3 ms·

> The whole point of the article is that Canada's system needs safeguards. If this were truly the point of the article, it would have spent less time trying to

> The whole point of the article is that Canada's system needs safeguards. If this were truly the point of the article, it would have spent less time trying to make emotional pleas and implying that assisted suicide for non-terminal patients is somehow immoral and/or a direct road to eugenics. Canada’s system does have safeguards, and whether or not they are good enough is not actually answered by a couple anecdotes and some comparisons to other countries. > Killing someone for having depression and deafness is not the same as for having terminal cancer and constant pain and being bedridden. This is really not a decision for the individual patients to have freedom in. There are conditions that don’t bother me at all that others would suffer with immensely, and there are many people living happy lives with conditions that I would absolutely want to kill myself over. It is incredibly paternalistic to believe that you (or I) can decide whether or not someone else’s suffering is ‘enough’. > I know multiple young people who have been suicidal and attempted it. Most survived but more could be dead if they were able to simply ask the doctor for it and it was all easy and painless. I am genuinely sorry to hear that you have had those experiences and I can tell that they have had an impact on you. However, it is not possible for someone to just walk into a doctor’s office in Canada and get wheeled into the morgue an hour later, and as far as I am aware no one is suggesting that it should be so. I would encourage you to shift perspectives here and start thinking about how creating a safe, legal, and painless way to end one’s life could reduce the sorts of impulsive suicides it sounds like you’ve seen. For some, just knowing that the option is available makes hard times in life feel much more bearable. For others, the guarantee of an easy and painless assisted death makes the idea of trying to kill themselves on their own a risky and unpalatable alternative. The more that suicidal people believe that going to see a professional is a better idea than taking things into their own hands, the more people will be able to have their quality of life improved by interventions other than death. And for those who are beyond improvement with today’s resources and technology, at least they too will be able to stop needlessly suffering.

sacrosancty 4y ago
I come from a country which just legalized euthanasia and part of the safeguards we have is to try to be very sure that nobody takes it because they're suicidal due to depression. That might not be truly fair since some people might really be suffering that badly from it, as you say. But I came into this discussion with the prejudice that depression was an important reason to deny suicide assistance and the article gives an example of somebody who apparently died because of it. You seem to be more open minded and consider depression might be an acceptable reason for doctors to kill their patients on request, if the patient really really wants it?

sacrosancty 4y ago

I come from a country which just legalized euthanasia and part of the safeguards we have is to try to be very sure that nobody takes it because they're suicidal due to depression. That might not be truly fair since some people might really be suffering that badly from it, as you say. But I came into this discussion with the prejudice that depression was an important reason to deny suicide assistance and the article gives an example of somebody who apparently died because of it. You seem to be more open minded and consider depression might be an acceptable reason for doctors to kill their patients on request, if the patient really really wants it?