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Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths

• Noumenon72 2y ago
  A "foreseeable" natural death must also be "forefeelable". I'm glad these people don't have to live through that painful and pointless decline stage.
• tptacek 2y ago
  "Nearly all of those who requested assisted dying - around 96% - had a foreseeable natural death. The remaining 4% were granted euthanasia due to having a long-term chronic illness and where a natural death was not imminent". This is basically clickbait; the law is changing how people die of terminal conditions, but only a tiny fraction of those are deaths that really trace to the new law.
  • defrost 2y ago
    The corollary to the article is that almost all deaths in Canada result from severe or chronic medical conditions .. and now 5% of those cases are resolved via voluntary euthanasia.
    • throwaway48476 2y ago
      They consider homelessness a chronic medical condition.
    • raducu 2y ago
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      • mindslight 2y ago
        >> The corollary to the article is that almost all deaths in Canada result from severe or chronic medical conditions .. and now 5% of those cases are resolved via voluntary euthanasia. > A strong argument for euthanasia always was that it would be exceedingly rare, but 5% of all deaths is not exceedingly rare. You talked right past the actual point being made, to beat a straw man instead. Being downvoted or shunned for not actually engaging with a topic yet condemning it anyway is not equivalent to being canceled. And as far as the overall culture war reprise dynamic, I don't see much difference in having to placate the egos of HR drones talking about diversity and the previous culture of having to placate the egos of traditional business bureaucrats waxing poetically about the virtues of mega golf or spending money on a boat. Either way you just smile, nod, and fit in, or you forge your own way outside of the pop culture power structure.
        • raducu 2y ago
          > You talked right past the actual point being made, to beat a straw man instead Your corolary, to me sounded like "It's not shocking at all that 5% of all deaths are euthanasia, it's simply the intended/logical outcome". Maybe I created a straw man. For me the arguments, narative, claimed outcome, scope, implications and all that for allowing something like euthanasia matter a lot. I hope we won't push back in horror at this measure like we did with other measures, because at that point the story could easily reach nazi Germany eugenics horror levels
          • defrost 2y ago
            It was my corollary (a simple restatement of the information presented in the article), not the person you addressed, and no, it's not at all shocking that 5% of terminal cases in or facing pallative care, experiencing or about to experience chronic pain, cognitive loss, functional decline and lose of autonomy and dignity choose to knowingly take advantage of legal euthanasia. > the story could easily reach nazi Germany eugenics horror levels Riiiigght. Sure. If you say so. Better to let humans suffer rather than allow them to make a choice on their own terms. Got it.
  • Maxious 2y ago
    > Palliative care and end-of-life care are excellent in Australia. They help the vast majority of people to die without excessive pain and suffering. > However, in a small number of cases palliative care cannot relieve all suffering. Palliative Care Australia estimates this to happen to around 4% of people So 4% would be exactly the amount of people this is relevant for
  • snehk 2y ago
    You cannot trust this article. Just check out the cases where they basically tell poor people that euthanasia is always an option. It's horrible. If they don't talk about where the program goes horribly wrong, we shouldn't listen to them when they talk about the supposed positives.
    • snakeyjake 2y ago
      I don't think you need to try very hard to convince a terminally-ill patient in constant agony to end it, poor or not. My 93 year old grandmother has COPD and she wants to end her life but cannot. She is NOT poor. In her state in the US, a bipartisan bill was introduced to allow for euthanasia but the religious extremists killed it. She coughs so badly, even on oxygen with frequent albuterol treatments, that she is constantly fracturing her ribs and spine and going on regimens of narcotics to keep the pain down to bearable levels-- which cause unending constipation and generally scramble her brain. Can't move, can't talk, can't breathe, can't sit without pain, can't even shit. Can't die either.
      • lolc 2y ago
        Sounds horrible having to live through that. Out of curiosity, because I assume you've discussed these questions: If she refused treatment except for opiates, would that allow her to die faster?
        • snakeyjake 2y ago
          If she came off of oxygen and albuterol, she would be dead within a day or two or three. It would be an agonizing death, worse than her current situation. So instead of drinking something and peacefully going to sleep one last time she has to slowly degrade until the machinery of the healthcare system sees fit to give her a dosage of morphine large enough. That's the shittiest part of all of this, nearly 100% of all hospice deaths are medically assisted already. Personnel just keep upping the morphine as the gurgling increases in order to make it stop because the gurgling is "pain". Eventually the doses get so high that literally every single person on Earth who knows what morphine is knows, irrefutably, that the morphine killed the patient. But nobody calls it that. You can't call it that. You "managed the symptoms". The only thing MAID does is speed up the clock.
  • bleakenthusiasm 2y ago
    I think that's the point? The title is grabbing for attention, but the point of laws to choose assisted dying is basically always that people with terminal conditions often are in such pain that they choose a peaceful death over extending the pain. You can read this title in an alarming way or just the same in a way that says "the law is working and people actually want this option".
• aurizon 2y ago
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  • deleted 2y ago
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  • 14 2y ago
    Very sorry about your wife. I think MAID is great, not perfect and going to have some kinks but it means well and hopefully those who want it can access it.
    • aurizon 2y ago
      It was sad indeed. Every entity from bacteria to man faces their eventual end - bacteria have no funerary overhead and keep few records. We humans anticipate and fight against this terminal state. I suspect there will come a time when the human neurome will be mapped, but it might be sooner than we think. Once mapped = copied in silica/positronium? and there it/we can endure? Might be boring - we have a clock speed of ~~13 hertz, what if we upclock to 13 Ghz = every second the meat wakes = 1,000,000,000 silicon ticks, as I say = boring. Of course we will evolve games/puzzles/tasks/jobs to fill this time, and a smart code loop might enslave us = eternal bit bondage somewhere on the bitcoin chain gang. https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/12/09/298-jeff-lichtman-on-the-wiring-diagram-of-the-brain/ https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/12/09/298-...
• jbm 2y ago
  I find it overall very unnerving how quiet this is and how the Canadian press never really finds issues with this. I often saw Japanese media moving lock-step with the police (in terms of vocabulary to use for certain crimes, how to report certain issues), and thought it was creepy as hell. However, the complete lack of questioning of the purpose behind a sudden legalization of euthanasia (in a country with public healthcare and an inherent potential conflict of interest), and the entire concept of having "experts" sign off on it without any legal overview is creepy. Even using "medicalized" terms like MAID instead of euthanasia is unnerving to me. Put in another way, given how hard it is for people to see doctors, I wonder how much worse it would be without MAID? As it would clearly be worse, is this a mere sanitized form of cost cutting to deal with growing medical costs associated with treating the aging population?
  • Dalewyn 2y ago
    A person can't choose for himself when or even if to come into existence in this world. In an era when human rights are considered sacred above all, it is hypocritical to me that a person can't decide for himself when he wants to quit.
  • fatbird 2y ago
    Your whole comment frames MAID as something the gov't does to patients, not something patients choose as a better option than spending 6-12 months in agony with only one possible outcome. MAID isn't a cost cutting measure. The cost of palliative care for the terminally ill is trivial. It's not a loud issue in Canada because we've had decades of grappling with this (there's nothing sudden about it: google "Robert Latimer") and come to a humane solution: the near-term terminally ill can choose MAID, and a small number of long-term terminally ill can also choose it. Without MAID, you'd have the same number of deaths, they'd just be medicated into insensibility for the last few months instead of making a conscious choice about it. There's a legitimate fear in Canada about the misuse or abuse of MAID, especially amongst the disabled community (again, google "Robert Latimer"). But we've found zero evidence since its introduction of its abuse, of its application as a cost-cutting measure, of it being forced on people. You shouldn't take the fact that something is working as designed, as sinister.
• zpeti 2y ago
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  • fatbird 2y ago
    The major cost drivers of Canada's single payer health care system are big-ticket tests and interventions: MRIs, surgery, etc. Palliative care is comparatively cheap, especially since it's often done at home with a visiting nurse coming by to inject morphine. There's no significant savings to be found by killing the terminally ill more quickly. MAID is always a choice by a patient, not an option chosen by the health care system. And according to reports, in 96% of cases it's a really obvious choice: I'm going to die within a year anyway, in great, degenerative agony. I'd rather go of my own choosing while I still can choose, in a relatively painless way.
    • logicchains 2y ago
      There are cases where it's been actively suggested to a non-terminally-ill patient nowhere near death's door, like https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-assisted-death-macaulay-1.6671721 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/christine-gauthier-assisted... . And the just the act of suggesting it can cause someone to commit suicide, that's why news media have to be careful how they present articles involving suicide: https://afsp.org/safereporting/ https://afsp.org/safereporting/ .
      • fatbird 2y ago
        Please see my reply to your other post making this point.
    • somerandomqaguy 2y ago
      > There's no significant savings to be found by killing the terminally ill more quickly ...Uh... "Summary table 1 presents the net financial impact of providing MAID in 2021, under the current legislation as set out in bill C-14, which is used as a baseline for the cost estimate. The predicted gross reduction in health care costs amounts to $109.2 million while the cost of administering MAID is estimated at $22.3 million. Thus, the difference between the two represents a net cost reduction for provincial governments of $86.9 million." -COST ESTIMATE FOR BILL C-7 “MEDICAL ASSISTANCE IN DYING”, 2021, https://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.893653/publication.html https://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.893653/publication.htm... It's small in the scheme of healthcare budgets, but it's a stretch to call it not significant.
• ben30 2y ago
  Fifteen years ago, flying into Vancouver, a local told me charities would give homeless people one-way bus tickets there from colder regions of Canada to prevent winter deaths. No return tickets in spring. Calls into question what we consider "charitable" when the solution is just moving vulnerable people elsewhere. Worrying parallel: will euthanasia become another "solution" for those who can't afford proper care and treatment? Moving homeless people to warmer cities and offering euthanasia to those who can't afford treatment both avoid fixing the underlying problems.
  • spiderfarmer 2y ago
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    • rjrdi38dbbdb 2y ago
      It's fairly common for governments to provide a basic level of care for free or heavily subsidized, but not cover more expensive treatments. It's certainly not exclusive to the US.
      • pavlov 2y ago
        At least in Europe and the Nordic systems I have experience with, that typically applies to the very expensive novel treatments. There are gene therapies which can cost $2-3 million per patient and those aren't covered by any public healthcare system, AFAIK. But it's not like there is some kind of upper limit on coverage. If you have cancer, you will get treatment regardless of how much your care has already cost.
        • d1sxeyes 2y ago
          It depends. At some point often it switches to palliative care, rather than treatment. That point is not “there’s literally nothing else we can try”, it’s “the remaining options are inadequately proven, too expensive, high risk, or not effective enough (won’t extend life by long enough or improve quality of life enough)”. Every single one of those criteria is subjective, which is why you see these fundraising campaigns for kids with cancer to go and a get a multimillion dollar treatment in the US, because as a parent, accepting that there’s more you COULD do if you just don’t give up is hard.
• snakeyjake 2y ago
  In an ideal world 100% of all deaths would be by euthanasia. Instead there are accidents, which kill prematurely. Homicides, which steal life. And diseases, which cripple and degrade. I've watched three of my four grandparents suffocate to death as their organs failed, blasted out of their minds on morphine, nothing more than a collection of organs with a slowly stopping metabolism. Two of them wanted to end it, but couldn't. I suppose the only accident, homicide, and disease that cannot be defeated given enough luck, research, and effort is the eventual tiring, erosion, and destruction of one's mind so in an ideal world that would be the single cause of death, a death brought about by euthanasia once it is detected and things are put in order. If the religious extremists who want to impose their morals on others and the private equity firms buying up all of the hospice providers are still bribing politicians to keep people from living their lives as they see fit by the time I get there, I'll be breaking the law.
  • amatecha 2y ago
    I'd probably prefer to not know, and die in my sleep - surely preferred over the dread of knowing the moment, even if it would be painless/easy. Not sure, my opinion might be different if I'm old and suffering!
    • jowdones 2y ago
      [dead]
    • ted_bunny 2y ago
      The moments before certain death were very relaxing for me. It was easy to identify the things that didn't matter and let go, and to make peace with my pain.
  • sprice 2y ago
    I share this optimistic take. I'm Canadian and when I see these stats, and see that they are rising, I get the sense that there is a greater number of people able to experience a good death. I'm old enough to have experienced a reasonable amount of death and suffering caused by aging. A grandmother I wasn't particularly close to, but who when I asked "How are you" on the phone, would reply "I wish I was dead". Great Aunts and Uncles who experienced Alzheimers, Parkinsons, and dementia. And a cousin who just recently chose MAID after given a terminal cancer diagnosis. I applaud her courage and bravery. My nine year old nephew was able to pass along a message to her. "Have a good death". Far too many people don't have a good death. More people should have the option available to them. It's possible to balance both the value and importance of MAID with the need to ensure the system is not being abused and is working well.
• dathos 2y ago
  My grandma always told me when she couldn’t go on her walks anymore she didn’t consider life worth living. When she got dementia she was placed in a closed hospice, to “protect her”. Now she only walks when I visit, and I only see a shell of the woman she was. Anecdotal of course, but why do people think it’s an ethics question when society is individualistic as can be? There is no choice in being born, why don’t we get a choice in when we leave?
  • InDubioProRubio 2y ago
    Because half of society is a labour camp without guard towers- and if the slaves leave the camp it collapses in on itself.
  • amatecha 2y ago
    Yeah, I knew someone who opted to have their dementia-suffering parent live with them until the end. That was tough, but... surely better than being left alone in a hospice/etc. as you mention. Unfortunately, yeah, you'll see the person just erode and ... it's really brutal as hell, ultra sad. Eventually the person is not even capable of consenting to euthanasia (nor any other medical procedure). Definitely something to discuss with family or closest friends especially upon getting diagnosed with an illness like that.
    • 14 2y ago
      I have worked in hospice and would say typically the people who end up there are not what I would say left alone. But they are there to die. They usually end up there because the family who was looking after them is really struggling to do so any longer for various reasons like personal care or medication management being too much and they are approaching death. When there they get basically as much drugs to fight pain, anxiety and other symptoms as much as they need. The goal is to provide as much as possible a comfortable end to their life. Dementia patients are not candidates for MAID program here in Canada. You need to be of sound mind at this time. Perhaps in the future one can make a living will for future illness but currently if you are confused or suffering from dementia and can not understand what it is all about you can not consent to it.
• gnfargbl 2y ago
  During the recent debate around the Assisted Dying Bill in the UK, I listened to a radio phone-in in which a palliative care doctor explained that it wasn't possible to relieve all suffering for all patients. They relayed an example of a person who had spent their last days vomiting fully-formed faeces. If we can prevent five, ten or perhaps twenty percent of people having gruesome deaths, then not doing so feels like a moral failing.
  • SapporoChris 2y ago
    "They relayed an example of a person who had spent their last days vomiting fully-formed faeces." Sounds like a fully-formed exaggeration. Vomiting once or twice a day is not spending your last days vomiting. More frequent vomiting? The supply could not possibly meet the demand. Especially if the patient stopped eating.
    • gnfargbl 2y ago
      You can listen to the account yourself at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00253mt https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00253mt, from around 25 minutes onwards. I found it convincing.
      • treis 2y ago
        It doesn't sound particularly possible.
        • winocm 2y ago
          This is entirely possible. See copremesis, ICD10 code R11.13. It usually occurs due to intestinal blockage or fistulae.
      • nashashmi 2y ago
        vomit is usually liquid or heavily digested stuff. feces is compacted and excreted. my imagination maybe a little specific here but so is the description "fully formed feces"
• throwaway313313 2y ago
  In a system of socialized medicine, is the goal of society to spend the money available to save the most people? Taking into account that people have the greatest medical costs near the end of their life, should the system save others by limiting either the total available spend or the cost of any particular treatment according to some metric? Should the system repeatedly and frequently remind people that are older and alone in the world without support from friends or family that euthanasia is an option? How often reminding them would be considered coercive? Is it coecerive if the system decides if you are over 70 years old that euthanasia is the only option you get offered when your condition is one of a long list of non trivial chronic conditions? What if we find that in practice (as we almost certainly will if we dare to look honestly) people of certain genders, ages, ethnic groups, economic demographics, are more frequently told that killing themselves is an option they should seriously consider, compared to how often it is recommended to the general population? Should the suicide prevention hotlines be shutdown and instead become suicide suggestion hotlines? What about cases like chronic depression? I'm just asking questions from a hacker perspective when people are busy considering offering euthanasia to everybody (sometimes advocating at every age) is some kind of virtuous undertaking. People don't consider that throughout society in all walks of life and occupations some portion of people are sociopathic and pyschopathic (possibly with uneven distribution), and some plan administrators, whether that be socialized medicine, or large corporate insurance providers, will interpret their incentives to either their own benefit and/or the benefit of their organization, completely at odds with what you might consider the interests of the individual.
  • yoavm 2y ago
    Isn't this overcomplicating it? Euthanasia doesn't require advertising, it seems like people yearn for it even in places where it isn't allowed. The point is that it should be a legitimate choice, not a suggestion by society. Just like your doctor doesn't tell you that it's probably time for you to become a parent, no doctor should recommend you to be gone.
    • throwaway313313 2y ago
      Health care professionals consult with their patients to explore their needs and suggest options regularly. This is expected and normal. The professionals making suggestions naturally have biases. That behavior gets a bit interesting when one of the options is euthanasia. Here's a few cases: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-maid-rcmp-investigation-1.6663885 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-maid-rcmp-investig... "Last summer, Global News first reported a case where a veteran claimed to have been pressured by a veterans affairs case worker to consider medically assisted dying." https://www.foxnews.com/politics/canada-offered-assisted-suicide-paralympian-veteran-wanted-wheelchair-lift-installed-report https://www.foxnews.com/politics/canada-offered-assisted-sui... "Canada offered assisted suicide to a Paralympian veteran who wanted a wheelchair lift installed" https://care.org.uk/news/2023/07/canadian-army-veterans-diagnosed-with-ptsd-offered-euthanasia https://care.org.uk/news/2023/07/canadian-army-veterans-diag... "Canadian army-veterans diagnosed with PTSD offered euthanasia"
• transcendSD 2y ago
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  • soulofmischief 2y ago
    You should learn to love your neighbor, regardless of their race or how long they've been in your community. If laws are being broken, fix them universally without singling out particular demographics.
• jillesvangurp 2y ago
  I'm Dutch. Euthanasia has been legal for a few decades here. And was common practice before it got legalized. In exactly the same way as it is elsewhere. It's basically doctors putting their fingers on the scale using all sorts of euphemisms to bring relief in the final stages of death. A little extra morphine puts people in coma. Once they are in a coma. They stop eating. You fiddle with their water access and they "pass away peacefully" hours/days later. This has been common practice for as long as there are doctors. Palliative care is a form of euthanasia that is referred to as passive euthanasia. But it's usually pretty active. If you stop giving people treatment they die. If you give people treatment that puts them in or near a coma and then you stop giving them treatment, they die. Providing food and water is a form of treatment. There's a nice grey area here. A little extra morphine puts people in a coma. And then you just unplug the drip feed with nutrients and water. My grand mother (terminal brain cancer) was helped along a exactly like this forty years ago before active euthanasia (giving people a drug cocktail that first knocks them out and then stops their heart) became legal. My grand father was fiercely catholic so he never really knew what was happening but my mother, aunt, and uncles of course were of course aware and simply said enough is enough. I'm pretty sure my grand mother was lucid enough that she asked for this. Given this was still illegal at the time, it wasn't discussed a lot with us. In any case, Patients and families asking for that extra bit of morphine to be administered is about as old as morphine is. And there were other ways before that. You probably know people that died this way. I have a relative who is a GP and deals with euthanasia requests once in a while. Not her favorite thing to do, to put it mildly. It's a thing that is surrounded with a lot of protocol and has to be done by the book. Doctors can reject doing this for whatever reason, including moral/religious ones. This is not a right but a privilege. And if they go ahead, they have to get the opinion of another doctor. The whole thing is documented, double and triple checked, etc. In short, there is zero room for error/misunderstanding here and there has to be a confirmed diagnose of suffering that cannot be relieved and a confirmed wish for this. Any violations of protocol are taken extremely seriously. My parents have many friends/relatives/etc. that have requested and received euthanasia. One fairly recent case involved a friend of theirs with early Alzheimer that just didn't want to stick around for the inevitable end. You have to still be able to decide on this for this to be legal. And Alzheimer's of course results in people not being able to think for themselves. A lot of people wait too long by which time they are no longer legally able to decide anything for themselves. Including whether they want Euthanasia. Anyway, this person was still able to decide and pretty vocal about what they wanted. There was a little farewell party and everything. And the funeral was a week later. Cases like this of course are controversial, especially with doctors. But then, undeniably we're talking about individuals who ask for this knowing full well what they are asking for. A while ago a former prime minister and his wife were euthanized together. They were both in their nineties with all sorts of terminal medical issues. He represented a Christian conservative party when he was in office. Euthanasia is completely normal and uncontroversial at this point. Even so, this case caused a bit of debate. But everybody in the Netherlands has relatives, friends, etc. that died through euthanasia. I've never talked to anyone that still looks at this as murder, immoral, etc. My parents have both notarized letters ready to be invoked if it ever comes up. It's been decades since there was any kind of serious political debate about rolling this back. Just no chance in hell to get anything resembling even close to a majority for this. The only people that are against this are against this for religious reasons. And, as far as I'm concerned, that's fine in so far that concerns their own life. But I just don't acknowledge their right to impose decisions about other people's lives. Especially not mine. This is a widely shared sentiment in the Netherlands. People like being in control.
• grecy 2y ago
  Theses headlines are always sensationalist, because it sounds like these deaths are avoidable. To be clear, all of these people were going to die within days, weeks, or at most a few months. Death is certain. Dignity at the end is the least we can ask for.
  • briansm 2y ago
    'pain-free' and 'organized' perhaps, but don't fool yourself, it's never 'dignified'. Makes me think of this: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0606035/quotes/?ref_=tt_dyk_qu https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0606035/quotes/?ref_=tt_dyk_qu
    • fatbird 2y ago
      I've rarely seen a less convincing argument than a quote from a TV show. "Dignity" means different things to different people--such as "on my own terms". Your pithy dismissal doesn't capture any of that.
    • wiseowise 2y ago
      Makes you think of narcissistic, cynic addict with problematic personal life?
  • myth_drannon 2y ago
    Per my understanding, some deaths could have been avoided if not for the collapsed medical system in Canada. So if the person reaches the stage of advanced cancer because lack of care and is offered MAID first before getting cancer treatment, was it avoidable?
    • BeefWellington 2y ago
      Just exactly which medical system has collapsed? Things need improvement but perhaps you aren't aware there's like 12 different medical systems up here...
      • 2y ago
• utopicwork 2y ago
  "But what if someone wants to kill themselves its against their rights for them to be restricted from doing so" We dont need to make it easier for people to kill themselves we need it to be easier to live a fulfilling life so they don't want to
  • deepburner 2y ago
    Good luck helping somebody paralyzed from the neck down live a fulfilling life.
    • tivert 2y ago
      > Good luck helping somebody paralyzed from the neck down live a fulfilling life. Honestly, you seem to suffer from a lack of imagination. There are famous examples of people profoundly paralyzed who most likely lived fulfilling lives (e.g. Stephen Hawking), and I believe there's research the people's happiness tends to return to baseline after both very good and very bad events.
      • TylerE 2y ago
        Please don't trivialize peoples stuggles by offering pithy anecdotes.
        • tivert 2y ago
          > Please don't trivialize peoples stuggles by offering pithy anecdotes. I think you're mistaken, I didn't trivialize anything. If anything's being trivialized, it was the value of quadriplegic people, who some internet rando blithely declared as all being incapable of having a "fulfilling life."
        • karencarits 2y ago
          I read his comment as an attempt to add nuance; people paralyzed from the neck down have various experiences. For example, in this study [1], only 12% of those with tetraplegy rated their quality of life as poor or very poor [1] https://www.termedia.pl/Quality-of-life-in-patients-with-tetraplegia-and-paraplegia-after-traumatic-spinal-cord-injury,116,42596,1,1.html https://www.termedia.pl/Quality-of-life-in-patients-with-tet...
• tpoacher 2y ago
  People have made arguments against abuse in vulnerable populations, which I think is an important argument. But one thing that I really haven't seen explored, and specifically where this applies to suicidal ideation, is the extent to which this is considered a 'condition' or not. The human body / brain has extremely powerful mechanisms for ensuring certain 'drives' that are essential for the survival and propagation as a species. This is what is biologically 'normal' / 'healthy'. Whether we agree with these drives or not philosophically is another thing. But if someone is anorexic, we recognise that their drive for hunger has been compromised, and make sure to restore it. We don't go "oh it's ok, their desire not to eat is voluntary". Psychiatric diseases are complex. To just assume "will" can never be compromised in disease is naive. And equally more naive is to assume that there is no action that one could do to restore the diseased processes such that that will would be reversed. So the fact that when it comes to suicidal ideation we are less prone to say "this is a disease which circumvents the brain's normal processes that create the imperative urge to survive, leaving one suicidal", and we just go "wouldn't it be nice if they could end their life peacefully without consequences" is bizzare. Note that in the situation where a degree of suicidality is not the main issue, and we're talking about palliation by physicians, current laws and practices absolutely do not prevent a doctor from taking actions that are intended to palliate rather than prolong a life of suffering. So the euthanasia bill isn't really about that. It's about supporting people who actively want to die, by providing "assistance". Discussing whether their circumstances warrant them wanting to die is a red herring, no matter how dire those circumstances may be.
  • eddd-ddde 2y ago
    A very interesting point. But would you say the same about having offspring? If one can decide to not exercise their reproductive rights peacefully, why can't someone exercise the rights over their own death. Do you want to "cure" people that don't want to have kids? What constitutes a "normal" drive.
    • tpoacher 2y ago
      That's a fair point. And in a sense, the analogous law there is the right to medically-assisted sterilisation, which also exists (albeit, carrying a somewhat lesser impact in terms of finality). I don't necessarily think a discussion down that line is entirely without merit, and one could of course "delve" into philosophy of benefits to society vs rights of the individual vs sanctity of life etc ... but this is not the main point I was making here. For me the distinction is less about reproduction-aversion versus suicidality needing to be forcefully "cured" or not (or one of sanctity of life, for that matter), but more about one of capacity in the case of exercising reproductive rights as compared to exercising suicidal rights. At the risk of a bad analogy, the former is more like wanting a questionable piercing that others may think is a bad decision. Yes you may well also regret it as a bad decision eventually, but if you have capacity in your decision at the time, then there is little reason to stop you from exercising your right to self-mutilation if this is what you want. In which case, yes, if someone was claiming, either that "skin is sacred", or using circular logic that the very fact you want a mutilation proves you're sick and you need to be 'cured' of it, I would have had the same response as you. Whereas there are good reasons there are lots of legal protections for proving or disproving capacity when dealing with people with dementia signing away their will to a total stranger, for instance. Yes, it's possible that the demented person still has enough cognitive capacity to sign away their will to a total stranger, despite the fact that cognitive capacity is the very thing that is compromised. And so, similarly, yes it's possible that the suicidal person still has enough capacity to judge the extent to which they wish to live, even though their ability to wish to live is the very thing that has been compromised. But I would be sceptical, and would want to see some guardrails before providing commercial services to help demented people exercise their peaceful right to sign away their wills. And we have enough medical knowledge currently to know that, capacity-wise, suicidality is much more like dementia in this context, than it is like wanting a bad piercing or deciding on reproductive rights. Which is why it's rather frustrating to watch, and a very dangerous line to walk, when legislating such a provision away purely on the basis of a debate focusing on "personal rights vs sanctity of life", without having that discussion about capacity and obligations to attempt to restore it / protect it as the first priority.
• betaby 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • fatbird 2y ago
    There are around 50,000 MAID deaths a year now. In the linked story, one employee was fired for making four veterans feel pressured to consider the option of MAID. This is obviously inappropriate behaviour, but also just as obviously an outlier. And the story you linked here is linked several other times in this thread. If this is happening monthly, there should be many more examples.
    • betaby 2y ago
      The problem with MAID is statistically significant. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/some-health-care-workers-in-canada-grappling-with-patients-requesting-euthanasia https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/some-health-care-workers-... But in Ontario, more than three quarters of people euthanized when their death wasn’t imminent required disability support before their death in 2023, according to data from a slideshow presentation by the province’s chief coroner, shared with AP by both a researcher and a doctor on condition of anonymity due to its sensitive nature. Of people killed when they weren’t terminally ill, nearly 29% lived in the poorest parts of Ontario, compared with 20% of the province’s general population living in the most deprived communities, the data show.
      • fatbird 2y ago
        The story here isn't about problems with MAID, it's about inadequate support for the poor and disabled. Even then, your link is about those patients requesting it, not about it being forced on them. It's unsurprising to me that someone with few resources and irreversible, painful disability, but lacking an imminent death, would request MAID. I don't see how this is an argument against MAID.
        • lucubratory 2y ago
          What incentive does the government have to increase disability support payments to appropriate levels when the alternative (keeping payments inadequate to force them to kill themselves) is much cheaper for the government and continuously kills people who would otherwise advocate for an increase to disability support payments?
• abeppu 2y ago
  Note: the title should be updated. The BBC article title now says "Assisted dying" not "euthanasia". Often, the distinction hinges on whether the patient or a medical practitioner administers a substance that brings about death. The Canadian policy actually provides for both, but as I understand it the stats being cited in the article combine both, so only a subset of the tally are "euthanasia" deaths.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • brady8 2y ago
    Some provinces (notably SK) do not offer self-administered MAiD, just FYI.
  • dang 2y ago
    Ok, we've updated the title. It was originally "Canada euthanasia now accounts for nearly one in 20 deaths".
• djoldman 2y ago
  IMO, the key quote: > The vast majority – around 96% - had a death deemed "reasonably foreseeable", due to severe medical conditions such as cancer.
  • graeme 2y ago
    The standard for that is very loose. There's no requirement that the death be imminent. Iirc it basically means the condition could kill you, at some point. This even applies if treatment would prevent death. It's whether the condition is capable of killing.
    • jandrese 2y ago
      With everything medical it is complicated. If someone is 85 and gets a theoretically treatable form of cancer they're looking at months or years of grueling chemotherapy and surgeries to get at most few more years of life. I would not blame anybody for skipping treatment or even getting euthanasia to avoid the really sucky part where the cancer is killing you painfully, especially if their life partner has already passed. Overall it is best to avoid making too many blanket judgements about medical matters. Every case is unique and the circumstances matter. Most people are sane and rational and you should trust their judgement when it comes to their own life, weighing also the opinion of their physician.
      • _DeadFred_ 2y ago
        When my mom had cancer I told her she better do everything she could to beat it (she was a super hippie no chemicals person). I remember she was taking some horrible toxic chemo pill that made her miserable (like even her, the person taking the pill, had to handle it with gloves taking it out of the bottle), and I was like mom, stop taking it if it makes you miserable. She broke into tears and was suddenly so grateful to me for giving her permission to stop taking it. I hadn't realized she was putting herself through hell because of what I had asked of her. Friggen moms man. (╥﹏╥)
        • 2y ago
• dogman1050 2y ago
  After watching my father die with COPD, it because obvious that euthanasia happens in the US all the time. He opted out of lung-reduction surgery and was ready to die. So the hospital withheld IV hydration and provided a morphine drip and he was gone in 36 hours. How long can one live without water, a few days max? So that's what killed him. My sister-in-law who's a physician told me that's how it's typically done. I was horrified at the time.
  • tmpz22 2y ago
    My dad has COPD and continues smoking. I'm going to go through this sooner than later. I've already made peace with this, I've seen the alternative in other family members and ultimately its the decline in dignity that pushes my moral compass to accept self-euthanasia as a humane option.
  • MichaelZuo 2y ago
    I’ve heard it’s even more common per capita than in Canada, the difference being that it’s not on the record, so no statistics are collected about it.
  • hombre_fatal 2y ago
    It's ethically childish that we use roundabout measures like that instead of just putting someone out of their misery overtly. It creates a drawn out process where the family has to wait around until they pass at some unknown point instead of coming together in one moment, making peace, saying their farewell, and witnessing the finality together. It took my girlfriend's vegetative mother a week to die as she struggled to breathe that whole time, put on just enough morphine to supposedly feel no pain and not a drop more. By the time she finally croaked, most of the family that had shown up to see her out had left because nobody has time to wait around days or weeks for death to happen. And it was emotional hell for her two daughters. They could've just given her a nice dose of morphine, but our ethics are too infantile. Instead we do make-believe.
    • rightbyte 2y ago
      > It's ethically childish that we use roundabout measures like that Dogmas and tabus might be there for a reason. Culturally I think we need to pretend thing we don't think are true.
• guyzero 2y ago
  My Canadian parents are in their 80's so naturally a lot of their friends of the same age are dying. And two of them have been via MAID. In one case, which was surprising to me, a man who had survived cancer - he was not terminal but certainly wasn't getting any better - elected to die via MAID after his wife died. She passed, he called his doctor and less than a week later he was also dead. He got a chance to visit his family, apparently drive around his hobby farm one more time and then that was it. He didn't want to deal with being alone and seriously ill. Another friend was in renal and congestive heart failure and possibly could have lived longer but they were driving 100km daily to get to the nearest dialysis clinic and again, this person was definitely dying. So made and appointment and decided to go sooner rather than suffer along for an indeterminate amount of time. It's quite surprising to me, but these people are in their mid to late 80's and of sound mind and know what they want.
  • darth_avocado 2y ago
    I wouldn’t call someone dealing with cancer and the loss of his wife sound of mind within one week of the loss.
    • guyzero 2y ago
      He had apparently expressed his intention before she passed. I do not know all the details and this is second hand, but he apparently had a plan.
      • rightbyte 2y ago
        [flagged]
        • guyzero 2y ago
          I believe they had a funeral together. That was part of the reason for the short waiting time.
          • 2y ago
• patrickhogan1 2y ago
  Strange question but how does this affect life insurance? Typically a suicide would not be covered.
  • asynchronous 2y ago
    Wondering this myself, insurance in the states already tries to weasel out of every single charge if possible.
    • nashashmi 2y ago
      Does the ill person have a premium/annual plan?
      • kerkeslager 2y ago
        That was implied, yes.
        • nashashmi 2y ago
          Then it would be worthwhile to keeping them alive for as long as the premium is being paid
          • kerkeslager 2y ago
            ... Amazing! You've figured out insurance!
  • tifik 2y ago
    From a morbidly capitalistic point of view, insurance companies should rejoice at the prospect of a very ill person opting for assisted death. I imagine the procedure to end ones life would be much cheaper than multiple years of procedures and medicine to keep them alive. And if this is the case (which I don't actually know for sure, I'm just speculating), then insurance companies would be incentivized to 'nudge' certain people towards this decision, which is a super duper slippery slope, and at the extreme end you'd have the Rick and Morty dead people spaghetti planet situation. edit - this of course applies only to people that would have the procedures and medicine that would keep them alive covered.
• reverendsteveii 2y ago
  bad angle shot here: >Assisted dying now accounts for one in 20 Canada deaths >While the number of assisted deaths in Canada is growing, the country still falls behind the Netherlands, where euthanasia accounted for around 5% of total deaths last year. 1/20 != 5% ???
  • eru 2y ago
    Perhaps it's something like 4.8% in Canada and something like 5.1% in the Netherlands? But yeah, that sentence doesn't make much sense.
    • reverendsteveii 2y ago
      I'm sure this is exactly the case. Assuming it is, then it's either so close it's not worth reporting on or so close it's worth reporting on accurately
  • 0xdde 2y ago
    The first sentence of the article gives the Canadian percentage as 4.7%.
• Mikhail_Edoshin 2y ago
  M. Scott Peck wrote a book about euthanasia long ago. I wonder if people still read Peck. “Denial of the soul,” that was the title. The foundational belief for euthanasia must be that there is no soul.
  • eru 2y ago
    That sounds like a pretty wild leap of faith to me.
  • throwanem 2y ago
    I hope the book makes a better argument than you present here for that claim, which on its face makes nothing obviously resembling sense.
  • throwaway78665 2y ago
    You mean the belief in Christian fundamentalist version of the soul? U my view it doesn't say anything about not believing in soul, but it can be interpreted as lack of belief that somebody can control their soul.
  • freddie_mercury 2y ago
    Why can't the foundational belief be that we have a soul that has been sundered from our Creator by The Enemy during a primordial Manichean duel and keeping it separate is the highest sin and only by returning it to where it properly belongs are doing good? It isn't like the only two options are "the Christian conception of a soul" and "the atheists rejection of the conception of a soul".
    • nprateem 2y ago
      We keep ourselves separate by thinking instead of just being :(
    • Mikhail_Edoshin 2y ago
      Imagine you walk down a road and see a small forest ahead and a group of people before that forest. They all talk about what is beyond the forest. They all tell different things. But this does not mean they are all equally right or equally wrong or that one may simply choose the version one likes best. There is something specific behind the forest and if everyone tells their own incompatible versions, then everyone is wrong or everyone but one. (Or maybe some of the versions are not that incompatible.) If you sneak away, go through the forest and come back, you will see a very nuanced picture of who is saying what. For example you found a stream. Someone may not mention a stream, but from his tale you will see that he indeed was there, but in winter and missed the stream just a bit. Or someone may loudly claim there is a stream, but you will clearly see that the person never was there and is only trying to persuade you to buy a flask. But if you never was there all these tales will look same to you. This guy says this and that guys says that; how to decide? Logically? But is it clearly impossible to merely take all those words, somehow analyze them and get a correct answer. The clues one should look for are not in the contents of the tale.
• niceice 2y ago
  "For the first time, the report delved into race and ethnic data of those who died by euthanasia. Around 96% of recipients identified as white people, who account for about 70% of Canada's population. It is unclear what caused this disparity." Any good hypothesis about this?
  • renewiltord 2y ago
    Demographics in 75+ age group. It’s late here or I would have looked up in Stat Can before posting. But that’s where you should check.
    • sn0wf1re 2y ago
      Looks like 66% of people 75+ identify as European Origins math 1_710_255/2_595_470 0.658938 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810035801&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=2.15&pickMembers%5B2%5D=3.1&pickMembers%5B3%5D=4.1 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=981003...
      • Miraste 2y ago
        It's obscured because of how Canada formats their data, but the vast majority of "North American origins" respondents would fall under white as well. The total percentage is in the upper 80s.
  • eru 2y ago
    Perhaps they tend to be richer?
  • tifik 2y ago
    Could be longer life expectancy for particular demographics that are mostly white. Or it could just be that 70% of people of all ages today are white, but 80 years ago it was a much larger proportion (I didn't think it would be 96% but I also wouldn't be surprised if it was). This is pure speculation, I have no data to support either of these hypotheses.
• xyzzyz 2y ago
  I support assisted suicide for people who are not capable of doing it without assistance (because dying moments of many people are really not pretty, as many stories in this thread attest to), but I think that the cases of medical and legal industries killing physically healthy young people due to mental issues are sick and wrong. Physically healthy and young people do not need assistance in committing suicide if they actually want to do it. When they request it, what they are actually asking for is for “experts” and “professionals” to make the decision for them. They want the system to give them a stamp of approval, so that they don’t have to take responsibility.
  • sdwr 2y ago
    Plus they get to avoid the pain, chance of partial recovery, messy cleanup for their family, and carrying out a criminal action. Not saying it's right, but there are practical reasons why "dying" looks a lot more attractive than "killing yourself"
• FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
  Before people start acting like "let's not kill old people to save money" is somehow right-coded, here's Jacobin on the matter: https://jacobin.com/2024/12/uk-assisted-suicide-maid-canada-austerity https://jacobin.com/2024/12/uk-assisted-suicide-maid-canada-...
  • err4nt 2y ago
    Yes, that article was sober and wise. I'm in Canada and I really hope other countries do not follow us down this path. I have fears grounded in facts based on what is continuing to unfold here in a relatively short number of years that very soon the sick, disabled, and elderly will be targeted by MAID, and I fear that after that the marginalized, (temporarily) impoverished, and even non-terminally injured may come into view. Human life is worth more than this!
• ourmandave 2y ago
  Where do I sign up? My parent and an aunt both have dementia and there's no way I'm going to hang around not remembering who the hell my family is or where I am. I could hang on like Jimmy Carter (who is mental sound) and go 20+ years as a shadow of my former self. Not putting my family through that.
• mrtimo 2y ago
  Here is the report - released 16 hours ago - that this news piece comes from: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/health-system-services/annual-report-medical-assistance-dying-2023.html https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications...
• PierceJoy 2y ago
  People seem to forget that any able bodied person can end their life at any time they choose. Denying MAID is only denying this right to people who want to exercise it with dignity.
• ppeetteerr 2y ago
  I consider it a blessing to have a choice in how I go, rather than leaving it up to nature and the medical system.
• frankus 2y ago
  A more enlightening statistic, but obviously harder to collect, would be what percentage of missed life-years could be attributed to MAID. I suspect it would be a much smaller percentage. It's also worth noting that for every MAID horror story in this article, there is probably at least one horror story about a needlessly painful and drawn-out death that could have been avoided if MAID had been legal.
  • wat10000 2y ago
    There are probably 100x more stories about needlessly painful and drawn-out deaths. It’s a “one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic” sort of thing. Rare cases of abuses of “voluntary” death are unusual and get attention. Common cases where dying people want to end their suffering and can’t are uninteresting, we all know it happens and we probably all know someone it happened to, and we just don’t think about it.
• toasterlovin 2y ago
  What is the steelman argument for why it's okay to help people kill themselves a la MAID, but not okay to execute murderers? (Assuming the argument against capital punishment is that mistakes are often or sometimes made)
  • kridsdale1 2y ago
    Consent.
    • toasterlovin 2y ago
      > mistakes are often or sometimes made I think the mistakes in question would primarily be around whether someone is of sound mind to consent.
      • squigz 2y ago
        As others in this thread have pointed out, pressure (economic, from family members, doctors, etc) is also a big concern. Probably more so than whether they're of sound mind.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • tivert 2y ago
    > What is the steelman argument for why it's okay to help people kill themselves a la MAID, but not okay to execute murderers? I would assume it's something that centers personal bodily autonomy above all other competing moral considerations. Under that libertarian moral framework, the murderer who does not want to be executed cannot be killed because they don't want it, while the person who want MAID can be killed just because they want it.
    • toasterlovin 2y ago
      Under that framework, could it be argued that the murderer has implicitly consented by committing an act they should have reasonably foreseen would result in their own death? (Not well thought out here, just trying this argument on for size)
• zaptheimpaler 2y ago
  Anyone who has worked at a hospital can tell you how many people die in needless pain and suffering when nothing more can really be done for them. They just wait out the clock in pain or do increasingly horrible procedures that give them a little more time with terrible quality of life. 5% is probably an underestimate of that number. Nurses/doctors don't like to speak up about that part and people don't want to confront it. But MAID is probably the more humane option in these cases.
  • thechao 2y ago
    I volunteered (and then worked) at a Federal hospital in the 90s, up until ~2002. Oncologists were notoriously underrepresented in the oncology department as patients. Instead, then tended to do whatever they wanted and then get dosed up to the gills with Morphine until dead, a few hours later. It was a very different way to run out the clock.
    • LorenPechtel 2y ago
      Yeah, I've heard similar things many times. The people with the best understanding of what's going to happen are the least likely to want it--extremely telling to me.
  • lolinder 2y ago
    Like with so many things, what terrifies me is where you draw the line. The cases you're describing—where someone currently has to choose between paying ridiculous amounts of money to continue living in pain while confined to a hospital bed versus dying in terrible pain because the doctors are forbidden from helping you along—these are the easy ones. But we also have stories here of people deciding to die while they're still mobile and while their loved ones are begging them to not to. Those are much less clear cut to me. Radical individualism would say that every person should have full autonomy to make any decision they want that doesn't physically damage those around them. But I'm not a radical individualist, so I can't accept that argument alone. There are cases where an individual's choice to end it all early would be a net loss for their immediate community, and there are cases where it would be a net loss for the wider community and the state. At some point that net loss must overrule the individual's autonomy. But where? How do you draw the line?
• michael1999 2y ago
  People quote these figures, and I wonder: what would a reasonable ratio of MAID vs "natural" death be? I understand that Catholics and others will assert zero, full stop. Fair enough. I am grateful they have argued their case so well in the UK. But for those that approve of it in principle, how many is too many?
  • squigz 2y ago
    Well in terms of the question of whether we've 'gone too far', I don't think the total number or ratio is relevant - what is are what requirements are in place for this sort of thing. Even if 20% of deaths are through MAID, that doesn't necessarily mean that the requirements are too lax or that the system is being abused - another explanation would be that that many people simply don't want to suffer through an unpreventable death. This number/ratio will surely only go up too, as people become more aware of it and it becomes more culturally acceptable.
• tubalcain 2y ago
  I wonder how many of these deaths are due to the fear of living in destitution, because Canada's overall QOL has plummeted in the last decade.
• citizenpaul 2y ago
  I understand that there is probably some sort of fear of murder or untimely death by doctors "throwing up their hands" or pressure from inheritors to "move on" However the hard line makes no sense. In most places that human euthanasia is illegal no one has any problem killing animals because it is more merciful than allowing them to spend their final time suffering tremendously.
  • rozap 2y ago
    Yea, I don't understand this. Is "the woke mind virus" as another poster in this thread called it also responsible for me putting my 14 year old dog with aggressive cancer down? Of course not. Death came for her and it would have been cruel to prolong the suffering. Pretty simple, and it's no different for humans.
  • typewithrhythm 2y ago
    Put simply, animals are property. The idea of equating animals to people is not a widespread one, and relatively new besides. You could apply the same logic to cannibalism. Given no-one has any problem killing and eating animals.
    • 63 2y ago
      In fairness, it's a minority, but there are quite a few of us who have problems killing and eating animals and increasingly so depending on the species.
• jtbayly 2y ago
  My grandmother had "Do Not Resuscitate” on her file, but it was not known (or ignored) by the medics who saved her. She was very happy to have been resuscitated, removed the order, and lived for years after that. I submit that not everybody that commits suicide (whether medically assisted or otherwise) would make the same decision if they it to do over again.
  • nprateem 2y ago
    If I could put the clock back there are lots of things I'd do differently though...
  • mrshadowgoose 2y ago
    Yes, it's a well known fact that opinions can change. And yes, there's certainly a tiny subset of euthanized individuals who would regret their decision if they were still around to regret it. When it comes to bodily autonomy, we generally strongly err on the side of respecting one's "opinion at the present time" vs. "the possibility of a different opinion in the future". What is the intent behind your statement? Are you suggesting that we deny people bodily autonomy "just in case"?
  • donatj 2y ago
    That's sort of my hesitation with the idea > One hundred forty attempters (35.6%) were classified as wishing they had not made the attempt and being glad to be alive, 168 (42.7%) were classified as ambivalent, and 85 (21.6%) were classified as wishing the attempt had succeeded. https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.162.11.2180 https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.162.1...
• encoderer 2y ago
  What if governments couldn’t create cute names like MAID? I know it seems silly that a cute name would make something more likable because it shouldnt but i think probably it does, and what is the defense for having them anyway?
  • encoderer 2y ago
    Downvotes but nobody can explain why we have cute palatable name for a government initiate related to killing people. We don’t have one for execution. Wouldn’t it be absurd if somebody coined an acronym for it like WOAP?
    • int_19h 2y ago
      We do have one for execution, obviously: it's "execution", not "killing". "Killing" by itself doesn't accurately describe what MAID is, because it's not just ending someone's life, but doing so on a consensual basis after establishing that they are sound of mind and have a good reason to desire that.
      • encoderer 2y ago
        But it’s also shifting the Overton window and normalizing making it banal even.
• zingababba 2y ago
  I think the real burden here will be had by those issuing the euthanasia as well as any family members or friends that do not understand the reasoning. Perhaps this will just be an outlet for those sociopathic nurses/doctors though, get their kicks this way instead of poisoning patients etc? I put an animal out of its misery once. I decided it needed to be done. Did I murder? If it would have been able to, and it asked me to, was that not a murder, then? If twenty people ask me to put them out of their misery, and I oblige, does none of it bother me? Does having a license saying I can make it easier for me to process? Maybe this is just a market for sociopaths?
• tomohawk 2y ago
  Doctors and the medical system should not be involved in euthanasia. It should be different professionals and a different system. It's a conflict of interest for a doctor or medical system to be involved in this.
• morkalork 2y ago
  Alternatively, 1/20 die humanely at a time of their choosing while X/20, X>1, die a miserable and slow death at a time long past where continued treatment improved the standard of living. We all die eventually.
• nprateem 2y ago
  I find it barbaric most countries don't give citizens freedom of choice over this most fundamental certainty.
  • trompetenaccoun 2y ago
    What else do they give us choice over? What we put into our bodies? You can't, the government and "experts" decide in case it's a substance they don't like or which would reduce big pharma profits. Where you're allowed to roam and settle? Again, the government dictates this. Good for anyone who won the birth lottery but tough luck if you were born in North Korea or Mali. What you're allowed to speak? Most countries have laws regulating this and restricting people from saying what they really think. It's for your own good, big brother knows best. The list goes on...
• htx80nerd 2y ago
  old people ending it all is one thing, young people wanting to do the same not related to chronic illness is another.
• cdme 2y ago
  My grandmother developed vascular dementia and spent the last half decade or so of her live non-verbal. My grandfather had Alzheimer's and eventually forgot that she had passed. They were exceedingly kind and frugal and had a strong support system, but that doesn't make it easy. I'm unwilling to judge anyone's decision. Old age can be awful depending on your circumstances.
• h1fra 2y ago
  Euthanasia without good cheap universal healthcare is just a way to get rid of people in a sick society. Canada might not be the worst but their healthcare only cover 60-70% of canadians' need. And it's slowly getting worse with the private sector eating the market.
  • ossobuco 2y ago
    Had to scroll too much to find this comment.
  • mb7733 2y ago
    > Canada might not be the worst but their healthcare only cover 60-70% of canadians' need. And it's slowly getting worse with the private sector eating the market. What's that figure based on?
    • h1fra 2y ago
      Wikipedia has a very exhaustive page regarding Canada's healthcare system, and a large section at the end about its flaws and problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Canada
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      • mb7733 2y ago
        I was asking about that figure in particular. I thought it was an actual statistic.
  • refurb 2y ago
    > Euthanasia without good cheap universal healthcare is just a way to get rid of people in a sick society. For the government, this is a feature, not a bug. A large percentage of health care costs are from the last year of life. Instead of expensive interventions the government can have patients volunteer to end their life, the savings would be significant.
• throwaway984393 2y ago
  [dead]
• aristofun 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • pwillia7 2y ago
    Why do you view it as disgusting? I have a great fear of sullying my good name and burdening my family before I get out of here
    • giraffe_lady 2y ago
      I have a family member who would be a straightforward candidate for this if they were in canada. I do not consider them a burden, nor are they "sullying their good name" by continuing to exist. It does disgust me the way you and others here speak of the possibility of becoming like them. They still find life worth living and the world is better with them in it.
      • pwillia7 2y ago
        You must not have dementia in your family then -- Take that as a blessing
        • giraffe_lady 2y ago
          Simply false, I have cared for a family member with dementia. What I remember most is their fear, fear that they were dying, fear that I was there to hurt them. I could honestly reassure them that I was not, and I wouldn't give that up for anything. It's presumption and rude of you to make these assumptions about my experiences, please stop.
          • pwillia7 2y ago
            Come on -- It's not more presumptive and rude than to take another person's feelings of their own dead loved ones and mortality and call it disgusting and perverse. Please take a moment and reflect on "The Other" and the fact that we're all humans made of the same parts. I sought to ask questions and learn why your experience differed from mine. I would ask what your goals were entering into this conversation and if that's a quality you want to cultivate within yourself. Have a great weekend :)
• artemkornilov 2y ago
  [dead]
• joemazerino 2y ago
  Unbelievably sad for our neighbors up north.
• sys32768 2y ago
  Terminal lucidity is a thing I don't see mentioned here. It is well known that even some advanced dementia patients days or hours before death can exhibit lucid coherence, even speaking and recognizing loved one before death. Having watched my mother decay from Alzheimer's for 10+ years, I know for sure there is much more left to her than she can express, and every once and a while she speaks in clear sentences, says names of loved ones or pets, and when she talks--even though we barely understand 20% of what she says--it's clear she knows what she's saying based on her facial expressions. I will also say it's one of the joys of my life to sit with these people, many of whom are "waiting to die" and just talk to them with and listen to them (even when I can't understand them). They light up, and they especially light up when I play them old music on a bluetooth speaker. Some sing, some sway, some even try to dance. Many cannot talk at all but they can still sing the lyrics.
• NikolaNovak 2y ago
  My first instinct on seeing that number was "wow that's too high". My more thought-through reaction became "Actually, that number is still way too low". It's not necessarily true that 19 in 20 people didn't get to choose how they die, but there's something to the converse. It's always surprising to me the... Quesiness people have in discussing this. In the land of the free, what possible freedom is more fundamental to life than when to be done with it? I wonder if the higher uptake in Quebec is because it's a more secular society than some of our other provinces. From personal perspective, I very much hundred percent totally want the freedom to have the option to decide how I go. From there, I don't want to stand in anybody way who also desires same freedom. A lot of counter-arguments seem thinly veiled religious origins -- Some are legitimate concerns about potential for abuse, but still a lot reek of disingenuity in core motivations.
• deleted 2y ago
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• Waterluvian 2y ago
  These deaths all replace other deaths that now won’t happen or contribute to the statistics. Assuming a hypothetical case where the system operates without error, reaching a 100% rate is the ideal outcome. No accidental deaths and everyone leaving on their terms.
• elevaet 2y ago
  My Mom escaped from some suffering by accessing MAID when the pain and suffering from her terminal cancer became too much for her to bear. She died in her own home surrounded by beloved family and friends, on her own terms. I'm grateful that she was able to do this, and was spared a period of inhumane suffering at the end of her life. It's hard and it makes me very sad, but I'm glad she could go this way. It would have been more difficult for her and everyone if she was forced to live through a hellish torture as cancer slowly took her life. In the end she beat cancer by taking herself out with it.
• coldtea 2y ago
  Death will be the hot new pensioner duty in post-capitalism!
• tills13 2y ago
  Crude, maybe, but my opinion is that if someone -- healthy or not -- does not want to continue living, that's within their right. Add medical / health complications into the mix and it (again, imo) becomes inhumane to _not_ allow people to choose how it ends.
• osigurdson 2y ago
  Nice to see that most people get to pay into healthcare for their entire lives in Canada. Then at the end, when the healthcare system is needed, the only solution the inefficient system has to offer is suicide.
• casey2 2y ago
  Here in Canada it begins, the glorification of death necessitated by socialized healthcare. It's horrifying the kinds of propaganda people will write for just a little bit of power isn't it?
• pkkkzip 2y ago
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  • defrost 2y ago
    The truth, at least according to official Canadian statistics, is that recent immigrants from { India, Philippines, China, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria } were all more likely to file income tax returns and contribute back to the Canadian economy than immigrants from either the United Kingdom or the United States. Would the UK or the US be the "specific country" that 'your' Canadian readers should already know? ~ https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2023011/article/00004-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2023011/artic...
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    • pkkkzip 2y ago
      [flagged]
• lenerdenator 2y ago
  I wonder what percentage of deaths are from non-assisted suicide in countries without MAID that might be MAID if it were available.
• kazinator 2y ago
  Youth from Asia now accounts for nearly 19 out of 20 Canadians.
• monkey26 2y ago
  Both of my wife's parents died with cancer in their 60s before MAID. These days we're seeing the parents of others, and even our peers choosing MAID. It breaks my wife's heart every time that MAID wasn't available to her parents.
• ProofHouse 2y ago
  Sick
• anovikov 2y ago
  That's really good and humane. Canada appears to be one of the last sane countries around... if only it could fix it's housing market.
• TomK32 2y ago
  Recently I listened to a 25 year old episode of Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time on the BBC (fantastic series btw, still going). Medical Ethics and back then, amongst other topics, the option of assisted death did already crop up. Unless medical treatment not only prolongs a life but also maintains, or towards the end of a long life realistically it has to improve, the quality of life, the idea of an early death will enter the mind of a lot of people. Christiaan Barnard gets quoted with "The prime goal is to alleviate suffering, and not to prolong life. And if your treatment does not alleviate suffering, but only prolongs life, that treatment should be stopped." The relevant part starts at 24:40 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005465c https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005465c The program also mentions doctors limits in regards to genetic conditions which not only affect their patient but might also affect the patients relatives. I don't see that discussion ever, even though it turns out to be relevant for my ADHD.
• andrewwy 2y ago
  I live in Switzerland. Last week my aunt and uncle both died in assisted suicide due to mental health problems they had for the past +10 years. They couldn't bare life anymore even though they were physically healthy.
• deleted 2y ago
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• throwaway--hjkl 2y ago
  As someone who’s aunt just committed suicide by firearm yesterday, I do wish she had more dignified options.
• thrwthsnw 2y ago
  God loves you.