Live data from Hacker News

Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

bbc.com

421–430 of 870 posts

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

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 constan…

The alternative dogma of egocentric hedonism creates at least as many monsters.

Such as?

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

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

Would you support laws that force people to get medical treatment whether they want it or not? It would avoid the sort of problem you witnessed.

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

#423

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 lik…

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 be…

Google just results in weird crypto junk, so if you'll pardon me: what is a "multibank"?

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

#424
post #88

[flagged]

It is illegal to counsel suicide in Canada. There are some exceptions involving discussions with medical professionals. So what that person did was explicitly illegal. Hence the involvement of law enforcement.

>We have such news on a ~monthly basis.

Reference required. I follow Canadian news and have not seen such stories.

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

#425

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…

Withholding aid is morally fundamentally different than proactively ending someone's life.

This is not at all decided.

This is just the trolley problem rephrased.

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

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you need from grandma, who is in constant pain and desires to die?

The touch, the voice, the eyes of love, the concern, the stories, the heart, the smile, ... shall I go on?

Grandma is long gone, you’re prolonging suffering of her husk for selfish reasons.

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

#428

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.

There are probably 100x more stories about needlessly painful and drawn-out deaths.

It’s a “one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic” sort of thing. Rare cases of abuses of “voluntary” death are unusual and get attention. Common cases where dying people want to end their suffering and can’t are uninteresting, we all know it happens and we probably all know someone it happened to, and we just don’t think about it.

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

#429

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.

Yes, it's a well known fact that opinions can change. And yes, there's certainly a tiny subset of euthanized individuals who would regret their decision if they were still around to regret it.

When it comes to bodily autonomy, we generally strongly err on the side of respecting one's "opinion at the present time" vs. "the possibility of a different opinion in the future".

What is the intent behind your statement? Are you suggesting that we deny people bodily autonomy "just in case"?

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

#430

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…

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 prov…

Both the lack of hydration and morphine were his choice, and he was lucid. My brother was angry that Dad decided to "give up." I wasn't, but was horrified at the ease with which the staff complied and knew exactly what to do.
Post reply on HN