Whenever people discussed euthanasia/suicide/MAiD online in the early oughts, it was always some corner case of a person completely paralyzed who could maybe blink. Slippery slope is no longer a fallacy, I guess.
People who were forced to starve, to subsist, to suffer empty, meaningless lives of toil and/or misery, now have an alternative to the continuation of their suffering. This does not mean the alternative is good, but neither is its absence.
One would hope that seeing how many people would rather choose to die in their own terms, as opposed to continuing to toil to enrich their landlords while they have to choose between food and heating, would steer us towards building a better society, one where people have not only freedom, but autonomy over their own lives.
And if it doesn't, well, then I suppose I'm glad we have an alternative to the society we're building.
Hope you don't find yourself in that demographic at some point of your life.
I also struggled with depression and suicidality in my twenties. My life also got better, and I am glad I did not succeed at killing myself. I do not advocate for assisted suicide as a solution for most problems -- just for those health situations where no real solutions exist.
My mother, however, is approaching her sixties. She's been depressed, like, really, majorly, manically, clinically depressed, for as long as I can remember. She's tried to kill herself many times, twice in the last year alone. She's tried every medication under the sun, some which have temporarily made things better, many which have permanently made things worse.
All she's heard from her loved ones, over the last thirty years, is that she has to keep trying. Always, forever, keep trying, through an endless trough of misery with no end in sight. Do yoga, sign up for courses, move away, move back, try CBT, try CBD, try SSRIs, try benzodiazepines, try anti-psychotics.
Try and then try again, forevermore getting nowhere, until you finally get to die in a way that your loved ones find socially acceptable. Because otherwise us, your loved ones, we'll keep rescuing you -- hell, legally speaking, we're forced to rescue you, again and again, unless you eventually get desperate enough to die that you don't even call to say goodbye.
I also hope that assisted suicide can be a revulsive for our profoundly sick society. Maybe if instead of letting people freeze, starve, be lonely and sick and sad, "fade out" in a way that looks like a "natural death" or an "accident", maybe if we counted them, if we kept a tally of the people who have gone to their doctors begging for death because their existence was untenable or unworthy of living, maybe that would force us to acknowledge them, to listen to their stories, to transform our society so that there's a place in it for them.
Or maybe it would just be another number to become desensitized to.
They virtally always had, though. Suicide is legal. Even when it isn't, it's always been an option, and people have always used it. Short of that, even hardliners like the Catholic church are explicitly fine with terminal sedation (medical treatment that is intended to relieve pain, but is expected to hasten death as a side effect) and refusing life-prolonging treatment when that is understood as only postponing the inevitable.
The culture war polarisation makes it sound like the alternative is keeping you alive in agony against your will and confiscation of your family's assets if you commit illegal suicide.
Nobody is proposing that! Everyone wants to respect people's autonomy. It's just that we feel denying you official approval for your suicide doesn't interfere much with your autonomy, and things like the feeling that you're a burden to your loved ones or wasting hospital time that could be better spent on others - can interfere a lot more.
That life is worth living is no small assumption. It's a huge one, and one of those which it is questionable if can ever be justified on anything resembling "objective" grounds. Please, don't even try.
It is nonetheless the assumption that is the basis for everything we do, from getting up in the morning to voting to obeying traffic rules to calling an ambulance if we see someone collapsing to the ground. Do we really have a meaningful alternative that involves not affirming it?
What you brush off as "official approval" can be the difference between a person's family members getting to say goodbye to their loved one before they die peacefully on their own terms, or them getting home one day to find their brains scattered all over the garage. It's about whether you get to make this painfully difficult decision about your life on the open, with the support of those around you, or whether you are forced to hide it from them, out of shame or to avoid legal repercussions. It's about whether your loved ones are able remember you as you were in life, or as the trauma, guilt and shame that followed your death. It matters a lot.
Life is worth living, yes. On the abstract, and on a personal level, I wholeheartedly agree. But I do not get to impart that judgement on other people's concrete lived experiences, to decide that their life is worth living on their behalf. Just like I alone decide whether mine is.
If you want to make the decision in the open with the support of those around you, involving them in your decision, I think you have to accept that they must be allowed to say "no, please don't do it", too. If you want their support, but don't give them that option, then it's downright cruel.
And assisted suicide laws impose that obligation, not on relatives, but on doctors. They're not just stepping aside for someone else's decision, they are demanded to accept it, support it and actively assist in pursuing the objective of death (unlike in terminal sedation and cessation of treatment, where death is not the goal). They have to do this even for people who are not terminally ill, who we know from statistics in many cases would have abandoned their wish to die and lived long lives.
I've known doctors from very different backgrounds (including non religious people, just so that's clear) who have been very disturbed by the prospect of being expected to do such things.
I think the options of terminal sedation and refusing life-prolonging treatment should be the extent of what we demand from doctors. That's no small deal, it is important that no one's life is prolonged by medicine against their will at the cost of suffering. But doctor's and the health system's obligations should stop there.
Of course those around them are allowed to say "please don't do it" -- but the person who's making the decision might still choose to do it. This is true, independently of whether assisted suicide is on the table. Regardless, getting to have an open conversation about it will be a better starting point for healing, for everyone involved. You can't say "please don't do it" to a suicide note, or ask it further questions so that you can better understand why they made that decision.
You have a profound misunderstanding of how most assisted suicide laws around the world work. Doctors are not demanded to do anything, and certainly are not held to any obligation to end the life of anyone who asks them to. They evaluate whether the request has validity based on medical criteria, and deny it or accept it on that basis. Doctors who object for religious or moral reasons are usually exempt from participating in it altogether. They definitely don't have to do it for people who aren't terminally ill -- although in some legislations, they might be allowed to.
I'm also unsure what you believe terminal sedation and cessation of treatment are. Death is definitely the expected result. Or rather, death is the means to achieve the desired goal, which is ending the patient's suffering -- just like with assisted suicide.
You speak of statistics where people have abandoned their wish to die and lived long lives. Did they live good lives? Can you, personally, promise to everyone in the world seeking assisted suicide, that if they do not follow through, they will live good lives? That their continued suffering will eventually end, or that it will be worth enduring?
I think it's the least you can do, given that you've talked to a dentist once or whatever, and that apparently gives you the moral high ground to make that decision, on behalf of all doctors and of all people who seek assisted suicide alike.
I got into this debate through reading and engaging with four doctors, over many years. One of them, the one I knew best, is a professor of medical ethics now. I borrowed Rawls' "A theory of justice" from him. Managed to return it too. Don't know how this is relevant, but since you speculated about "talking to a dentist" I guess it is?
Can't say I know what laws are on the table at every point, but I think I got a reasonable overview.
The right to conscientious objection is certainly important, but I really can't entrust it to people who don't understand the difference between "accepting an outcome" and "seeking an outcome as a means to an end". You won't let us keep it for long.
> Or rather, death is the means to achieve the desired goal
That's exactly what it is not. The sedatives relieve pain, they shorten the patient's life as a side effect. An easy way to see is, imagine if the painkillers killed the pain, but the patient miraculously didn't die. Would you be happy? Of course. Both of you, generally.
If the patient was genuinely suicidal and wanted to die, they might not be. Not even if they recovered and went on live a long life.
So no, I can't promise them that they'll find out why life is worth living. But I can promise them a nonzero chance that they someday will. And if that chance isn't enough to make them stop actively seeking to end it, I honestly think they're not thinking straight.
Let's set aside that neither the patient and the doctor would be happy about this at all, since the patient would still be in pain after the painkillers wear off, and the doctor would have failed to achieve the actual purpose of the procedure, which is to kill the patient. Sure, they're both happy about their shared failure because, I don't know, baby Jesus is smiling at them from the heavens or something, whatever.
So you're saying that, by applying terminal sedation, whose only possible outcome both in theory and in practice is the death of the person, the actual objective is to relieve the pain without causing the death of the person? The obvious conclusion of taking this absurd argument seriously is that every single doctor who applies terminal sedation is committing medical malpractice, because apparently they're all too stupid to not kill the person, as this procedure, according to you, does not actually intend to.
Please think about the bullshit you spew for a second before you press send. It's embarrassing.
> So no, I can't promise them that they'll find out why life is worth living. But I can promise them a nonzero chance that they someday will. And if that chance isn't enough to make them stop actively seeking to end it, I honestly think they're not thinking straight.
Wow. So everyone who doesn't agree with your blatantly pro-continued-suffering agenda is "not thinking straight", and therefore you get to force them to continue suffering, actively taking their agency from them, because... maybe magic? Hey, who knows, your suffering might miraculously vanish tomorrow, so suck it up, buttercup. Life is good, baby! Life is good! Except, well, for you it isn't, but why would I let reality get in the way of my pro-forced-misery ideology? And maybe, most likely, almost surely, this miracle will never happen. But what do I care? You're the one suffering, and I'm just grandstanding about borrowing books from fancy doctors on the internet. All's good on my end, anyway.
Truly spoken like an entitled know-it-all who has never suffered for a single second of their life. Embarrassing and shameful. All of those debates with so many doctors over so many years, and you still haven't figured out that the topic requires empathy for other human beings.
> The right to conscientious objection is certainly important, but I really can't entrust it to people who don't understand the difference between "accepting an outcome" and "seeking an outcome as a means to an end". You won't let us keep it for long.
Don't have the fucking nerve to tell me that I won't let you keep your rights for long. You're the one openly advocating against other people's right to end their suffering, their rights over their own minds and bodies, with no real basis except magical thinking and abysmal misunderstandings of law and medicine. Have some fucking respect.
It felt like we hadn't just slipped down the slope, we basically rocketed into the ground. I will never support this movement.
Yet you are not allowed to kill yourself? I don't think that morally defensible
My issue is when the medical system, which has a pretty crap track record when it comes to dealing with people who's suffering is curable, starts offering suicide to people as an out. These institutions can't put people on the right pills and we're supposed to trust them to suggest (or not) that people end their lives? Not to mention the perverse financial incentive it creates to give people who need expensive care crap care and generally drag feet hoping they choose the out.
Wheat bloats my stomach and clogs my intestines almost gas tight and sometimes the pain can be extreme because it feels like your intestines are being torn apart.
This makes you feel like your own body is conspiring against you because society has decided to put wheat everywhere and everyone else is fine and the doctors tell you it's not the wheat. From this perspective the "sane" choice against generic unexplainable suffering because of randomly occuring physical pain would be to get a different body but that isn't possible so suicide it is.
Except, my solution is peppermint tea and avoiding wheat at all costs. I don't care how many people tell me that I don't have celiac disease or that I should be able to eat wheat. I can't, I know my body better than the doctor or you or the industrial complex that puts wheat everywhere.
Similarly, I meant welfare. I think it goes much beyond just healthcare. Unemployment insurance, state help to access the job market, disability help, etc.
So if someone chooses to die, don't always look at that as a problem that could have been fixed with enough resources. Sometimes it's not fixable and we all need to compassionately accept that.
Your point doesn't refute what I said, or answer a point I made -- I never said it was always a problem. At best I said it very much was now.
There are different forms of acceptance. Yes, accept that some cases are not fixable. On the other hand, we should also be looking at what led to it being not fixable. There is a huge difference between seeking assisted suicide due to deteriorating physical and mental health from medical causes and seeking assisted suicide due to a lack of medical, psychological, and financial support from the outset.
I'm not trying to opine on the Canadian health care system, as I've never experienced it nor given it much thought, but arguendo, if a part of the calculus for wellness is "is it cheaper to kill them?" that would be a deal-breaker.
(Again, not saying that's what is happening, but I am always skeptical of the payor's ability to dictate the treatment for reasons you can infer)
There's such a sliding scale of what is good and right here, and I think reasonable people can draw their lines at different places. Plot these as points on a line, and I think everyone will draw a line somewhere:
* suicide should be allowed
* medically assisted deaths are different from suicide and should be allowed
* people assisting in death should be prosecuted
* if it is hard for law enforcement to distinguish assisted suicide from murder, prosecutions are allowed
* it is okay for your doctor to prescribe death
* it is okay for the state to encourage death as the most cost efficient means of care
* it is okay for the state to withhold care if it is too costly to administer
* it is okay for the state to kill anyone they deem burdensome
I can't think of anything more shameful than encouraging a non-terminal person to kill themselves.
Also, suicide hasn't been illegal in Canada for 50 years!
First child: $10.00 Second child: $10.00 Third child: $2.50
These were the parking fees for 24 hours (there were no complications necessitating longer stays) in the two different cities she gave birth (the third child was born in a much more rural area with cheaper parking). I cannot stress enough that it cost us $0.00 beyond these amounts.
These costs include the use of a midwife in all three instances, with around 12 visits in advance of birth, then 2 midwives or 1 midwife and 2 nurses for the actual delivery, then 4-6 visits with the midwife post-birth, several of which were in our home.
I would say that’s a positive experience.
Any country that does free childbirth and ambulance rides and appointments with doctors and specialists, I would suggest has an excellent healthcare system, even if not perfect.
Births to illegal immigrants accounts for about 5% of child births in the US. These are not covered by Medicaid, but are covered by some state health systems. To my knowledge, Canada does not extend healthcare to illegal immigrants either. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/illegal-immigrants-have...
You can blame policies and programs, but in reality the issue has always been the value of human life.
If human life isn't valuable then ending it is easy.
Forcing people to die in pain, misery, and utterly debased is a misplacement of values in my opinion.
And this is often than not a symptom of capitalist valuation. The value of a life is too often viewed as economic [1].
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354671644_VAluing_L...
I think this is because we often see pain and misery as "bad things" that must be avoided at all cost. This tends to lead to the assumption that people who have pain and misery in their lives don't have "good lives" and that the only real option then is to end it.
Pain and misery have purpose and meaning. It can cause people to look beyond themselves. Some very beautiful things have come from people who were in deep pain.
An old person had late stage skeleton cancer, extreme pain, drugs didn't help. He wanted to die. The health care system kept him alive against his will for as long as they could
In that case I suppose the reason was instead covering one's own back.
Permanent never ending deep pain and you're old and just waiting to die, that's different.
Or Alzheimers.
> we often see pain and misery as "bad things" that must be avoided at all cost ... only real option then is to end it.
I never heard anyone say anything remotely like that. I believe you're mistaken?
Did you hear someone say that or you're hypothesizing
With that said, the doctors in the article seem crazy, and this: “MAiD is the new society safety net”
It requires, if he is a doctor, that he gives approval to your choice, and in compassion's name try to relieve you from the burdens of guilt and doubt you might have from your choice.
It doesn't just mean accepting that you say "my life is not worth living", it requires them to say, "Yes, your life is not worth living".
Opponents said this was a can of worms, and it seems harder and harder to deny from what's happening in Canada.
(And to repeat, terminal sedation, treatment that hastens death as an unfortunate side effect of trying to relieve pain, as well as refusal of life-prolonging care, is defended even by hardline opponents to euthanasia laws).
Whether it's a slippery slope or not, I think it is progressive not to gatekeep medically assisted suicide too much. Modern medicine should offer a choice for each individual - to live or to die, not a prescription to live through suffering and pain at an immense economic and societal cost. Death is a normal, natural part of life that will come for all of us. The amount of suffering before death should be each person's choice.
It is validly one of the 15 logical fallacies used to illustrate parts of arguments.