Also Rebel News wants states funding, so it’s not like their motives are any better if you consider state funding a negative.
Last edited:
Canada Euthanizing Poor People
- Thread starter Joij21
- Start date
Also Rebel News wants states funding, so it’s not like their motives are any better if you consider state funding a negative.
I'd personally suggest it's because of the way you characterised anyone, anywhere as holding a specific set of opinions as being in the wrong, vs. the OP specifically and / or any similar attempted ideological gotchas. Syn is not Joij, for example, even if they both disagree with you on the topic.
I'm referring loosely back to this post and the immediate response. Which is where Lexicus came from with their replies, and so on. Sorry, I wasn't trying to make a large tangent out of it. Lexi and Syn are more than capable of arguing for themselves.
I simply think that there's a large gulf between how the OP approaches the subject, and how other posters do, even if all three result in criticism of the Canadian government. And I see all three as being treated as the same, that's all.
How is that going to happen if the patient can think but not speak or write? Some diseases rob the patient of speaking and writing, and THIS is why I am in favor of allowing advance arrangements, while the patient is still able to give legal consent but fears that at the time in the future they will not be capable of speaking or writing.
Take the example of Sue Rodriques. The people who helped her - both the medical professionals plus her companion Sven Robinson (NDP politician who passionately believed in right-to-die rights for people like Rodriques) would have been charged with various criminal offenses at the time, and her death was carried out in secrecy until after the fact when information was released to the public.
Evie
Pronounced like Eevee
One, advance arrangement would constitute "the patient bringing it up" as far as I'm concerned, Valka. That's a whole other situation.
Two, the question of a patient who is still mentally able to consent, but who is physically unable to communicate any complex thought, and who doesn't have advance arrangement, is one of those very specific edge cases that are beyond my ability to judge. I'll leave to wiser heads than I what to do with *that* kind of cases, and be content with my general statement that apply to the majority of cases.
Gorbles - that post is (with one exception, namely the aside remark on most other countries not being much better) is a collection of separate responses and clarifications regarding MAID in Canada and certain misconception and misrepresentation about it. Each part of it is its own separate point.
The final line is very specific to people who present this as an actual program/deliberate effort toward euthanizing the poor (so definitely not every critic), and I stand by it absolutely. It is emotionally deceptive misrepresentation. Some people may do it for better reasons (as an arresting way to draw attention to a very real plight, even if the plight is not quite what they claim it to be), others for...worse reasons (as an attempt to depict "liberals" (by which they mean the left, which is inaccurate in this case) as murderously immoral), but it remains a form of deceptive misrepresentation. I still think very poorly of it, particularly as it runs the constant risk of people using it as an excuse to advocate for the removal of MAID, which is a right I feel very strongly about, rather than for improvement in the conditions of the underprivileged.
Two, the question of a patient who is still mentally able to consent, but who is physically unable to communicate any complex thought, and who doesn't have advance arrangement, is one of those very specific edge cases that are beyond my ability to judge. I'll leave to wiser heads than I what to do with *that* kind of cases, and be content with my general statement that apply to the majority of cases.
Gorbles - that post is (with one exception, namely the aside remark on most other countries not being much better) is a collection of separate responses and clarifications regarding MAID in Canada and certain misconception and misrepresentation about it. Each part of it is its own separate point.
The final line is very specific to people who present this as an actual program/deliberate effort toward euthanizing the poor (so definitely not every critic), and I stand by it absolutely. It is emotionally deceptive misrepresentation. Some people may do it for better reasons (as an arresting way to draw attention to a very real plight, even if the plight is not quite what they claim it to be), others for...worse reasons (as an attempt to depict "liberals" (by which they mean the left, which is inaccurate in this case) as murderously immoral), but it remains a form of deceptive misrepresentation. I still think very poorly of it, particularly as it runs the constant risk of people using it as an excuse to advocate for the removal of MAID, which is a right I feel very strongly about, rather than for improvement in the conditions of the underprivileged.
Last edited:
Does Canada allow living wills? If so, one could create one of those and add language for assisted death.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/in-depth/living-wills/art-20046303
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/in-depth/living-wills/art-20046303
Synobun
Deity
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2006
- Messages
- 24,805
Yes, but IIRC they can't have any influence over MAiD since it requires active consent and a tiered process of moving through the steps (which involves several interviews).
There will undoubtedly be a court case about it in the coming decade to allow it.
Synobun
Deity
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2006
- Messages
- 24,805
‘Catastrophic Pandora’s box’: Disabled Ontarians speak out against proposed MAID law
As Ottawa moves closer to allowing medical assistance in dying for those not at end-of-life, people with disabilities warn that MAID should not be an option without social supports in place
https://www.tvo.org/article/catastr...ontarians-speak-out-against-proposed-maid-law
"In early February, Sarah Jama sat on the floor of her kitchen in Hamilton and wondered how long social supports would help her live.
Her knee had popped out of its socket while she was getting a plate from a cabinet, and Jama, who has cerebral palsy, had to pop it into place again and get back into her wheelchair.
“I sit on the floor as I’m in pain, and I wonder, ‘What is it going to look like for me to live a free and equal life in the future?’” the 26-year-old recalled.
As the federal government moves closer to changing the Criminal Code to allow Canadians to access medical assistance in dying even if they are not at end-of-life, she worries that people with disabilities, especially those from marginalized communities, will suffer as a result. There need to better housing and social supports for people with disabilities, she says. “We’re not in a place in Canada where I think MAID can exist, or even be expanded, where people won’t be coerced [into receiving it]. [We need to] make sure that proper supports are in place,” says Jama, an organizer with Disability Justice Network of Ontario.
DJNO was one of more than 125 Canadian organizations that signed an open letter, released on February 24, that urged the government to “rethink the radical and highly divisive changes” proposed in Bill C-7 and reject the bill entirely.
The Senate passed several amendments to the legislation in February, and the bill is currently being debated in the House of Commons. Originally introduced in February 2020, and then reintroduced in October when government returned, C-7 comes in response to a 2019 Superior Court of Quebec decision that said it is unconstitutional to restrict MAID to people at the end-of-life. The court has given the government until March 26 to pass legislation consistent with the ruling. This is the fourth extension the court has granted.
The Criminal Code says people can apply for MAID only if they have a “serious and incurable” illness, disease, or disability that has resulted in an “advanced stage of irreversible decline in capability” and intolerable physical or psychological pain that cannot be relieved in an manner acceptable to the individual. Currently, people have to be near death to apply. Bill C-7 removes the requirement that someone’s death be “reasonably foreseeable,” while keeping the others.
One of the Senate amendments would allow people whose only underlying medical condition is a mental illness to receive MAID. This change would come into effect in two years but has not yet been voted on in the House of Commons.
[...]
Former Ontario lieutenant governor David Onley says that the bill “opens up a catastrophic Pandora’s box.” Onley, who uses a power wheelchair and has long advocated for governments to make policies that benefit people with disabilities, says it would be more accurate to call MAID “physician-assisted suicide.” The bill, he says, would “make it easier for a person who is desperately entrapped, just barely holding on mentally and emotionally because of lack of government assistance, and psychologically beaten up because the system does not provide the support that it should provide — that they go to their doctor and say, ‘I can’t cope anymore.’”
Onley says he regularly hears from individuals with disabilities who feel despair. “I end up trying to convince them not to commit suicide,” he says. “We have a caste system. We just refuse to acknowledge it.”
Even some who have applied for MAID want the government to reject the bill. “I’m in my 11th hour,” says one woman from rural southwestern Ontario who first asked a doctor about MAID in the fall. (Her name has been withheld to protect her privacy.) In her late 40s, she’s relied on ODSP for years since a workplace back injury left her unable to work. “I’m not depressed,” she says. “I’m poor.” Most of the roughly $800 she receives monthly goes toward the overdraft on her bank account; her credit card is maxed out. She’s considered stopping some medications to save money. Malnutrition has resulted in arthritis; she also has fibromyalgia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and brain injuries that affect her memory. “There’s no pill to fix poverty,” she says. “I don’t feel suicidal — except at the grocery store.”
She says she understands why people want to be able to die peacefully but is angry that Bill C-7 would make it easier for those with disabilities to get MAID. “In what universe does anybody’s situation get better when they can’t afford food and medicine? Any legislation that affords the right to die but not the right to afford to live is inhumane.”
As Ottawa moves closer to allowing medical assistance in dying for those not at end-of-life, people with disabilities warn that MAID should not be an option without social supports in place
https://www.tvo.org/article/catastr...ontarians-speak-out-against-proposed-maid-law
"In early February, Sarah Jama sat on the floor of her kitchen in Hamilton and wondered how long social supports would help her live.
Her knee had popped out of its socket while she was getting a plate from a cabinet, and Jama, who has cerebral palsy, had to pop it into place again and get back into her wheelchair.
“I sit on the floor as I’m in pain, and I wonder, ‘What is it going to look like for me to live a free and equal life in the future?’” the 26-year-old recalled.
As the federal government moves closer to changing the Criminal Code to allow Canadians to access medical assistance in dying even if they are not at end-of-life, she worries that people with disabilities, especially those from marginalized communities, will suffer as a result. There need to better housing and social supports for people with disabilities, she says. “We’re not in a place in Canada where I think MAID can exist, or even be expanded, where people won’t be coerced [into receiving it]. [We need to] make sure that proper supports are in place,” says Jama, an organizer with Disability Justice Network of Ontario.
DJNO was one of more than 125 Canadian organizations that signed an open letter, released on February 24, that urged the government to “rethink the radical and highly divisive changes” proposed in Bill C-7 and reject the bill entirely.
The Senate passed several amendments to the legislation in February, and the bill is currently being debated in the House of Commons. Originally introduced in February 2020, and then reintroduced in October when government returned, C-7 comes in response to a 2019 Superior Court of Quebec decision that said it is unconstitutional to restrict MAID to people at the end-of-life. The court has given the government until March 26 to pass legislation consistent with the ruling. This is the fourth extension the court has granted.
The Criminal Code says people can apply for MAID only if they have a “serious and incurable” illness, disease, or disability that has resulted in an “advanced stage of irreversible decline in capability” and intolerable physical or psychological pain that cannot be relieved in an manner acceptable to the individual. Currently, people have to be near death to apply. Bill C-7 removes the requirement that someone’s death be “reasonably foreseeable,” while keeping the others.
One of the Senate amendments would allow people whose only underlying medical condition is a mental illness to receive MAID. This change would come into effect in two years but has not yet been voted on in the House of Commons.
[...]
Former Ontario lieutenant governor David Onley says that the bill “opens up a catastrophic Pandora’s box.” Onley, who uses a power wheelchair and has long advocated for governments to make policies that benefit people with disabilities, says it would be more accurate to call MAID “physician-assisted suicide.” The bill, he says, would “make it easier for a person who is desperately entrapped, just barely holding on mentally and emotionally because of lack of government assistance, and psychologically beaten up because the system does not provide the support that it should provide — that they go to their doctor and say, ‘I can’t cope anymore.’”
Onley says he regularly hears from individuals with disabilities who feel despair. “I end up trying to convince them not to commit suicide,” he says. “We have a caste system. We just refuse to acknowledge it.”
Even some who have applied for MAID want the government to reject the bill. “I’m in my 11th hour,” says one woman from rural southwestern Ontario who first asked a doctor about MAID in the fall. (Her name has been withheld to protect her privacy.) In her late 40s, she’s relied on ODSP for years since a workplace back injury left her unable to work. “I’m not depressed,” she says. “I’m poor.” Most of the roughly $800 she receives monthly goes toward the overdraft on her bank account; her credit card is maxed out. She’s considered stopping some medications to save money. Malnutrition has resulted in arthritis; she also has fibromyalgia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and brain injuries that affect her memory. “There’s no pill to fix poverty,” she says. “I don’t feel suicidal — except at the grocery store.”
She says she understands why people want to be able to die peacefully but is angry that Bill C-7 would make it easier for those with disabilities to get MAID. “In what universe does anybody’s situation get better when they can’t afford food and medicine? Any legislation that affords the right to die but not the right to afford to live is inhumane.”
Evie
Pronounced like Eevee
Synobun is correct about living wills as I understand it - currently affirmative consent is required.
I agree this is likely to fail in court within the next few years.
The fears in the article, and the rage at the lack of support I totally get. I don't necessarily agree with every aspect of it, but I respect it. And yes, I can also see how people who are struggling desperately to continue living might feel it as a slap in the face to see a law that only offer the, a way to die rather than a way to live. The optics, from their perspective, would be horrendous.
But as the article itself note, not only did the government have to make the law, they also were running out of ways to drag their feet about it (four court-granted extensions!)
I agree this is likely to fail in court within the next few years.
The fears in the article, and the rage at the lack of support I totally get. I don't necessarily agree with every aspect of it, but I respect it. And yes, I can also see how people who are struggling desperately to continue living might feel it as a slap in the face to see a law that only offer the, a way to die rather than a way to live. The optics, from their perspective, would be horrendous.
But as the article itself note, not only did the government have to make the law, they also were running out of ways to drag their feet about it (four court-granted extensions!)
Christianity forbids self-termination.
Christian views on suicide - Wikipedia
So does Skynet.
Huh, didn't know that.
Anyway, I think euthanasia should be legal for extreme cases, but I don't know where the line should be.
Christians should try to avoid doing either then.
João III
King
If you are interested, here's a letter (Samaritanus Bonus) more fully outlining the Catholic Church's position on euthanasia.Huh, didn't know that.
"Just as we cannot make another person our slave, even if they ask to be, so we cannot directly choose to take the life of another, even if they request it."
Estebonrober
Deity
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2017
- Messages
- 6,008
You're right, its just human lives I'm worrying about. I'm jsut watching us slow roll into a full out fascist dystopia.
- Abortion bans are ascendant
- Worker's rights are repressed systematically
- anti-lgbtq is ascendant
- wars are escalating and premised on purity and revanchism of white supremacy
- inflation (artificial or otherwise) is wiping out what little gains were made in the last two years
- recession is around the corner where the wealthy will corner more of the material gains
- America is descending into a complete cesspool of conmen and impotent bureaucrats
- We have a long way to go to even get momentum on climate change management
João III
King
What wars are you referring to here?
Try being a patient/resident in a Catholic-owned/run medical facility/nursing home. There are multiple accounts of people not being allowed to even have someone in their own rooms to consult on the possibility. The patient had to physically leave the hospital or nursing home to even discuss the possibility of qualifying for MAiD, or if having qualified, to do paperwork. And when the time came, the patient had to be moved elsewhere, to some other non-Catholic hospital or facility that would allow it.
How the people running those sanctimonious "holy" hospitals can sleep at night with a clear conscience is beyond me, forcing such vulnerable people into even more stress. My dad would have been in the same situation if he had been allowed to make advance arrangements - by the time his death was "reasonably foreseeable" he was in a Catholic-run facility (only reason I agreed to that was they were the only place available with the care level he needed in Red Deer so he could come home from the place he'd been in before in another city I couldn't get to). He would have had to find somewhere else, and I couldn't have been much help given my own health situation at the time (he died the day before my cataract surgery).
So just because it's the law now, there are still places that stick their noses in the air about "conscience rights" and say no.
The only sensible way to deal with this is to include it. Due to my family's medical history I want the right to decide for myself when enough is enough and I'm not having an acceptable quality of life. Having observed multiple instances of Alzheimer's, dementia, and cancer in my families and my dad's girlfriend, all of which render the patient incapable of speaking, writing, and communicating much beyond fear and pain, I would prefer not to risk that.
The problem is who gets to define "extreme"? There are a lot of ableist people in government, and even in the medical professions who will call a disabled person a liar or faker or lazy just because their disability might not fit that individual's definition of disabled.Christianity forbids self-termination.
Christian views on suicide - Wikipedia
So does Skynet.
Huh, didn't know that.
Anyway, I think euthanasia should be legal for extreme cases, but I don't know where the line should be.
Pandora was the wife given to the brother of Prometheus (Epimetheus) so as to take revenge for what Prometheus did and balance things again with the humans.
The similarity there is that original good intentions can easily lead to the same or even worse
One can also note that thinking ahead (which is what "Prometheus" means) is the brother and very close to thinking only when it is too late (what "Epimetheus" means).
The similarity there is that original good intentions can easily lead to the same or even worse
One can also note that thinking ahead (which is what "Prometheus" means) is the brother and very close to thinking only when it is too late (what "Epimetheus" means).
Evie
Pronounced like Eevee
I'm all for legalizing advance arrangements, and I expect they will be (though with some safeguards).
Farm Boy
they're all reactions
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2010
- Messages
- 27,772
We do struggle.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,995
i didn't put the "probably not much" in there for show.
Well “probably not much” does include “significantly worse”.
