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Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

bbc.com

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

#531

Post by int_19h »

wryoak wrote: post #353
Yeul wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That’s not what life is about in Christianity at all. Life is about choice in Christianity. Freedom. You can choose to live for yourself or for others, for the world. Dwelling on one’s suffering is a form of egoism that distances one from others and thus God. That’s why suicide is a sin in Christian theology, because it arises from individualism, which denies the Holy Spirit that comprises and composes us all. Asking…

There are many different strains of Christianity. In some of them, like many varieties of Calvinism, the notion that people have freedom to choose anything is explicitly rejected.

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

#532

Post by int_19h »

karencarits wrote: post #519
mattmaroon wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never seen a sensible argument against the idea that somebody of sound mind shouldn’t get to decide when to check out for themselves.

There are many sensible arguments both for and against. BBC has a very short review of some main arguments for and against: * For: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/infavour/infavour_1.... * Against: https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/against/against_1.sh...

Most of these aren't sensible.

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

#533

Post by Analemma_ »

karencarits wrote: post #477
Analemma_ wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People could choose this purelyto avoid additional cost to their relatives. Why is this a bad thing? If there's a choice between giving $100,000 to my descendants and using it to keep me intubated in a hospital bed for an extra 6 months, I find the former preferable by far. If someone else doesn't, that's fine, but I find comments like this both annoying and creepily authoritarian in saying that the correct choice…

Not the op but I guess the idea is that questions of life and death should not primarily be economical questions. You are free to disagree, of course, and there is, at some level, economical considerations for all medical treatments. But at least I'm my country is there a sharp divide; an individual should receive the best available treatment without economical considerations. What treatments that are available for v…

That's mostly tangential to my argument though. In many people's lives, there comes a point where you can spend arbitrarily large sums of money to postpone death, but only in a form that I, for myself, don't consider all that valuable: I would be willing to be bedridden, intubated, and barely-conscious as a temporary condition if it meant a full recovery for more life later. But as a holding pattern before death, which is what it usually is, I'd rather not, and I personally would like to spend that money in other ways.

Note that this applies even in cases where all the costs are paid by taxpayers. If the state is making me an offer saying, "we'd like to spend $100,000 to keep you barely-conscious for a few months", that might be more generous in some sense than offing me, but I'd still rather they just give that $100,000 to my kids.

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

#534

Post by FpUser »

flkiwi wrote: post #309
RandomThoughts3 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, my grand parents both died in their nineties and their last two years were really sad. It was not so much the physical decline but the mental one. At the end, while technically alive, so little of who they were as persons remained, they might as well have been dead. I fully understand someone in their 80s knowing the end is near choosing to leave on their own term.

My bio father (he was not a part of my life, which is important to note when you get to the end of this comment) lived to 89, for certain values of "lived". He had long ago exhausted his ability to support himself financially, he was blind, deaf, unable to get around town on his own, had substantial age-related mental health issues, as well as a litany of small but significant health issues. I cannot speak for him, b…

>"I would opt for an end on my terms that respected my dignity and that of my family. As an American, however, I expect to die like he did: poor, mostly alone, and in pain."

I think there is more than enough info about how to end it painlessly should one decide to part. No 3rd parties needed assuming that person is still mentally and physically adequate enough.

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

#535

Post by s1artibartfast »

toasterlovin wrote: post #384
rawgabbit wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link. It affirmed my understanding of church teaching. Medically assisted nutrition and hydration become morally optional when they cannot reasonably be expected to prolong life or when they would be excessively burdensome for the patient or would cause significant physical discomfort.

Yes, "when they cannot reasonably be expected to prolong life" is key, since there's some discussion in other parts of the thread about withholding nutrition as a form of euthanasia, which Catholic teaching is very much not okay with.

I think there is a ton of wiggle room in the words prolong, burdensome, or discomfort

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

#536

Post by amenhotep »

lolinder wrote: post #481
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #266

Anyone who has worked at a hospital can tell you how many people die in needless pain and suffering when nothing more can really be done for them. They just wait out the clock in pain or do increasingly horrible procedures that give them a little more time with terrible quality of life. 5% is probably an underestimate of that number. Nurses/doctors don't like to speak up about that part and people don't want to confr…

Like with so many things, what terrifies me is where you draw the line. The cases you're describing—where someone currently has to choose between paying ridiculous amounts of money to continue living in pain while confined to a hospital bed versus dying in terrible pain because the doctors are forbidden from helping you along—these are the easy ones. But we also have stories here of people deciding to die while they'…

I can't adequately express my revulsion at the idea that "net loss to the state" ever must overrule my autonomy to the extent that I'm not even allowed to die. What entitlement.

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

#537

Post by monero-xmr »

pcl wrote: post #393
toasterlovin wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course! I'm biased (as a Catholic), but I personally find the Church's moral stances to be fairly well thought out and systematic. But well thought out people starting from different axioms will often disagree with each other's conclusions!

It’s hard to ask this in a non-confrontational way, so I’ll just come out with it: How do you square that with the modern Catholic church’s systemic support of sexual abuse of minors? I mean this in the most inquisitive way possible. An organization’s what it does; the modern Catholic Church (leaders) have supported some horrible things. How do you separate out the good bits from the bad bits?

Every single organization that interacted with children pre-2000 has sex scandals. Boy Scouts, myriad public school districts, the Congressional page system, youth sports. It attracts pedophiles. Now we are all much more aware of the dangers.

https://x.com/rothmus/status/1828751103955292508?s=46

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

#538

Post by supportengineer »

Salgat wrote: post #291
guyzero wrote: post #131

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…

I know it's morbid to discuss but the relief of financial burden on society is also significant. Not only do they die with dignity, but they are giving back to society.

Agree 100%. I am hoping to use the MAID option on myself one day. Cancer runs in the family. Of course I hope to get to at least 80 or so. There is definitely such a thing as a "good death" and a "bad death" having seen both close-up in family members. Knowing my $ is going to my children instead of some scammy health insurance providers will give me the final smile on my face, and my last thought will be "I WON"

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

#539

Post by quasse »

01jonny01 wrote: post #317
GordonS wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

100% you articulated exactly what I couldn't - thank you. It feels very wrong to be considering this in the UK when we are on the decline. Espcially since the current government have demonstrated that they don't really care about pensioners.

OTOH, it's interesting that you and the parent comment are basically saying "We, as a country, are failing our pensioners so badly that death has become the more appealing option for many of them. Therefore, we must trap them here with us until we improve the conditions that lead to them making that bargain (which we will never do)"

Taking away someone's right to assisted dying because you live in a society that has made death preferable to living for many seems like a totally orthogonal leap of logic. That doesn't reduce net suffering one iota.

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

#540

Post by fny »

sb057 wrote: post #515
djoldman wrote: post #113

IMO, the key quote: > The vast majority – around 96% - had a death deemed "reasonably foreseeable", due to severe medical conditions such as cancer.

Everyone's death is "reasonably foreseeable".

I'm 33 and healthy sir. Pray tell, when will I die?
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