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Comment by joshdavham | Hacker News Reader

As a Canadian, I’ve witnessed a perfect polarization of opinions among the people I’ve talked to about MAID. So far, every Christian I’ve talked to about MAID is against it while every non-Christian is either for it, or has a neutral attitude about it.

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In my experience, the line is between "people who have seen a family member die a horrible, painful, prolonged death" and those who haven't. The former group tends to be very passionately in favor of it.

It's really not that simple in my experience. Younger disabled people are generally against it as well, they rightfully have their guard up about things that look like eugenics.

> It's really not that simple in my experience. Younger disabled people are generally against it as well, they rightfully have their guard up about things that look like eugenics.

Apologies for sounding like a broken record here, but do you have anything other than anecdotes to support the claim that younger disabled people are generally against MAID?

I'm a younger disabled person (severe visual impairment, autism, ADHD, and some other things) that is very much in favor of it.

Thinking this is akin to eugenics is silly and not doing anyone any good.

Why is it silly? Did you know the Nazi regime used extremely similar empathetic language to justify their T4 euthanasia program?

I would imagine Muslim or Jewish people to also be opposed. I think both consider this to be a sin.

Or maybe you meant religious vs. secular people?

As I've learned from Jewish friends, Judaism is rarely that simple. Here's an article about Judaism and MAID in Canada:

https://thecjn.ca/opinion/how-jewish-nursing-homes-approach-...

Interesting. There are certainly different streams/versions of Jewish faith. I was thinking more about Orthodox Jews. To me "Christian" is a lot more diverse so I'm surprised this is somehow so fundamentally Christian vs. other religions.

Canadians who identify as religious are overwhelmingly Christian (53.5%)[1], with most of that being Catholic. The next most common religion is Islam at just 4% and Judaism is a paltry 0.9%. You're simply more likely to get anecdotes from the religion that is the vast majority.

In general, even the religious in Canada aren't very religious, so those who actively identify as it are likely to be _very_ religious. I have not a clue what religion any of our close friends are.

Canada becomes about 10% more agnostic/atheist every 10 years, which is a fun pattern[2].

[1] https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/pr... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Canada

> maybe you meant religious vs. secular people?

Nope. I meant Christian vs. Non-Christian. Granted, I haven't discussed MAID with any muslims before.

Really? I'm surprised, many secular people on the left are against it because they see it as the state running it badly. Take this video someone posted higher up; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG3AJ3W_sbI A paraathelete get injured and it's suggested MAID. Insulting and ridiculous. It only takes a few of these before people decide even if they like the idea the government botches the execution and there's little recourse if they go too far.

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