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Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

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281–290 of 870 posts

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#282

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…

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…

I'm sorry for your loss.

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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...

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.

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#284
post #7

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 he…

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.

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.

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

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.

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.

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#287

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…

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.

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.

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#288
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?

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#289

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)

> 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.

Re: Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

#290
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

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…

> 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?

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