| time they may already be suffering neurological pain,
| pleural effusion (fluids building up in the chest), etc.
|
| In this context the statement might be:
|
| "This treatment, as you know, is going to be very
| unpleasant, has little hope of curing you, and you could
| live your life while the cancer progresses. We could slow
| it down and let you decide how you want to live your life."
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Authoritarians that want to force doctors to provide death as
| a service?
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| There are concerns about assisted suicide being pushed on
| marginalized people who don't have terminal illnesses in
| Canada. I don't know if that is being driven by
| "authoritarians" but implying that the issue is just
| doctors providing death as a service (i.e. to people who
| are specifically requesting it unprompted) may not be
| completely accurate.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| I'm not worried about anyone "pushing" it. I'm worried
| about groups being put at the back of the line for other
| forms of care because the decision makers know that
| "worst case" more of them will off themselves and find
| that to be a fine outcome.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| That is a danger for sure, but every single path we as a
| society here take can be exploited by people with ill
| intentions.
|
| The pharma companies and hospitals have a financial
| incentive to keep people alive indefinitely, even despite
| horrible suffering.
|
| The folks paying for the treatment (government,
| insurance, etc) have a financial incentive to terminate
| lives prematurely.
|
| Family members with ill intentions may have various
| nefarious reasons to push for either outcome.
|
| So the question with which we should begin is, "what is
| the right thing?" and build safeguards around that.
|
| We _cannot_ let "fear of corrupting influences" be the
| primary guiding principle here because every possible
| choice as a society here because there's a pretty strong
| financial incentive to corrupt these choices in either
| direction.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Natural death is the nash equilibrium, everything else is
| politics.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Reality is much messier than "There are people and their
| bodies and their wishes."
|
| There are whole categories of people who we consider not well
| enough to make good choices about their bodies and lives, for
| a variety of reasons
|
| Children are not emotionally mature or responsible enough to
| make such choices
|
| Mentally ill people are sometimes in an altered state of mind
| where they are not making good decisions that are consistent
| with their regular state of mind
|
| Some people are very suggestible and will more or less agree
| with anything that someone else is telling them to do, even
| if it is not in their best interest. People who have just
| received bad news (like a scary medical diagnosis) can easily
| fall into this, and just agree with whatever someone tells
| them
|
| It's all well and good to want to respect people's wishes for
| their lives, but society does have some responsibility to
| ensure they aren't being pressured by outside forces into
| acting against their will or against their own interests
|
| That's not authoritarian, it is pro-social
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Mental health is one I can relate to. There were times when
| my loved ones struggling with mental health would
| absolutely go through with assistance euthanasia if they
| had it available. Years later they are living a much better
| life but at that point in time, euthanasia would've ended
| it.
|
| I think bodily autonomy is necessary but not everyone is
| able to make the right decisions at all times. Legislation
| needs to account for that.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| The fun part of the mentally-ill categorization is that
| being mentally ill also has a tendency to lead to poverty
| and homelessness which in turn will increase the likelihood
| that someone will opt for MAID but could be solved by other
| social means.
| eru wrote:
| Is that actually true? Are people who choose MAID poorer
| than the average?
|
| The article suggests that they are whiter than the
| average Canadian. Make of that what you will.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| I mean, it's plainly evident that mental illness is
| associated with poverty, which is itself associated with
| homelessness. Here
| (https://care.org.uk/news/2024/10/poor-lonely-and-
| homeless-op...) is an article that references a report
| that says that people are opting for MAID for non-
| terminal illnesses and that those who do so are
| disproportionately likely to be from poorer areas. It
| also mentions at least one person who specifically
| mentioned lack of access to housing when opting for MAID.
| Granted, CARE is blatantly against MAID but the cherries
| they're picking are in the tree to be picked.
| eru wrote:
| Thanks for digging that up.
|
| It's a big country, so I suspect you'll find individual
| examples of just about anything.
| wruza wrote:
| It is pro-social if you can separate objectively. And even
| then, who is that "social" to decide it? Some people aren't
| social.
|
| If the separation line gets drawn across questionable
| cases, then it's authoritarian for them. As usual, any
| scalable implementation will look like a very jagged
| asterisk-shaped circle and some financial or political
| interest around it, acting far away from the real needs of
| people. And those who pick edge cases on its less certain
| side will push the whole setup further until it stops
| making sense. Systems like this are inherently vague, which
| is prone to "oh, we had another case, must regulate more".
|
| I'll rephrase myself from the previous thread about
| suicides: the "society" keeps a blind eye on the fact that
| it is _it_ who drives people to end their life and then
| puts a big "dying is prohibited and offensive" sign at the
| end of this road. If "society" wants to keep "healthy but
| confused" (subjectively to it) people from leaving, it
| should look to the root of the problem, not put a barrier
| at the end.
|
| Ofc teens should be kept away from this for obvious
| biological reasons.
| f154hfds wrote:
| > Ofc teens should be kept away from this for obvious
| biological reasons.
|
| Why of course? Is the reason this is obvious to you
| unique to teenagers? When they turn 18 (or 20) do the
| reasons to restrict their freedoms immediately go away?
| Is there no possibility the 'obvious' reason in your mind
| couldn't occur for a different person in a different age
| bracket?
| wruza wrote:
| Yes, they go away. 18 is a safe age of autonomy, not
| median. Normal procedures still apply, e.g. are you being
| coerced, does society physically demand too much from you
| (e.g. in a form of debt, pain, lack of sleep), etc. If
| they pass, they are free to die.
|
| To reiterate, fix the problem, not the gate. All
| statements above are only valid as a whole.
| zer8k wrote:
| This is an appeal to emotion.
|
| While people should have autonomy over their lives we should
| not be legalizing assisting them. This is a path that is well-
| trodden. Many dictatorships have "mercifully euthanized"
| various sectors of people. It always starts out as the
| disabled, cancer-stricken, or unviable. Then it becomes a
| simple way to get rid of the people deemed to be a burden.
| Suddenly being depressed is a good way to get the needle. Can't
| perform your job well enough? Yep you guessed it, needle. Or I
| guess these days they've made sarco pods for the personalized
| gas chamber experience. This isn't even a slippery slope, we're
| watching it happen in real time as the bar for euthanasia
| continues to be lowered.
|
| There's been several cases that MAID has willfully disobeyed
| the law. Doctors not filing the correct paperwork, rushing
| patients, etc. We are already seeing the sprouts of a system
| that if allowed to continue will become a virtual Soylent
| Green.
|
| Of course I'll be downvoted for this by the bleeding hearts but
| history has not been kind to people who allow this.
| gravitronic wrote:
| slippery slope fallacy that giving people control of their
| own deaths will turn into the state euthanized anybody
| against their will
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| It's not a slippery slope if it's actually happening
|
| But you're right, the state isn't euthanizing anyone
| against their will, and they don't need to
|
| They can simply change incentives in such a way that people
| decide that it is what they want all on their own
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| If we can prevent even one person from having a gruesome death,
| it's worth the sacrifice of the other 99?
| barbazoo wrote:
| Who's being sacrificed and how in that case?
| GordonS wrote:
| Right, but there's a problem - the UK is in a real mess! Social
| services, medical services, _all_ the services are underfunded
| and crumbling. There is a cost of living crisis as wages have
| barely moved in 15 years, food banks are everywhere, and now
| "multibanks" are popping up.
|
| Our country first needs to ensure that people can choose to
| _live_ , and if needed be cared for; nobody should feel pushed
| into assisted dying because of financial reasons.
|
| I say this as someone who will be in pain for the rest of my
| life, and euthanasia has been on my mind at times. As much as I
| might "benefit" from such a law in the future, I don't believe
| it should be passed until we have a stable society with good
| services and safety nets.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| What if we triple your pain?
| 01jonny01 wrote:
| 100% you articulated exactly what I couldn't - thank you. It
| feels very wrong to be considering this in the UK when we are
| on the decline. Espcially since the current government have
| demonstrated that they don't really care about pensioners.
| jajko wrote:
| That's a hard subject - while I think I get your need to have
| a better safety net (so folks aren't tempted even more to opt
| out of existence), by delaying it, such choice is also
| causing indescribable suffering to patients _now_ , and trust
| me those are not small number of people in topics where 1 is
| too many. A good 'pleasant' death rather a rarity.
|
| Perfect is usually the enemy of good.
| cardanome wrote:
| That is a very good point.
|
| To be fair, that is also the one issue with abortion that is
| legitimate. I am very pro-choice but also horrified by the
| reality that women sometimes are pressured to have abortion
| for economic reasons. Still I think that allowing abortion is
| a net good even when there is still economic imbalance.
|
| As for euthanasia, I think it is similar. We need to fight
| for a stable society with good social safety and access to
| medical services for all while also giving people the rights
| to decide on how they want to go. (At least for older people,
| I think for younger people there is too much risk they would
| have changed their mind and should only be allowed when it is
| medically certain that they will die soon).
|
| My hope is when cases of euthanasia for economic reasons
| happen, people will be horrified and it will put pressure
| into improving the system. But maybe I am naive.
| throwaway313313 wrote:
| In a system of socialized medicine, is the goal of society to
| spend the money available to save the most people?
|
| Taking into account that people have the greatest medical costs
| near the end of their life, should the system save others by
| limiting either the total available spend or the cost of any
| particular treatment according to some metric?
|
| Should the system repeatedly and frequently remind people that
| are older and alone in the world without support from friends or
| family that euthanasia is an option?
|
| How often reminding them would be considered coercive?
|
| Is it coecerive if the system decides if you are over 70 years
| old that euthanasia is the only option you get offered when your
| condition is one of a long list of non trivial chronic
| conditions?
|
| What if we find that in practice (as we almost certainly will if
| we dare to look honestly) people of certain genders, ages, ethnic
| groups, economic demographics, are more frequently told that
| killing themselves is an option they should seriously consider,
| compared to how often it is recommended to the general
| population?
|
| Should the suicide prevention hotlines be shutdown and instead
| become suicide suggestion hotlines?
|
| What about cases like chronic depression?
|
| I'm just asking questions from a hacker perspective when people
| are busy considering offering euthanasia to everybody (sometimes
| advocating at every age) is some kind of virtuous undertaking.
|
| People don't consider that throughout society in all walks of
| life and occupations some portion of people are sociopathic and
| pyschopathic (possibly with uneven distribution), and some plan
| administrators, whether that be socialized medicine, or large
| corporate insurance providers, will interpret their incentives to
| either their own benefit and/or the benefit of their
| organization, completely at odds with what you might consider the
| interests of the individual.
| yoavm wrote:
| Isn't this overcomplicating it? Euthanasia doesn't require
| advertising, it seems like people yearn for it even in places
| where it isn't allowed. The point is that it should be a
| legitimate choice, not a suggestion by society. Just like your
| doctor doesn't tell you that it's probably time for you to
| become a parent, no doctor should recommend you to be gone.
| throwaway313313 wrote:
| Health care professionals consult with their patients to
| explore their needs and suggest options regularly. This is
| expected and normal.
|
| The professionals making suggestions naturally have biases.
| That behavior gets a bit interesting when one of the options
| is euthanasia.
|
| Here's a few cases:
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-maid-rcmp-
| investig...
|
| "Last summer, Global News first reported a case where a
| veteran claimed to have been pressured by a veterans affairs
| case worker to consider medically assisted dying."
|
| https://www.foxnews.com/politics/canada-offered-assisted-
| sui...
|
| "Canada offered assisted suicide to a Paralympian veteran who
| wanted a wheelchair lift installed"
|
| https://care.org.uk/news/2023/07/canadian-army-veterans-
| diag...
|
| "Canadian army-veterans diagnosed with PTSD offered
| euthanasia"
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| I'm Dutch. Euthanasia has been legal for a few decades here. And
| was common practice before it got legalized. In exactly the same
| way as it is elsewhere. It's basically doctors putting their
| fingers on the scale using all sorts of euphemisms to bring
| relief in the final stages of death.
|
| A little extra morphine puts people in coma. Once they are in a
| coma. They stop eating. You fiddle with their water access and
| they "pass away peacefully" hours/days later. This has been
| common practice for as long as there are doctors. Palliative care
| is a form of euthanasia that is referred to as passive
| euthanasia. But it's usually pretty active. If you stop giving
| people treatment they die. If you give people treatment that puts
| them in or near a coma and then you stop giving them treatment,
| they die. Providing food and water is a form of treatment.
| There's a nice grey area here. A little extra morphine puts
| people in a coma. And then you just unplug the drip feed with
| nutrients and water.
|
| My grand mother (terminal brain cancer) was helped along a
| exactly like this forty years ago before active euthanasia
| (giving people a drug cocktail that first knocks them out and
| then stops their heart) became legal. My grand father was
| fiercely catholic so he never really knew what was happening but
| my mother, aunt, and uncles of course were of course aware and
| simply said enough is enough. I'm pretty sure my grand mother was
| lucid enough that she asked for this. Given this was still
| illegal at the time, it wasn't discussed a lot with us.
|
| In any case, Patients and families asking for that extra bit of
| morphine to be administered is about as old as morphine is. And
| there were other ways before that. You probably know people that
| died this way.
|
| I have a relative who is a GP and deals with euthanasia requests
| once in a while. Not her favorite thing to do, to put it mildly.
| It's a thing that is surrounded with a lot of protocol and has to
| be done by the book. Doctors can reject doing this for whatever
| reason, including moral/religious ones. This is not a right but a
| privilege. And if they go ahead, they have to get the opinion of
| another doctor. The whole thing is documented, double and triple
| checked, etc. In short, there is zero room for
| error/misunderstanding here and there has to be a confirmed
| diagnose of suffering that cannot be relieved and a confirmed
| wish for this. Any violations of protocol are taken extremely
| seriously.
|
| My parents have many friends/relatives/etc. that have requested
| and received euthanasia. One fairly recent case involved a friend
| of theirs with early Alzheimer that just didn't want to stick
| around for the inevitable end. You have to still be able to
| decide on this for this to be legal. And Alzheimer's of course
| results in people not being able to think for themselves. A lot
| of people wait too long by which time they are no longer legally
| able to decide anything for themselves. Including whether they
| want Euthanasia. Anyway, this person was still able to decide and
| pretty vocal about what they wanted. There was a little farewell
| party and everything. And the funeral was a week later. Cases
| like this of course are controversial, especially with doctors.
| But then, undeniably we're talking about individuals who ask for
| this knowing full well what they are asking for.
|
| A while ago a former prime minister and his wife were euthanized
| together. They were both in their nineties with all sorts of
| terminal medical issues. He represented a Christian conservative
| party when he was in office. Euthanasia is completely normal and
| uncontroversial at this point. Even so, this case caused a bit of
| debate. But everybody in the Netherlands has relatives, friends,
| etc. that died through euthanasia. I've never talked to anyone
| that still looks at this as murder, immoral, etc. My parents have
| both notarized letters ready to be invoked if it ever comes up.
| It's been decades since there was any kind of serious political
| debate about rolling this back. Just no chance in hell to get
| anything resembling even close to a majority for this.
|
| The only people that are against this are against this for
| religious reasons. And, as far as I'm concerned, that's fine in
| so far that concerns their own life. But I just don't acknowledge
| their right to impose decisions about other people's lives.
| Especially not mine. This is a widely shared sentiment in the
| Netherlands. People like being in control.
| grecy wrote:
| Theses headlines are always sensationalist, because it sounds
| like these deaths are avoidable.
|
| To be clear, all of these people were going to die within days,
| weeks, or at most a few months.
|
| Death is certain. Dignity at the end is the least we can ask for.
| briansm wrote:
| 'pain-free' and 'organized' perhaps, but don't fool yourself,
| it's never 'dignified'.
|
| Makes me think of this:
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0606035/quotes/?ref_=tt_dyk_qu
| fatbird wrote:
| I've rarely seen a less convincing argument than a quote from
| a TV show.
|
| "Dignity" means different things to different people--such as
| "on my own terms". Your pithy dismissal doesn't capture any
| of that.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Per my understanding, some deaths could have been avoided if
| not for the collapsed medical system in Canada. So if the
| person reaches the stage of advanced cancer because lack of
| care and is offered MAID first before getting cancer treatment,
| was it avoidable?
| utopicwork wrote:
| "But what if someone wants to kill themselves its against their
| rights for them to be restricted from doing so" We dont need to
| make it easier for people to kill themselves we need it to be
| easier to live a fulfilling life so they don't want to
| deepburner wrote:
| Good luck helping somebody paralyzed from the neck down live a
| fulfilling life.
| tivert wrote:
| > Good luck helping somebody paralyzed from the neck down
| live a fulfilling life.
|
| Honestly, you seem to suffer from a lack of imagination.
| There are famous examples of people profoundly paralyzed who
| most likely lived fulfilling lives (e.g. Stephen Hawking),
| and I believe there's research the people's happiness tends
| to return to baseline after both very good _and very bad
| events_.
| TylerE wrote:
| Please don't trivialize peoples stuggles by offering pithy
| anecdotes.
| tivert wrote:
| > Please don't trivialize peoples stuggles by offering
| pithy anecdotes.
|
| I think you're mistaken, I didn't trivialize anything.
|
| If anything's being trivialized, it was the value of
| quadriplegic people, who some internet rando blithely
| declared as all being incapable of having a "fulfilling
| life."
| karencarits wrote:
| I read his comment as an attempt to add nuance; people
| paralyzed from the neck down have various experiences.
| For example, in this study [1], only 12% of those with
| tetraplegy rated their quality of life as poor or very
| poor
|
| [1] https://www.termedia.pl/Quality-of-life-in-patients-
| with-tet...
| moribvndvs wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > Nearly all of those who requested assisted dying - around 96%
| - had a foreseeable natural death. The remaining 4% were
| granted euthanasia due to having a long-term chronic illness
| and where a natural death was not imminent. The average age of
| those seeking assisted dying was around 77 years old, with
| cancer being the most frequent underlying medical condition.
|
| It's ridiculous to jump to a conclusion that these are simply
| people that aren't "fulfilled" enough.
| tpoacher wrote:
| People have made arguments against abuse in vulnerable
| populations, which I think is an important argument. But one
| thing that I really haven't seen explored, and specifically where
| this applies to suicidal ideation, is the extent to which this is
| considered a 'condition' or not.
|
| The human body / brain has extremely powerful mechanisms for
| ensuring certain 'drives' that are essential for the survival and
| propagation as a species. This is what is biologically 'normal' /
| 'healthy'. Whether we agree with these drives or not
| philosophically is another thing. But if someone is anorexic, we
| recognise that their drive for hunger has been compromised, and
| make sure to restore it. We don't go "oh it's ok, their desire
| not to eat is voluntary". Psychiatric diseases are complex. To
| just assume "will" can never be compromised in disease is naive.
| And equally more naive is to assume that there is no action that
| one could do to restore the diseased processes such that that
| will would be reversed.
|
| So the fact that when it comes to suicidal ideation we are less
| prone to say "this is a disease which circumvents the brain's
| normal processes that create the imperative urge to survive,
| leaving one suicidal", and we just go "wouldn't it be nice if
| they could end their life peacefully without consequences" is
| bizzare.
|
| Note that in the situation where a degree of suicidality is not
| the main issue, and we're talking about palliation by physicians,
| current laws and practices absolutely do not prevent a doctor
| from taking actions that are intended to palliate rather than
| prolong a life of suffering. So the euthanasia bill isn't really
| about that. It's about supporting people who actively want to
| die, by providing "assistance". Discussing whether their
| circumstances warrant them wanting to die is a red herring, no
| matter how dire those circumstances may be.
| eddd-ddde wrote:
| A very interesting point. But would you say the same about
| having offspring? If one can decide to not exercise their
| reproductive rights peacefully, why can't someone exercise the
| rights over their own death. Do you want to "cure" people that
| don't want to have kids? What constitutes a "normal" drive.
| tpoacher wrote:
| That's a fair point. And in a sense, the analogous law there
| is the right to medically-assisted sterilisation, which also
| exists (albeit, carrying a somewhat lesser impact in terms of
| finality).
|
| I don't necessarily think a discussion down that line is
| _entirely_ without merit, and one could of course "delve"
| into philosophy of benefits to society vs rights of the
| individual vs sanctity of life etc ... but this is not the
| main point I was making here.
|
| For me the distinction is less about reproduction-aversion
| versus suicidality needing to be forcefully "cured" or not
| (or one of sanctity of life, for that matter), but more about
| one of capacity in the case of exercising reproductive rights
| as compared to exercising suicidal rights. At the risk of a
| bad analogy, the former is more like wanting a questionable
| piercing that others may think is a bad decision. Yes you may
| well also regret it as a bad decision eventually, but if you
| have capacity in your decision at the time, then there is
| little reason to stop you from exercising your right to self-
| mutilation if this is what you want. In which case, yes, if
| someone was claiming, either that "skin is sacred", or using
| circular logic that the very fact you want a mutilation
| proves you're sick and you need to be 'cured' of it, I would
| have had the same response as you.
|
| Whereas there are good reasons there are lots of legal
| protections for proving or disproving capacity when dealing
| with people with dementia signing away their will to a total
| stranger, for instance. Yes, it's possible that the demented
| person still has enough cognitive capacity to sign away their
| will to a total stranger, despite the fact that cognitive
| capacity is the very thing that is compromised. And so,
| similarly, yes it's possible that the suicidal person still
| has enough capacity to judge the extent to which they wish to
| live, even though their ability to wish to live is the very
| thing that has been compromised. But I would be sceptical,
| and would want to see some guardrails before providing
| commercial services to help demented people exercise their
| peaceful right to sign away their wills. And we have enough
| medical knowledge currently to know that, capacity-wise,
| suicidality is much more like dementia in this context, than
| it is like wanting a bad piercing or deciding on reproductive
| rights.
|
| Which is why it's rather frustrating to watch, and a very
| dangerous line to walk, when legislating such a provision
| away purely on the basis of a debate focusing on "personal
| rights vs sanctity of life", without having that discussion
| about capacity and obligations to attempt to restore it /
| protect it as the first priority.
| betaby wrote:
| RCMP called to investigate multiple cases of veterans being
| offered medically assisted death
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-maid-rcmp-investig...
|
| We have such news on a ~monthly basis.
|
| Healthcare in Canada is essentially not available. Disability
| payments are insultingly low.
| fatbird wrote:
| There are around 50,000 MAID deaths a year now. In the linked
| story, _one_ employee was fired for making _four_ veterans feel
| _pressured to consider_ the option of MAID.
|
| This is obviously inappropriate behaviour, but also just as
| obviously an outlier. And the story you linked here is linked
| several other times in this thread. If this is happening
| monthly, there should be many more examples.
| betaby wrote:
| The problem with MAID is statistically significant.
|
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/some-health-care-
| workers-...
|
| But in Ontario, more than three quarters of people euthanized
| when their death wasn't imminent required disability support
| before their death in 2023, according to data from a
| slideshow presentation by the province's chief coroner,
| shared with AP by both a researcher and a doctor on condition
| of anonymity due to its sensitive nature.
|
| Of people killed when they weren't terminally ill, nearly 29%
| lived in the poorest parts of Ontario, compared with 20% of
| the province's general population living in the most deprived
| communities, the data show.
| fatbird wrote:
| The story here isn't about problems with MAID, it's about
| inadequate support for the poor and disabled. Even then,
| your link is about those patients _requesting_ it, not
| about it being forced on them.
|
| It's unsurprising to me that someone with few resources and
| irreversible, painful disability, but lacking an imminent
| death, would request MAID. I don't see how this is an
| argument against MAID.
| normalaccess wrote:
| Eugenics 2.0. When care becomes killing,
| we'll have no incentive to save. The weak and the poor are
| rushed to their graves
| minitech wrote:
| > But in Ontario, more than three quarters of people
| euthanized when their death wasn't imminent required
| disability support before their death in 2023
|
| conditions meriting euthanasia will also tend to be
| disabling yes
| tharmas wrote:
| I know someone personally who was offered MAID. He had heart
| failure. Thankfully he refused. Fought the the system and got
| a heart transplant.
|
| Its being abused in Canada. Its being used as an excuse to
| get rid of you. You're seen as a burden.
|
| It was originally meant as a way for terminal cancer patients
| in terrible pain to die but in reality its offered as a way
| to get rid of you by medical profession.
| xemoka wrote:
| "Healthcare in Canada is essentially not available" is not the
| truth. It's not great. It's the worst it's ever been while I've
| been alive. My uncle recently passed and it's likely caused by
| an over worked medical system combined with delusional anti-
| government conspiracies. But it is not "essentially not
| available", there are many folks currently working their way
| successfully through our medical system, and coming out with
| improving outcomes.
|
| Disability payments _are_ insultingly low, but we instead want
| to give a GST holiday and attempt to buy votes for our current
| government's inevitable loss.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > Healthcare in Canada is essentially not available.
|
| Why even claim something like this when it's objectively not
| true?
| freddie_mercury wrote:
| 12 cases a year in a country of 40 million people doesn't sound
| like very much.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| 40 million doesn't seem like the right denominator - how many
| veterans called the hotline?
|
| They also lost/didn't store phone records so it's totally
| possi there are more who can't talk about their experiences
| because they accepted the offer of MAiD
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| > Healthcare in Canada is essentially not available.
|
| I'm sorry, but it's not that black and white. Given how much
| the healthcare system has done for my family (for all the happy
| and sad things) over here basically for free, making such
| blanket statements is very disingenuous.
| abeppu wrote:
| Note: the title should be updated.
|
| The BBC article title now says "Assisted dying" not "euthanasia".
| Often, the distinction hinges on whether the patient or a medical
| practitioner administers a substance that brings about death. The
| Canadian policy actually provides for both, but as I understand
| it the stats being cited in the article combine both, so only a
| subset of the tally are "euthanasia" deaths.
| djoldman wrote:
| IMO, the key quote:
|
| > The vast majority - around 96% - had a death deemed "reasonably
| foreseeable", due to severe medical conditions such as cancer.
| graeme wrote:
| The standard for that is very loose. There's no requirement
| that the death be imminent. Iirc it basically means the
| condition could kill you, at some point.
|
| This even applies if treatment would prevent death. It's
| whether the condition is capable of killing.
| jandrese wrote:
| With everything medical it is complicated. If someone is 85
| and gets a theoretically treatable form of cancer they're
| looking at months or years of grueling chemotherapy and
| surgeries to get at most few more years of life.
|
| I would not blame anybody for skipping treatment or even
| getting euthanasia to avoid the really sucky part where the
| cancer is killing you painfully, especially if their life
| partner has already passed.
|
| Overall it is best to avoid making too many blanket
| judgements about medical matters. Every case is unique and
| the circumstances matter. Most people are sane and rational
| and you should trust their judgement when it comes to their
| own life, weighing also the opinion of their physician.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| When my mom had cancer I told her she better do everything
| she could to beat it (she was a super hippie no chemicals
| person). I remember she was taking some horrible toxic
| chemo pill that made her miserable (like even her, the
| person taking the pill, had to handle it with gloves taking
| it out of the bottle), and I was like mom, stop taking it
| if it makes you miserable. She broke into tears and was
| suddenly so grateful to me for giving her permission to
| stop taking it. I hadn't realized she was putting herself
| through hell because of what I had asked of her.
|
| Friggen moms man. (++)
| AyyEye wrote:
| Sorry you had to go through that.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I'm so sorry, that's just awful. I am glad you guys had
| some resolution, I guess for lack of a better word... I
| hope that time has eased the pain some
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| No, the standard is not "very loose". It is clear, and
| strict. And you also got the "condition could kill you" part
| wrong. So it's all wrong.
|
| You can read about eligibility criteria here[0], specifically
| what constitutes a "grievous and irremediable medical
| condition". Like, believe it or not, but this legislation
| took a very long time to write, and quite a bit of thought
| was put into it.
|
| I hate to post the link for the third time in the same
| thread, but seriously, talking about eligibility criteria
| necessitates reading what they are. Preferably before talking
| about them.
|
| [0] https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-
| servi...
| petesergeant wrote:
| that but also:
|
| > The median age of this group was more than 77
| anon291 wrote:
| I'm wondering who the 4% are whose death was not reasonably
| foreseeable. What exactly are their secrets to eternal life?
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Specific cause is foreseeable
| dogman1050 wrote:
| After watching my father die with COPD, it because obvious that
| euthanasia happens in the US all the time. He opted out of lung-
| reduction surgery and was ready to die. So the hospital withheld
| IV hydration and provided a morphine drip and he was gone in 36
| hours. How long can one live without water, a few days max? So
| that's what killed him. My sister-in-law who's a physician told
| me that's how it's typically done. I was horrified at the time.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| My dad has COPD and continues smoking. I'm going to go through
| this sooner than later. I've already made peace with this, I've
| seen the alternative in other family members and ultimately its
| the decline in dignity that pushes my moral compass to accept
| self-euthanasia as a humane option.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| I've heard it's even more common per capita than in Canada, the
| difference being that it's not on the record, so no statistics
| are collected about it.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| It's ethically childish that we use roundabout measures like
| that instead of just putting someone out of their misery
| overtly.
|
| It creates a drawn out process where the family has to wait
| around until they pass at some unknown point instead of coming
| together in one moment, making peace, saying their farewell,
| and witnessing the finality together.
|
| It took my girlfriend's vegetative mother a week to die as she
| struggled to breathe that whole time, put on just enough
| morphine to supposedly feel no pain and not a drop more. By the
| time she finally croaked, most of the family that had shown up
| to see her out had left because nobody has time to wait around
| days or weeks for death to happen. And it was emotional hell
| for her two daughters.
|
| They could've just given her a nice dose of morphine, but our
| ethics are too infantile. Instead we do make-believe.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > It's ethically childish that we use roundabout measures
| like that
|
| Dogmas and tabus might be there for a reason. Culturally I
| think we need to pretend thing we don't think are true.
| 7thpower wrote:
| Yes, I think that is not well understood.
|
| When my father-in-law passed, in a rural assisted living
| facility, we found they had stopped feeding him despite saying
| they were and our requests that they continue.
|
| We were stuck in this uncomfortable position of not being able
| to move him somewhere else, being completely blindsided by his
| (bone and bladder) cancer and how quickly it progressed, and
| not knowing what standard of care to advocate for understanding
| that he was passing.
|
| One of the things that was also frustrating is that when we
| would ask for more pain medication, they would refuse as it
| might lead him to stop breathing (I thought, 'so what?'), yet
| they were making decisions that ultimately accelerated to his
| demise.
|
| Looking back, I don't know that ceasing nutrition was a bad
| choice, but it wasn't their decision to make. When I talked to
| friends in healthcare they effectively gave me the 'oh, you
| sweet summer child' talk.
|
| My FIL, while he could communicate, could not wait to be out of
| pain and I wish he had the agency to make the decision before
| having to go through endless pain in the delirium of opioids.
|
| There are, of course, details I'm leaving out, but my general
| takeaway is that in at least some cases the euthanasia debate
| is not about whether the call is being made, but who is making
| the call.
|
| That is not alone reason to support one side of the debate or
| another, but it is an important nuance that I was naive about
| until I witnessed it first hand.
|
| Edit: what I described does not appear to meet the traditional
| definition of euthanasia, but I will leave the post in its
| original form and just clarify that I mean making decisions
| that hasten someone's death either passively or actively.
| mjevans wrote:
| The setup for 'Living Wills' and directives to doctors, at
| least in the US as recently as ~4-5 years ago, suck. I
| remember thinking at the time that I saw what family was
| filling out that they failed to express the nuance that I
| would like for my own directives.
|
| Generally if there's still hope for recovery to a not-shitty
| life then I'd prefer to proceed towards that. Even as extreme
| as E.G. that Leadale anime's setup where the protag's broken
| from the neck down but can live in a VR gameworld (deeper
| immersion so they can still move, taste, etc). If there's
| still real hope for reaching that, it might be worth toughing
| it out and waiting.
|
| However that sort of nebulous criteria that requires a human
| to evaluate isn't present. I can't empower the doctors with
| such vague goals and say 'make your best call as a HUMAN
| doctor with that vague goal'.
|
| If that good route isn't an option, then I wouldn't want to
| stick around either... and the lack of a clear legal
| euthanasia option in much of the US pushes people to
| roundabout failures for lack of food / water intake, or just
| giving in to inevitable statistics when a cold or stressed
| body complication like a heart attack happen. Heck, if my
| brain's the part that's fraying apart and I want to die
| anyway, please harvest the working organs as my method of
| death so someone else can live better.
| ne0flex wrote:
| Both my grandfather and my aunt were palliative care towards
| their end. Their respective care providers kept asking them
| if they'd like to increase dosage of their medicine (can't
| remember what my grandfather was one, but my aunt was on
| morphine). Despite both of them at the time said that they
| didn't want to increase dosage, but the care provider kept
| trying to increase. My family's theory is that they were
| trying to speed their passing. Both cases were in Canada.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| it because obvious that euthanasia happens in the US all the
| time [...] So the hospital withheld IV hydration
| and provided a morphine drip and he was gone in 36
| hours
|
| I had a family member with late-stage terminal COPD opt out of
| further treatment. They were in respiratory crisis and were
| going to be intubated for the _nth_ time with no real hope of
| recovery, and so they said "fuck it" and delined further
| intervention.
|
| The hospital (a Catholic hospital, even) provided a morphine
| drip and they were gone within an hour.
|
| I was never really clear on what killed them in the end, if it
| was the morphine or the COPD. I guess technically it was the
| COPD.
|
| Anyway, as somebody who went through something similar: I'm so
| sorry. COPD is such a slow and crappy way to go. Have you been
| able to find some peace in the years since?
| dogman1050 wrote:
| I have, thanks. I'll always remember his last words to me,
| "You're a prince."
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I'm so glad to hear that. We were able to have some closure
| as well, similarly... it was a comfort...
| toasterlovin wrote:
| > The hospital (a Catholic hospital, even) provided a
| morphine drip and they were gone within an hour.
|
| FWIW, Catholic ethics are actually fairly well thought out on
| this issue. You're not allowed to withhold basic nourishment
| (food, hydration, non-invasive breathing support), but you
| are allowed to opt out of invasive procedures such as
| intubation and provide pain management if the patient or the
| patient's guardian decides that it would significantly affect
| quality of life and the patient doesn't have long to live.
| Obviously there is discernment involved in the last bit, but
| Catholicism is all about discernment.
|
| Here's the National Catholic Bioethics Center on the topic:
| https://www.ncbcenter.org/resources-and-statements-
| cms/summa...
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Thanks for that information. I have some major
| disagreements with the Catholic church but more knowledge
| and understanding is always a good thing. Appreciated.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| Of course! I'm biased (as a Catholic), but I personally
| find the Church's moral stances to be fairly well thought
| out and systematic. But well thought out people starting
| from different axioms will often disagree with each
| other's conclusions!
| pcl wrote:
| It's hard to ask this in a non-confrontational way, so
| I'll just come out with it:
|
| How do you square that with the modern Catholic church's
| systemic support of sexual abuse of minors?
|
| I mean this in the most inquisitive way possible. An
| organization's what it does; the modern Catholic Church
| (leaders) have supported some horrible things. How do you
| separate out the good bits from the bad bits?
| person101x wrote:
| For me it boils down to this: the Catholic Church exists
| as a body of members who are all sinners- laymen and
| women, priests, bishops, cardinals, and the pope
| included. The clergy are simply functionaries within the
| church who serve very important roles, but are not
| sinless, perfect humans by any stretch of the
| imagination.
|
| The way of life the Church offers along with its
| teachings, are what you might be able to consider the
| "good bits".
|
| The "bad bits" are the members, who are sometimes clergy,
| who sin against God and against their neighbor.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Thanks for the link. It affirmed my understanding of church
| teaching. _Medically assisted nutrition and hydration
| become morally optional when they cannot reasonably be
| expected to prolong life or when they would be excessively
| burdensome for the patient or would cause significant
| physical discomfort._
| toasterlovin wrote:
| Yes, "when they cannot reasonably be expected to prolong
| life" is key, since there's some discussion in other
| parts of the thread about withholding nutrition as a form
| of euthanasia, which Catholic teaching is very much not
| okay with.
| anon291 wrote:
| We're in a weird spot where the secular world asks us to
| simultaneously cause death (the euthanasia folks) while also
| asking us to evade it altogether (the Brian Johnson types).
|
| Catholicism embraces natural death, which is what your family
| member (RIP) chose. Interventions that hasten death are fine.
| Just can't cause it.
| anon291 wrote:
| We need to be clear on terms here.
|
| Killing someone with a drug intended to stop the heart /
| prevent respiration is unequivocally euthanasia.
|
| Withholding treatments is not euthanasia. Nor is pain
| medication that hastens death. Those are things we can have an
| ethical discussion about.
|
| As for IV drip.. that's another discussion. I personally would
| not ever do that. Water is a basic thing for humanity, and
| should be provided. Unless he explicitly refused the water.
| Then, that's his choice.
|
| I think I ultimately reject the idea that this is not well-
| understood, because the largest organizations opposed to
| euthanasia (the Catholic church for example) has given endless
| thought to this, and explicitly accepts the situation you
| described. Opponents of euthanasia are not ignorant.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Why can someone make the choice not to have water in their
| IV, but can't make the choice to have a fuckton of morphine
| in their IV?
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Withholding aid is morally fundamentally different than
| proactively ending someone's life.
| gambiting wrote:
| In the sense that it's worse?
|
| My dad also spent days dying from extremely aggressive
| cancer, being in unimaginable amounts of pain, with all of
| his organs slowly shutting down, his limbs becoming swollen
| from pooling blood, unable to drink, unable to eat, crying
| about how much pain he's in and how much he wants to go home.
| And all the hospital could do was give him enough morphine to
| knock him our and we waited by his bedside for 4 days until
| he finally drew his last breath, probably due to lack of
| fluids at this point.
|
| Tell me - where does the "morality" stand here compared to
| him proactively ending his own life with a drug before all of
| this happened, if he had such an option and decided to take
| it? How is what he went through morally better like some
| people say it is compared to euthanasia(I don't know if you
| think that, but it's a common argument). There's no dignity
| in any of this.
| wonger_ wrote:
| Reminds me of this experience of someone from the UK:
| https://jameshfisher.com/2017/05/19/granddad-died-today/
|
| "Terminal dehydration is a way to skirt the Suicide Act,
| because we can claim that withholding water is just like
| withholding treatment. Ramping up painkillers and sedatives is
| a way to skirt the Suicide Act, because we can claim that the
| medication helps the patient cope with their death, rather than
| inducing their death."
| guyzero wrote:
| My Canadian parents are in their 80's so naturally a lot of their
| friends of the same age are dying. And two of them have been via
| MAID.
|
| In one case, which was surprising to me, a man who had survived
| cancer - he was not terminal but certainly wasn't getting any
| better - elected to die via MAID after his wife died. She passed,
| he called his doctor and less than a week later he was also dead.
| He got a chance to visit his family, apparently drive around his
| hobby farm one more time and then that was it. He didn't want to
| deal with being alone and seriously ill.
|
| Another friend was in renal and congestive heart failure and
| possibly could have lived longer but they were driving 100km
| daily to get to the nearest dialysis clinic and again, this
| person was definitely dying. So made and appointment and decided
| to go sooner rather than suffer along for an indeterminate amount
| of time.
|
| It's quite surprising to me, but these people are in their mid to
| late 80's and of sound mind and know what they want.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I wouldn't call someone dealing with cancer and the loss of his
| wife sound of mind within one week of the loss.
| guyzero wrote:
| He had apparently expressed his intention before she passed.
| I do not know all the details and this is second hand, but he
| apparently had a plan.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I would've expected at least a waiting period longer than a
| week after a traumatic event. Of course I don't know all
| the circumstances around it.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| A lot of equations and generally good advice for the
| younger set changes when you're in you 80s. I think
| unless you've had a pretty unstable life or have real
| serious mental illness you know yourself pretty damn well
| by that point.
| caseyohara wrote:
| Who decides on the duration of the waiting period? Why
| can't people be in charge of their own lives? Especially
| people in their 80s, they have earned the right to
| agency.
|
| It reminds me of OB/GYN providers that deny childless
| women sterilization procedures - even when they are in
| their 30s - ostensibly on the risk that the woman might
| change their mind about having children. Some people know
| things for certain and there is a 0% chance they are
| going to change their mind.
|
| Yes, irreversible decisions warrant deep consideration.
| But denying a full grown adult control over their life
| decisions is cruel and unduly authoritarian.
| aaplok wrote:
| The thing is, someone has to.
|
| If you walk in very drunk asking to be euthanised, one
| would hope that they would have to wait until you are no
| longer drunk to confirm you really want to be euthanised.
| Then, who decides on the waiting period?
|
| Likewise if a traumatic event clouds your judgement (as
| some events can do), it's not unreasonable to make you
| wait until your judgement is sound. Then someone has to
| decide on the waiting period.
|
| Potentially this can be studied statistically. Just
| collect data regularly after an event (such as binge
| drinking event) to evaluate how quickly people's
| judgement stabilises. That way we may find that the death
| of a spouse doesn't cloud the judgement, in which case
| the waiting period is 0.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| Convincing your drunk friend to go to the suicide clinic
| and kill himself is the absolute pinnacle of "thing
| that's the most hilarious thing in the world while you're
| smashed but is absolutely horrifying the second you wake
| up the next morning".
|
| Anecdotally, I've heard that there's a strong link
| between heavy boozing and suicide, especially via
| firearm. One wonders if it's determined people needing
| courage, or drunk people becoming determined.
| simonh wrote:
| Is there any country in the world with laws allowing
| assisted dying that actually allows what you describe, or
| is it a fantasy that's irrelevant to the actual policies
| we're discussing?
| neom wrote:
| You can't access MAID in Canada any faster than 90 days
| unless you are at immediate risk of losing your faculties
| such that you couldn't make the choice. You need multiple
| specialists to assess you and sign off on it etc.
| karencarits wrote:
| I guess there are many perspectives on this; these are
| questions that touches on many serious ethical and
| philosophical topics: health care, the value of life,
| death, autonomy, ...
|
| There is a tendency in our time to think about all issues
| in terms of economy. I think that's wrong, that we
| shouldn't think about life and death as economical
| questions, that it is a reductive discourse. Others might
| disagree, of course
|
| For example, is this really a question about being in
| charge of one's own life or about what services that
| should be offered in a society? I guess that's also a
| link to the OB/GYN example you give; at least some health
| care professionals might think it is unethical to damage
| an organ or body that's working: primum non nocere
|
| Others, who have another philosophical view on what
| health care is, may say that the society should offer the
| services that people want or need
| toasterlovin wrote:
| > Why can't people be in charge of their own lives?
|
| I think the obvious counterpoint is that MAID is about
| people enlisting others to help kill them, which is no
| longer merely "being in charge of their own lives".
| christina97 wrote:
| The others are really not necessary from a technical pov,
| could have suicide pill vending machines around the
| place.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| Right, but if the vending machines with suicide pills are
| specifically for suicide, then the help of others is
| still very much necessary. And of course, you'd want to
| prevents kids and drunk people from using the machines,
| so you'd need some kind of a gatekeeper.
|
| And that point you've ended up right back at MAID.
| jl6 wrote:
| > Yes, irreversible decisions warrant deep consideration.
|
| I think you've answered your own question there. Deep
| consideration is not usually something done quickly, and
| arguably depth of consideration improves when others are
| involved to provide additional perspectives.
|
| "People should be in charge of their own lives" sounds
| superficially like an appealing principle, and in an
| abstract sense is a worthy one - but reality is messy at
| the edges, and we know that the concept of informed
| consent has nuances. There are many circumstances where
| it would be unethical to grant someone's request even if
| they swear blind that it's what they really want.
| Miraste wrote:
| The same reason that pills come in blister packs and
| bridges have nets-if you add a delay to methods for
| ending one's life, a significant portion of people change
| their minds.
| Supermancho wrote:
| One is to prevent unsupervised actions from taking place.
| This is usually to empower younger people to reconsider.
|
| The other is supervised. This is usually to empower older
| to people to consider their options.
|
| We can agree to disagree on what supervision means, but a
| bridge net and a mandatory process without a (subjective)
| additional waiting period, are very different situations
| to me.
| Miraste wrote:
| Would you feel the same way if the waiting period were
| objective? Say a study was performed with varying wait
| periods, the percentage of people who changed their minds
| and opted out was tracked, and the final length was set
| somewhere on this curve to minimize both the delay and
| the number of people who may have changed their minds.
| There are ethical problems with that precise setup, but
| you get the idea.
|
| The human psyche is a frail and changeable thing-a pause
| in a long-held mental routine can lead to greater
| consideration at any age, not just for the young.
| pc86 wrote:
| Making sure someone has actually done the deep
| consideration necessary for an informed decision of a
| certain magnitude is not cruel, authoritarian, or denying
| anyone their agency. It's simply making sure they're
| actually using their agency.
|
| Requiring someone be of sound mind before making
| permanent decisions is reasonable and pretending it's not
| only makes it possible for people to make permanent --
| and in this case, deadly -- mistakes because you don't
| want to inconvenience someone else.
|
| Like you said, if you're 100% clear headed and you know
| you want to die, you'll be able to do it in two weeks
| just the same as you could in one. If you're going to
| have euthanasia it's more important to me that it be
| absolutely clear the people doing it are capable of
| making that decision _in that moment_ than making it as
| easy and quick as possible. If you 're not of clear mind
| to make the decision in the first place, you're not of
| clear mind to make the decision not to. Whether you said
| six months or a year ago that you want to die when your
| wife dies is irrelevant, you don't have the mental
| faculties _at that moment_ to confirm you want to do it.
|
| And this isn't choosing to end your life in isolation,
| this is asking someone else to kill you. They have the
| right to know that there is as little chance as possible
| you would regret this a week, month, or year from now if
| given the opportunity.
| hattmall wrote:
| The issue is that every OB/GYN has seen patients that
| regret the decision. And for most they will have seen
| instances where that regret ultimately led to suicide.
|
| Do you really want to be the doctor that didn't press for
| more consideration for a patient that ultimately takes
| their own life?
|
| I get the idea of giving women control but as a doctor
| it's also their right to refuse a procedure to not bear
| that burden. It's similar to the theory of justice that
| states it's better for 99 guilty men to go free than 1
| innocent person to be punished.
|
| It's easier to deal with a lot of angry patients vs one
| that commits suicide.
|
| At least with the euthanasia there's not really going to
| be any rebounding patient regret to deal with!
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| How common is this, really? I think you would have to
| weigh the chances of someone going through multiple
| specialists (psych evaluation, obgyn, possible other
| referrals) over the course of months and then magically
| they come to regret the procedure well into their full
| adulthood? At that point you might as well say that
| people shouldn't be allowed cosmetic surgery, lasik, or
| braces.
| masterj wrote:
| > I get the idea of giving women control but
|
| Just stop there. Don't infantilize people.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| You can't regret dying. Let people do what they want.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Should the doctor have control over his life? Or just his
| patients?
|
| And how exactly is the doctor supposed to distinguish
| between those who have a "0%" chance of changing their
| mind and those who have a 1% or 5% or 10% chance of
| changing their mind?
| diddid wrote:
| Grown adults are prevented from making decisions all the
| time. Wearing a seat belt for example. Why should it be
| OK to force someone to wear a seat belt all of the time,
| but not OK to have a waiting period if someone decides
| they want to die?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "It reminds me of OB/GYN providers that deny childless
| women sterilization procedures"
|
| This is complicated, because forcing doctors into doing
| things that they consider unethical isn't ideal either.
| groby_b wrote:
| >Of course I don't know all the circumstances around it.
|
| And that's the point. The person expressing the wish (and
| expressing it before the death) did.
|
| People make choices. We should let them, wherever
| possible. Yes, there are consequences - but we also let
| people fly wingsuits and base jump, and those have known
| consequences as well. Would you also enjoin people from
| doing that after a traumatic event? What about mountain
| climbing? Diving? Crossing the street?
|
| If you apply the "no major choices after a traumatic
| event for a while" line of thought, we'd need to install
| temporary guardians for anybody who has a traumatic
| event. That doesn't work.
| karencarits wrote:
| If someone became extremely risk taking after a traumatic
| event, putting their life at stake at several occasions,
| it's not unreasonable to believe that - at least in some
| countries - the person would be forced to undergo a
| psychiatric evaluation, possibly through a temporary
| involuntary commitment
| respondo2134 wrote:
| one line that is crossed is putting others at risk or
| pulling them into their actions. I can't think of many
| scenarios where I'd support involuntary commitment when
| it was just the individual and their actions.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Flying a wingsuit out of an airplane as part of a skydive
| is not particularly dangerous. It's the base jumping,
| wingsuit or no, that is extremely dangerous.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| I don't understand the confusion over the person's
| express wishes, it sounds very reasonable, maybe even
| noble to me. I'm 30 and healthy (afaik), but if my main
| community is my spouse and they die when I'm 80, I'd like
| euthanasia as well. I don't even need the cancer
| background, that just sounds horrible. Maybe my mind will
| change when I'm actually 80? But I doubt it
| cardanome wrote:
| Longer waiting time also means longer suffering. It is a
| trade-of to consider.
|
| One week seems a bit short but honestly not like he has
| that many years left anyway so the best he can hope for
| is going out on his on terms.
|
| I am super critical on euthanasia for younger people. I
| think it should only be allowed for cases when it is
| absolutely medically certain that they will die soon. But
| 80+, if you lived that long you probably know yourself
| pretty well at this point and are unlikely to change your
| mind. Aging, when coupled with mental decline, is
| horrific. It is good to allow them to go in a humane way.
|
| I had multiple relatives with dementia die and I have
| always felt a sense of relieve that their suffering had
| finally ended.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Did he attend her funeral? How do would you get the invites
| out in such a short notice.
|
| Honestly this Canadian policy got Soylent Green all over
| it. I am not going to pretend otherwise.
| guyzero wrote:
| I believe they had a funeral together. That was part of
| the reason for the short waiting time.
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| Details left out of the anecdote may have included a natural
| death after a long period of illness. Or it may have been a
| sudden death.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| I think in a case like this, it's simple to introspect, hard
| to empathize with the person that matters, and easy confuse
| the two.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| Agreed, but requiring one's psychology be stabilized before
| they can die of despair seems to miss the point
| Spivak wrote:
| This happens with transgender individuals looking to start
| hrt stuck in a basically the same catch-22.
|
| It's an uphill legal battle to get people to understand
| that laws saying you have to get the patient's depression,
| anxiety, and suicidal ideation completely under control
| before they're allowed to start hrt when that's the source
| of those problems is untenable. Because while there are
| reasonable and empathetic folks there's faction who is
| pushing these laws as a means of soft-outlawing the
| treatment all together.
|
| Ahh local politics, truly nothing else like it.
| RandomThoughts3 wrote:
| To be honest, my grand parents both died in their nineties and
| their last two years were really sad. It was not so much the
| physical decline but the mental one. At the end, while
| technically alive, so little of who they were as persons
| remained, they might as well have been dead.
|
| I fully understand someone in their 80s knowing the end is near
| choosing to leave on their own term.
| karencarits wrote:
| I appreciate you sharing your perspective. I wondered, when
| you described feeling "really sad" and the sense that people
| "might as well have been dead," I'm wondering if you're
| speaking about your own emotional response or trying to
| convey how the individuals themselves felt about their
| situation?
|
| Edited to sound less harsh
| RandomThoughts3 wrote:
| Well, they experienced extended physical suffering and
| having the mental acuity of a toddler. Feel free to try to
| convince me that not being able to recognise your own kids
| and the person you have been married with for seventy years
| while gradually fully losing your hearing and sight and not
| being able to leave a bed is somehow a worthy experience. I
| personally question if you can even talk of experiencing
| anything because that would imply there is something left
| which can meaningfully process experiences. And that's the
| part which came after the initial decline when they were
| just insanely mean to their loved ones all the time.
|
| You do sound harsh by the way.
| karencarits wrote:
| Thank you for clarifying! I've edited my comment to -
| hopefully - sound less confrontational
| stavros wrote:
| My grandfather had Alzheimer's, and for years he lived a
| stressful life. He constantly kept wondering why he's not
| in his home (he was), as well as some random paranoia,
| like that I was a thief that had come to steal from him,
| or that he was elected mayor against his will, etc. It
| wasn't great for him.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| (I'm not op) The full quote is
|
| > At the end, while technically alive, so little of who
| they were as persons remained, they might as well have been
| dead.
|
| It sounds like there was some severe mental decline. When
| undergoing this kind of mental decline, does anybody remain
| happy? That's meant as a genuine question, not rhetorical.
| Of course I've heard of the cases where people are
| constantly scared, feel unsafe, confused, etc. But I wonder
| if there are more peaceful examples that just make "boring"
| stories, and aren't recounted.
| potatochup wrote:
| My Oma went through Alzheimer's. Sbe went from being a
| functional adult, to forgetting how to speak English, to
| mistaking family members, to recognizing no one, to being
| unable to feed herself over the course of 10 years. But
| she seemed happy most of the time, usually smiling, would
| light up when she saw people, she would attempt to sing
| along to whatever music was playing. So I'd say she
| remained happy most of the time, which made it much
| easier to deal with from our end.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| I'm sorry for your loss. Her story brings me a lot of
| comfort, thanks for sharing it.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| My mother passed from Alzheimer's. There was a few-month
| period in the middle-end phase where she no longer had
| the capacity for long-term fear or existential dread, but
| was still able to eat food and listen to music. What
| remained of her was reasonably content until things
| progressed. Happy? No, not really. But it was a lull in
| the storm of pain that preceded and followed. A silver
| lining to the mushroom cloud.
| wpietri wrote:
| My mom ran an adult foster care home. Half the population
| was elderly, half developmentally disabled. I liked
| helping out with the developmentally disabled folks. They
| were a handful, but they were basically enjoying life.
| But the elderly wing was mostly people warehoused and
| waiting to die. I remember happy moments, but I don't
| remember anybody who I'd call happy, and quite a lot of
| them were miserable.
|
| There was one guy, an occasional escapee and reasonably
| physically healthy for his 80s, who had severe
| Alzheimer's. He just wanted to go home. All the time,
| that's what he wanted. I forget the details, but he
| didn't have a home anymore. Nobody came to visit him. We
| did our best for him, but what can you do with that?
|
| We did our best for all of them. But I remember one
| evening over dinner where my mom and my brother and I
| were talking about getting our medical/legal paperwork in
| order. My mom said, "If I end up like that, just wheel me
| out to a field and leave me."
|
| We couldn't, of course. But when her time came, we did
| move her to hospice as soon as there was no hope of
| recovery. She lived her life and bravely fought the end
| of it, but she didn't want to be kept around as a body, a
| shrine to her former self. A choice I deeply agree with.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > When undergoing this kind of mental decline, does
| anybody remain happy?
|
| According to some people I know who work in care homes:
| yes, some people do. They're confused, have no idea
| what's going on, but are nevertheless mostly happy.
|
| (but that is in no way to negate the fact that many
| don't)
| mrguyorama wrote:
| If you know an ancestor with Alzheimer's or other generic
| "you just kinda decline" diseases, they "die" long before
| their heart stops beating.
|
| I haven't been able to talk to my grandfather, or hear his
| stories, or learn about him, or share anything with him, or
| even be a part of his life for at least 5 years now. He
| will probably be "alive" for another five years. He mostly
| just coasts through life. He doesn't really get to interact
| with friends, because the ones that aren't dying, he
| doesn't remember. When I see him, he asks me about
| graduating high school, which I did over a decade ago now.
|
| I doubt he would choose to die, but when I get to
| experience the exact same thing in 40 years, I'm pretty
| sure I'd rather chew on a 12 gauge. Having a more reliable
| and less terrifying option is important.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| FWIW this seems like a reasonable question.
| strken wrote:
| My grandmother was absolutely unambiguous about it. Even
| when she was still mobile and living at home, she'd say
| things like "I hope it's my time soon" and "I want to
| follow your grandfather." Quite happily, too. She didn't
| seem depressed. Just sick and tired of her friends dying
| and her own inability to do anything for herself.
| flkiwi wrote:
| My bio father (he was not a part of my life, which is
| important to note when you get to the end of this comment)
| lived to 89, for certain values of "lived". He had long ago
| exhausted his ability to support himself financially, he was
| blind, deaf, unable to get around town on his own, had
| substantial age-related mental health issues, as well as a
| litany of small but significant health issues. I cannot speak
| for him, but I'd like to think that if I came anywhere close
| to that existence and I had the option available, I would opt
| for an end on my terms that respected my dignity and that of
| my family. As an American, however, I expect to die like he
| did: poor, mostly alone, and in pain.
| nashashmi wrote:
| This! People feel like they cannot live alone or they cannot
| want that someone else be caused hardship (time or money)
| because of their difficulty.
|
| I feel like I will get downvoted to oblivion just because
| people vehemently disagree, but THIS CANNOT be the meaning and
| choice behind death. It is simply immature, arrogant, and
| selfish. But more plainly, it is suicidal / self-relentment.
| mjevans wrote:
| My sample size as an adult is still small, but I've seen this
| in pets and I've seen this in humans.
|
| The downward slope quickens faster than any would like once
| it starts. The body or the mind slips away, leaving someone
| either trapped in a shell that doesn't work, or momentary
| fragments of the person who was among a sea of futile vapid
| existence.
|
| Our medical technology is not there and shows little sign of
| being close to resolving either issue.
|
| Rather than slowly wasting away I too would rather have the
| option to twist to the side off the cliff rather than the
| long slow painful stair tumble down the hill.
| nashashmi wrote:
| You might be narrowing the definition of life to mean "body
| and mind fully active; useful spirited existence; painless
| existence". But ask the senile when they are no longer
| senile, or the once-despressed, or the ones who live in
| pain (sickle-cell anemic?) if death is better.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Who are you to judge whether someone who has lived for over
| seven decades should go on living or not? If they feel their
| life is done, have nothing left to live for, and fear
| degenerating into a husk of their former selves (dementia)
| stuck inside a broken brain for as long as their body holds
| out, than why should they hang on?
|
| It's arrogant and selfish to force people to live on for as
| long as doctors can keep their body alive. No euthanasia just
| means more messy suicides.
| nashashmi wrote:
| > Who are you to judge whether someone who has lived for
| over seven decades should go on living or not?
|
| When an old man claims this, that is arrogant.
|
| > to force people to live
|
| I don't think anyone can force another to live beyond their
| ill-fated death.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| Immature, arrogant, and selfish is a good description of a
| person who demands other people stay alive despite immense
| suffering, just so you can feel morally superior and not have
| to experience loss.
| karencarits wrote:
| I agree that we should avoid such terms in general in this
| forum as it degrades the discussion. I think we can all
| agree that these are complex ethical questions where
| several values are at stake and there isn't one obviously
| superior ethical stand.
|
| What I read from your comment, is that you think peoples
| fear of loss impacts the discussion to much and shouldn't
| be given much weight in the question?
| nicoburns wrote:
| Not the OP, but I think fear of loss is part of it. But a
| lot of it is just an entrenched/assumed (and IMO not
| particularly justified) moral valuation of life above all
| else.
|
| My own view is that a happy life has value. Death is
| neutral (for the person who dies - it's affect on others
| may be either positive or negative). And that (all else
| being equal), causing someone to live an unhappy life has
| negative moral value.
|
| That latter bit seems to be something that many people
| not only disagree with, but don't even give proper
| consideration. Perhaps due to stigma around devaluing of
| life, so evolutionary bias towards life, or perhaps
| because their own life is good enough that they find it
| hard to empathise with those for whom life is an overall
| negatige experience.
| shkkmo wrote:
| I'm partially with you, in that I do see tragedy in these
| choices. I see tragedy that we lack the cultural and economic
| institutions to support peope towards the end of life in ways
| (especially ones that don't make them feel like a burden.)
|
| However, I don't think the solution to that tragedy to to
| make people suffer through. I think the solution is more and
| better institutions that reduce that suffering so fewer
| people are pushed to make the choice to end it.
| taylorius wrote:
| Forgive me, but your last sentence seems like a platitude.
| What would such institutions look like, and how might they
| reduce the suffering of someone with, say, advanced
| dementia?
|
| I'm not trying to have a go btw - it genuinely seems an
| intractable problem to me.
| joshfee wrote:
| I think the idea is that there are many factors that
| might motivate somebody's decision that their life is not
| worth living any longer. Each individual will have a
| different threshold for that, but if there are
| institutions that can alleviate the reasons for the
| people on the fringe, then there will be net fewer people
| that choose death when they otherwise may have.
|
| Someone with advanced dementia may be too far from that
| threshold to change the decision for them, but that
| doesn't mean that better institutions wouldn't move the
| needle.
| groby_b wrote:
| You know what? Yes, I make selfish decisions about my life.
| So does everybody else. We do not exist to satisfy the needs
| of other people.
|
| The choice behind death is that it's preferable to the
| alternative. Before we had medically assisted options, people
| would do it in more painful ways, but they'd still do it.
| Many cultures had the idea of "walking off into the
| wilderness" when your time was there.
|
| When that time is is a personal choice. By all means, let's
| put some non-gatekeeping hurdles in the way (e.g. mandate a
| conversation or three with a therapist), but ultimately, we
| should all be in charge of our own life.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Most honest gloomful comment so far, and need I say
| selfish.
| itishappy wrote:
| > It is simply immature, arrogant, and selfish.
|
| How is the desire to avoid burdening others selfish?
|
| "You can't choose to kill yourself because that would be
| suicide" is a tautology, not an argument. What's the basis
| for these beliefs?
| nashashmi wrote:
| I will define it for you:
|
| immature: "I know what life means and this is not the
| meaning of life" OR "we should not burden others with our
| remorse and pain and so share nothing with anyone lest it
| cause them pain too." (I hope I don't have to elaborate how
| this is immature.)
|
| arrogant: "who knows better what I need than me? I know it
| well enough that no one else matters"
|
| selfish: "If I am the one who wants something, why can't I
| have it? who are you to say I can't have what I want?"
|
| suicide is a mental disease and a psychological imbalance.
| The suicidal need a redefinition of what life means.
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| Let's loop back around on this comment when you're in your
| 80s, alone, and dying a slow death.
| nashashmi wrote:
| I would be in the same state as when I was depressed. The
| only people to prevent you from making such mistakes are
| the people around you.
| Yeul wrote:
| "The only moral assisted suicide is my own assisted
| suicide".
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I'm well-aligned with Seneca, the Stoic philosopher who said
| death is an open door. If you want to die, do it. However, if
| you choose not to go through that door, your must live your
| life with purpose and conviction. There's no shame in going
| through that door if you no longer have the capacity to live
| purposefully, though.
|
| In these cases, I'm not sure these people had the agency and
| capacity to continue living in a way that makes sense as
| human beings.
|
| I gauge much of my value and purpose in life based on how I
| can serve my family and community. I don't really exist for
| me in a sense, and I can't exist without other people. I'm
| part of something a lot bigger than I am. If at any point it
| comes to be that I'm not serving a purpose in this great
| network, well, I'm not sure I'd see a point in carrying on. I
| may still be breathing, blood still pumping, but I'd be
| functionally dead as a part of a community.
| nashashmi wrote:
| hear hear! in line with another comment I made:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42402703
|
| Choosing death is literally gambling that the purpose is
| over despite never knowing the future.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Because it is downvoted to oblivion:
|
| > This! People feel like they cannot live alone or they
| cannot want that someone else be caused hardship (time or
| money) because of their difficulty.
|
| > I feel like I will get downvoted to oblivion just because
| people vehemently disagree, but THIS CANNOT be the meaning
| and choice behind death. It is simply immature, arrogant, and
| selfish. But more plainly, it is suicidal / self-relentment.
| pj_mukh wrote:
| My dad (age 75) got diagnosed with ALS and within a month of
| the diagnosis opted for MAID. He had only just lost control of
| one leg, but he knew what was coming. As much as we begged him
| for more time, he didn't want any of it.
|
| Till his dying breath he kept repeating how thankful he was
| that he lived in a country that didn't force him to live on
| when he didn't want to.
|
| He was a clear Track 1 case, and I realize Track 2 cases are
| more complicated, but just wanted to add my story as reporting
| on MAID spins out of control in our culture war milieu.
| guyzero wrote:
| I'm sorry for your loss.
| Salgat wrote:
| I know it's morbid to discuss but the relief of financial
| burden on society is also significant. Not only do they die
| with dignity, but they are giving back to society.
| saulpw wrote:
| Not to society, but to their loved ones. Whether their
| children via inheritance or their spouse they didn't
| bankrupt.
| tacticalturtle wrote:
| This is not a good argument for MAID, and I think there are
| countless dystopian sci-fi stories that exhibit this
| reasoning that I'd like to avoid (The Giver, Logan's Run,
| Soylent Green, etc)
|
| If we start looking at people who use MAID as selfless
| because they are "giving back to society", and relieving the
| "financial burden", what does that make people who choose to
| stick around? Are they selfish?
|
| No one should be pressured or guilted into choosing an option
| like MAID - people are more than just balances on a
| spreadsheet.
| giarc wrote:
| In your first example, I suspect there was probably other
| things present you weren't made aware of. Currently the
| requirements in Canada include (only copy those relevant to
| your example).
|
| -have a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability
| (excluding a mental illness until March 17, 2027)
|
| -be in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability
|
| -have enduring and intolerable physical or psychological
| suffering that cannot be alleviated under conditions the person
| considers acceptable
|
| https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/ad-am/bk-di.html#s1
| guyzero wrote:
| Yes, I know very little other than that he was a cancer
| "survivor" - he wasn't about to die of cancer imminently but
| I think he had some sort of long-term ongoing health issues.
| But he was apparently well enough to drive a car!
| nprateem wrote:
| It sounds like the last one is the get out of jail free card.
| wpietri wrote:
| Yeah, I get that. Once you've accepted death is inevitable, you
| start to think carefully about what kind of death you want.
|
| My parents both died of glioblastomas, a particularly
| aggressive form of brain cancer. As the surgeon explained after
| the biopsy, "This is what you will die from." 3 months from
| diagnosis to death for my mom, a year and change for my dad.
| Seeing that process up close made very clear to me what I
| wanted for myself.
|
| All of this was reinforced for me by the experience of Brittany
| Maynard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany_Maynard
|
| She was diagnosed with a glioblastoma and was given 6 months to
| live. She moved from California to Oregon so she could die in a
| controlled and humane manner. She wrote about that here:
| https://www.cnn.com/2014/10/07/opinion/maynard-assisted-suic...
|
| I get the thought of medically-assisted suicide wigs some
| people out, and we have to be careful to make sure the urge
| isn't just a temporary distortion of mood and thought. But
| having seen it up close, I am very much not interested in
| spending months dying slowly and dragging my family through
| hell just to make sure random people not involved don't have to
| think about hard things or deal with their feelings about
| death.
| Yeul wrote:
| The same is happening in the Netherlands.
|
| In Christianity life is about suffering. You're basically
| earning heaven points. But when you no longer live for god but
| only for yourself there is no reason to suffer.
| gambiting wrote:
| Well that entire dogma is giving us monsters like Mother
| Theresa who thought that by letting people in her care suffer
| she made it more likely they will make it to heaven - and
| well, the Catholic Church has agreed with that interpretation
| and made her a Saint.
|
| This was touched upon in a game called Indika released this
| year......there's a story there how a guy ended the suffering
| of his young child who was in constant pain, and was told by
| a priest during confession time "well you see by killing your
| son you condemned your soul to eternity in hell, but your
| child is now definitely in heaven, so actually you did a good
| thing by sacrificing yourself!". And so the guy went and
| killed the rest of his family, having come to a logical
| conclusion that he can't get any more condemned to hell than
| he already is, but if he guarantees that his entire family
| goes into heaven then surely that's an absolutely amazing
| thing to do. I don't know if this was based on a true story
| or not, but the logic totally applies.
| adamiscool8 wrote:
| The alternative dogma of egocentric hedonism creates at
| least as many monsters.
| gambiting wrote:
| Why is the alternative dogma egocentric hedonism? To me,
| the alternative to what she was doing is "dogma" of
| caring for another human. If they need help, if they cry
| out in pain, help them - not collect imaginary points of
| sending them to heaven. Not sure where egocentric
| hedonism plays into this.
| simonh wrote:
| You're replying to someone who presumably thinks that if
| they personally didn't have religion, they would be an
| egotistic hedonist. They don't realise that doesn't apply
| to many other people. I think with people like that,
| we're better off if they keep their religion.
| contravariant wrote:
| I'm doubtful. Way more people are willing to hurt others
| if they think it's for the greater good compared to
| people willing to hurt others just for personal gain.
| wryoak wrote:
| That's not what life is about in Christianity at all. Life is
| about choice in Christianity. Freedom. You can choose to live
| for yourself or for others, for the world. Dwelling on one's
| suffering is a form of egoism that distances one from others
| and thus God. That's why suicide is a sin in Christian
| theology, because it arises from individualism, which denies
| the Holy Spirit that comprises and composes us all. Asking
| "why don't they have the right to kill themselves" is the
| wrong question from such a theological standpoint. The right
| question is "why aren't we rushing to their aid, especially
| when we have the chance to prevent the type of suffering that
| would inspire such egoism." That opportunity certainly won't
| always exist, sometimes organisms just break, it's just the
| risk of material existence, and coping with that
| powerlessness is also a part, no doubt the hardest part, of
| shedding ego.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Yeah, the first noble truth of Christianity is life is
| suffering.
| guyzero wrote:
| I remember Jesus explaining to one of his bodhisattvas
| about how you can relieve suffering through the cessation
| of desire.
| r00fus wrote:
| That's eastern Jesus you're talking about, right?
| aliasxneo wrote:
| While I can appreciate where you're trying to come from, I
| wouldn't be so quick to make such an all-encompassing
| statement. Jesus said, "The thief comes only to steal and
| kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and
| have it to the full." There's a duality here (the now/then
| tension) in that Jesus brings the fullness of life both here
| and in the next life.
|
| This doesn't preclude suffering, though, which I agree is a
| central tenant of Christianity. I would argue the primary
| role of suffering, from the Christian view, is to bring about
| conformity to Christ in this life.
| nicoburns wrote:
| It's not at all surprising to me! I fully expect to want to
| euthanise myself once I'm done with life (and I'm going to be
| pretty upset if it's not an option for me when it gets to that
| point).
|
| People tell me I'll change my mind (perhaps similarly to how
| people treat people who say they don't want kids). But I doubt
| I will. I've seen _lot 's_ of older people (and people who's
| lives are not good) still want this when it comes to the time
| when it applies. The only reason it's not more commonplace is
| social stigma (and legal obstacles) against it.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| I live in the neighbourhood in Canada with a lot of elder
| people. I mentioned in one of my previous comments as well,
| and MAiD is probably one of the best things that happened in
| our country in the past decade. I have distant relatives who
| took the MAiD way out (one because of the age, the other one
| terminal illness). It's not very uncommon to hear once every
| quarter in the coffee shop in my neighbourhood people
| chatting about this program. Older people are generally happy
| having a way out, rather than suffering and bringing pain to
| their close ones.
|
| Both of my parents (in their 70s) mentioned how they want to
| go out the same way once they're incapable of living and
| start suffering. I feel the same about it as well. I
| understand there are very small amount of cases where people
| shouldn't be able to take this way out, but it's a net good.
| I really hate how global media is trying to turn it into a
| big conversation and "slippery slope", because if anyone who
| has seen their loved one suffer... they would never want this
| program to end.
| neom wrote:
| These HN comments are both uplifting and wild to me at the
| same time. I live downtown Toronto, work on Bay St and all
| I hear is how insane we are allowing all these people to
| kill themselves with MAID, even on the occasions I log onto
| twitter, if Canadian stuff comes up I always see some "omg
| the Canadians are crazy all killing themselves" - I always
| thought MAID was great but had started to wonder if I'm
| wrong headed about that.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| Yeah, I hear that in the west as well. I'm relatively
| young, but enjoy having chats at the park and cafes
| around me, where median age is probably 50+. So, you get
| to hear personal stories from people who lost someone in
| recent times. Obviously there's always reluctance in
| discussions as well, like "that person is very strong, I
| don't think I'd be able to sign up for that". But they
| usually end with "I'm glad that they passed away on their
| own terms". I think there's a disconnect between our
| social circles (ages 25-50) and supermajority of people
| who end up taking MAiD way out (70+). So, we don't hear
| the heartbreaking but peaceful stories that often.
| eastbound wrote:
| The problem I have with MAiD is I'm not sure the subject
| really decided it. Forged signatures do exist (a lot) and
| you're only a socialist state away from trying to save on
| public health expenditures by incinerating unwilling
| patients after pretending their agreement. Without much
| trace than two witnesses who say "He said it".
|
| Consentment fraud is a lesser difficulty of fraud than
| stealing a wallet on the street or horribly mutilating
| people and leaving them in a bathtub. And yet, the
| consequences of this fraud are bigger than stealing a
| million dollars from someone. This fraud, is fatal fraud.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| 100% agreed.
|
| I look at my grandma. She's 85, in the middle stages of
| Alzheimers (usually find and lucid, but sometimes thinks
| she's in Michigan or Georgia when she's been in Oregon for 4
| years), constantly soils herself, can't get up from a chair
| without assistance (even then it's a struggle), and can
| barely walk, even with a walker. She got COVID and somehow
| survived, but got permanent lung damage and now needs an
| oxygen tank.
|
| She's not living, she's merely surviving. I don't want to be
| like that. If I found myself in the state she's in, I like to
| think that I'd admit that I've had a good run, but it's time
| to move on.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I can understand this intellectually/rationally, but I can't
| imagine actually making such a decision.
| polski-g wrote:
| Imagine being in pain, all day, every day.
|
| Can you imagine such a decision now?
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Without access to painkillers, sure, yes.
| heroprotagonist wrote:
| My great-grandfather stuck around for a year or two with
| various eldery-issues after his wife died.
|
| Then he had to hang himself, because there was no legal or easy
| way to humanely end his own life.
|
| Apparently he did it wrong, but died anyway. Just more slowly
| and more painfully, without any support.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| I've never seen a sensible argument against the idea that
| somebody of sound mind shouldn't get to decide when to check
| out for themselves.
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| Strange question but how does this affect life insurance?
| Typically a suicide would not be covered.
| asynchronous wrote:
| Wondering this myself, insurance in the states already tries to
| weasel out of every single charge if possible.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Does the ill person have a premium/annual plan?
| kerkeslager wrote:
| That was implied, yes.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Then it would be worthwhile to keeping them alive for as
| long as the premium is being paid
| tifik wrote:
| From a morbidly capitalistic point of view, insurance companies
| should rejoice at the prospect of a very ill person opting for
| assisted death. I imagine the procedure to end ones life would
| be much cheaper than multiple years of procedures and medicine
| to keep them alive.
|
| And if this is the case (which I don't actually know for sure,
| I'm just speculating), then insurance companies would be
| incentivized to 'nudge' certain people towards this decision,
| which is a super duper slippery slope, and at the extreme end
| you'd have the Rick and Morty dead people spaghetti planet
| situation.
|
| edit - this of course applies only to people that would have
| the procedures and medicine that would keep them alive covered.
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| This is true in health insurance but not true in life
| insurance. Life insurance policies pay out at time of death
| with certain exclusions. Common exclusions are death by:
| suicide, killed while committing crime, killed by policy
| holder beneficiary.
|
| Therefore, the longer one lives, the benefit accrues to the
| insurance co, because the more premium policy holder pays to
| LifeInsuranceCo (LIC), LIC has more time to earn
| interest/investment profits from those premiums, and the
| cheaper the payout from LIC to policy holder beneficiary,
| because of inflation and since most payout amounts (eg $1M)
| are fixed at time of policy issuance.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > From a morbidly capitalistic point of view, insurance
| companies should rejoice at the prospect of a very ill person
| opting for assisted death. I imagine the procedure to end
| ones life would be much cheaper than multiple years of
| procedures and medicine to keep them alive.
|
| This would make sense if life insurance and health insurance
| were covered by the same insurer, but they rarely are.
|
| The more fundamental problem here is that insurance is a) to
| prevent financial hardship b) in the case of a rare event.
| Neither death nor serious illness are rare events for the
| elderly, and more often than not, health insurance fails to
| prevent financial hardship, so both of these fail as
| insurance in these situations.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Not sure how it works in Canada, but in the US I think most
| life insurance actually does cover suicide. There's usually
| just a stipulation that suicide isn't covered if it happens
| immediately after someone signs up
| freeone3000 wrote:
| CHLIA (the Canadian Health and Life Insurance Association) does
| not treat MAID as suicide. In addition, most plans cover
| suicide after two years of coverage regardless.
| jryan49 wrote:
| I would think it's like committing suicide, so no payouts. (in
| America)
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| bad angle shot here:
|
| >Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths
|
| >While the number of assisted deaths in Canada is growing, the
| country still falls behind the Netherlands, where euthanasia
| accounted for around 5% of total deaths last year.
|
| 1/20 != 5% ???
| eru wrote:
| Perhaps it's something like 4.8% in Canada and something like
| 5.1% in the Netherlands? But yeah, that sentence doesn't make
| much sense.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| I'm sure this is exactly the case. Assuming it is, then it's
| either so close it's not worth reporting on or so close it's
| worth reporting on accurately
| 0xdde wrote:
| The first sentence of the article gives the Canadian percentage
| as 4.7%.
| Mikhail_Edoshin wrote:
| M. Scott Peck wrote a book about euthanasia long ago. I wonder if
| people still read Peck. "Denial of the soul," that was the title.
| The foundational belief for euthanasia must be that there is no
| soul.
| eru wrote:
| That sounds like a pretty wild leap of faith to me.
| throwanem wrote:
| I hope the book makes a better argument than you present here
| for that claim, which on its face makes nothing obviously
| resembling sense.
| throwaway78665 wrote:
| You mean the belief in Christian fundamentalist version of the
| soul? U my view it doesn't say anything about not believing in
| soul, but it can be interpreted as lack of belief that somebody
| can control their soul.
| freddie_mercury wrote:
| Why can't the foundational belief be that we have a soul that
| has been sundered from our Creator by The Enemy during a
| primordial Manichean duel and keeping it separate is the
| highest sin and only by returning it to where it properly
| belongs are doing good?
|
| It isn't like the only two options are "the Christian
| conception of a soul" and "the atheists rejection of the
| conception of a soul".
| nprateem wrote:
| We keep ourselves separate by thinking instead of just being
| :(
| munchler wrote:
| As someone who just had to put down a beloved pet to prevent
| unspeakable suffering, I find that claim both stupid and
| insulting. If souls are real, I very much look forward to a
| reunion upon my own death.
| echoangle wrote:
| Is it just me or has denial used in contexts like this a
| negative connotation? It sounds like there's overwhelming
| evidence and people just ignore it.
|
| Am I denying that aliens exist? I'm not a native speaker but it
| sounds weird to me.
| nprateem wrote:
| It's so sad how religions are based on ending suffering but
| come up with so many reasons that prevent them from actually
| doing so.
|
| This "foundational belief" is nonsensical. How about the belief
| in self-determination and responsibility for one's own actions?
| niceice wrote:
| "For the first time, the report delved into race and ethnic data
| of those who died by euthanasia.
|
| Around 96% of recipients identified as white people, who account
| for about 70% of Canada's population. It is unclear what caused
| this disparity."
|
| Any good hypothesis about this?
| eru wrote:
| Perhaps they tend to be richer?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Demographics in 75+ age group. It's late here or I would have
| looked up in Stat Can before posting. But that's where you
| should check.
| sn0wf1re wrote:
| Looks like 66% of people 75+ identify as European Origins
| math 1_710_255/2_595_470 0.658938
|
| https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=981003.
| ..
| Miraste wrote:
| It's obscured because of how Canada formats their data, but
| the vast majority of "North American origins" respondents
| would fall under white as well. The total percentage is in
| the upper 80s.
| tifik wrote:
| Could be longer life expectancy for particular demographics
| that are mostly white.
|
| Or it could just be that 70% of people of all ages today are
| white, but 80 years ago it was a much larger proportion (I
| didn't think it would be 96% but I also wouldn't be surprised
| if it was).
|
| This is pure speculation, I have no data to support either of
| these hypotheses.
| triceratops wrote:
| > I didn't think it would be 96% but I also wouldn't be
| surprised if it was
|
| Wikipedia says 93% in 1981. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dem
| ographics_of_Canada#Visible...
| belval wrote:
| My hypothesis would be that white people in Canada, and
| especially Quebec, are culturally very ok with MAID due to
| being less religious than other groups (on average). Since at
| least as far as I know most if not all religions condemn
| suicide/assisted suicide.
|
| Culturally (though I have no data point but my own) my friends
| and family tend to be very comfortable with discussing death
| and assisted-dying. It's just not really taboo.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| People of color are more religious and usually treat MAiD
| program as suicide over here.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| what a beautiful way to destroy your country's culture and
| people. supremely evil!
| xyzzyz wrote:
| I support assisted suicide for people who are not capable of
| doing it without assistance (because dying moments of many people
| are really not pretty, as many stories in this thread attest to),
| but I think that the cases of medical and legal industries
| killing physically healthy young people due to mental issues are
| sick and wrong.
|
| Physically healthy and young people do not need assistance in
| committing suicide if they actually want to do it. When they
| request it, what they are actually asking for is for "experts"
| and "professionals" to make the decision for them. They want the
| system to give them a stamp of approval, so that they don't have
| to take responsibility.
| sdwr wrote:
| Plus they get to avoid the pain, chance of partial recovery,
| messy cleanup for their family, and carrying out a criminal
| action.
|
| Not saying it's right, but there are practical reasons why
| "dying" looks a lot more attractive than "killing yourself"
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| Before people start acting like "let's not kill old people to
| save money" is somehow right-coded, here's Jacobin on the matter:
|
| https://jacobin.com/2024/12/uk-assisted-suicide-maid-canada-...
| err4nt wrote:
| Yes, that article was sober and wise. I'm in Canada and I
| really hope other countries do not follow us down this path. I
| have fears grounded in facts based on what is continuing to
| unfold here in a relatively short number of years that very
| soon the sick, disabled, and elderly will be targeted by MAID,
| and I fear that after that the marginalized, (temporarily)
| impoverished, and even non-terminally injured may come into
| view. Human life is worth more than this!
| ourmandave wrote:
| Where do I sign up?
|
| My parent and an aunt both have dementia and there's no way I'm
| going to hang around not remembering who the hell my family is or
| where I am.
|
| I could hang on like Jimmy Carter (who _is_ mental sound) and go
| 20+ years as a shadow of my former self.
|
| Not putting my family through that.
| PierceJoy wrote:
| People seem to forget that any able bodied person can end their
| life at any time they choose. Denying MAID is only denying this
| right to people who want to exercise it with dignity.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| I consider it a blessing to have a choice in how I go, rather
| than leaving it up to nature and the medical system.
| mrtimo wrote:
| Here is the report - released 16 hours ago - that this news piece
| comes from: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-
| canada/services/publications...
| frankus wrote:
| A more enlightening statistic, but obviously harder to collect,
| would be what percentage of missed life-years could be attributed
| to MAID. I suspect it would be a much smaller percentage.
|
| It's also worth noting that for every MAID horror story in this
| article, there is probably at least one horror story about a
| needlessly painful and drawn-out death that could have been
| avoided if MAID had been legal.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| What is the steelman argument for why it's okay to help people
| kill themselves a la MAID, but not okay to execute murderers?
|
| (Assuming the argument against capital punishment is that
| mistakes are often or sometimes made)
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| Consent.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| > mistakes are often or sometimes made
|
| I think the mistakes in question would primarily be around
| whether someone is of sound mind to consent.
| tivert wrote:
| > What is the steelman argument for why it's okay to help
| people kill themselves a la MAID, but not okay to execute
| murderers?
|
| I would assume it's something that centers personal bodily
| autonomy above all other competing moral considerations. Under
| that libertarian moral framework, the murderer who does not
| want to be executed cannot be killed because they don't want
| it, while the person who want MAID can be killed just because
| they want it.
| toasterlovin wrote:
| Under that framework, could it be argued that the murderer
| has implicitly consented by committing an act they should
| have reasonably foreseen would result in their own death?
|
| (Not well thought out here, just trying this argument on for
| size)
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| Anyone who has worked at a hospital can tell you how many people
| die in needless pain and suffering when nothing more can really
| be done for them. They just wait out the clock in pain or do
| increasingly horrible procedures that give them a little more
| time with terrible quality of life. 5% is probably an
| underestimate of that number.
|
| Nurses/doctors don't like to speak up about that part and people
| don't want to confront it. But MAID is probably the more humane
| option in these cases.
| thechao wrote:
| I volunteered (and then worked) at a Federal hospital in the
| 90s, up until ~2002. Oncologists were notoriously
| underrepresented in the oncology department _as patients_.
| Instead, then tended to do whatever they wanted and then get
| dosed up to the gills with Morphine until dead, a few hours
| later. It was a very different way to run out the clock.
| michael1999 wrote:
| People quote these figures, and I wonder: what would a reasonable
| ratio of MAID vs "natural" death be?
|
| I understand that Catholics and others will assert zero, full
| stop. Fair enough. I am grateful they have argued their case so
| well in the UK.
|
| But for those that approve of it in principle, how many is too
| many?
| tubalcain wrote:
| I wonder how many of these deaths are due to the fear of living
| in destitution, because Canada's overall QOL has plummeted in the
| last decade.
| citizenpaul wrote:
| I understand that there is probably some sort of fear of murder
| or untimely death by doctors "throwing up their hands" or
| pressure from inheritors to "move on"
|
| However the hard line makes no sense. In most places that human
| euthanasia is illegal no one has any problem killing animals
| because it is more merciful than allowing them to spend their
| final time suffering tremendously.
| jtbayly wrote:
| My grandmother had "Do Not Resuscitate" on her file, but it was
| not known (or ignored) by the medics who saved her. She was very
| happy to have been resuscitated, removed the order, and lived for
| years after that.
|
| I submit that not everybody that commits suicide (whether
| medically assisted or otherwise) would make the same decision if
| they it to do over again.
| nprateem wrote:
| If I could put the clock back there are lots of things I'd do
| differently though...
| encoderer wrote:
| What if governments couldn't create cute names like MAID?
|
| I know it seems silly that a cute name would make something more
| likable because it _shouldnt_ but i think probably it does, and
| what is the defense for having them anyway?
| zingababba wrote:
| I think the real burden here will be had by those issuing the
| euthanasia as well as any family members or friends that do not
| understand the reasoning.
|
| Perhaps this will just be an outlet for those sociopathic
| nurses/doctors though, get their kicks this way instead of
| poisoning patients etc?
|
| I put an animal out of its misery once. I decided it needed to be
| done. Did I murder? If it would have been able to, and it asked
| me to, was that not a murder, then?
|
| If twenty people ask me to put them out of their misery, and I
| oblige, does none of it bother me? Does having a license saying I
| can make it easier for me to process? Maybe this is just a market
| for sociopaths?
| morkalork wrote:
| Alternatively, 1/20 die humanely at a time of their choosing
| while X/20, X>1, die a miserable and slow death at a time long
| past where continued treatment improved the standard of living.
| We all die eventually.
| tomohawk wrote:
| Doctors and the medical system should not be involved in
| euthanasia. It should be different professionals and a different
| system. It's a conflict of interest for a doctor or medical
| system to be involved in this.
| nprateem wrote:
| I find it barbaric most countries don't give citizens freedom of
| choice over this most fundamental certainty.
| htx80nerd wrote:
| old people ending it all is one thing, young people wanting to do
| the same not related to chronic illness is another.
| cdme wrote:
| My grandmother developed vascular dementia and spent the last
| half decade or so of her live non-verbal. My grandfather had
| Alzheimer's and eventually forgot that she had passed. They were
| exceedingly kind and frugal and had a strong support system, but
| that doesn't make it easy.
|
| I'm unwilling to judge anyone's decision. Old age can be awful
| depending on your circumstances.
| h1fra wrote:
| Euthanasia without good cheap universal healthcare is just a way
| to get rid of people in a sick society.
|
| Canada might not be the worst but their healthcare only cover
| 60-70% of canadians' need. And it's slowly getting worse with the
| private sector eating the market.
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