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Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

bbc.com

191–200 of 870 posts

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

#191

Strange question but how does this affect life insurance? Typically a suicide would not be covered.

From a morbidly capitalistic point of view, insurance companies should rejoice at the prospect of a very ill person opting for assisted death. I imagine the procedure to end ones life would be much cheaper than multiple years of procedures and medicine to keep them alive.

And if this is the case (which I don't actually know for sure, I'm just speculating), then insurance companies would be incentivized to 'nudge' certain people towards this decision, which is a super duper slippery slope, and at the extreme end you'd have the Rick and Morty dead people spaghetti planet situation.

edit - this of course applies only to people that would have the procedures and medicine that would keep them alive covered.

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

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In The Netherlands you can get cancer treatment even if you're homeless. And I don't mind paying extra insurance costs if it means I'm not running into inhumane and desperate go fund me campaigns everywhere I go.

I wouldn't mind paying into it if there was some kind of balance. If we broke healthcare spending down by person a small percentage of the population is probably consuming a huge percentage of healthcare. The average person just goes to the doctor once or twice a year and has a few large surgeries during their lifetime. I would be ok with that if there was some kind of guarantee for those of us who didn't abuse the s…

At the risk of sounding sarcastic: the small percentage of the population consuming a huge percentage of healthcare is the older segment, and those with several comorbidities.

Live healthy, live long, die fast.

Live unhealthy, live short, die slow.

Throw in accidents and unexpected life events and boom, you can transistion from health to unhealthy quickly.

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

#193

M. Scott Peck wrote a book about euthanasia long ago. I wonder if people still read Peck. “Denial of the soul,” that was the title. The foundational belief for euthanasia must be that there is no soul.

You mean the belief in Christian fundamentalist version of the soul? U my view it doesn't say anything about not believing in soul, but it can be interpreted as lack of belief that somebody can control their soul.

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

#194
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fun part of the mentally-ill categorization is that being mentally ill also has a tendency to lead to poverty and homelessness which in turn will increase the likelihood that someone will opt for MAID but could be solved by other social means.

Is that actually true? Are people who choose MAID poorer than the average? The article suggests that they are whiter than the average Canadian. Make of that what you will.

I mean, it's plainly evident that mental illness is associated with poverty, which is itself associated with homelessness. Here (https://care.org.uk/news/2024/10/poor-lonely-and-homeless-op...) is an article that references a report that says that people are opting for MAID for non-terminal illnesses and that those who do so are disproportionately likely to be from poorer areas. It also mentions at least one person who specifically mentioned lack of access to housing when opting for MAID. Granted, CARE is blatantly against MAID but the cherries they're picking are in the tree to be picked.

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

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why don’t we get a choice in when we leave? Because dead folks don't pay taxes.

So which one is it, the government assisting in deaths too often or not enough, it can't be both at the same time.

Alas, actually, it can be.

You can make both errors with false positives and false negatives at the same time.

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

#196

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…

This! People feel like they cannot live alone or they cannot want that someone else be caused hardship (time or money) because of their difficulty. I feel like I will get downvoted to oblivion just because people vehemently disagree, but THIS CANNOT be the meaning and choice behind death. It is simply immature, arrogant, and selfish. But more plainly, it is suicidal / self-relentment.

My sample size as an adult is still small, but I've seen this in pets and I've seen this in humans.

The downward slope quickens faster than any would like once it starts. The body or the mind slips away, leaving someone either trapped in a shell that doesn't work, or momentary fragments of the person who was among a sea of futile vapid existence.

Our medical technology is not there and shows little sign of being close to resolving either issue.

Rather than slowly wasting away I too would rather have the option to twist to the side off the cliff rather than the long slow painful stair tumble down the hill.

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

#197

M. Scott Peck wrote a book about euthanasia long ago. I wonder if people still read Peck. “Denial of the soul,” that was the title. The foundational belief for euthanasia must be that there is no soul.

Why can't the foundational belief be that we have a soul that has been sundered from our Creator by The Enemy during a primordial Manichean duel and keeping it separate is the highest sin and only by returning it to where it properly belongs are doing good?

It isn't like the only two options are "the Christian conception of a soul" and "the atheists rejection of the conception of a soul".

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

#198

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…

This! People feel like they cannot live alone or they cannot want that someone else be caused hardship (time or money) because of their difficulty. I feel like I will get downvoted to oblivion just because people vehemently disagree, but THIS CANNOT be the meaning and choice behind death. It is simply immature, arrogant, and selfish. But more plainly, it is suicidal / self-relentment.

Who are you to judge whether someone who has lived for over seven decades should go on living or not? If they feel their life is done, have nothing left to live for, and fear degenerating into a husk of their former selves (dementia) stuck inside a broken brain for as long as their body holds out, than why should they hang on?

It's arrogant and selfish to force people to live on for as long as doctors can keep their body alive. No euthanasia just means more messy suicides.

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

#199
post #27
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…

Yes but undirectly. -Can't afford therapy for curable or mitigable disease -Let it worsen -Death is the only charitable option as a cure is now impossible and life is miserable

I'm fairly sure a lot of conditions are incurable for you or me, but curable for billionaires.

Does that mean that the tax payer will have to spend billions on every human?

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