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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

#571

Post by gosub100 »

jen729w wrote: post #469
eastbound wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with MAiD is I’m not sure the subject really decided it. Forged signatures do exist (a lot) and you’re only a socialist state away from trying to save on public health expenditures by incinerating unwilling patients after pretending their agreement. Without much trace than two witnesses who say “He said it”. Not like it already happened for handicapped people in Germany. I’m quite sure it already h…

> Easy fraud for doctors, with plenty of incentives to commit it, and the highest consequences for the victim. I find this a bizarre way to assume that a person who has committed their entire lives to helping people would behave.

Insurance companies in the US have armies of doctors whose sole purpose is to deny care to sick people. CA health system is less fucked, but no reason to think this system is exempt from various forms of corruption. Families wanting to fast-forward their inheritance, romance scammers trying to marry people who they can manipulate into this, doctors who want to get rid of difficult patients. That's just off the cuff what I could think of.

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

#572

Post by BeefWellington »

myth_drannon wrote: post #167
grecy wrote: post #60

Theses headlines are always sensationalist, because it sounds like these deaths are avoidable. To be clear, all of these people were going to die within days, weeks, or at most a few months. Death is certain. Dignity at the end is the least we can ask for.

Per my understanding, some deaths could have been avoided if not for the collapsed medical system in Canada. So if the person reaches the stage of advanced cancer because lack of care and is offered MAID first before getting cancer treatment, was it avoidable?

Just exactly which medical system has collapsed?

Things need improvement but perhaps you aren't aware there's like 12 different medical systems up here...

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

#573

Post by BeefWellington »

supportengineer wrote: post #541
BeefWellington wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't make any calls related to assisted dying; I'm referring to what the law states.

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

#574

Post by llamaLord »

pj_mukh wrote: post #278
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…

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…

These are all excellent examples of how MAID should be used, I think the concerning thing is the widening of the eligibility criteria - especially when things like mental illness start to make you eligible.

Like... If your illness makes you suicidal... Is offering assisted suicide REALLY the best we can do? That starts to feel a lot like "eghh you're too hard for society to care about... We'll just let you die".

As horrible as this might sound, often it's failed suicide attempts that actually are the catalysts for people being able to get their lives back on track... What happens in a society where the government helps facilitate suicide and there's never any "attempts" anymore... Just successes...

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

#576

Post by paulcole »

okaram wrote: post #163
rich_sasha wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my mind the main obstacle is kind of orthogonal: how do you protect the people who don't want to go, being pressured or manipulated. I agree that if someone is really, independently and committedly deciding to go, you shouldn't stop them. But how do you express that test in a bureaucratic, legalistic framework? In a friend's family, there was a big rift as one family member in direct line of inheritance was accuse…

The way most countries who have it (including Canada) have solved it is to add waiting periods, and layers of reviews. In Canada, you need two different doctors to sign off on it. If you're not actively dying, you also have a 90-day period of reflection. And you have to be of sound mind. This seems to me like good enough safeguards, don't you think?

> This seems to me like good enough safeguards, don't you think?

No. I think it’s too much.

Nobody else should be deciding that my mind is unsound.

And if my body being “unsound” is a reason that makes it OK to want to die, why should an “unsound” mind be different?

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

#577

Post by gosub100 »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #337
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 can understand this intellectually/rationally, but I can't imagine actually making such a decision.

I could see making the decision and then chickening out as soon as it was time to get to business.

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

#578

Post by flkiwi »

FpUser wrote: post #534
flkiwi wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's just it: I wouldn't trust myself to be expert enough to do it properly. That, of all the things I might be asked to experience in life, begs for a knowledgeable, caring expert. You're right, of course, but that raises the endlessly fascinating question of why more people don't make that choice.

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

#579

Post by marcosdumay »

ljsprague wrote: post #411
okaram wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way most countries who have it (including Canada) have solved it is to add waiting periods, and layers of reviews. In Canada, you need two different doctors to sign off on it. If you're not actively dying, you also have a 90-day period of reflection. And you have to be of sound mind. This seems to me like good enough safeguards, don't you think?

Bureaucracy for the win.

Bureaucracy is usually added for the win. But people only notice when it's not.

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

#580

Post by Spooky23 »

caseyohara wrote: post #186
darth_avocado wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

I lost my wife at 46. I didn’t get to a place that dark, but my decision making process was compromised for several months.
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