5 ms·

Did you know that 5% of all deaths in Canada is by elective suicide?

david-gpu 11mo ago
By elderly people wo are already dying from natural causes and ask for a medically assisted death instead of unnecessarily prolonging their suffering. It is telling that so many people who suffer choose a dignified death once they are legally allowed to.
- delaminator 11mo ago
  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/02/canada-paralympian-christine-gauthier-stairlift-euthanasia/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/02/canada-par... Canadian Paralympian: I asked for a disability ramp - and was offered euthanasia
  - david-gpu 11mo ago
    "Man bites dog" gets more clicks than "Dog bites man". Look at the actual statistics, not the headlines.
    - delaminator 11mo ago
      I started with the statistics and was told "it's only old people"
scotty79 11mo ago
On one hand it shows terrible inadequacies of Canadian health care. On the other would it be better to force people to suffer till the natural end of their lives that are terrible because of those inadequacies? Healthcare won't get significantly better soon enough for them anyways. It seems better to "discover" what percentage of people want to end their lives in current conditions and improve those conditions to improve that percentage. That might be a very powerful measure of how good we are doing with added benefit of not forcing suffering people to suffer longer.
- ben_w 11mo ago
  Been thinking about this for years. It's easy to think that any % > 0 is a sign of something having gone wrong. My default guess used to be that, too. But imagine a perfect health system: when all other causes of death are removed, what else remains? If by "terrible inadequacies of Canadian health care" you mean they've not yet solved aging, not yet cured all diseases, and not yet developed instant-response life-saving kits for all accidents up to and including total body disruption, then yes, any less than 100% is a sign of terrible inadequacies.
  - scotty79 11mo ago
    Some level above 0% is achievable target at our techlevel. But we could have easily have higher assisted suicide rate than this ideal non-zero level if we made our health services worse than they are. Same way I don't suppose they are administered perfectly right now so there's still long way to go before achieving lowest technologically possible level. And even 0% is possible without going StarTrek, if for example full-time narcotic-induced bliss till the "natural" end of your life was an option. Then assisted suicide rate would just cease to be a good indicator of how good our health care and services are.
namibj 11mo ago
One could argue that number should be close to 100%, as people would live to old age where eventually the body is just too worn to continue a good life.
- fsckboy 11mo ago
  under your system, when should Stephen Hawking have pulled the plug?
  - SalientBlue 11mo ago
    when he wanted to.
  - namibj 11mo ago
    Most of society doesn't live a purely intellectual life, and wouldn't want to.

By elderly people wo are already dying from natural causes and ask for a medically assisted death instead of unnecessarily prolonging their suffering. It is telling that so many people who suffer choose a dignified death once they are legally allowed to.

delaminator 11mo ago
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/02/canada-paralympian-christine-gauthier-stairlift-euthanasia/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/02/canada-par... Canadian Paralympian: I asked for a disability ramp - and was offered euthanasia
- david-gpu 11mo ago
  "Man bites dog" gets more clicks than "Dog bites man". Look at the actual statistics, not the headlines.
  - delaminator 11mo ago
    I started with the statistics and was told "it's only old people"

scotty79 11mo ago

On one hand it shows terrible inadequacies of Canadian health care. On the other would it be better to force people to suffer till the natural end of their lives that are terrible because of those inadequacies? Healthcare won't get significantly better soon enough for them anyways. It seems better to "discover" what percentage of people want to end their lives in current conditions and improve those conditions to improve that percentage. That might be a very powerful measure of how good we are doing with added benefit of not forcing suffering people to suffer longer.

ben_w 11mo ago
Been thinking about this for years. It's easy to think that any % > 0 is a sign of something having gone wrong. My default guess used to be that, too. But imagine a perfect health system: when all other causes of death are removed, what else remains? If by "terrible inadequacies of Canadian health care" you mean they've not yet solved aging, not yet cured all diseases, and not yet developed instant-response life-saving kits for all accidents up to and including total body disruption, then yes, any less than 100% is a sign of terrible inadequacies.
- scotty79 11mo ago
  Some level above 0% is achievable target at our techlevel. But we could have easily have higher assisted suicide rate than this ideal non-zero level if we made our health services worse than they are. Same way I don't suppose they are administered perfectly right now so there's still long way to go before achieving lowest technologically possible level. And even 0% is possible without going StarTrek, if for example full-time narcotic-induced bliss till the "natural" end of your life was an option. Then assisted suicide rate would just cease to be a good indicator of how good our health care and services are.

namibj 11mo ago

One could argue that number should be close to 100%, as people would live to old age where eventually the body is just too worn to continue a good life.

fsckboy 11mo ago
under your system, when should Stephen Hawking have pulled the plug?
- SalientBlue 11mo ago
  when he wanted to.
- namibj 11mo ago
  Most of society doesn't live a purely intellectual life, and wouldn't want to.