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Former paralympian tells MPs veterans department offered her assisted death

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Re: Former paralympian tells MPs veterans department offered her assisted death

#11
post #3

The Independent article is a but blogspammy (little by way of original reporting, and more than half the page is ads). This CBC article is one of its sources and I found it more informative: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-assisted...

It has the key paragraph:

> Veterans Minister Lawrence MacAulay revealed last week in testimony before the same committee that four — perhaps five — cases of Canadian military veterans being given the MAID option by a now-suspended veterans service agent have been referred to the RCMP.

As another HN comment here noted, it does seem like employee misconduct more than standard policy action.

Re: Former paralympian tells MPs veterans department offered her assisted death

#13

[flagged]

I'll bet Canada hasn't run out of chair lifts.

While I would also make this bet, there's a reason why economics is sometimes called "the dismal science" — the resources that went into making a stairlift (and proportional share of the factory) could, in principle, have instead been used to build enough mosquito nets to save approximately one life, while also improving the quality of life for another thousand.

Even if you're not being as much of a colossal arse as the headline of this story, which do you think is a better thing for money to be spent on?

Re: Former paralympian tells MPs veterans department offered her assisted death

#15
post #10

[flagged]

> high minded communist ideals . . . Look out, there's a Red under the bed there Joseph.

I've had the opposite assumption made around here when mentioning Ayn Rand. On any contentious issue, it seems people first wish to know if someone is "on the other team" so they can dismiss them out of hand. Nuance is the enemy of popularity. Reality the foe to marketing.

Re: Former paralympian tells MPs veterans department offered her assisted death

#16
post #11
post #3

The Independent article is a but blogspammy (little by way of original reporting, and more than half the page is ads). This CBC article is one of its sources and I found it more informative: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-assisted...

It has the key paragraph: > Veterans Minister Lawrence MacAulay revealed last week in testimony before the same committee that four — perhaps five — cases of Canadian military veterans being given the MAID option by a now-suspended veterans service agent have been referred to the RCMP. As another HN comment here noted, it does seem like employee misconduct more than standard policy action.

It's easy to blame a single bad actor in individual cases, but there still exists the very serious issue that it is even possible for single bad actors to advocate for killing their patients. Add to that the bureaucratic capture, and it's all but inevitable that we will see more, and more disturbing cases. After all, as soon as euthanasia is a profession, there will be people who will need to perform that role. They will want to be good at their job and get promoted. They may take great pride in being the best at it. There will be training courses on how to best euthanize a human. There will be departments dedicated to performing the act and they will have budgets and administrators. And those administrators, wanting to secure their performance bonuses, will seek to expand their department and demonstrate value. Perhaps through growth, perhaps through efficiency. Likewise, ICU care is very expensive. If euthanasia is an option, hospital administrators, being conscious of budget constraints and wanting to best serve the most people, may look to euthanizing seriously injured patients. They may even convince themselves it is in the patient's best interest - we're putting them out of their misery after all.

My point is, this sort of undertaking quickly and inevitably becomes an ethical minefield. The only winning move is not to play.

Re: Former paralympian tells MPs veterans department offered her assisted death

#17
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> high minded communist ideals . . . Look out, there's a Red under the bed there Joseph.

I've had the opposite assumption made around here when mentioning Ayn Rand. On any contentious issue, it seems people first wish to know if someone is "on the other team" so they can dismiss them out of hand. Nuance is the enemy of popularity. Reality the foe to marketing.

From my perspective it has little to do with "teams" and any assumption of there being Our Team and The Other Team and far more to do with seeing an equivilance drawn between social policy such as health care (and inclusion of assisted death) etc, and phrases such "high minded communist ideals ...".

It just reminds me of the bicameral fiercely partisan political desert that lies within central north america.

I'm 60 now and dimly recall reading Rand during puberty .. it's interesting stuff for a while.

As for: > This sort of thing is only going to become more common.

The CBC article expands on the circumstances of the occurence, the investigation and dismissal of the individual that pushed MAID (medical assistance in dying) as an option, and the steps being taken to see that it doesn't happen going forward.

Re: Former paralympian tells MPs veterans department offered her assisted death

#18
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has the key paragraph: > Veterans Minister Lawrence MacAulay revealed last week in testimony before the same committee that four — perhaps five — cases of Canadian military veterans being given the MAID option by a now-suspended veterans service agent have been referred to the RCMP. As another HN comment here noted, it does seem like employee misconduct more than standard policy action.

It's easy to blame a single bad actor in individual cases, but there still exists the very serious issue that it is even possible for single bad actors to advocate for killing their patients. Add to that the bureaucratic capture, and it's all but inevitable that we will see more, and more disturbing cases. After all, as soon as euthanasia is a profession, there will be people who will need to perform that role. They…

> The only winning move is not to play.

That's not a winning move for those that sought the right of voluntary euthanasia (that to which the subject consents).

As for your argument we can see it in action expressed via the number of firefighters that start fires to keep themselves employed and I take your point that the only defence is to eliminate fire departments.

Re: Former paralympian tells MPs veterans department offered her assisted death

#19
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bet Canada hasn't run out of chair lifts.

While I would also make this bet, there's a reason why economics is sometimes called "the dismal science" — the resources that went into making a stairlift (and proportional share of the factory) could, in principle, have instead been used to build enough mosquito nets to save approximately one life, while also improving the quality of life for another thousand. Even if you're not being as much of a colossal arse as…

If you think the solution to a disabled veteran's difficulty getting up stairs is to kill her, then it follows that the solution to mosquito bites is to let folk die from malaria.

It seems like you're attacking a straw man. Some people can make chair lifts and other people can make mosquito nets. We can and do have both. I also doubt that significantly increasing global mosquito net manufacturing capacity would make much of a difference. In this case, it's better for Canada to spend their tax money on chair lifts for their disabled veterans than on mosquito nets.

Just doing a quick Google search on the subject, it seems like mosquito nets are generally available in places where they're useful. Many people either choose not to use them, use them improperly, or repurpose free ones for other things.

Re: Former paralympian tells MPs veterans department offered her assisted death

#20
post #9

While this is likely not due to an official policy, it is certainly due to a conflict of interest. Medical personnel should not be involved in euthanasia. While they have the requisite medical knowledge, medicine should be about saving lives, or at least palliative care. Euthanists should be a separate thing, if they exist at all. Euthanasia is about death, not life. No one should go to the doctor for medical care an…

>Medical personnel should not be involved in euthanasia. While they have the requisite medical knowledge, medicine should be about saving lives, or at least palliative care.

Speaking as an American who's talked to a lot of Canadians and made many trips there, one issue is that pallative care can bleed into euthanasia due to tolerances around opiates... what happens when you give someone enough medication to cure their pain, and they overdose? Or if you give them enough in a bottle to do so on their own? That's how you get to a point that people are handed nothing but Tylenol and an offer of a suicide booth or whatever... that is.

Then again, to reiterate: I'm not Canadian, I'm American, so I can only comment on my own experiences.

For example, after I tried pretty much every antidepressant on the market, my psychiatrist told me my depression was not chemical based but a rightful reaction to life's circumstances, that I had CPTSD on top of my autism from the previous interventions I'd had tried (some of which I detailed in an anonymous essay that triggered a congressional investigation), gave me a reoccurring prescription for alaprazolam and suggested I take up a sport like target shooting or basket weaving.

Apparently it scared folks when my response to the above was to go down to the gun range adjacent to the local military base, rent a handgun, and practiced unloading the clip into a target at twenty yards like I'd done back on Pearl Harbor day in high school with my dad.

The woman working the range kind of narrowed her eyes when she saw my ID.

"Bloomington? Have you even shot a gun before" she rightfully asked. (I suspect they had people show up and try to shoot their nine like a rap video and have to be removed from the range -- part of why I never bought one in 412 is the range nearest me had no rangemaster and had issues with folks who wouldn't follow the four rules... and might follow you to your car if you asked them to.)

"Oh yes. I've shot a bolt action twenty two, a 357 magnum, and a Colt 1911. The last two are too much kick, do you have anything in the forty caliber range, and can you show me the safety -- I've only shot an automatic one."

Around the same time they'd threatened to cancel the undergrad's paper if they reported on a string of suicides, and I later found out there were some severe sexual assault issues where kids who were on athletic scholarships were straight up told they had to go through the informal judicial process if they wanted to continue playing the sport that paid for their education.

The above is why I originally worked hard to attend a school that doesn't have a strong athletics program instead of where I ended up doing my aborted PhD, and why I think sports should be separate from the university as is done in the EU, UK, and many other more functional democracies, why I believe in a personal right to firearms ownership, and why I worry greatly about so called democracies that institute things like universal health care without respecting responsible firearms ownership... it creates a lot of issues when you disarm people, abuse them, then tell them suicide is an option. They might decide to not just kill themselves.

In fact, I suspect that meta level thought pattern: "Why would I end my life, instead of the abuser making me suicidal" is the source of many of the lower body count spree killings you see in the media. (The ones where they stop after a clip rather than try to make it into the record books -- the latter types should not have their names repeated when possible.)

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