Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws
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Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws
#2"Experts troubled"? What a weird and wholly opinionated way to report on something.
Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws
#3> prompting doctors and health workers to suggest the procedure to those who might not otherwise consider it.
Please tell me there isn't a financial incentive behind this. The only thing worse than doctors suggesting opioids to those who might not otherwise consider it is doctors suggesting death to those who might not otherwise consider it.
Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws
#4> The law was later amended to allow people who are not terminally ill to choose death, significantly broadening the number of eligible people. Critics say that change removed a key safeguard aimed at protecting people with potentially years or decades of life left.
Here's the thing. If I want to die at 80 because I don't want to live past that point, that is my choice. Even if I have no "illness". If I don't want to be a drooling, pants-shitting, waking-up-5-times-a-night-to-piss, wheelchair-bound, mushy-food-eating, dotty old fuck, the state should not be able to mandate that that's how I spend the last 10 years of my life. I already know that I don't want to regress into infancy just to squeeze out more time. I have had a shit-ton of life already and I'm not even halfway there. The last thing I want in life is for my last 10 years to be miserable.
I will buy a gun, or jump off a bridge, or freeze to death, or O.D. on heroin, or something else if I have to. But I shouldn't have to.
That said, there has to be strong protections against people being put in a position where they feel they have to, or somebody else gets them to, choose euthanasia. There should be a rigorous, wide-ranging, and not-super-slow process to establish without a doubt that, yes, this person is of sound mind, this is only their decision, they are informed, etc. We need both the freedom to choose, and to look closely to make sure they did choose. I think Canada's efforts are extremely noble, and I'm sure that a positive, proactive, intelligent approach can thread the needle. What won't help is FUD, which is what this news article feels like to me. For example, I don't see quotes from people who inspired expanding the laws in the first place.
Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws
#5> prompting doctors and health workers to suggest the procedure to those who might not otherwise consider it. Please tell me there isn't a financial incentive behind this. The only thing worse than doctors suggesting opioids to those who might not otherwise consider it is doctors suggesting death to those who might not otherwise consider it.
There’s always a financial angle in most situations. After all, taking care of a really sick patient (or someone with a difficult condition) costs the state money. If you read the article there are sighs that this may have been a consideration in some cases they list.
Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws
#6No post body was provided.
Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws
#7You can always pick an extreme example of drooling, pants-shitting, etc. etc. But the problem is that "option to die" usually morphs into "duty to die" and then into "involuntarily dying."
Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws
#8No post body was provided.
Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws
#9> prompting doctors and health workers to suggest the procedure to those who might not otherwise consider it. Please tell me there isn't a financial incentive behind this. The only thing worse than doctors suggesting opioids to those who might not otherwise consider it is doctors suggesting death to those who might not otherwise consider it.
I have a very hard time believing that doctors will be suggesting euthanasia to patients who might not otherwise consider it.
There is no financial incentive behind it on a personal level for doctors, given Canada's one-payer medical system, and euthanasia is counter to many doctors' interpretation of the Hypocratic oath.
You could argue that on a system-level there is an incentive to encourage euthanasia, since it could take expensive terminal patients off the bill. This bit does make many people (myself included) uncomfortable and there definitely needs to be checks and balances in place.
Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws
#10> The law was later amended to allow people who are not terminally ill to choose death, significantly broadening the number of eligible people. Critics say that change removed a key safeguard aimed at protecting people with potentially years or decades of life left. Here's the thing. If I want to die at 80 because I don't want to live past that point, that is my choice. Even if I have no "illness". If I don't want to…
> the state should not be able to mandate that that's how I spend the last 10 years of my life
The number of things that the state should not be able to mandate but does is immense. Unfortunately “should not be able to” is irrelevant in modern society. For some reason we all accept constant overreach into private affairs they affect no one else.