Why is Canada euthanising the poor? | Hacker News Reader

Why is Canada euthanising the poor?

spectator.co.uk

12 pointsgadders5 comments

Money doesn't undo the ravages of time. If people prefer to end their lives rather than cling to false hope and go through years of excruciating, artificially-extended decline, no one else has the right to judge or interfere. It's disgusting that people are so obsessed with control of others that they'd ever try to stop someone of sound mind from choosing to end their life with dignity.

While I agree that access to medically assisted suicide is a human right, I also think the author is making a salient point about economic injustice. Generally speaking, those with generational wealth and connections fare better in life than those who start at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Being poor leads to worse outcomes—when you spend all your time working to survive, there isn’t much time for doctor’s appointments (even with universal heath care), daily exercise, or a health-conscious diet. It’s an incendiary headline to be sure, but the point still stands: when medically-assisted suicide is made readily available, those who are the least loved by a society are most likely to opt out of living in it.

To me this was a well-written piece, and cogently makes a powerful argument. I tend to be supportive of right-to-die policies and positions, but this pointed out some of the very serious problems in how this is playing out. I'd think this was some alarmist dystopian fiction except that some of the cases being discussed are simply being cited as matters of fact.

The case of the woman with multiple chemical sensitivities alone should be setting off all sorts of safety brake alarms, if not for the existence of any right-to-die law, then for strict scrutiny in how it is implemented. There is no reason anyone in her situation should have come to fall under this legislation. Perhaps something is being gravely mischaracterized in the press (always a serious possibility), and hers was a case of classic suicide, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I suspect that simply outlawing euthanasia and related practices wholesale is just as unethical as unregulated euthanasia without comprehensive guidance. There are a lot of ethical issues at play that society at large seems to have its head in the sand with, and they need to be worked out for everyone's benefit. I've come to believe that suicide and euthanasia are sort of canaries for problems in society at large — we tend to be in denial about the actual reasons both come about, and too focused on the endpoints per se. People never die in a vacuum, and even when they seek to end their own lives one way or another there is often someone else's hand involved collectively to some extent.

I think there are 3 threads that make this a complicated topic:

1) A lobby of people who consider voluntary suicide unacceptable under all circumstances; no exceptions.

2) We all want to minimise suffering and allow people autonomy over their bodies.

3) The extremely serious risk of doctors or family having an incentive to legally murder someone.

There are real concerns being raised in this article, but there is also reason to be sceptical of them because there is a stubborn resistance to these laws that wants them gone. Whether the laws work well or badly in practice is immaterial to that lobby. They will probably not be reporting calmly on the issue.

Absolutely stellar piece of shit-stirring nonsense headline writing there.

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