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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

#761
post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actively preventing someone from providing assistance is. Sure, but this happens with legalization, too. Only licensed physicians can assist in suicide. Other attempts to assist will result in state violence. Most people trying to provide assistance won't be licensed physicians. Which is a completely different effort than the one intended to execute those undesirable to the market. God forbid we support people with…

Providing assistance isn’t limited to handing someone pills, making the appropriate calls is assistance and a tough moral choice for many. Also, as a purely practical matter physicians can provide both humane options and a clearer separation between direct assistance and murder. Though obviously there’s other possibilities, it’s a tricker issue than it might at first appear.

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

#762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been hearing young and healthy people say this for my entire, fairly long, life. But I have never personally known an elderly or disabled person to kill themselves over it. If you find life worth living despite its hardships now, it's likely that you always will even as those hardships increase.

At some point it may be more than just hardship. 80+, paralyzed from the waist down, bedridden, bed sores, muscles atrophying, all of your enjoyments gone, your friends dead, dying, or lost most of their mental facilities, and you're completely miserable.

I have known people in approximately similar situations and they still didn't want to die.

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

#763

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 someone who is taking care of a parent who is bedridden and needs daiper changes every few hours.

Whats suprising to me is that these parents choose to punish their kids instead of end of ending their life. selfish fucks!!

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

#764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah man, it does suck. I do wish I'd had more time with both my parents, they both died really early in their 50s, I don't think you can ever have "enough" time. I wish my mother had been given the option in her early 50s, the number of people punished by authoritarian governments that deny self determinism and force people to be put through experiences literally worse than torture is mind boggling, I cannot fathom…

> ... I don't think you can ever have "enough" time. Unfortunately there are situations where things are a bit different from that. For example, where a parent is (very) abusive. :(

Of course your absolutely right and I'm very sorry if that's been your experience.

I was trying to allude to the saying "you can never have enough time with the ones you love" which I took as a pivot away from solely parents (ones that are loved) but maybe I was too implicit and that isn't a widly known saying and it seems that by trying to allude to it, I left my intended meaning unclear. Sorry about that.

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

#765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s another dignified option when it reaches terminal?

Accepting suffering as part of the human condition. In the Christian faith, Christians are taught that suffering is part of life and good things can result from it. Like what? Empathy, love, and compassion from caregivers, friends, and family to the suffering person. Also, the suffering person may express love to those around them. Jesus allowed himself to be crucified and suffered one of the most horrible deaths ima…

And you and anyone else can still opt to live and suffer if you see value in it. The beauty of freedom is that you can do you, and nobody can force their beliefs on you.

I would also caution with the old adage, don't knock it till you try it. Life in extreme pain is no life at all. Calling on Jesus isn't going to suddenly make excruciating pain more bearable, especially for someone who doesn't believe in Jesus. Maybe toughing it out for a few more weeks or months is worth extra presents in heaven, but unless we have some evidence of that, I think it would be grossly irresponsible, indeed evil, to legislate it. It is, in my opinion the equivalence of torture.

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

#766
post #463
post #416

Euthanasia without good cheap universal healthcare is just a way to get rid of people in a sick society. Canada might not be the worst but their healthcare only cover 60-70% of canadians' need. And it's slowly getting worse with the private sector eating the market.

> Canada might not be the worst but their healthcare only cover 60-70% of canadians' need. And it's slowly getting worse with the private sector eating the market. What's that figure based on?

Wikipedia has a very exhaustive page regarding Canada's healthcare system, and a large section at the end about its flaws and problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Canada

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

#767
post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where they can't afford the medication, or no medication seems to work, or they have an addiction problem and there just isn't any way for them to get into a treatment program I would consider two of these absolutely monstrous reasons to assist someone in killing themselves. A broken society opting into killing its citizens because it can’t be arsed with fixing itself is next level evil

> A broken society I don't think this is necessarily broken by any reasonable standard. If no medication exists, that's not "broken society". Nor is there not being money to give a bespoke treatment to everyone, no matter how expensive it is. If that's broken, no society in history has ever not been broken. Which is just a poor definition.

Yeah I wonder how people who say this stuff feel about the homeless? How do they feel about tax increase to fix "broken society"?

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

#768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They really aren’t, I can’t believe someone here would link that.

While I disagree with some of them and find some more important than others, I think that the lists cover most of the arguments and positions mentioned by people here on HN

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone use religious arguments on here and I’ve been here since the beginning. Most of those arguments are religious. I do not consider “Euthanasia is against the word and will of God” a sensible argument, though I realize, of course, that like half of humanity would disagree with me. But nobody who has any formal training and philosophy or debate would.

If the opposite of a statement is just as valid as a statement, it is not an argument. For instance, I could say it is God’s will that we do euthanize people so that they don’t suffer, and God gave us the intelligence to find ways to die that are significantly less painful. My argument has no less logic than theirs.

If “nuh uh” is a substantial rebuttal, your argument isn’t sensible.

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

#769

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…

B.s. parent literally gave an example of someone that got access to MAID a week after their doc visit. I’ve changed my mind on things after a month. Not saying MAID is bad or should be banned. I’m saying people will 100 percent abuse the system. My concern is healthcare system practiioners. I am dealing with a ton of people whose job it is to press our family into a decision we don’t want to make. This includes an md…

But it is. Most people are not rich to pay for their own care. Society doesn't want tax increases. We don't have enough healthcare workers.

Reality doesn't care about how things should be.

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

#770
post #353
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…

>Life is about choice in Christianity. Freedom.

This depends heavily on the "flavor" of Christianity.

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