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Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

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Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#211

Post by LorenPechtel »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #197
jpambrun wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not something I would like. I want to be able to choose, for myself, when the enjoyment I get out of life is outweighed by the suffering of illness or other afflictions.

Me too but what we have here in Canada is the situation where healthcare is denied and delayed. 1500 died in Ontario while waiting for surgeries in 2021 for example. Keep this course until euthanasia becomes preferable option?

Yeah, this is the problem. Euthanasia should be an option when treatment has failed, but the treatment should be tried first. This isn't a problem with euthanasia, it's a problem with the medical system. UHC systems remain popular so long as most people are happy--but most people don't need the expensive, ongoing care and thus it can become pretty poor for the patients that actually need it.

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#212

Post by LorenPechtel »

prirun wrote: post #198
AzzieElbab wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your dog doesn’t have the capacity to enjoy life by simply reading a book or watching grandchildren play.

It's your opinion that reading a book and watching grandchildren is enough to make your life enjoyable, which is fine. That doesn't mean it is enough to make my life enjoyable, especially considering whatever difficulties I may be wrestling with, whether medical, emotional, financial, etc. And no, more government resources may not always be able to mitigate my suffering. IMO it is horrible that we require a person to…

This. It's quite possible for the quality of life to go away even though there's nothing on the horizon that will kill or even one catastrophic problem. It can be like your mother--a series of things that add up to being alive but not having any quality of life.

I knew someone that chose suicide by dehydration after a fall. They perfectly well knew they had broken their hip and that the healing time for a broken hip (if it even did heal) was longer than their other medical issues would likely give them. Thus they were sentenced to remain lying in bed for the rest of their life. It was only in hindsight that her caretaker realized what had happened--at the time he didn't notice that she was drinking no more than needed to take her pills.

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#213

Post by LorenPechtel »

darth_avocado wrote: post #92

Having gone through depression, I think there needs to be a higher bar for euthanasia. Yes there are terrible incurable sufferings that may need it, but making it available widely with no counter measure is a very dangerous proposition.

To me the important issue is incurable.

If there is reasonable hope for the situation to get better then death is almost certainly the wrong answer. If the situation can't be fixed I see it as the patient's choice as to whether the situation makes life worse than death. I don't believe any outsider can make that decision for somebody. (However, I do think people who knew someone well might be able to know what somebody's wishes were. I knew how my mother felt--if the hospital can't fix her up enough to send her home then palliative care only. In a society that permitted euthanasia it would be that rather than palliative care only.)

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#214

Post by LorenPechtel »

earleybird wrote: post #87

I am very torn by these developments. A dozen plus years ago someone close to me had ALS, a horribly vile disease that to this day is a death sentence upon diagnosis. Think of a judge saying to you "you will serve two years of daily punishment each day worse than the previous after which you will die". Medical care is capable of sustaining life well beyond the capabilities of the body by itself. On the other hand, th…

Note that it was not only hearing loss but he was losing vision also--at that point you have no high bandwidth input channel, effectively little better than a life sentence of solitary confinement.

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#215

Post by LorenPechtel »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #32
throwaway892238 wrote: post #4

> The law was later amended to allow people who are not terminally ill to choose death, significantly broadening the number of eligible people. Critics say that change removed a key safeguard aimed at protecting people with potentially years or decades of life left. Here's the thing. If I want to die at 80 because I don't want to live past that point, that is my choice. Even if I have no "illness". If I don't want to…

How do you tell the difference between someone suffering from depression that wants to die but could cure their depression and someone that just wants to die? Depression is an illness and it makes people do and say all kinds of things they wouldn't normally. What if you are 80 and just have low testosterone and want to die but then you start trt and things really get a lot better? Which "you" wanted to die and which…

I thought the Canadian standard required that the problem be incurable.

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#216

Post by yumraj »

daenz wrote: post #145
yumraj wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> making it available widely with no counter measure is a very dangerous proposition. Why? And, dangerous to whom?

Dangerous to the people who would impulsively choose to be euthanized?

But, isn’t it their choice? If they are adults, and have lived at least a few decades..

I’ve never figured out why we as a society want to impose our morality on others.

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#217

Post by pseudalopex »

BeefWellington wrote: post #114
pyuser583 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A one payer system doesn’t insulate doctors from personal incentives to cut costs. The details of compensation can easily encourage one time injections over long term care. Even if the injection is poison. I know for a fact that “bounty” type programs are used by Canadian public health authorities, and for-profit actors make money from them. I don’t know if this extends to long-term care scenarios, but there’s nothin…

This post (and many others here) kind of put the ignorance of the "Canadian" system on display. It's not really one uniform system and has varying levels of privatization across the country because it is handled by provinces. > Arguably, the horrible US for-profit health system offers stronger protection against this. A dead patient can’t be charged for more services. But a system that equates medical consumption wit…

> It's not really one uniform system and has varying levels of privatization across the country because it is handled by provinces.

Does that structure offer strong protection against perverse incentives in all provinces?

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#219

Post by sacrosancty »

csnover wrote: post #74

To me, the only thing more ‘disturbing’ than a system which routinely fails its most vulnerable people by failing to provide adequate care and support for a good quality-of-life is a system which fails its most vulnerable people in that way and then also forces them to continue to suffer indefinitely. I agree that we should not accept a system that does not provide everyone a good chance at a decent quality of life.…

The whole point of the article is that Canada's system needs safeguards. Other countries have them. This is not a black and white pro- or anti- assisted suicide article. Killing someone for having depression and deafness is not the same as for having terminal cancer and constant pain and being bedridden.

This is really not a decision for the individual patients to have freedom in. I know multiple young people who have been suicidal and attempted it. Most survived but more could be dead if they were able to simply ask the doctor for it and it was all easy and painless.

Re: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws

#220

Post by pyuser583 »

bambax wrote: post #124
csnover wrote: post #74

To me, the only thing more ‘disturbing’ than a system which routinely fails its most vulnerable people by failing to provide adequate care and support for a good quality-of-life is a system which fails its most vulnerable people in that way and then also forces them to continue to suffer indefinitely. I agree that we should not accept a system that does not provide everyone a good chance at a decent quality of life.…

Yes, this is a poor and politically charged article; we don't have to read far to get to a beautiful application of Godwin's law: > Tim Stainton, director of the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship at the University of British Columbia, described Canada’s law as “probably the biggest existential threat to disabled people since the Nazis’ program in Germany in the 1930s.” Euthanasia and assisted suicide i…

A nitpick:

The Nazi “mandatory euthanasia” program began in December 1939, and continued until 1945. The first facility dedicated to killing the disabled opened in February 1940.

So it was the 1940s, not 1930s.

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