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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

#691

I understand that there is probably some sort of fear of murder or untimely death by doctors "throwing up their hands" or pressure from inheritors to "move on" However the hard line makes no sense. In most places that human euthanasia is illegal no one has any problem killing animals because it is more merciful than allowing them to spend their final time suffering tremendously.

Put simply, animals are property. The idea of equating animals to people is not a widespread one, and relatively new besides. You could apply the same logic to cannibalism. Given no-one has any problem killing and eating animals.

In fairness, it's a minority, but there are quite a few of us who have problems killing and eating animals and increasingly so depending on the species.

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

#692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with @navane, you're concerned about what is very much a minority edge case. Still, I'll bite - it's a good thing. Why? Well an official path to suicide, as per the arrangements already in place, comes with layers of professional guidance and counselling. It's not a dispassionate "wave 'em through" treadmill of corpse creation. The best thing for young people with suicidal affixations is to talk to them and take…

I get your point, but there are already MULTIPLE examples of people combining the mental-health component + some externality that is fundamentally a societal failing and coming to the conclusion that MAID is the optimal outcome. "An expert committee reviewing euthanasia deaths in Canada’s most populous province has identified several cases in which patients asked [AND WERE APPROVED] to be killed in part for social re…

And?

That's a serious ask, not a snarky response.

The headline is Canadians with nonterminal conditions sought assisted dying for social reasons

and my question is, so what happened? Was she killed by the state or did she get some much needed assistance with housing, etc. (or neither).

I'd argue that her coming forward is a good thing in the big picture as it adds concrete examples and data for making a case for better social policy and outcomes.

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

#693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

I'm with @navane, you're concerned about what is very much a minority edge case. Still, I'll bite - it's a good thing. Why? Well an official path to suicide, as per the arrangements already in place, comes with layers of professional guidance and counselling. It's not a dispassionate "wave 'em through" treadmill of corpse creation. The best thing for young people with suicidal affixations is to talk to them and take…

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

#694

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…

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

#695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your point, but there are already MULTIPLE examples of people combining the mental-health component + some externality that is fundamentally a societal failing and coming to the conclusion that MAID is the optimal outcome. "An expert committee reviewing euthanasia deaths in Canada’s most populous province has identified several cases in which patients asked [AND WERE APPROVED] to be killed in part for social re…

And? That's a serious ask, not a snarky response. The headline is Canadians with nonterminal conditions sought assisted dying for social reasons and my question is, so what happened? Was she killed by the state or did she get some much needed assistance with housing, etc. (or neither). I'd argue that her coming forward is a good thing in the big picture as it adds concrete examples and data for making a case for bett…

There’s a stigma/taboo attached to suicide, and that’s because suicide is kind of a show-stopper bug opened for modern society. And it does not want to admit the problem because it’s not capable of doing anything about it. Support phone numbers or “talk to someone” are there to defuse and keep the person living so they die of old age. Or if they do suicide successfully later on, the system washes its hands clean and avoids dealing with ingrained deep issues that cause suicides.

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

#696

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…

> So the hospital withheld IV hydration and provided a morphine drip and he was gone in 36 hours. I watched loved ones die this way. It's cruel, absurd and grotesque. A doctor will look you dead in the eye and say "your loved one will be dead within a few days" and instead of killing them mercifully you are forced to watch them die of dehydration. A maddening and indefensible relic that I believe younger generations…

I mean you’re on morphine the whole time, you’re not going to feel a thing.

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

#697

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?

They can make both choices.

But if the person is non responsive and we are left to make a choice, we have to presume they want water.

Morphine is debatable

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

#698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

If you are sufficiently mentally ill and determined enough to die that you get through the MAID screening, counselling, information sessions, etc, then you are determined enough to die by other, messier, likely more painful, certainly more traumatizing to the people around you methods. As well, mental illness is not just a state of mind. Sure, there are stories where a failed suicide attempt was the catalyst for some…

My wife helped a friend die in Germany 10 years ago. He'd acquired some cyanide, which resulted in a long, protracted death because he took too much and vomited most of it up. It was messy, painful and traumatic, but she sat with him until the end.

When someone is determined enough to die, they find a way.

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

#699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are sufficiently mentally ill and determined enough to die that you get through the MAID screening, counselling, information sessions, etc, then you are determined enough to die by other, messier, likely more painful, certainly more traumatizing to the people around you methods. As well, mental illness is not just a state of mind. Sure, there are stories where a failed suicide attempt was the catalyst for some…

My wife helped a friend die in Germany 10 years ago. He'd acquired some cyanide, which resulted in a long, protracted death because he took too much and vomited most of it up. It was messy, painful and traumatic, but she sat with him until the end. When someone is determined enough to die, they find a way.

That's wild, because in my understanding it's an indictable offence to aid and abet someone to end their own lives in Canada. Like more than 10 years jail

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-241.ht...

Counselling or aiding suicide

    241 (1) Everyone is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than 14 years who, whether suicide ensues or not,

        (a) counsels a person to die by suicide or abets a person in dying by suicide; or

        (b) aids a person to die by suicide.
The document goes on to detail the medical exemptions we're talking about here. What's the law in Germany?

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

#700
post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I appreciate it, but there's no need to be delicate: sexually abusing minors is evil. It's especially evil when a priest does it, since they hold positions of special influence and, of all people, should be best acquainted with how evil sunders the soul from God (priests are specifically trained to hear confessions, absolve people of sin, and advise them on how to avoid sin). So that's the categorical statement. More…

> So most serious Catholics are not going to walk away from the church because there is evil inside of priests. There is evil inside all of us. But we are called to do battle with evil. For most of us, that battle is within our own hearts, but certainly we must also root out systemic evil within the Church.

I'm shooting from the hip here and I don't have CCC citations to back me up, but I want to say that the Church herself is not (and cannot be) inherently corrupt, because it is the mystical body of Christ. We must remember that actions of individual members of the Church (no matter how influential or high up they may be, even to the utmost) may be evil or disordered, but the Church will persist.

Christ included Judas among the twelve. The shenanigans some folks in the Church get up to these days don't exactly compare. Indeed, seeing that the Church has persisted these 2000 years despite schisms, etc, was a small part of what convinced me that it is the one true Church.

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