Euthanasia Is Not Healthcare
joshanderson.me
joshanderson.me
No, you can't have health care. No, you can't have insulin. No, you can't have childcare. No, you can't have an abortion. No, you can't have a roof over your head. No, you're not entitled to a meal. No, you can't take time off to spend with your infant. No, we won't make safe bike lanes. No, public transit is too expensive to build. No, ketchup is the vegetable. No, we won't allow you to enforce those environmental regulations. No, you can't sue the factory for dumping that in the water supply. No, you can't discharge your student debt in bankruptcy. No, we can't stop school shooters, or any other kinds either. No, the officer won't be facing charges.
Assisted suicide? What are we, _barbarians_?
Sounds like a reality for many Canadians now and it is only getting worse.
Because we have this philosophy that people can and should provide for themselves you can just list an arbitrary number of examples of this idea as a whatabout to the state encouraging you to kill yourself to save money? There are maybe 3 things in your list of made up nonsense that actually qualify as real, distinct problems caused by the state or culture. None of those are as bad as encouraging homeless people or troubled teenagers to kill themselves because it's cheaper. Its sick. We both live in very sick societies, but your stramwen don't excuse Canada's absolutely disgusting cultural shift in this regard.
And I don’t have a problem with mental illness being the sole criteria. If drugs with horrible side effects are the only thing keeping me, sane but miserable, death my feel like the best option.
The only addition is that now doctors will prescribe and, if you want, inject you with the drugs. Prior to that people still had, and continue to have, many choices in death.
0 - https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/woman-with-disabilities-nears-...
I don't see any criticism of allowing suicide as a personal choice in the article. The criticism here is that it is state sanctioned, encouraged by the healthcare system, and becoming an option that will be deliberately offered for perfectly healthy people that might just be going through a hard time.
Everybody always knows suicide is on the table. Your doctor coming to you and asking if you've considered suicide just because you're having a rough time and offering you assistance is absolutely disgusting and people that want that to be the status quo should be ashamed of themselves.
https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/a-good-death-ma...
Amend that to 'An actual look at what a CBC news report said that it looks like from a real patient.'
In a sense, it's classic conspiracy theory writing. Mention a bunch of things together and people will connect them even if there's no actual connection there.
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2022/06/07/...
> A young Canadian woman is reconsidering medically assisted dying after a GoFundMe campaign
At least let people die with dignity.
There's a point where if there is any of me left, which with dementia and other brain destroying disease / injury might not even be anything, it's just prolonging the suffering.
Current medical forms don't really give a clear indication about when the infection point on that curve is reached; they assume all in or all out, at least from what I saw when it last came up among my parent's experiences. I know I wouldn't want to be kept around as effectively a vegetable, surviving on a 'port' forcing fluids into my GI tract, barely remembering anything about life and being strung out on many years of suffering. That's the exploitative part you mention. The lack of dignity you mention. The turning a patient into a profit center rather than looking out for their best interests.
Maybe someday that won't be the lack of real choice we all currently face. Until then, and maybe even after, give people the freedom to choose. Also give them real choices, like counseling and assistance fitting into society as a productive member who's valued.
It's not healthcare, it's eugenics.
If you lose your eyesight, hearing, mobility et al suddenly due to an accident, that has no impact on your DNA and spreading any further disability in reproducing. However, being dead may well be preferable to feeling locked in for a lot of folks.
Another scenario, a person with a mental health condition stops taking their medication. They live alone. They have a mental crisis, end up in a clinic. It’s a busy time and doctors don’t have time to investigate. But there is this simple solution to the problem, again within reach, it ticks all the legal checkmarks, so let’s offer that treatment.
Like just evaluate the accuracy of the claim
I think every person creates their own life philosophy that they live and believe in. If someone creates one that believes life is pointless, there is no God, and life after death is a myth, I think they have formulated a sort of nihilism which also permeates how they act in the world.
As society becomes less hopeful and believes in less, the cynicism creeps in. The system is corrupt, nothing matters anyway, and I may as well be dead as I am alive. Why not take this suicide pill my state-employed doctor prescribed me?
There's a corresponding religious nihilism, as seen in "magic words" salvation and a belief that deities are powerful and directly intervene in the maintenance of the world.
In Canada, at least, "medical assistance in dying" is actual euthanasia, with far over 99.9% of those seeking death through physician-prescribed drugs having the provider inject them with the drugs. I do wonder how many of them are Christians who are legalistically trying to avoid the Christian prohibition of suicide this way.
While legalism isn't generally a good look for morality, there really are some situations where the nuance matters. In this case it's a matter of intent and what can be foreseen. The "loophole" for Christians or anyone else who is suffering extremely is pain management. Drugs may be licitly provided in any amount necessary for that pain management. If the amount of the drug necessary for pain management will foreseeably cause death, it's still not suicide because the intent is not to euthanize, but to manage pain. This shouldn't sound so strange, because the secular legal system also takes intent into account. On the other hand when the intent is to kill rather than to care, then yes it's not healthcare it's murder or suicide.
Similarly, it's licit to discontinue life preserving interventions when those interventions are otherwise intolerable.
Even in Christianity there are noble suicides when the suicide is performed to do a good.
SPOILER FOR THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE:
In the movie The Poseidon Adventure one of the survivors sacrifices himself as otherwise they all would have died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poseidon_Adventure_(1972_f...
> A ruptured pipe releases steam, blocking their escape. Scott rants at God for the survivors' deaths as he leaps across a pool of flaming oil, grabbing onto the burning-hot valve wheel to shut down the steam. Scott tells Rogo to lead the group on before falling to his death.
You can argue that instances like this aren't suicide, but this is only true because the deaths were good deaths for a purpose. You may say they aren't suicide, but I'd call them noble suicides.
Yet that is not what we see at all. How many wars have been fought over religion? How many political parties use religion to oppress others? A belief in God does not equate to being a good person; it’s quite often the athiests doing good in the world.
you just moved that goalpost awfully far in the other direction, and still it's not clear where it is. "Quite often" is completely undefined as to just how often; just be sure to note how many heinous crimes are committed by people who believe in nothing but their own self interest; in other words, by atheists. (source: am atheist)
> How many wars have been fought over religion?
religions reflect people's historical attempts to struggle with ethical issues, and the attempts have been as earnest as people can be. People have fought with one another since caveman times, it's ridiculous to blame our violent primate tendencies on religion. Has religion taken upon itself the goal of getting people to behave better? yes. Has any religion succeeded as much as we like? no. In whose hands has the implementation of ethics been left? people. Is that a failure of religion or a failure of people? people.