Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws • Hacker News Board

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#121

Post by bambax » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 5:46 AM UTC

nkingsy wrote: post #42

throwaway892238 wrote: post #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…

Many people say this when they’re young. Almost no one goes through with it. Maybe the drooling isn’t as bad as you think.

The point of the article is that in Canada at least, many people go through with it.

I think the reason people don't end up killing themselves is that actually committing suicide is technically difficult, and terrifying. If one doesn't have access to specific drugs, how does one do it without making a horrible mess that their loved ones would have to clean up?

Even if one can somehow avoid the mess, suicide tells the people who are left behind that one chose death over them; it's a terrible message that most people, justifiably, don't want to send.

A medical decision that leaves little to no trail is a much better outcome for everyone.

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#122

Post by BeefWellington » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 5:47 AM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #85

throwaway892238 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for making people's lives better. But people deserve the choice of what treatment they will or won't accept. That's what informed consent is about. We don't force surgeries on people just because they have a good prognosis; the person still has to consent to the surgery (if they are capable). Even if there is a treatment with a very good prognosis that could magically make you happier, you deserve the right t…

There are some difficult philosophical questions here. If someone has an ailment, that is causing their mind to think euthanasia is the answer, but if they had the treatment to the ailment, they would no longer think so, are they of sound mind? I'm not sure where the line is on that, and i think its far from obvious.

Agreed. Likewise though, there's an ethical dilemma the other way: Is it acceptable to force treatment on someone?

These are not easy questions and while I personally believe that assisted dying legislation will prevent a lot of needless suffering, I also believe there will be people effectively killed by this who could have otherwise had fulfilling happy lives but couldn't see the path out of the woods or were unable to make that journey.

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#123

Post by Natsu » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 5:52 AM UTC

BeefWellington wrote: post #117

Natsu wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one person named was an administrator, but it's not particularly clear who the "staffers" were. It's possible some of them were doctors, but it's hard to say. That said, I feel like the point here was that it wasn't likely to be pushed at people who hadn't asked, and yet it was, not that it was uniquely bad coming from a doctor vs. an administrator.

The comment you quoted explicitly mentioned doctors and specifically mentioned the Hippocratic oath. You omitted that part of the sentence from the quotation in your reply but it was very clearly about Doctors .

But "staffers" may well include doctors, and there's nobody here who can say either way unless someone steps up with the recordings. I left out the rest because I wanted to point out that there are people with financial incentives who did push this and I don't see why it matters if they're doctors or "staffers" or the hospital's Director of Ethics.

If the Director of Ethics and their staff think this is appropriate, it'd be more surprising if the doctors didn't engage in the same.

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#124

Post by bambax » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 5:53 AM UTC

csnover wrote: post #74

To me, the only thing more ‘disturbing’ than a system which routinely fails its most vulnerable people by failing to provide adequate care and support for a good quality-of-life is a system which fails its most vulnerable people in that way and then also forces them to continue to suffer indefinitely. I agree that we should not accept a system that does not provide everyone a good chance at a decent quality of life.…

Yes, this is a poor and politically charged article; we don't have to read far to get to a beautiful application of Godwin's law:

> Tim Stainton, director of the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship at the University of British Columbia, described Canada’s law as “probably the biggest existential threat to disabled people since the Nazis’ program in Germany in the 1930s.”

Euthanasia and assisted suicide is not murder. It's helping people who feel they don't have any other option.

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#125

Post by nlitened » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 5:56 AM UTC

manholio wrote: post #100

yardstick wrote: post #49

For some more context, in 2020 about 2.4% of all deaths (7,383 people) were euthanasia related. And the vast majority were over 60. Extracts: “In 2017, 2,838 medically assisted deaths were reported by Health Canada, compared with 4,478 deaths in 2018. In 2019, there were 5,425 medically assisted deaths in Canada, accounting for 1.9% of all deaths. In 2020, this increased to 7,383 deaths (2.4% of all deaths in Canada)…

Sounds about like what I would expect. Old age with an incurable degenerative disease is living in hell, so it's no surprise people take the option if it's available. But safeguards must be put in place to prevent people with a history of depression or mental diseases to be approved, it's simply an impossible decision for the state to make even if it would legitimately benefit some of them.

Do people with history of depression and mental diseases suffer? Do they have a right to end their suffering?

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#126

Post by BeefWellington » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 5:56 AM UTC

pyuser583 wrote: post #76

seibelj wrote: post #26

I think reasonable people can agree that aborting an unborn baby that is conceived 1 day prior is not murder, but a fetus 1 day from birth is a human and killing it is murder. There is some point between 1 day and 9 months where killing the baby is immoral. Similarly, physician assisted suicide could make sense in some cases. However a chronically depressed patient that is annoying the doctor, I don't approve of offe…

Canada allows abortion through the entire pregnancy. Usually abortion and euthanizing can be talked about as very different things. But Canadas unusual laws on both invite comparison.

This is a bit misleading. Canada has no abortion laws. It did until the late 80s when the courts struck a law against any abortions as being too restrictive and unconstitutional.

Laws don't typically allow things, they restrict them.

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#127

Post by ksaj » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 5:58 AM UTC

csnover wrote: post #74

To me, the only thing more ‘disturbing’ than a system which routinely fails its most vulnerable people by failing to provide adequate care and support for a good quality-of-life is a system which fails its most vulnerable people in that way and then also forces them to continue to suffer indefinitely. I agree that we should not accept a system that does not provide everyone a good chance at a decent quality of life.…

Absolutely everyone dies. I would argue that part of a respectable quality of life should include a respectable quality of death. There is so little dignity in death as it is.

But when death is immediately inevitable, and hastening it is comforting to the one experiencing it's immediate inevitability, it is not "selfishness" as one comment maintained, but perhaps "fright" over that level of compassion. It might feel like you're begrudging someone of a life, but you just might be begrudging them a death that they've already come to terms with.

That thought process makes it acceptable to keep a brain dead patient "alive" for decades. Is it common for them to come back after all that time of being clinically dead, and then enjoy life until the next time they die?

The argument I'm seeing in the threads about minor ailments such as hearing impairment are just silly because nobody is proposing such a thing. The article talks about his long term state of mind. There's a weird kind of alarmism that always jumps to really specific details, at the expense of the whole, that supposedly show a gap in the logic, but actually are the gap in that logic.

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#128

Post by Dma54rhs » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 5:58 AM UTC

system_panic wrote: post #113

Apnews, like Facebook, needs sensationalist content to sell ads.

U.N. human rights writing about Canada's failure to fulfill the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is hardly sensationalist clickbait.

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#129

Post by _Algernon_ » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:00 AM UTC

earleybird wrote: post #87

I am very torn by these developments. A dozen plus years ago someone close to me had ALS, a horribly vile disease that to this day is a death sentence upon diagnosis. Think of a judge saying to you "you will serve two years of daily punishment each day worse than the previous after which you will die". Medical care is capable of sustaining life well beyond the capabilities of the body by itself. On the other hand, th…

Why should anyone else than the victim have the right to decide what suffering is "good enough" for them?

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#130

Post by vintermann » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:02 AM UTC

ur-whale wrote: post #96

earleybird wrote: post #87

I am very torn by these developments. A dozen plus years ago someone close to me had ALS, a horribly vile disease that to this day is a death sentence upon diagnosis. Think of a judge saying to you "you will serve two years of daily punishment each day worse than the previous after which you will die". Medical care is capable of sustaining life well beyond the capabilities of the body by itself. On the other hand, th…

> On the other hand, this should not be available to someone who has "hearing loss" Why? Should they jump off a bridge instead? > and is possibly not in a position to make good decisions. Who are you to tell?

> Why? Should they jump off a bridge instead?

At least then there will be less lingering suspicion that he was pressured into it for being a cost point. And unlike in the usual AS hypotheticals, (but like most actual assisted suicides), he was perfectly capable of it. He didn't need assistance.

If you say, "my life is not worth living", maybe that's your call to make. But I think it would be very, very, wrong of me to answer, "Yes, your life is not worth living". Especially if I was your doctor.

Involving other people in your suicide, trying to get them to validate your decision, is deeply wrong. It's far worse than things like "emotional burden on your family" like suicidees are often accused of inflicting. It's no wonder that after this has been law for a while, doctor's moral sentiments are sufficiently sabotaged that they start encouraging it for people they see as a burden.