If you’re wondering how fun this could get, here’s an article from the National Post arguing that poverty should be a qualifier for assisted suicide
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-medical-aid-in-dying
Here’s another where a woman with sensitivities to various chemical smells chose to die because she couldn’t find an apartment that was affordable and didn’t reek of noxious chemicals
The people who are worried about this aren’t worried about people who genuinely want to die committing suicide. It was always nearly impossible to stop them anyway, and there’s no way to change that. What we’re worried about is people being pushed toward MAID because they’ve been systemically denied things they need to live that are absolutely available. We’re worried about mentally ill people being told “do the right thing, don’t be a burden” when they want to live. We’re worried about suicide becoming the answer to problems that are caused by social and legislative conditions. We’re worried about becoming the kind of society where, rather than help one another, it’s expected that anyone who needs help just off themselves.
This is all coming from someone who tried twice and will be eternally grateful that I managed to fuck it up both times.
Your comment brings up the most relevant point against MAID and it’s clear we can be a better society than one which pushes people over the edge, or let’s them fall despite their pleas.
I too am glad that you managed to fuck it up and that you’re here with us.
I think everybody deserves the right to end their life in a humane way.
Within reason.
But if the reason given is because classists don’t want you dirtying up their sidewalk with a wheelchair ramp, that’s just unreasonable.
Having people kill themselves because they can’t afford to live is the opposite of humane.
This is the best answer.
I got close to trying several times. I suffer from anxiety and depression, I’m obsessive but I love life. I just wish I could solve my mental issues. Offing yourself is not a solution. It’s like I have a math question in front of me and I rip up the paper and toss it in a can.
This just sounds like a convenient way to get rid of homeless people
“Addicted to drugs? Sounds like you want to die. Here, we’ll help.”
WCGW?
Not really, maybe the timeline, but moving from drug addicts to the disabled is a well worn path. It happened with sterilization
You’re comparing something that was forced upon people to something that is a choice and which a person must qualify for. It’s comparing apples and oranges.
we should start offering this in us cities
For the police? Agreed.
People say the same thing up here. Most people see it as a cynical form of population control.
Remember when death panels were a crazy right wing talking point? Thanks Canada.
Death panels still aren’t a thing you dingus. No bodies of people deciding whether or not you should live or die, just people gaining the option to request it.
They are in the US. They’re called insurance companies.
This is technically the case everywhere.
Healthcare is one of those things that will consume all available resources, and we can’t do that.
Consider someone that requires round the clock, individual care. They are consuming the entire economic output of more than three people to care for someone that will have no more. I know there’s a lot of communists here, but communism doesn’t change that fact.
What if we could keep someone alive for $1M per day? How long should we do it? We shouldn’t, and “death panels” are how that needs to be decided.
You can talk about price gouging, but really high end medical care is akin to magic. It takes very smart people to do it, and something like an MRI requires liquid helium to remain superconducting. That’s just extremely expensive.
Edit: this place is really weird. So many down votes. No argument against it. Very toxic.
Well EU has pretty good healthcare but noons pays 3x market value of their car for single ambulance.
No one is talking about that. Healthcare has a budget. You have to distribute that budget equitably.
It’s a more generalized, non emergency version of triage.
Some people will die no matter what you do. Don’t waste resources on them. Some people will recover if you do nothing. Don’t waste resources on them.
Some people will recover if you spend resources on them and die if your don’t. Use your resources on them.
There’s always a cost benefit tradeoff.
Aside from you though 🫠
Healthcare is one of those things that will consume all available resources, and we can’t do that.
Consider someone that requires round the clock, individual care. They are consuming the entire economic output of more than three people to care for someone that will have no more.
I just pointed that it doesn’t consume so much resources in EU as in US. So it can afford better care for longer period of time. And by that i mean tenfold in some cases.
And guess what, insurance companies paying for that make huge profits yearly as well.
I’m just pointing to system that can afford to keep patients alive without killing them because they or others can’t afford to pay for them while maintaining high quality care.
Off topic
Edit: this place is really weird. So many down votes. No argument against it. Very toxic.
I didn’t down vote you if that matters 😉
While this is technically true. Back in reality land they were found to be automating the process of groundless denials having doctors lie about having examined dozens of cases despite having spent all of 10 seconds in a screen clicking deny all. Our current situation IS death panels and not just for the dying.
Sure. That’s not really a death panel though. That’s the inefficiency of lots of systems. If you make someone jump through enough hoops, they’ll give up. That saves money.
And those bodies totally won’t start gently suggesting this option. It totally hasn’t already happened…
What evidence do you have for this?
Like when? The big one people were up in arms about was the veteran who was advised to look into it by a Veteran Affairs employee. Veteran Affairs has absolutely no say in whether someone can or should seek MAID, and that employee was acting alone. Pretty sure they got shit canned for it too.
Wow that’s… actually kinda fucked.
It’s Canada. We aren’t the smiling plucky canucks that the international community thinks we are. We’re tired, boss. We have some of the worst incidence rates for opioid addiction in the world, the most expensive real estate, politicians that actually don’t do anything except self-deal and play culture war games, a massive overpopulation crisis, a jobs crisis, a grocery cost crisis (all told, they call it a cost of living crisis). They literally invented MAID so that people with terminal cancer can take the painless path out, but now it’s being discussed for literally anyone who is feeling mentally unwell.
They literally invented MAID so that people with terminal cancer can take the painless path out, but now it’s being discussed for literally anyone who is feeling mentally unwell.
The people opposed to medically assisted death used this as an argument against it. I disagreed with them, didn’t expect that to really happen.
I still don’t disagree with its use here. If a person’s life is not their own to take then they have no autonomy at all, but still… it’s jarring to see it actually being used this way.
Honestly just seems like a tee up so the government can “persuade” these people to kill themselves. It’s a bold strategy, Cotton.
Could be a dry run for when life gets so bad in the next few years that people just look for the exit.
Why is there always such a shitshow when it comes to these laws? In Switzerland we have EXIT which is also assisted suicide. Nobody cares that it exists, it is just a reasonable system.
Because the conditions applied always seem to be revolving around removing undesirables within Canada. This example makes people fear that Canadian hospital workers will begin pressuring drug addict patients to kill themselves, or even darker, signing them up for euthanasia without their knowing or consent.
Healthcare worker here.
There is a long list of steps that have to be put into place before someone is even elected for MAiD recommendation by a doctor.
Then there is a 3 step consent process in which the patient must be lucid. Maybe people who want MAiD are unable to successfully give the last step of consent unfortunately. I myself had to watch my grandmother die slowly rather than though MAiD like she wanted because she lost lucidity.
Between those steps either a doctor or a pharmacist will get in touch with the patient to go over the steps of MAiD again.
The drugs for MAiD aren’t over the counter. After all of the above steps are done then the pharmacist does up the compounds. Every Pharmacist I know triple checks their paper work and thier medications.
Then they would either provide MAiD in hosiptal or make a home visit. At the moment handing off the compounds to the family is not allowed here.
There are so many steps and checks and paperwork that no one is getting MAiD signed up against thier will.
I am certain your examples are quite impossible. Neither pressure or involuntary signups.
It might be impossible where you are from (because it’s better implemented or controlled there, I don’t know) but in Canada our health care has turned to shit (our healthcare system was struggling pre-pandemic and is now even worse). There were instances of First Nation mothers being forced or strongly encouraged immediately after giving birth (when they aren’t of sound mind) to be sterilized. If something as horrendous as that can happen, it’s not much of a stretch to believe that bad acting health care workers might try to force people who are vulnerable to agree to euthanasia.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canadian-veterans-assisted-suicide
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/report-uncovers-forced-sterilization-in-quebec-1.6663340
The veterans don’t seem to be such a huge case as the headline suggests. It clearly isn’t systematic and the individual cases sound more like frontline workers who made mistakes instead of malicious intent.
And the sterilizations are clearly systematic racism and not a way to save the apparently fragile healthcare system.
There are some fucked up nurses in VGH. I can definitely see them pulling this shit.
Drug addicts can’t do assisted suicide in Switzerland, it’s not an untreatable illness.
I wouldn’t know of any law preventing MAID in the cases described by the article.
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In addition to having a mental disorder that has been there for a very long time and that is significantly impairing their function, treatments have to have been tried and those treatments have to be treatments that are expected, usual, and evidence-based
That really does not sound like that at all.
Hey so just to give you some context assisted suicide already exists in Canada for the terminally ill.
This is not that.
I don’t think the thing you are comparing to is the same situation is where government is purposely leaving behind depressed and people with disabilities or really any negligible problem and then offering them death as the only option. How do you get out of feeling guilt of not building a ramp for someone with a wheelchair? Oh just tell them to go kill themselves as their only option.
It’s a situation where you just don’t have a doctor to help you stay healthy but you have a doctor to help you die.
The great passive aggression of political classism Canada 2023.
They are actually making Britain look like the compassionate ones. That’s saying something.
The bad is that they’re making categories of people with helped death on the table for those specifically detested.
It is a bit unfair that only drug addicts get this. Assisted suicide should be available for the general population.
The article says that the mentally ill also get this option.
Have any of their politicians taken them up on the offer?
Aha ok. Thank you for clarifying 🙌
Oh that’s really bad. That’s even less capable of being terminal
“Terminal” isn’t the only standard. “A lifetime of irremediable physical and/or psychological suffering” is another.
Getting addicted to drugs isn’t exactly an insurmountable barrier
It is for some
it doesnt have to be if there was resources
sounds like theyre just not sugar coating what they want ppl dealt a shitty hand to do
That not how it works. Addiction is simply not something some people can overcome. It’s a condition that affects everyone differently, and, for some, it doesn’t matter how many resources you throw at it. It’s not a condition one can reason or rationalize one’s way through. For some, recovery itself presents irremediable psychological suffering from which they seek a permanent release.
You seem to be asserting that the state wants addicts to kill themselves, but there’s no evidence for this, as anyone seeking this remedy would have to apply for it and go through multiple steps of evaluation before being permitted. Such a high bar of entry - plus all of the treatment options available - are evidence that it’s the option of last resort for the most extreme cases and not for just anyone.
Just to make extra sure it isn’t eugenics, have everyone asking for assisted suicide, provide proof of having reproduced, or get enrolled into forced reproduction first… /s
“Kill em all”. Canadian here. Disabled folks like myself have been taking this route for a while now simply because they can’t afford to live any longer. That’s pretty fucked. Canada doesn’t want anything to do with us or the “junkies”. They’d rather we die.
This is only okay if the client asks for it under lucid understanding. And I support it. “Pushing” this from any government agent should be illegal. I will take this route when I reach a certain quality of life threshold.
It hasn’t been pushed on anyone from a Healthcare provider(the only people legally allowed to recommend and administer)
Considering that just two weeks ago the canadian government for cheering for actual SS Nazis, that should be a surprise for no one.
I’d be worried that this will be used as a screen to kill “undesirables” without scrutiny.
It does say it requires counseling before it is done, so you would have to fake that part.
Not hard for medical professionals to put blanket symptoms on mental illnesses. Just look at history. The mentally unwell haven’t been treated kindly by pretty much anyone throughout history. All this positive talk about it is modern as in the last 30 years. Before that it was all taboo
No you need bad counselors. And not explicitly evil ones even. Just ones who think they’d want to die if their life was pretty bad. I see people say they’d kill themselves if they were deaf, if they were blind, if they were in need of a wheelchair, etc, but disabled people do live happy and complete lives, often to the astonishment of therapists.
Drug addicts are capable of recovering and having better lives. That’s the fundamental difference between them and the terminally ill. Mentally ill people can find their miracle treatment or a regimen that works or something.
These two groups are easily manipulated when at their worsts and counselors are frankly terrible at seeing the difference between a really bad period of life and a life that can’t improve. The last thing a mentally ill person at rock bottom needs is a medical professional to agree death is an option
Not all drug addicts are capable of recovering. Most are, but not everyone. To assert such a claim evinces a fundamental ignorance of drug addiction.
And who are we to say which is which with such absolute certainty that we will bear the weight of killing them? Not permitting them to die without our help, but preparing the mechanism of death, providing, and/or administering it. With cancer it’s easy to know when there’s no hope left, that another try won’t help. There is no hospice of hopelessness for drug addiction, no few months to live of increasing agony, no immanence. So I say we shouldn’t bear this weight. If they want to die let it be by their own hand with ours clean. Our hands should only be dirtied like this where those wishing to die are too sick to do it themselves meet the strictest criteria.
First of all, YOU aren’t bearing any “weight”, nor would you be making any decision. Qualified medical professionals would be. Second, to say there’s no hopelessness for some people in drug addiction shows a fundamental ignorance of that condition— some people simply are incapable of recovering from it. Most are, but not everyone.
Finally, you’re making a decision for a lot of people which doesn’t affect you at all based on your own emotions, biases, and ignorance of a condition to prolong a person’s suffering which is seemingly arbitrary. It hardly seems reasonable.
That sounds fucked-up, no? Is it an uncureable condition?
Addiction isn’t a condition which can, generally speaking, be cured. It’s a chronic condition and is often genetic. While many choose a lifetime of treatment, it’s a constant struggle, and the quality of life varies widely.
Yeah, it’s fucked up. It’s being presented under the guise of equality too lol
Canada is several months away from medically assisted “suicide” for people who don’t support currently elected politicians
Found the right wing, nutjob.
I do hate this, but at least dying is not an illegal thing to do to oneself, but at the same time, I don’t want people to die, even if they decided to. On top of that, there has to be a better way to deal with addiction than allowing someone to just die. Plus, there is a stupid loophole brewing where people who decide not to die could be documented as wanting to die by some powerful individuals. All around, a bad thing to legalize and the administrative problems it would bring
I don’t want people to suffer even if they decided to. There’s this stupid loophole where people are convicted of crimes they didn’t do because the government is theatre.
All around, people should maintain their own propriety.
Lord have mercy. Canada has lost their minds.
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“Canada announces technology that allows anybody, anywhere in the world to undergo mandatory medically assisted ‘suicide’ without consenting or being informed beforehand said operation”
Long time ago, so I heard but it seems they are still “sinking” deeper.
This feels like it crosses a line.
I just don’t know how I feel about it. They do go through an assessment before they’re allowed to end their life this way. Maybe if you really want to die because your life is just generally unbearable, you should be allowed to? I get that there are methods to beat addiction, but they don’t always work. If you just can’t stop smoking meth and you just can’t live that way anymore, maybe let that person die like they want to? I honestly don’t know if those are yes answers for me.
I think you should be allowed to, and I’ve been vocally pro right to die for a long time, but I think this is bad. Medically assisted suicide isn’t meant to be done like this because doctors are better at it, but because they’re the ones with access to lethal drugs whom the terminally ill who are unable to end their life by their own hand will interact with that have the least to gain from their death.
Medically assisted suicide needs to emphasize assisted over suicide. Drug addicts have the capacity to obtain and administer a lethal dose of a drug. I might be ok with them being allowed a safe place where a DNR order that they set up for that experience will be respected so they can OD.
But the general rule in medically assisted suicide is the patient should have to prove that they are terminally ill with no hope of recovering and a sufficiently painful decline and then once approved they should have to do every part of the act that they are physically capable of. Furthermore the final “go” signal should require the patient to explicitly trigger. The physician should be as hands off as possible.
It needs to be treated with this weight. It needs to require a person dying of cancer to fight for it. Otherwise able people might begin dispensing “mercy” where it is less than enthusiastically wanted.
Why should that be the line? Why should a patient have to be terminally ill in order to have the right to die? Why should irremediable suffering not also be considered as a standard?
It’s not the right to die, it’s the right to assistance in it. I believe we all have the right to kill ourselves. Terminality is associated with a cascading of symptoms and suffering. It’s not “you can’t be helped” but “your pain is going to be increasingly unbearable and constant and likely you will begin losing certain faculties as you wait to die.” It’s also associated with the need for physician assistance to suicide. I can go out, buy a bunch of pills, get a weapon, find a bridge, whatever. A terminally ill patient probably can’t. Things like loading a needle of too much opioid is going to likely be difficult by the time you’re declared terminal. And terminal comes with the understanding that it’s too late for a miracle cure, even if it gets invented tomorrow it’s highly unlikely to get to you in time. Irremediable doesn’t come with that security. And that may sound ridiculous but miracle cures have happened, notably with antibiotics.
lol, there’s no such thing as “miracles” and antibiotics don’t cure addiction— nothing does. It’s a lifelong condition that not everyone has success with. Why should you get to decide who gets relief from irremediable physical and/or psychological suffering rather than trained physicians and psychologists? You just assume that, for someone in that position, it would just be easy for them to commit suicide themselves, but you’ve clearly never been suicidal. It’s never easy. And clearly it’s difficult enough that people want state assistance to do it safely and humanely.
In my opinion, those addicted to drugs so much as to need help commiting suicide are not in a clear enough mental state to make such a decision.
That’s why it is required for them to have multiple interviews with medical professionals before they qualify for state assistance.
This opens some uncomfortable doors for people who have a severe negative and abusive view towards drug addicts.
I know multiple doctors involved in the panels that make these decisions and the people that have negative and abusive views towards drug addicts don’t really get input into this process.
If you can find a panel of doctors stack full of fucking assholes who want addicted people to die. That’s a different story, but I would argue the people I know involved in this processing. Canada albeit just a few of them are genuinely good people who don’t judge you for the issues you’re going through and just want you to be helped and at peace.
Yeah the risk with panels: look at the SCJ right now. Its supposed to be an ethics committee but almost all of them got in there doesn’t have a shred of ethics.
So if you’re relying on a panel of voted doctors It’s just a bribe away from complete negligence and apathy to human life over a slight inconvenience and $$.
It’s not exactly prime objective material.
