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Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

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

#541
post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he called his doctor and less than a week later he was also dead This is wild. How can they differentiate between grief and actual clear thinking desire?

This is actually not possible per the requirements set out in the legislation; I suspect the poster didn't get the full picture. It's always possible an individual doctor can ignore the system and do whatever but I doubt it when there's a legal path for this spelled out. Grief on its own isn't sufficient for assisted dying.

>> Grief on its own isn't sufficient for assisted dying

Who are you to make that call?

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

#542
post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any country in the world with laws allowing assisted dying that actually allows what you describe, or is it a fantasy that’s irrelevant to the actual policies we’re discussing?

The user you're responding to is very clearly presenting a hypothetical argument, not something that actually exists. The GP asked "Who decides on the duration of the waiting period? Why can’t people be in charge of their own lives?" And the OP is making that point that (a) there must be someone in a position to make that decision, and that (b) there must be some waiting period. In fact, if as you imply there are no…

i dont think id characterize those as limits on individual freedom, as much as a requirement of individual freedom. you actually have to want it, vs a whim where you might be drunk and not make the choice you wanted

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

#543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grandma doesn’t want to share those stories because it hurts to talk and she can’t see well and just generally she’s in a constant bad mood because her life sucks.

That would be the fault of those who are responsible for her happiness

There are quite a few medical conditions in which it is impossible to make it not hurt.

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

#544
post #30

My grandma always told me when she couldn’t go on her walks anymore she didn’t consider life worth living. When she got dementia she was placed in a closed hospice, to “protect her”. Now she only walks when I visit, and I only see a shell of the woman she was. Anecdotal of course, but why do people think it’s an ethics question when society is individualistic as can be? There is no choice in being born, why don’t we…

> why do people think it’s an ethics question when society is individualistic as can be Because we disagree that society is individualistic. We are social creatures, not individualist creatures. And we need people around us. Including you needing your grandma. And she needs people like you. turn the question around: why do people feel easy escapes are ok? We came in this world and were assisted in our upbringing and…

Because nobody has the moral right to demand that other people suffer for their own sake.

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

#546
post #393

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?

> How do you square that with the modern Catholic church’s systemic support of sexual abuse of minors?

I'm the first to criticize Catholicism given a chance, but ... I'm not sure that's actually a valid claim to make outside of the particular case of ... I think it was New York in the 1990s, which is a statistical outlier (at least in English-speaking countries).

There are a lot of Catholics and therefore it's unavoidable for a lot of pedophiles to be Catholics, but the same is true about teachers. Can you reasonably say "how can you support the school system given that teachers systematically sexually abuse minors"?

Remember, there are 4 kinds of lies:

  - lies
  - damned lies
  - statistics
  - things somebody said on the Internet

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

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system in Canada results in the state killing homeless and disabled people rather than offering them support.

Does it? Or is this what anti-euthanasia advocates are spreading as misinformation around to acquire the support of progressives to their cause (which is driven not out of a care for homeless and disabled people, but out of religious/conservative mindsets) Keep mind: I'm not asking "Do those cases ever happen"? Of course they do. There's already been stories. The question is what are the statistics. Every policy, eve…

Comparing the act of people transitioning or people being given financial assistance to the act of people being killed by the state is genuinely sickening. Total inversion of reality and conflation of reversible benefits with literal death.

The government has no incentive to provide better housing or disability benefits to the working class when they can instead withhold those things and watch legions of poor & desperate people die. Do you know they actually calculate how much money killing all of these marginalised people saves them? That Canadian media advertises these figures to sell the state killing program?

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

#548
post #13

Fifteen years ago, flying into Vancouver, a local told me charities would give homeless people one-way bus tickets there from colder regions of Canada to prevent winter deaths. No return tickets in spring. Calls into question what we consider "charitable" when the solution is just moving vulnerable people elsewhere. Worrying parallel: will euthanasia become another "solution" for those who can't afford proper care an…

I'm reminded of the South Park episode where they bus all the homeless to California.

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

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why can someone make the choice not to have water in their IV, but can’t make the choice to have a fuckton of morphine in their IV?

I think a lot of it comes down to deontological logic and morality versus consequentialist morality.

It is recognized that the outcome is the same. The difference lies and how you get there

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