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The government of Canada, when asked for funds to install a wheelchair ramp in the home of a veteran and Paralympian, famously offered to euthanize her instead

The government of Canada, when asked for funds to install a wheelchair ramp in the home of a veteran and Paralympian, famously offered to euthanize her instead - https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-assisted-death-macaulay-1.6671721 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-assisted...

vlovich123 2y ago
> In one instance, a Canadian Forces veteran claimed she had been offered Maid in response to a request for a wheelchair lift or ramp at her house. While a subsequent investigation found no record that assisted death was offered, Veterans Affairs discovered four cases in which Maid had been inappropriately suggested. The case manager was suspended and the incident was referred to the Royal Canadian Mounted police. Hospitals occasionally have angel of death doctors and nurses. Should we get rid of hospitals? There’s consistently a lack of any hard quantitative data about the harm the program causes but there are for the benefits. So for critics what’s left are anecdotal stories some of which are true some of which aren’t. > In another case, the family of Alan Nichols said he died by euthanasia, with hearing loss listed as the sole criterion. The family reported it to police and health authorities- but neither saw cause to investigate further. The RCMP told the family that Nichols “met the criteria” for assisted death. > But physicians who provide Maid caution that anecdotes of Canadians slipping through the cracks often ignore other critical details of their respective cases, which must include a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” and do not necessarily suggest a failure in the system. It’s important to remember that the families of people who die will still look for someone to blame. It’s a very human reaction. I know someone who blames the doctor for causing or accelerating her husband’s terminal cancer diagnosis as well as blaming him for telling the husband he had a terminal diagnosis in the first place (i.e. sapped his energy and strength). That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be adjustments to the program. But driving it through anecdotes instead of expertise and data is the wrong balance to strike. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/25/canada-assisted-dying-laws-in-spotlight-as-expansion-paused-again https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/25/canada-assiste...
- ekianjo 2y ago
  > But driving it through anecdotes You really want anecdotes in this case because they point to a system that is just getting rid of people for the wrong reasons. That's called insights.
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    Assuming the anecdotes are correct and capture the entire story - which they rarely actually do in general and especially when you’re talking about death - at best they help land the human story to convince people. But OK. So let’s presume we have anecdotes that show mistakes made in the program. Do we get rid of it? Hospitals and doctors and insurance companies make deadly mistakes too. Get rid of those as well? And what about the anecdotes of people who were greatly positively helped by euthanasia. Do we ignore their anecdotes? How do we weigh their anecdotes against the anecdotes of problems? I may be thick but I’m failing to find the insights you’re claiming are there.
    - ekianjo 2y ago
      Why are you jumping the gun? Even if you keep the program this shows that there is a serious lack of oversight. Once people are dead they are gone and nobody to defend them. I must admit that people here tend to be against the death penalty but when it comes to killing people in difficult situations suddenly we need to be super flexible and innocents be damned
      - vlovich123 2y ago
        Am I jumping the gun? All I’m saying is that anecdotes are insufficient for making any changes and here you’re claiming that it’s sufficient evidence of a lack of oversight. Yet there are arguably quantifiably more problematic deaths in regular health care (angel of death, malpractice where the doctor shouldn’t be providing any kind of care, etc) but you’re not arguing that there’s clearly a lack of oversight there. My point is the scale of the problem isn’t indicated by anecdotes and thus you can’t presume that any action should be taken by their existence purely from the fact that at any meaningful scale any human activity will have issues because humans. And that’s ignoring that I pointed out the potential problems with the anecdotes presented. It’s worrying that you’re equating the death penalty and suicide when they’re very different things. Assisted suicide involves action by the person to end their life while the death penalty is the government taking that action. Very very very different things. Even more worryingly that you’re outright discounting people killed by the death penalty as not innocent. Ignoring the obvious racial problems with black people being more likely to be sentenced that way since I don’t want to argue about sentencing disparity, the innocence project lets us estimate a lower bound on the amount of innocent people that had been killed before the invention of DNA (and even today after it’s part of the normal course of things). That number by the way I believe (but could be wrong) is higher by volume and percentage than the number of problematic deaths in assisted suicide. Care to rethink your priors about death penalty vs assisted suicide?
cperciva 2y ago
A single employee made that offer, was fired, and the case was referred to the police. Not exactly a matter of government policy.
- nitwit005 2y ago
  But people will bring it up every time, as it's the only bullet in their gun.
  - declan_roberts 2y ago
    Wrong kind of analogy to use here.
o11c 2y ago
While striking, that one seems like anecdata.
ejddhbrbrrnrn 2y ago
That is a "fun" fact to spice up the conversation but not really relevant. The government screwed up one case, big surprise. If they had sent 1000 such letters because the PM wants to cleanse the population of disabled people to save tax dollars, that would be relevant.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
ozamidas 2y ago
Quite devious
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

vlovich123 2y ago

> In one instance, a Canadian Forces veteran claimed she had been offered Maid in response to a request for a wheelchair lift or ramp at her house. While a subsequent investigation found no record that assisted death was offered, Veterans Affairs discovered four cases in which Maid had been inappropriately suggested. The case manager was suspended and the incident was referred to the Royal Canadian Mounted police. Hospitals occasionally have angel of death doctors and nurses. Should we get rid of hospitals? There’s consistently a lack of any hard quantitative data about the harm the program causes but there are for the benefits. So for critics what’s left are anecdotal stories some of which are true some of which aren’t. > In another case, the family of Alan Nichols said he died by euthanasia, with hearing loss listed as the sole criterion. The family reported it to police and health authorities- but neither saw cause to investigate further. The RCMP told the family that Nichols “met the criteria” for assisted death. > But physicians who provide Maid caution that anecdotes of Canadians slipping through the cracks often ignore other critical details of their respective cases, which must include a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” and do not necessarily suggest a failure in the system. It’s important to remember that the families of people who die will still look for someone to blame. It’s a very human reaction. I know someone who blames the doctor for causing or accelerating her husband’s terminal cancer diagnosis as well as blaming him for telling the husband he had a terminal diagnosis in the first place (i.e. sapped his energy and strength). That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be adjustments to the program. But driving it through anecdotes instead of expertise and data is the wrong balance to strike. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/25/canada-assisted-dying-laws-in-spotlight-as-expansion-paused-again https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/25/canada-assiste...

ekianjo 2y ago
> But driving it through anecdotes You really want anecdotes in this case because they point to a system that is just getting rid of people for the wrong reasons. That's called insights.
- vlovich123 2y ago
  Assuming the anecdotes are correct and capture the entire story - which they rarely actually do in general and especially when you’re talking about death - at best they help land the human story to convince people. But OK. So let’s presume we have anecdotes that show mistakes made in the program. Do we get rid of it? Hospitals and doctors and insurance companies make deadly mistakes too. Get rid of those as well? And what about the anecdotes of people who were greatly positively helped by euthanasia. Do we ignore their anecdotes? How do we weigh their anecdotes against the anecdotes of problems? I may be thick but I’m failing to find the insights you’re claiming are there.
  - ekianjo 2y ago
    Why are you jumping the gun? Even if you keep the program this shows that there is a serious lack of oversight. Once people are dead they are gone and nobody to defend them. I must admit that people here tend to be against the death penalty but when it comes to killing people in difficult situations suddenly we need to be super flexible and innocents be damned
    - vlovich123 2y ago
      Am I jumping the gun? All I’m saying is that anecdotes are insufficient for making any changes and here you’re claiming that it’s sufficient evidence of a lack of oversight. Yet there are arguably quantifiably more problematic deaths in regular health care (angel of death, malpractice where the doctor shouldn’t be providing any kind of care, etc) but you’re not arguing that there’s clearly a lack of oversight there. My point is the scale of the problem isn’t indicated by anecdotes and thus you can’t presume that any action should be taken by their existence purely from the fact that at any meaningful scale any human activity will have issues because humans. And that’s ignoring that I pointed out the potential problems with the anecdotes presented. It’s worrying that you’re equating the death penalty and suicide when they’re very different things. Assisted suicide involves action by the person to end their life while the death penalty is the government taking that action. Very very very different things. Even more worryingly that you’re outright discounting people killed by the death penalty as not innocent. Ignoring the obvious racial problems with black people being more likely to be sentenced that way since I don’t want to argue about sentencing disparity, the innocence project lets us estimate a lower bound on the amount of innocent people that had been killed before the invention of DNA (and even today after it’s part of the normal course of things). That number by the way I believe (but could be wrong) is higher by volume and percentage than the number of problematic deaths in assisted suicide. Care to rethink your priors about death penalty vs assisted suicide?

cperciva 2y ago

A single employee made that offer, was fired, and the case was referred to the police. Not exactly a matter of government policy.

nitwit005 2y ago
But people will bring it up every time, as it's the only bullet in their gun.
- declan_roberts 2y ago
  Wrong kind of analogy to use here.

o11c 2y ago

While striking, that one seems like anecdata.

ejddhbrbrrnrn 2y ago

That is a "fun" fact to spice up the conversation but not really relevant. The government screwed up one case, big surprise. If they had sent 1000 such letters because the PM wants to cleanse the population of disabled people to save tax dollars, that would be relevant.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

ozamidas 2y ago

Quite devious

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]