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No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

thenewatlantis.com

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Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#91
post #59
post #3

The whole argument against MAID feels ridiculously like the anti-abortion position. The other option to providing it is having them end their life in a way that might be risky or fail to succeed in a way that leaves them painfully scarred for life or suffering more than they had to. Why are people forced to live if they don't want to?

> Why are people forced to live if they don't want to? Because we live in a society , not some libertarian utopia of sovereign citizens. Your life doesn’t belong only to yourself, but it belongs to all of us. Your parents, your kids, your friends, your acquaintances. We are all affected by what you do to yourself and, concomitantly, get a say in it.

hah. no.

your life belongs to you. the options to end it on your own terms is IMHO an act of ultimate freedom. the same way where you should be free to do whatever you want as long as your actions don't impair the freedom of someone else.

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#92

It's absurd that people will show their sick pets more compassion than fellow human beings when animals can't even voice their opinions on the matter. If someone sound of mind chooses to die, that should be their right.

I don't know if people view euthanasia as being more compassionate towards their pets. I think many people view it as being selfish. Killing the pet to avoid the hassle of dealing with it's illness and avoid the expense of it's medical care. I don't particularly agree, I think it can be compassionate but also understand where this view comes from.

I have literally never heard of someone who killed their pet to avoid the hassle of dealing with illness. I have heard of multiple people that kept the pet alive and kept pumping in more and more expensive treatments because they could not let go.

Killing a pet that is practically family and has been part of your life for 10+ years is not something people do to avoid responsibility.

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#93

It's absurd that people will show their sick pets more compassion than fellow human beings when animals can't even voice their opinions on the matter. If someone sound of mind chooses to die, that should be their right.

It's sad really that we live in a society where we value a pet's life over the life of a fellow human being that is struggling. That does not mean encouraging people to kill themselves - but I strongly agree that the option should be there and people should be free to exercise it if that's what they want to do.

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#94
post #80
post #45

>One of the greatest reasons for concern is the sheer scale of Canada’s euthanasia regime. California provides a useful point of comparison: It legalized medically assisted death the same year as Canada, 2016, and it has about the same population, just under forty million. In 2021 in California, 486 people died using the state’s assisted suicide program. In Canada in the same year, 10,064 people used MAID to die. 70%…

Cancers vary significantly in prognosis. Canada has over double the number of deaths due to lung cancer and nearly double the deaths due to colorectal cancer compared to California. Essentially cancer looks different in California than Canada. This makes drawing conclusions that there are thousands suffering unnecessarily extended end of life experiences difficult. https://cancerstatisticscenter.cancer.org/#!/state/C…

The site you linked estimates 60,000 cancer deaths in California this year, I would assume it's safe to assume what the eventual prognosis was for those cases. Nearly 10,000 of them from lung cancer, and over 5,000 from colorectal cancer. If those are your examples of cancers with unpleasant end of life experiences and less than 500 people in the state used MAID, then it would seem as though thousands are suffering. Though I don't know how liberal your hospice system is with morphine & fentanyl.

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#95
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nobody's made the case" Tons of people are making the case. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-is-canada-euthanisin... "Since then, things have only gotten worse. A woman in Ontario was forced into euthanasia because her housing benefits did not allow her to get better housing which didn’t aggravate her crippling allergies. Another disabled woman applied to die because she ‘simply cannot afford to keep on livin…

> So again: Why isn't the take that Thousands are dying to soon to save money? You relayed a handful of stories that, even assuming they're all broadly correct, still don't add up to thousands.

I've replayed a handful of stories that point to the fact that there are 10 thousand assisted suicides in Canada. Out of those thousands, if "assuming they're broadly correct" add up to a system that is not well thought out and is already having problems with "oh, you're poor and having a bad day? we can fix that!"

And my original question still stands: Why is the interpretation "California is letting people suffer needlessly" not "Why is Canada killing people to save money"? - since the original person I responded to is just as likely to be wrong that CA isn't killing enough people...

I don't think it's wrong to assume that Canada is killing people that don't need to die. 1 is too many... and it's easily 10's of people... and easily hundreds. It's not that hard to assume it's at least 10% of the 10k killed meaning "add up to thousands" is easy to assume.

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#96
post #86
post #4

> The Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers, the leading organization of Canadian euthanasia providers, has sat on credible evidence by its own members that people are being driven to euthanasia by credit card debt, poor housing, and difficulties getting medical care. Did I miss the actual concrete evidence this is being purposefully being used to reduce certain populations?

Not sure if I understand, but the article gives a number of examples, such as: > Mary knows that she could control her pain if she could take vitamin pills, eat a special diet, and go to physiotherapy. She can’t afford it. “Mary identifies poverty as the driver of her MAID request,” Gibb-Carsley writes on a slide accompanying her talk, emphasizing the. “She does not want to die, but she’s suffering terribly and she’s…

I'm wondering, does this example work as anti-euthanasia instead of pro-UBI to anyone reading it (or the rest of the article)?

It seems excessively cruel to me to try and force people to live in misery big enough to make the want to kill themselves instead of alleviating the misery. Like, the article seems to frame the argument that MAID can be used to lobby for better welfare as a ridiculous idea, but that's really it: if the only thing keeping people in your society from killing themselves that it's hard and scary, what the fuck is your society doing to these people.

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#97
This is a weird article to me. It seems to criticize the program for not failing to adequately force people to live in a society that makes them want to die. It even quotes someone pointing out that a high usage rate by people driven to give up on life by out of control housing and cost of living prices without sufficient income, or those unable to afford other treatments could be a leverage for arguing for better designed welfare (UBI?) or markets - but it's framed as callous, ridiculous idea while we still make it "too easy to die"?

Like, I don't think people need a lot of help convincing themselves of not wanting to die unless they are already desperate, and making access to death harder is like forcing the homeless to take a one way bus to another town - you are just hiding the problem. As long as nobody is pushed to use the program, the same arguments that say "well, nobody is forcing you to take that shitty job/pay that exorbitant rent" apply.

It's just that in this case, the signal sent by multiple people choosing death over life because the system isn't working for then is very clearly "what the fuck are you doing to poor people", which is an uncomfortable question, so the impulse is to make access to death harder - then you can again ignore the fact that these people might commit suicide anyway, or suffer immensely, because that will show up just as mental illness or personal failure in the statistics

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#98

When death as a service is more affordable than gift of happy, healthy and fullfilling life, interesting times we live in.

No, it is not more affordable. At least in France where assisted suicide is not an option (yes, we are a barbaric and coward country in some aspects).

As for the gift of happy, healthy and fulfilling life - you may want to have a word with my wife suffering from MS. It is fortunate that we have neighboring countries that are not as hypocrite as France is and where you can end your life when you want to.

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#99
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So again: Why isn't the take that Thousands are dying to soon to save money? You relayed a handful of stories that, even assuming they're all broadly correct, still don't add up to thousands.

I've replayed a handful of stories that point to the fact that there are 10 thousand assisted suicides in Canada. Out of those thousands, if "assuming they're broadly correct" add up to a system that is not well thought out and is already having problems with "oh, you're poor and having a bad day? we can fix that!" And my original question still stands: Why is the interpretation "California is letting people suffer n…

I think you simply missed the point that neo-liberals can't believe the idea that professional neo-liberal politicians might have I'll intent.

Re: No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict Canadian euthanasia regime

#100
It's strikes me as worrisome that someone who's paid to perform euthenasia would also be in a position to counsel it to patients. That seems like a rather serious conflict of interest. Discussion of this sort of thing should only ever be initiated by the patient to an objective third party review board. I personally have serious concerns about the ethics of any doctor offering death as medical advice.
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