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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

#221

Post by AyyEye »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #179
jandrese wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With everything medical it is complicated. If someone is 85 and gets a theoretically treatable form of cancer they're looking at months or years of grueling chemotherapy and surgeries to get at most few more years of life. I would not blame anybody for skipping treatment or even getting euthanasia to avoid the really sucky part where the cancer is killing you painfully, especially if their life partner has already pa…

When my mom had cancer I told her she better do everything she could to beat it (she was a super hippie no chemicals person). I remember she was taking some horrible toxic chemo pill that made her miserable (like even her, the person taking the pill, had to handle it with gloves taking it out of the bottle), and I was like mom, stop taking it if it makes you miserable. She broke into tears and was suddenly so gratefu…

Sorry you had to go through that.

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

#222

Post by aaplok »

caseyohara wrote: post #186
darth_avocado wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would’ve expected at least a waiting period longer than a week after a traumatic event. Of course I don’t know all the circumstances around it.

Who decides on the duration of the waiting period? Why can’t people be in charge of their own lives? Especially people in their 80s, they have earned the right to agency. It reminds me of OB/GYN providers that deny childless women sterilization procedures – even when they are in their 30s – ostensibly on the risk that the woman might change their mind about having children. Some people know things for certain and the…

The thing is, someone has to.

If you walk in very drunk asking to be euthanised, one would hope that they would have to wait until you are no longer drunk to confirm you really want to be euthanised. Then, who decides on the waiting period?

Likewise if a traumatic event clouds your judgement (as some events can do), it's not unreasonable to make you wait until your judgement is sound. Then someone has to decide on the waiting period.

Potentially this can be studied statistically. Just collect data regularly after an event (such as binge drinking event) to evaluate how quickly people's judgement stabilises. That way we may find that the death of a spouse doesn't cloud the judgement, in which case the waiting period is 0.

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

#223

Post by karencarits »

caseyohara wrote: post #186
darth_avocado wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would’ve expected at least a waiting period longer than a week after a traumatic event. Of course I don’t know all the circumstances around it.

Who decides on the duration of the waiting period? Why can’t people be in charge of their own lives? Especially people in their 80s, they have earned the right to agency. It reminds me of OB/GYN providers that deny childless women sterilization procedures – even when they are in their 30s – ostensibly on the risk that the woman might change their mind about having children. Some people know things for certain and the…

I guess there are many perspectives on this; these are questions that touches on many serious ethical and philosophical topics: health care, the value of life, death, autonomy, ...

There is a tendency in our time to think about all issues in terms of economy. I think that's wrong, that we shouldn't think about life and death as economical questions, that it is a reductive discourse. Others might disagree, of course

For example, is this really a question about being in charge of one's own life or about what services that should be offered in a society? I guess that's also a link to the OB/GYN example you give; at least some health care professionals might think it is unethical to damage an organ or body that's working: primum non nocere

Others, who have another philosophical view on what health care is, may say that the society should offer the services that people want or need

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

#224

Post by groby_b »

nashashmi wrote: post #154
guyzero wrote: post #131

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.

You know what? Yes, I make selfish decisions about my life. So does everybody else. We do not exist to satisfy the needs of other people.

The choice behind death is that it's preferable to the alternative. Before we had medically assisted options, people would do it in more painful ways, but they'd still do it. Many cultures had the idea of "walking off into the wilderness" when your time was there.

When that time is is a personal choice. By all means, let's put some non-gatekeeping hurdles in the way (e.g. mandate a conversation or three with a therapist), but ultimately, we should all be in charge of our own life.

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

#225

Post by kerkeslager »

ben30 wrote: 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…

> 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.

Does it? Given the number of homeless deaths caused by Canadian summers, I'm not seeing the urgency of homeless people returning to colder locations.

This obviously isn't a solution to the problem of homelessness: the solution to homelessness is homes. But it is a solution to the (much smaller) problem of homeless people dying due to seasonal weather.

Incidentally, this program was never large and fell out of practice due to bad press in both the US and Canada, and thousands of homeless people have frozen to death in its absence.

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

#226

Post by JohnBooty »

dogman1050 wrote: post #119

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…

    it because obvious that euthanasia happens in the US all the time [...]

    So the hospital withheld IV hydration and provided a morphine drip 
    and he was gone in 36 hours
I had a family member with late-stage terminal COPD opt out of further treatment. They were in respiratory crisis and were going to be intubated for the nth time with no real hope of recovery, and so they said "fuck it" and delined further intervention.

The hospital (a Catholic hospital, even) provided a morphine drip and they were gone within an hour.

I was never really clear on what killed them in the end, if it was the morphine or the COPD. I guess technically it was the COPD.

Anyway, as somebody who went through something similar: I'm so sorry. COPD is such a slow and crappy way to go. Have you been able to find some peace in the years since?

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

#227

Post by triceratops »

tifik wrote: post #183
niceice wrote: post #170

"For the first time, the report delved into race and ethnic data of those who died by euthanasia. Around 96% of recipients identified as white people, who account for about 70% of Canada's population. It is unclear what caused this disparity." Any good hypothesis about this?

Could be longer life expectancy for particular demographics that are mostly white. Or it could just be that 70% of people of all ages today are white, but 80 years ago it was a much larger proportion (I didn't think it would be 96% but I also wouldn't be surprised if it was). This is pure speculation, I have no data to support either of these hypotheses.

> I didn't think it would be 96% but I also wouldn't be surprised if it was

Wikipedia says 93% in 1981. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada#Visible...

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

#229

Post by kspacewalk2 »

graeme wrote: post #140
djoldman wrote: post #113

IMO, the key quote: > The vast majority – around 96% - had a death deemed "reasonably foreseeable", due to severe medical conditions such as cancer.

The standard for that is very loose. There's no requirement that the death be imminent. Iirc it basically means the condition could kill you, at some point. This even applies if treatment would prevent death. It's whether the condition is capable of killing.

No, the standard is not "very loose". It is clear, and strict. And you also got the "condition could kill you" part wrong. So it's all wrong.

You can read about eligibility criteria here[0], specifically what constitutes a "grievous and irremediable medical condition". Like, believe it or not, but this legislation took a very long time to write, and quite a bit of thought was put into it.

I hate to post the link for the third time in the same thread, but seriously, talking about eligibility criteria necessitates reading what they are. Preferably before talking about them.

[0] https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-servi...

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

#230

Post by taylorius »

shkkmo wrote: post #205
nashashmi wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm partially with you, in that I do see tragedy in these choices. I see tragedy that we lack the cultural and economic institutions to support peope towards the end of life in ways (especially ones that don't make them feel like a burden.) However, I don't think the solution to that tragedy to to make people suffer through. I think the solution is more and better institutions that reduce that suffering so fewer peop…

Forgive me, but your last sentence seems like a platitude. What would such institutions look like, and how might they reduce the suffering of someone with, say, advanced dementia?

I'm not trying to have a go btw - it genuinely seems an intractable problem to me.

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