If you’re wondering how fun this could get, here’s an article from the National Post arguing that poverty should be a qualifier for assisted suicide
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-medical-aid-in-dying
Here’s another where a woman with sensitivities to various chemical smells chose to die because she couldn’t find an apartment that was affordable and didn’t reek of noxious chemicals
The people who are worried about this aren’t worried about people who genuinely want to die committing suicide. It was always nearly impossible to stop them anyway, and there’s no way to change that. What we’re worried about is people being pushed toward MAID because they’ve been systemically denied things they need to live that are absolutely available. We’re worried about mentally ill people being told “do the right thing, don’t be a burden” when they want to live. We’re worried about suicide becoming the answer to problems that are caused by social and legislative conditions. We’re worried about becoming the kind of society where, rather than help one another, it’s expected that anyone who needs help just off themselves.
This is all coming from someone who tried twice and will be eternally grateful that I managed to fuck it up both times.
Your comment brings up the most relevant point against MAID and it’s clear we can be a better society than one which pushes people over the edge, or let’s them fall despite their pleas.
I too am glad that you managed to fuck it up and that you’re here with us.
Glad you pushed through this.
As someone with a disability, this is one of my biggest fears: Social pressure to seek assisted suicide.
I think everybody deserves the right to end their life in a humane way.
I think you should never have to feel that suicide is your only option because material conditions outside of your control suck so hard.
Within reason.
But if the reason given is because classists don’t want you dirtying up their sidewalk with a wheelchair ramp, that’s just unreasonable.
Having people kill themselves because they can’t afford to live is the opposite of humane.
I got close to trying several times. I suffer from anxiety and depression, I’m obsessive but I love life. I just wish I could solve my mental issues. Offing yourself is not a solution. It’s like I have a math question in front of me and I rip up the paper and toss it in a can.
I’m glad you made it here.
As a mental health professional, the slow leaning towards mental health issues being a qualification for MAID is terrifying.
This is the best answer.
This is what the anti-suicide crowd fucking told you would happen if you legitimized or legalized suicide, and now that it’s happening, you’re once again refusing to connect it with supporting bad policies with no thought or consideration for the consequences.
But you’re not the one who’s gonna suffer so why should you give a shit, amirite? 🤷
I love it when people are so fired up that they yell at me for agreeing with them
I love it when you are so hopped up on the smell of your own shit that you give away you’re just being a skeevy fuck by trying to make the discussion all about your opponent’s emotions and not about the topic at hand.
You didn’t consider at all what I said isn’t only directed at you, but who cares as long as you get to win something?
What we’re worried about is people being pushed toward MAID because they’ve been systemically denied things they need to live that are absolutely available.
Like here, where you are steadfastly defending assisted suicide and not acknowledging anywhere this is what opponents told you would happen. And you argue you want it both ways afterward and you don’t get that you can’t have it both ways; humanity is too immature and tyrannical for that, so if you want to save the impoverished people being targeted for suicide, you have to ban ALL legally assisted suicide outright. There is no middle ground with depraved fucks in western governments.
But you don’t care about the topic, you just want to win an argument on the internet. Well, here’s your trophy 🏆 But the policy is still bad and you’re still wrong for defending it.
I’m all for a painless way out for people who genuinely have no hope, who are going to die a painful death or live an existence of torture where there is zero medical, technological, or social solution to ease their lives.
But it’s crazy to me that so many people are against the death penalty because of the risk of a mistake, but they’re perfectly okay with assisted suicide that has zero oversight. You’d have thought they’d absolutely see this coming since they know how little the 1% cares about them.
Facts. Facts
This just sounds like a convenient way to get rid of homeless people
“Addicted to drugs? Sounds like you want to die. Here, we’ll help.”
WCGW?
2024: “Canada has approved medically assisted death for people who are late on their rent”
2025: “Canada has approved medically assisted death for unhoused persons”
2026: “Canada has approved medically assisted death forsocial parasitesthe disabled”
2027: “Canada has approved medically assisted death for adults and children with autism”
2028: “Canada has approved medically assisted death for those suffering from the effects of institutionalized racism”
2029: “Canada has approved medically assisted death for any First Nations, black, non-land-owning, or poor people who aren’t already dead yet, and it’s optional through 2030”Yeah I support the right to a comfortable death, but there’s a hard line here of only for people who will die in the near future with or without intervention of a disease they’re suffering from a sufficiently advanced case of. And it needs strict controls including oversight by disabled people.
I’ve watched a person slowly and painfully waste away to a disease. But I’ve also seen people say my life isn’t worth living.
Choices still matter in drug addiction and it shouldn’t receive the final mercy we may choose to offer to the terminally ill who are unable to even end their own life. If they want to die then they should have to do it themselves without help.
Now you’re making yourself the arbiter of whose suffering is deserving of relief. Who are you to be the judge?
The difference is that drug addiction can be cured. Maybe we should try rehab first. If they’re not clean or OD’ed after x number of years ok maybe then. But hell let’s try first.
I still don’t think that answers the question:
Why should anyone other than yourself be the arbiter of if your life should continue?
Because people under the influence of drugs don’t always make choices that they won’t regret when they’re sober. I have personally witnessed people that wanted to die while fucked up on legally obtained prescription drugs used as directed because the side effects are just that bad. They don’t feel that way once they’re off that shit.
No one has suggested you would just execute a person on sight while they are under the influence.
In these situations there are interviews, evaluations and waiting periods to ensure the person is ‘of sound mind’ before proceeding.
So with that cleared up, I’ll repeat my question.
Why should you get to be the arbiter of if someone else is allowed to die?
Drug addiction cannot be cured. For many, it can be successfully treated, but it’s a chronic condition which requires a lifetime of treatment. Results vary widely, as does quality of life for those with addiction.
And nobody is saying attempts to treat a person’s addiction shouldn’t be tried first.
drug addiction cannot be cured
This dude never heard of LSD in his life
Nobody is being the judge, the individuals condition is what is preventing them from commiting suicide. And we have no moral obligation to carry out any action someone else wants, including killing them.
You are judging these individuals here, based on your morals. This isn’t about your morals, nor is anyone claiming that you are obligated to do anything. If someone else wishes to apply for this program due to their irremediable physical and/or psychological suffering, who are you to say they’re undeserving of the help, especially when it has nothing to do with you?
“Judging these individuals here”
Are you illiterate? Would you like to prove this statement to me?
“Nobody is claiming that you are obligated”
One is not obligated, this had nothing to do with me specifically.
“Who are you to say that they’re undeserving of that help”
Because there is no obligation to enable an action based on a desire. This is simply you (and others who make this argument) carving out a moral imperative simply because it justifies something you already want (post-hoc justification).
Mixing insults with the straw man argument that this has anything to do with morality is a fallacious argument on its face. And feigning ignorance of the meaning of your own words while asserting an intellectual argument is peak mental gymnastics. And I’m not trying to justify anything— it’s you who is trying to justify denying people medically-approved care due to your stated morality and a refusal of some “obligation” that doesn’t actually exist.
Nobody but you is claiming any “obligation” to anything. This is matter between an individual and their medical providers, not one which involves you in any way. So, once again who are you to judge these people as undeserving of the state’s assistance if their medical providers approve them for it?
Removed by mod
Personal insults and accusations without evidence are not an answer to my question, but an evasion.
Removed by mod
It’s not a complete argument if you’re going to make accusations without evidence. And hurling insults and accusations instead of answering my question is clearly an evasion.
They are already offering it to people with disabilities
I should have guessed. And this thread is riddled with apologists slavering over it.
Maybe assisted becomes recommended, and recommended becomes prescribed?
I’d prefer if it was approved for everybody. Don’t like living, and still feel that way after a mandatory counseling course you should be allowed to choose to end your life in a humane and clean way.
‘Mandatory counselling course’ sounds like not trying very hard just to rush to the next step. Something hitler would say if he was looking to save on gas.
That is too dangerous. If it sounds like I’m asking people who want to die to endure more suffering in order to ensure eugenics becomes relegated to the trash heap of history, it’s because I am. I would rather let cancer patients wither away under painkillers than allow the state to use the forces of institutional bigotry to cleanse its undesirables, let alone overt extermination. In the United States, we would look back 20 years from now asking questions about why black people make up 75% of the medical suicides in Mississippi—or gypsies in the UK, or First Nations in Canada, or gays anywhere, or Jews everywhere—and I absolutely believe that no benefit will ever outweigh that, not ever, not even to heat death.
It’s as simple as forbidding medical experts from recommending the procedure. Patients can request it on their own accord.
People are forbinned from trading stocks with insider knowledge, too. Tell me exactly what constitutes a recommendation, and I can find you a way to completely flout the rule while obeying the letter of it. I’ll always be able to, you can’t win that arms race.
What exactly is the motivation to kill people by assisted suicide from the individual doctor? People can do illegal things, you’re right. What is the point of any law with your mentality?
That’s a sophistical argument, I think I’ve made it abundantly clear that the point is potential for abuse, especially passed down from on high such as in the Welles Fargo scandal.
Not really, maybe the timeline, but moving from drug addicts to the disabled is a well worn path. It happened with sterilization
You’re comparing something that was forced upon people to something that is a choice and which a person must qualify for. It’s comparing apples and oranges.
we should start offering this in us cities
For the police? Agreed.
People say the same thing up here. Most people see it as a cynical form of population control.
Remember when death panels were a crazy right wing talking point? Thanks Canada.
Death panels still aren’t a thing you dingus. No bodies of people deciding whether or not you should live or die, just people gaining the option to request it.
They are in the US. They’re called insurance companies.
This is technically the case everywhere.
Healthcare is one of those things that will consume all available resources, and we can’t do that.
Consider someone that requires round the clock, individual care. They are consuming the entire economic output of more than three people to care for someone that will have no more. I know there’s a lot of communists here, but communism doesn’t change that fact.
What if we could keep someone alive for $1M per day? How long should we do it? We shouldn’t, and “death panels” are how that needs to be decided.
You can talk about price gouging, but really high end medical care is akin to magic. It takes very smart people to do it, and something like an MRI requires liquid helium to remain superconducting. That’s just extremely expensive.
Edit: this place is really weird. So many down votes. No argument against it. Very toxic.
While this is technically true. Back in reality land they were found to be automating the process of groundless denials having doctors lie about having examined dozens of cases despite having spent all of 10 seconds in a screen clicking deny all. Our current situation IS death panels and not just for the dying.
Sure. That’s not really a death panel though. That’s the inefficiency of lots of systems. If you make someone jump through enough hoops, they’ll give up. That saves money.
Well EU has pretty good healthcare but noons pays 3x market value of their car for single ambulance.
No one is talking about that. Healthcare has a budget. You have to distribute that budget equitably.
It’s a more generalized, non emergency version of triage.
Some people will die no matter what you do. Don’t waste resources on them. Some people will recover if you do nothing. Don’t waste resources on them.
Some people will recover if you spend resources on them and die if your don’t. Use your resources on them.
There’s always a cost benefit tradeoff.
Aside from you though 🫠
Healthcare is one of those things that will consume all available resources, and we can’t do that.
Consider someone that requires round the clock, individual care. They are consuming the entire economic output of more than three people to care for someone that will have no more.
I just pointed that it doesn’t consume so much resources in EU as in US. So it can afford better care for longer period of time. And by that i mean tenfold in some cases.
And guess what, insurance companies paying for that make huge profits yearly as well.
I’m just pointing to system that can afford to keep patients alive without killing them because they or others can’t afford to pay for them while maintaining high quality care.
Off topic
Edit: this place is really weird. So many down votes. No argument against it. Very toxic.
I didn’t down vote you if that matters 😉
And those bodies totally won’t start gently suggesting this option. It totally hasn’t already happened…
What evidence do you have for this?
Like when? The big one people were up in arms about was the veteran who was advised to look into it by a Veteran Affairs employee. Veteran Affairs has absolutely no say in whether someone can or should seek MAID, and that employee was acting alone. Pretty sure they got shit canned for it too.
No bodies of people deciding whether or not you should live or die, just people gaining the option to request it.
“There’s no such thing as grooming, just vulnerable people having the option to have sex with people who have power over them”
—You, if you aren’t a hypocrite
found the guy with truly hilarious ideas about what informed consent means
Are you really that naïve? Don’t display your ignorance.
One involves someone who hasn’t fully developed their brain, being taken advantage of. The other involves grown people who are most likely not going to make the decision lightly, and have years of proof they’ll keep suffering. I’d also imagine it’s not some instant suicide booth like Futurama, there’s not gonna be a “Death same night, guaranteed” run of clinics.
So you don’t believe that medical conditions affect your brain?
Aging alone effects it, elderly people are arguably less mentally capable than teenagers. So if teenagers cannot consent to sex based on mental capability, then how are lower capability elderly supposed to be able to consent to death?
I literally never said that…
Those are 2 very very very different ideas you’re trying to compare, and feels like poor logic.
Teenagers can absolutely consent to sex, as sex and grooming are very different things. 2 teenagers having sex, normal. Someone much older than a teenager grooming them mentally for years to eventually have sex, not normal.
Lastly, elderly people’s mental faculties declining that hard isn’t guaranteed. Plenty of old people stay mentally sharp and capable of making decisions. Teenagers, though, 100% will have an under-developed brain until ~25, not to mention how little of life experience they’ll likely have.
Wow that’s… actually kinda fucked.
It’s Canada. We aren’t the smiling plucky canucks that the international community thinks we are. We’re tired, boss. We have some of the worst incidence rates for opioid addiction in the world, the most expensive real estate, politicians that actually don’t do anything except self-deal and play culture war games, a massive overpopulation crisis, a jobs crisis, a grocery cost crisis (all told, they call it a cost of living crisis). They literally invented MAID so that people with terminal cancer can take the painless path out, but now it’s being discussed for literally anyone who is feeling mentally unwell.
They literally invented MAID so that people with terminal cancer can take the painless path out, but now it’s being discussed for literally anyone who is feeling mentally unwell.
The people opposed to medically assisted death used this as an argument against it. I disagreed with them, didn’t expect that to really happen.
I still don’t disagree with its use here. If a person’s life is not their own to take then they have no autonomy at all, but still… it’s jarring to see it actually being used this way.
If a person’s life is not their own to take then they have no autonomy at all
That’s just not right. Autonomy isn’t some absolute, all or nothing thing. If it was, then everybody would have “no autonomy at all”, because we’re not allowed to commit crimes.
Of the full range of possible actions, killing yourself is a relatively small portion of those. Considering that death eliminates all possible future actions, I’d argue that preventing a suicide (of a person that’s not dying anyway) actually preserves more autonomy than the alternative.
You’re just arguing out of an emotional position and trying to rationalize it. If a person wants to die, it’s their right to be able to do so. That doesn’t mean society should just say “fuck it” instead of providing proper mental care, however.
“You’re just arguing out of an emotional position”
So where did they make an emotional argument?
“It’s their right to be able to do so”
And here you are inventing positive rights!
Where does this right to any action come from? If you are paraplegic do you have a right to walk? How would this right be granted? Do you have a right to psychically expel your kidneys (an apparently impossible task)?
The fact that you are unable to perform an action does not entail that others must perform it for you.
A cursory glance at your post history tells me more than enough to know I should just ignore you.
Yes it is and not being allowed to harm innocent people isn’t a violation of your autonomy and never was. Grow the fuck up.
Considering that death eliminates all possible future actions
Highly debatable
the most expensive real estate
source needed.
Dude look at Toronto its awful, and that’s just one example
You need to look at the cost of real estate outside of this country.
That’s not the point.
will be expanded next March to give access to people whose sole medical condition is mental illness, which can include substance use disorders.
So not drug use, but mental health conditions which the government considers drug addiction to be.
This will never be used by a drug addict. It will be used by people with untreatable and severe schizophrenia or similar afflictions. If you don’t want to live in a nightmare world with no hope I think it should be your right to end it peacefully.
I get suicide makes people uncomfortable, but you’re uncomfortable with it in a cozy apartment and good health. You think your protecting vulnerable people from a big scary government, but you’re just forcing them to suffer needlessly.
Given that the intent here is to make assisted suicide legal for people who by definition are not of sound mind what protections are in place for people who would qualify for assisted suicide by way of mental health issues but also might not be fully competent to make this decision themselves? Who can step in and say that the patient actually is competent, and by what standards is that judged? Who can step in and say a patient that wants assisted suicide is not competent, or has been manipulated? I’m not worried about people who are genuinely suffering, the fact is we’ve never been able to stop them from killing themselves and we never will be. I’m worried about someone putting poison in the ear of someone with a treatable disorder, convincing them to “do the right thing and not be a burden”.
Fight to make these services easier to access then. If they are easier to access, the poison wont take. If you waste all your pooitical energy fighting this, and then dont have enough to fight for better social supports and easier access to them, well then you’ve just made things worse
Edit: I’ve chosen life, I know how dark depression and hopelessness gets, but I’ve also been abandoned by my family and original community, and have spent almost a decade now being my own support network in a metropolis where I cant keep a community for very long. Our social support systems are GARBAGE right now and if I ever DID end up chosing death, I wouldnt want some bleeding heart like you who’s going to fight this instead of making community supports easier to access blocking me from ending my suffering. Living alone with multiple different conditions that prvent you from being stabily employable is fucking hard, and if it’s not something you’ve chosen its cruel to leave someone with no way out if it
Edit 2: I like the downvotes with no comments, really shows that people want to just be against something to feel good about themselves without having to think about the consequences of denying said thing
I agree with you. I’m pretty sure some Nordic countries have had this policy for some time, too.
Not many really ever look into safeguards of these programs and let their imaginations take the reins. Here’s the basics of MAID.
The things you need to get the process started is sign off from two doctors or nurse practitioners from two completely independant medical practices who are not directly involved in any long term care planning for the patient and are not experiencing any financial incentive. Doctors are allowed to refuse participation for any reason. They also must have demonstrated expertise in treatment of the condition for which someone is using as their reason for seeking MAID.
In the event of a non terminal illness one also needs a witness to back up your decision to pursue MAID to sign off on all the papers. There are some restrictions about who can count as a witness but in addition to those this person cannot :
-benefit from your death -be an unpaid caregiver -be an owner or operator of a health care facility where you live or are receiving care
The law requires all other potential services and harm reduction strategies be discussed as options and made available and stress is to be put on that you can opt out of the process at any time.
Once the paperwork is signed it begins a 90 day minimum assessment period. Witnesses found to be in violation of any of the witness or doctor restrictions are liable to be criminally charged.
People without decision making capacity are ineligible to apply for MAID. If their case is degenerative they can waive their final consent requirements but people can legally specify under a different program in palliative care a pre-determined termination criteria to pick what level of mental degeneration activates the order and it must be signed off on while the person is of sound mind or else your only choice is a naturally occuring death.
Lastly the final assessment requires active consent and cannot be in a state judged to be mentally incapable of decision making authority unless they previously waived that requirement. The person must be given every opportunity to opt out.
Finally the assessment request now requires a mandatory sign on for data collection for posterity. This is for purposes of determining if the system is being potentially exploited requiring the data in regards to identifying whether race, Indigenous identity and disability seek to determine the presence of individual or systemic inequality or disadvantage in the context of or delivery of MAID. The data regarding everyone who seeks the program, the doctors and the witnesses who signed on and those who decided later not to pursue then is referred to an investigative inquest body and the presence of the program has to be occasionally reviewed by federal Parliament and actively renewed over a predetermined cycle.
So what’s stopping two Kevorkian’s from just signing off on everything?
You can pretend that safeguards will prevent undesirable deaths (like say patient manipulation, or informed consent which Canada has stopped pretending to care about), but the permissibility alone makes it inevitable.
Backflips and somersaults scenario. How many people in every hospital right now are spending the last week of their lives suffocating? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?
You invent scenarios to make MAID unpalatable. The people who want MAID have actually lived through reality.
It’s unfortunate that people want to die and they physically can’t kill themselves at that moment, but there is no moral obligation to grant desires that people can’t fulfill themselves. (There is also the autonomy objection, even if the patient has perfect decision making, killing them now derives then if any future decision making).
We do have an obligation to prevent unreasonable deaths, especially if we are the one’s actively killing them as is the case with MAID.
Therefore a system that potentially (or rather inevitably) causes moral bad without any moral good, is not a morally good system and has no benefit to existing.
The reality is that unreasonable deaths will happen, and expanding it (and lowering the thresholds) will increase the percentage of assisted suicides that don’t meet some metric of moral permissibility.
There is also the societal harm objection, if illnesses/conditions are treated by euthanasia, and euthanasia becomes a popular way of death (like it is increasingly so in Canada) the incentive to improve treatment of those conditions is weaker. It does not result in a improving society in the long run if euthanasia is an acceptable option to certain conditions (note, this refers to more than just medical health but also living or social conditions).
Part of the system works off of a similar system to triplicate prescriptions which has a cooling effect. Basically every time a single doctor signs off on this it gets flagged in the system along with what other doctor is doing it. Doctors know their data is being tracked by an active investigative body, physical hard copies are required and who their second doctor is is relation to their participation is actively logged and guaged. A two kevorkian system would set up a red flag and cause an in depth investigation with potential criminal persecution.
Not saying that it could not happen but it would create an undue legal risk for any doctors who would try it and doctors are made very aware of the data logging requirements of the program.
Good to see at least someone around here has some fucking clue regarding the purpose of this law…
- Just “feeling mentally unwell”, as another commenter put it, is not enough to qualify. The law specifically requires the applicant “experience unbearable physical or mental suffering from your illness, disease, disability or state of decline that cannot be relieved under conditions that you consider acceptable” and “be in an advanced state of decline that cannot be reversed”
- If someone makes a “request for medical assistance in dying, 2 independent medical practitioners (physicians or nurse practitioners) must assess it.”
And that’s just a couple of the high bars one must clear to qualify.
But, I can say this about Lemmy: given the quality of the discussion on this post, this place really has turned into an excellent replacement for Reddit!
Exactly.
It’s a hard argument, but untreatable depression can technically be terminal.
If mine weren’t treatable, it would be.
Assisted suicide and euthanasia are messy subjects, but it’s just so awful to not allow this for situations where we’d consider it cruel if an animal were in the same situation.
We can provide a “good death” to people who have nothing but suffering left in their life.
If my time comes, I’ll take it in my own hands, but the fear is that something will happen where I can suddenly no longer make that decision.
“We’d consider it cruel if an animal where in the same situation”
Mercy killing animals isn’t an actual thing, they can’t possibly consent. The reality is that we kill animals at will for basically any reason, so we have no problem lying to ourselves that we are performing a mercy killing.
You are making no sense.
I have pet ducks.
Most recently one had a problem with bone loss in its femoral head. It couldn’t walk much at all and was getting further injuries because of that. The other ducks would also leave it behind. Being alone is very stressful for a duck.
You can’t do a hip replacement on a duck. They wouldn’t understand or be able to recover. In any case, she’d easily get picked off by a daytime predator. Eaten alive.
You better believe that euthanasia was the best course of action for her.
So you read the duck’s mind? Do you think the duck even has a conception of what death is? According to you it wouldn’t even understand a hip replacement. Why are you assuming that it therefore wishes for death?
Anyway the point of this is that killing the duck is permissible because killing ducks is always permissible. The delusion that you are making the best decision for it is impossible to know. And more importantly it is completely irrelevant to the permissibility of killing humans.
The criteria by which we are able to kill mentally incapable animals (species membership or even low mental ability) is not the same by which we can argue for assisted suicide. Because humans and ducks are radically different objects with different inherent moral valuations.
Additionally consider that your comparison is morally relevant. If it is permissible to mercy kill ducks based solely on presentation, without being able to determine the ducks desires. Then it follows that we can kill humans based on presentation alone as long as we don’t know there desires. Even worse if we undermine the validity of there expression of desire it is permissible to kill them anyway.
“Look this paraplegic wants to live, they must be delusional who would want live like that, time to get the MAID”.
Even stupid films like Million Dollar Baby, embed the perception that disabled people just want to die.
As much as people want to be nice and give people whatever they want, it is without question that as soon as you permit others to actively kill other people, it’s going to be open to abuse and severe ethical consequences. The history of MAID is a fine example of that, it’s expansion was actually made by a court decision to make the law more consistent. True logical consistency would naturally follow to permit assisting suicide in all cases, after all why are we discriminating against people with very temporary conditions. Clearly they are just as capable of experiencing suffering as any other person.
This place is full of raving lunatics.
I’m not used to a world where left wing thoughts are this stupid and ill informed. That’s the realm of right wing media, ime.
You’re not even acknowledging any of my argument.
It’s so fucking weird.
You think
No, people against assisted suicide are likely the same types that say “life begins at conception” or “the death penalty is perfectly fine the way it is”. I don’t think they think beyond how they can control other people’s lives.
It’s totally different information from the OP.
It’s probably reasonable for untreatable patients who suffer to no end.You don’t fucking know that. Stop supporting bad policies you know are harmful.
How this works in real life:
Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) is a process through which a doctor or nurse practitioner assists an individual, at their request, to intentionally end their life[2]. The process for MAID in Canada involves the following steps:
-
Eligibility: To access MAID in Canada, you must meet specific eligibility criteria. You must be at least 18 years old, capable of making decisions with respect to your health, and have asked for MAID yourself without any pressure from others. You must also have a grievous and irremediable medical condition, which means that you have a serious and incurable illness, disease, or disability, you are in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability, and your illness, disease, or disability causes you enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable to you and cannot be relieved under conditions that you consider acceptable[5].
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Request: If you wish to request MAID, your health care provider will ask you to complete and submit the Request for Medical Assistance in Dying form. By submitting this form, you are formally asking for MAID and stating that you believe you meet all the eligibility criteria[2].
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Assessment: Two independent medical practitioners must assess your eligibility for MAID. They will review your medical history, conduct a physical examination, and discuss your options for care. They will also discuss your decision with you to ensure that you are making an informed choice[2].
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Final Consent: You must provide final consent immediately before receiving MAID. You can withdraw your request for MAID at any time and in any manner, even if you are found eligible for MAID[4].
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Procedure: MAID can happen in one of two ways: a doctor or nurse practitioner gives a drug to the patient that causes the patient’s death, or a doctor or nurse practitioner prescribes a drug for a person, at the person’s request, that the person can swallow and cause their own death[5].
The 2021 revisions to Canada’s MAID law enhance data collection and reporting to provide a more comprehensive picture of how MAID is being implemented in Canada, including under the new provisions. The monitoring regime is important to supporting transparency and public trust in how MAID is being delivered[1].
Citations: [1] Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) law - Department of Justice https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/ad-am/bk-di.html [2] Medical Assistance in Dying - Provincial Health Services Authority http://www.phsa.ca/health-info/medical-assistance-in-dying [3] Medical assistance in dying: Overview - Canada.ca https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-services-benefits/medical-assistance-dying.html [4] Get the facts on MAID | Dying With Dignity Canada https://www.dyingwithdignity.ca/end-of-life-support/get-the-facts-on-maid/ [5] MAiD - End-of-Life Law and Policy in Canada http://eol.law.dal.ca/?page_id=2472 [6] A medically assisted death - Canadian Virtual Hospice https://www.virtualhospice.ca/maid/articles/a-medically-assisted-death/
Except all of that is bullshit now, because now they’re allowing drug addiction to be a qualifying condition to get assisted suicide, and you’re trying to cover up how fucked up that is with outdated information and lies.
Jesus Christ, people. Just because you want a policy in place doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful. Would it fucking kill you to be honest about one damn thing?
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It is a bit unfair that only drug addicts get this. Assisted suicide should be available for the general population.
The article says that the mentally ill also get this option.
Aha ok. Thank you for clarifying 🙌
Have any of their politicians taken them up on the offer?
That’s good. I’ve been watching this bill closely ever since they said they’d add it for mentally ill patients in early 2023.
Oh that’s really bad. That’s even less capable of being terminal
“Terminal” isn’t the only standard. “A lifetime of irremediable physical and/or psychological suffering” is another.
Getting addicted to drugs isn’t exactly an insurmountable barrier
It is for some
it doesnt have to be if there was resources
sounds like theyre just not sugar coating what they want ppl dealt a shitty hand to do
That not how it works. Addiction is simply not something some people can overcome. It’s a condition that affects everyone differently, and, for some, it doesn’t matter how many resources you throw at it. It’s not a condition one can reason or rationalize one’s way through. For some, recovery itself presents irremediable psychological suffering from which they seek a permanent release.
You seem to be asserting that the state wants addicts to kill themselves, but there’s no evidence for this, as anyone seeking this remedy would have to apply for it and go through multiple steps of evaluation before being permitted. Such a high bar of entry - plus all of the treatment options available - are evidence that it’s the option of last resort for the most extreme cases and not for just anyone.
Though only after a consultation with a philosopher
Yes definitely
Just to make extra sure it isn’t eugenics, have everyone asking for assisted suicide, provide proof of having reproduced, or get enrolled into forced reproduction first… /s
This feels very click-baity. As far as I can tell, the assisted suicide law is being extended to include people in unbearable pain from mental health problems, not just physical ones. Because substance abuse is classified as a mental health problem, people with drug addictions would have the right to request assisted suicide under this extension to the law.
The objections being raised speak to the same fears many disabled people have about legalising assisted suicide: that people struggling with their health might be, or feel, pressured to end it for the convenience of others, not because it is the best thing for themselves. I assume that the existing law attempts to address this properly, with safeguards against external pressures.
Assisted suicide is most valuable for people who do not have the physical capacity to do it themselves, and do not want to put a loved one at risk of a murder charge. In practice, most people with a serious drug problem can quite easily end it themselves if they want to. Access to assisted suicide doesn’t seem particularly likely to change much, except perhaps offer a more peaceful, dignified death for those who want it anyway.
This article seems to be pushing the conservative narrative. They make a leap from mental health to eugenics, which is a stretch. I call BS
Denying the people the right to die with dignity is a sick perversion of morals.
Vice isn’t exactly a reputable news source.
Sort of, but it’s basically state assisted suicide not because of terminal illness, or horrific physical impairment. It’s for people with who are depressed, or otherwise mentally ill, including addicts.
Yes, I know they say they’re safeguards and assessments, and that it’s for people that treatment has failed, but who knows how that’ll actually be implemented, or practically be enforced.
Chronic depression and your wife just divorced you? You’re in luck, the state can help end your pain, permanently.
Lose your home and job because of your addiction? We’ll kill you, no problem.
Should they be allowed to kill themselves? Sure, I don’t think suicide should be illegal, but extending state sanctioned assisted suicide to a junkie, who’s bottoming out, or someone with chronic depression, seems like the pendulum swinging way way way to far outside what should be acceptable for this type of state intervention.
But I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the nuances of this law, or how it will be implemented, just proving my take on the information I read in the article.
It’s not an easy one, at all. My answer is the same as that for severely physically disabled people who may feel pressured for reasons external to themselves. And that is funding. People must have the support they need, whether it’s professional care for support with daily living, or adequate treatment programmes, or secure housing from which to rebuild a liveable life.
That is not the world we live in, sadly. I understand why people fear that assisted suicide could be used to disappear a problem by a heartless state, and it’s a reasonable fear, no matter how good the original intentions. This law can only be a good one if real safeguards are in place, with generous collective provision for those of us who find ourselves struggling for whatever reason.
Fucking up a suicide can make your life so much fucking worse than it was before you decidee to end things, and quite possibly less likely to be able to attempt it again. I’d rather people use their fear of those scenarios to fight for better social support networks and mental health services, because right now what we have is atrocious. I’ve chosen life, but because I lost ALL of my support networks and the trauma that left me with, its been 7 years since that incident and I’ve struggled to be able to maintain a job or a community, losing job after job and friend group after friend group is hard enough as it is (while I watch my debt spiral) if I hadnt CHOSEN this struggle
Honestly just seems like a tee up so the government can “persuade” these people to kill themselves. It’s a bold strategy, Cotton.
Could be a dry run for when life gets so bad in the next few years that people just look for the exit.
“Kill em all”. Canadian here. Disabled folks like myself have been taking this route for a while now simply because they can’t afford to live any longer. That’s pretty fucked. Canada doesn’t want anything to do with us or the “junkies”. They’d rather we die.
Like, truly, where was legality ever an issue if you were really considering suicide? Maybe that’s just my lense
Bingo. The health administrator just wants to go “hey I don’t want to give this person naxolone but I also don’t want to face any consequences.”
The “legality” side of committing suicide in a drug addicts case is a red herring. It’s incredibly easy to kill yourself on fentanyl even accidentally. with or without legality.
This is only okay if the client asks for it under lucid understanding. And I support it. “Pushing” this from any government agent should be illegal. I will take this route when I reach a certain quality of life threshold.
It hasn’t been pushed on anyone from a Healthcare provider(the only people legally allowed to recommend and administer)
Considering that just two weeks ago the canadian government for cheering for actual SS Nazis, that should be a surprise for no one.
The government: Can’t function well enough to perform tasks that increase the GDP? We have a drug for that.
Why is there always such a shitshow when it comes to these laws? In Switzerland we have EXIT which is also assisted suicide. Nobody cares that it exists, it is just a reasonable system.
Because the conditions applied always seem to be revolving around removing undesirables within Canada. This example makes people fear that Canadian hospital workers will begin pressuring drug addict patients to kill themselves, or even darker, signing them up for euthanasia without their knowing or consent.
Healthcare worker here.
There is a long list of steps that have to be put into place before someone is even elected for MAiD recommendation by a doctor.
Then there is a 3 step consent process in which the patient must be lucid. Maybe people who want MAiD are unable to successfully give the last step of consent unfortunately. I myself had to watch my grandmother die slowly rather than though MAiD like she wanted because she lost lucidity.
Between those steps either a doctor or a pharmacist will get in touch with the patient to go over the steps of MAiD again.
The drugs for MAiD aren’t over the counter. After all of the above steps are done then the pharmacist does up the compounds. Every Pharmacist I know triple checks their paper work and thier medications.
Then they would either provide MAiD in hosiptal or make a home visit. At the moment handing off the compounds to the family is not allowed here.
There are so many steps and checks and paperwork that no one is getting MAiD signed up against thier will.
I am certain your examples are quite impossible. Neither pressure or involuntary signups.
It might be impossible where you are from (because it’s better implemented or controlled there, I don’t know) but in Canada our health care has turned to shit (our healthcare system was struggling pre-pandemic and is now even worse). There were instances of First Nation mothers being forced or strongly encouraged immediately after giving birth (when they aren’t of sound mind) to be sterilized. If something as horrendous as that can happen, it’s not much of a stretch to believe that bad acting health care workers might try to force people who are vulnerable to agree to euthanasia.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canadian-veterans-assisted-suicide
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/report-uncovers-forced-sterilization-in-quebec-1.6663340
The veterans don’t seem to be such a huge case as the headline suggests. It clearly isn’t systematic and the individual cases sound more like frontline workers who made mistakes instead of malicious intent.
And the sterilizations are clearly systematic racism and not a way to save the apparently fragile healthcare system.
Canada does not have a great history, given the (shockingly recent) sterilization of indigenous women.
Also, worth noting that assisted suicide had been around in Canada for awhile, and not without it’s problems that seem quite like those described by the person you were replying to, including some specific cases:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/11/canada-cases-right-to-die-laws
https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c631558a457188d2bd2b5cfd360a867
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/canada-law-provide-not-prevent-suicide
There’s a lot more if you look into it.
These were quite interesting. I don’t really see OP’s claims being supported by the examples given. They either don’t really make sense as the cases wouldn’t be allowed for MAID (according to the article) as they do not meet the requirements of the law. Or they seem to be individual cases where someone mistakenly suggests MAID where they shouldn’t have. That is bad but not malicious intent. And the last article is just an opinion piece claiming all countries with MAID are going down a suicide highway.
There are obviously issues in Canada, like the meagerly 1400$ people apparently get when they are unable to work due to medical conditions (back home we pay 80% of whatever they made before they had to quit).
But I can not see these horrific scenarios that I always read about when these laws are being discussed. It sounds like the government is collecting people on trucks to kill them off. Which very obviously is not the case or they are extremely amazing at hiding it.
There are some fucked up nurses in VGH. I can definitely see them pulling this shit.
Hey so just to give you some context assisted suicide already exists in Canada for the terminally ill.
This is not that.
I don’t think the thing you are comparing to is the same situation is where government is purposely leaving behind depressed and people with disabilities or really any negligible problem and then offering them death as the only option. How do you get out of feeling guilt of not building a ramp for someone with a wheelchair? Oh just tell them to go kill themselves as their only option.
It’s a situation where you just don’t have a doctor to help you stay healthy but you have a doctor to help you die.
The great passive aggression of political classism Canada 2023.
They are actually making Britain look like the compassionate ones. That’s saying something.
Drug addicts can’t do assisted suicide in Switzerland, it’s not an untreatable illness.
I wouldn’t know of any law preventing MAID in the cases described by the article.
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In addition to having a mental disorder that has been there for a very long time and that is significantly impairing their function, treatments have to have been tried and those treatments have to be treatments that are expected, usual, and evidence-based
That really does not sound like that at all.
The bad is that they’re making categories of people with helped death on the table for those specifically detested.
I’m all for this, but when the reason someone wants to go is because of an arguably temporary mental health condition, that is hard to justify.
That also makes it more difficult for mental health professionals, when an easy way out is there for the patient.
Drug addiction, in my opinion, comes dangerously close to a mental health disorder.
It is a symptom of many disorders. That’s what is wrong with this thing entirely. It lets everyone off the hook of helping someone who could be helped but instead they just want to sit back and judge them for taking the painkillers some doctor put them on.
That sounds fucked-up, no? Is it an uncureable condition?
Addiction isn’t a condition which can, generally speaking, be cured. It’s a chronic condition and is often genetic. While many choose a lifetime of treatment, it’s a constant struggle, and the quality of life varies widely.
Yeah, it’s fucked up. It’s being presented under the guise of equality too lol
I’d be worried that this will be used as a screen to kill “undesirables” without scrutiny.
Most of the homeless I see are tweaking.
It seems like they’re solving the housing crisis in the most dystopian way possiblePlenty of ways it could be even more dystopian. Turn them into Soylent Poutine or something, then it’s on another level.
Turning them into food when there’s nothing left to eat seems a little better than killing them off to avoid losing a bit of money
It does say it requires counseling before it is done, so you would have to fake that part.
Not hard for medical professionals to put blanket symptoms on mental illnesses. Just look at history. The mentally unwell haven’t been treated kindly by pretty much anyone throughout history. All this positive talk about it is modern as in the last 30 years. Before that it was all taboo
No you need bad counselors. And not explicitly evil ones even. Just ones who think they’d want to die if their life was pretty bad. I see people say they’d kill themselves if they were deaf, if they were blind, if they were in need of a wheelchair, etc, but disabled people do live happy and complete lives, often to the astonishment of therapists.
Drug addicts are capable of recovering and having better lives. That’s the fundamental difference between them and the terminally ill. Mentally ill people can find their miracle treatment or a regimen that works or something.
These two groups are easily manipulated when at their worsts and counselors are frankly terrible at seeing the difference between a really bad period of life and a life that can’t improve. The last thing a mentally ill person at rock bottom needs is a medical professional to agree death is an option
Not all drug addicts are capable of recovering. Most are, but not everyone. To assert such a claim evinces a fundamental ignorance of drug addiction.
And who are we to say which is which with such absolute certainty that we will bear the weight of killing them? Not permitting them to die without our help, but preparing the mechanism of death, providing, and/or administering it. With cancer it’s easy to know when there’s no hope left, that another try won’t help. There is no hospice of hopelessness for drug addiction, no few months to live of increasing agony, no immanence. So I say we shouldn’t bear this weight. If they want to die let it be by their own hand with ours clean. Our hands should only be dirtied like this where those wishing to die are too sick to do it themselves meet the strictest criteria.
First of all, YOU aren’t bearing any “weight”, nor would you be making any decision. Qualified medical professionals would be. Second, to say there’s no hopelessness for some people in drug addiction shows a fundamental ignorance of that condition— some people simply are incapable of recovering from it. Most are, but not everyone.
Finally, you’re making a decision for a lot of people which doesn’t affect you at all based on your own emotions, biases, and ignorance of a condition to prolong a person’s suffering which is seemingly arbitrary. It hardly seems reasonable.
It’s already happening, and the eugenics apologists have been falling all over themselves to say “OH UHHH THOSE WERE JUST DOZENS OF ISOLATED INCIDENTS PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE FASCISTS BEHIND THE CURTAIN”
I do hate this, but at least dying is not an illegal thing to do to oneself, but at the same time, I don’t want people to die, even if they decided to. On top of that, there has to be a better way to deal with addiction than allowing someone to just die. Plus, there is a stupid loophole brewing where people who decide not to die could be documented as wanting to die by some powerful individuals. All around, a bad thing to legalize and the administrative problems it would bring
I don’t want people to suffer even if they decided to. There’s this stupid loophole where people are convicted of crimes they didn’t do because the government is theatre.
All around, people should maintain their own propriety.
Canada is several months away from medically assisted “suicide” for people who don’t support currently elected politicians
Found the right wing, nutjob.
Lord have mercy. Canada has lost their minds.
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“Canada announces technology that allows anybody, anywhere in the world to undergo mandatory medically assisted ‘suicide’ without consenting or being informed beforehand said operation”
Be careful, they may expand who is “eligible”.
Long time ago, so I heard but it seems they are still “sinking” deeper.
