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.
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
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?
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?
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Personal insults and accusations without evidence are not an answer to my question, but an evasion.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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:
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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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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.
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? 🤷
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
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.
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 themselves 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
Vice isn’t exactly a reputable news source.
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.
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.
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”
This feels like it crosses a line.
I just don’t know how I feel about it. They do go through an assessment before they’re allowed to end their life this way. Maybe if you really want to die because your life is just generally unbearable, you should be allowed to? I get that there are methods to beat addiction, but they don’t always work. If you just can’t stop smoking meth and you just can’t live that way anymore, maybe let that person die like they want to? I honestly don’t know if those are yes answers for me.
I think you should be allowed to, and I’ve been vocally pro right to die for a long time, but I think this is bad. Medically assisted suicide isn’t meant to be done like this because doctors are better at it, but because they’re the ones with access to lethal drugs whom the terminally ill who are unable to end their life by their own hand will interact with that have the least to gain from their death.
Medically assisted suicide needs to emphasize assisted over suicide. Drug addicts have the capacity to obtain and administer a lethal dose of a drug. I might be ok with them being allowed a safe place where a DNR order that they set up for that experience will be respected so they can OD.
But the general rule in medically assisted suicide is the patient should have to prove that they are terminally ill with no hope of recovering and a sufficiently painful decline and then once approved they should have to do every part of the act that they are physically capable of. Furthermore the final “go” signal should require the patient to explicitly trigger. The physician should be as hands off as possible.
It needs to be treated with this weight. It needs to require a person dying of cancer to fight for it. Otherwise able people might begin dispensing “mercy” where it is less than enthusiastically wanted.
Why should that be the line? Why should a patient have to be terminally ill in order to have the right to die? Why should irremediable suffering not also be considered as a standard?
I think that is the standard if I’m not mistaken. I haven’t looked too closely though, I could be wrong.
The article states “irremediable physical and/or psychological suffering” as another standard that’s being used for consideration here, not just whether a person’s condition is terminal.
Yes, it does. People addicted to drugs have mental issues: addiction. That will warp their judgement. Medically-assisted dying is something that needs to be legal. But the doctors involved need to be sure that the dying properly consents and that is going to be MUCH harder when they have to judge it through a lens of addition.
To me this reads just shy of saying medically assisted dying is now legal for people with mental health issues. Which would 100% be compared to what the Nazis did to the mentally and physically disabled.
The Nazis didn’t give those (or many people) a choice; it was forced upon them. This isn’t comparable at all.
If your choice is no treatment vs suicide, that’s not really a choice, either.
Also you can’t really give someone a choice in life vs death when their mental state is unstable.
Treatment is an option. And people are evaluated before being allowed to end their lives this way.
Ideally. But if that’s the case, why limit it to people with drug addictions? Why limit it to the vulnerable and mentally impaired? Drug addicts aren’t usually terminal patients. What if this was applied but only to overweight people? Or smokers? Or the poor?
You’re free to ponder those questions, but what California and Canada are doing has nothing to do with the Nazis.
That’s what cohersion is for.
The Nazis also gave the Jews a chance leave Germany at first.
What evidence do you have of coercion or of any addicts being driven out of/told to leave Cali or Canada?
In my opinion, those addicted to drugs so much as to need help commiting suicide are not in a clear enough mental state to make such a decision.
Just roll out the suicide booths already
Might as well, eh?
California and Canada have similar populations and both allow medically assisted suicide. Canada last year performed this on 20x more people. It’s well documented that many would prefer treatment to death but it isn’t provided as an option due to cost. This is eugenics
Agreed. Medically-assisted suicide cannot be offered to anyone who doesn’t have all of the health care they need without bankrupting themselves. Therefore I don’t think it’s ethical to ever offer it in a country where health care is a financial transaction for the patient.
Otherwise the government might as well be handing the patient a huge bill in the left hand and a gun in the right.
I agree with one exception. It should be allowed only when no treatment is capable of helping. The idea that it can be done in other contexts is not good
Agreed. Which is why drug addicted as a target group is so weird. We have tons and tons of treatments for addiction both chemical and mental. The only “terminal” addict I’ve heard of are the alcohol addicts who have destroyed their liver. But even they have transplant options.
From a patient perspective, though, it might make more sense in a society where healthcare is limited to allow people to choose to just die. Without it they’re forced to live a life of suffering and pain based on a taboo.
I think there’s a case to be made that medically assisted suicide is always an ethical option to have available to anyone.
If there was actually a shortage of healthcare that couldn’t be solved by mere reappropriation of funding, then sure I could see that. But universal healthcare is absolutely doable in the US (can’t speak to Canada and any limitations there).
Therefore using death as an option for those who can’t afford health care that is priced aggressively is akin to genocide of poor people. And the price of this health care could simply be adjusted and the death option subsidized to the government’s whims. Couple that with the persecution (legally that leads to financially) of certain classes or groups of people by a hostile government and you have a recipe for a government to conduct ethnic cleansing while having an “out” in that the poor, sick people are choosing to die.
I didn’t say it was a good ethical argument 😅
Seriously though, I couldn’t agree with you more. My assertion is def built on the premise of healthcare being a scarce resource, which in the US in particular it is not.
Got a source for these numbers?
“In Canada, which has a smaller population than California, physicians or nurse practitioners directly ended the lives of 31,664 people between 2016 and 2021. That compares to just 3,344 in California.”
This is an opinion piece article and I’m not sure where they’re pulling numbers (I only had time to skim through it)
But if true, let’s add a loose and relatively subjective term like “addiction” to the legislation and these numbers will go up.
Maybe this is how the government was planning to tackle the housing problem lol
That’s a Postmedia Network owned paper. They’ve got a conservative bias, best known for that Tory rag the National Post.
I don’t think I’d trust unsourced statistics from an opinion piece in a Postmedia Network paper myself.
Here it is from the Gov of Canada. The Canadian side of the stats in that article are correct.
So OP’s statement that it was 20x California’s is still inaccurate. Either way all this really indicates is ease of access in Canada. The idea that people are being forced into it is ludicrous conspiratorial thinking with absolutely no basis in fact.
OP said “last year” - the Canadian stats I could find were from 2016-2021, which was still 10x the amount of the alleged California stats over a longer duration.
Don’t throw caution to the wind just because some people are throwing in conspiracy theories. This kind of thing absolutely needs public scrutiny and to be watched very carefully.
MAID is already under heavy scrutiny. MAID assessors and providers are heavily regulated by independent bodies in each province/territory.
Its up to patients to decide whether they want MAID, and there are strict safeguards in place.
This particular comment chain stems from a dude claiming that MAID is just eugenics. Doesn’t that seem a little ridiculous to you?
No since this isn’t currently a covered condition so these people wouldn’t be eligible for this completely voluntary program currently.
Both have state-provided rehab.
This is eugenics
How so?
I honestly think this would not be a bad way to go once I retire. Just develope a fentanyl addiction and move to Canada for a medically assisted OD. A lot better than dealing with the coming water wars and dying like an animal while desperately fighting for survival.
If you’ve already made it to fentanyl just take two of them. No need to be buried in Canada.
Nah, I’d have my worm nutrients sent back to family in the US, or be cremated.
Also, what’s with the hostility?
Lord have mercy. Canada has lost their minds.
The government: Can’t function well enough to perform tasks that increase the GDP? We have a drug for that.
Does caffeine count?
