>One of the greatest reasons for concern is the sheer scale of Canada’s euthanasia regime. California provides a useful point of comparison: It legalized medically assisted death the same year as Canada, 2016, and it has about the same population, just under forty million. In 2021 in California, 486 people died using the state’s assisted suicide program. In Canada in the same year, 10,064 people used MAID to die.
70% of the Canadians reported cancer as the reason for MAID. It sounds like thousands of Californians are experiencing unnecessary and extended end of life suffering.
Canada has over double the number of deaths due to lung cancer and nearly double the deaths due to colorectal cancer compared to California.
Essentially cancer looks different in California than Canada. This makes drawing conclusions that there are thousands suffering unnecessarily extended end of life experiences difficult.
The site you linked estimates 60,000 cancer deaths in California this year, I would assume it's safe to assume what the eventual prognosis was for those cases. Nearly 10,000 of them from lung cancer, and over 5,000 from colorectal cancer. If those are your examples of cancers with unpleasant end of life experiences and less than 500 people in the state used MAID, then it would seem as though thousands are suffering. Though I don't know how liberal your hospice system is with morphine & fentanyl.
I only learned about this when buying a house and the inspector asking if I wanted to pay to have the test done. It came back positive and I disclosed the results to the seller, and in my state it requires them to mitigate before selling. My second house already had a system installed, but we also sleep on a second floor. I have always wondered how good the mitigation is; is Canada behind on public safety of this issue? Are Radon-related cancers on par in states with more regulation/mitigation?
Colorectal is an interesting case as we are already at a place where, by using current screening techniques in a well targeted manner we could essentially eliminate it.
As such, different approaches, or funding, or attitudes to screening could also lead to big disparities in incidence and ultimately survival.
"It sounds like thousands of Californians are experiencing unnecessary and extended end of life suffering."
Why is that your take? Why isn't it "Thousands of Canadians are being killed too soon in an effort to save the government money"? or some other take? We already have stories of Canada asking Veterans to join "MAID" instead of getting a wheelchair...
> Why isn't it "Thousands of Canadians are being killed too soon in an effort to save the government money"?
Because nobody's made that case.
Making a case requires evidence. Not handwaving and appeals to movie plots.
> We already have stories of Canada asking Veterans to join "MAID" instead of getting a wheelchair...
As long as we're trading conspiracy theories, the person who reported that was paid off by the right wing to make MAID seem horrible, and therefore something that should be ended, and my conspiracy theory has a lot more going for it than yours does.
> thousands of Californians are experiencing unnecessary and extended end of life suffering.
> Making a case requires evidence
Where's the evidence that (1) Californians specifically, (2) are experiencing extended suffering, and (3) what evidence exists that suffering specifically is unnecessary?
I'm just pointing out dropping a comment like the first answer and defending it with the second is doing exactly what is being claimed -making a case without providing real evidence.
"Since then, things have only gotten worse. A woman in Ontario was forced into euthanasia because her housing benefits did not allow her to get better housing which didn’t aggravate her crippling allergies. Another disabled woman applied to die because she ‘simply cannot afford to keep on living’. Another sought euthanasia because Covid-related debt left her unable to pay for the treatment which kept her chronic pain bearable – under the present government, disabled Canadians got $600 in additional financial assistance during Covid; university students got $5,000."
So again: Why isn't the take that Thousands are dying to soon to save money?
"As long as we're trading conspiracy theories,"
Other than my "conspiracy" theory being main stream media reported and a simple statement backed by fact. Not your cockamamey bullshit:
"According to the report, the veteran called VAC seeking support for PTSD when the employee brought up medical assistance in dying, or euthanasia, unprompted."
Oh wait... that's the wrong one. That's not the Wheelchair one... hard to find the right one in the mountain of evidence.
"A paraplegic former Canadian military member is ripping her government, which offered to euthanize her after she complained about delays having a wheelchair lift installed in her home."
If main stream, reliable news sources are 'conspiracy theories' then I'm not sure what you consider real news.
"my conspiracy theory has a lot more going for it than yours does."
Other than the fact that my "theory" has backing evidence... and yours is shit pulled out of your ass. You really need to learn what a conspiracy theory is and when real life evidence makes it not a theory.
I don’t think those are all examples against euthanasia being available - they’re arguments for needing better support to be available for vulnerable people.
Very few would argue with your underlying point that euthanasia should only be used in the right circumstances. But anecdotes which may be to the contrary shouldn’t justify removal of the concept altogether - just examination and adjustment.
A mature and reasonable societal attitude to end of life care —including euthanasia where appropriate— is a force for good, not evil.
I'd argue that it's like the death penalty. The right people should be killed but what happens if you execute an innocent person? It's better to err on the side of not killing so you don't accidentally kill an innocent person.
Likewise? I think the bar for euthanasia should be insanely high. I do think it should exist - there are people who deserve to die with dignity. Cancer or life ending conditions.
I think the problem is "where appropriate"... I seriously doubt that the 10k people in Canada killed this year are all appropriate. There are examples of people being given "the option" for being depressed or simply to poor to afford better options. Those aren't appropriate.
I've replayed a handful of stories that point to the fact that there are 10 thousand assisted suicides in Canada. Out of those thousands, if "assuming they're broadly correct" add up to a system that is not well thought out and is already having problems with "oh, you're poor and having a bad day? we can fix that!"
And my original question still stands: Why is the interpretation "California is letting people suffer needlessly" not "Why is Canada killing people to save money"? - since the original person I responded to is just as likely to be wrong that CA isn't killing enough people...
I don't think it's wrong to assume that Canada is killing people that don't need to die. 1 is too many... and it's easily 10's of people... and easily hundreds. It's not that hard to assume it's at least 10% of the 10k killed meaning "add up to thousands" is easy to assume.
Why are you so absurdly adamant about people not being able to end suffering?
You dig up some bizarre stories created by people with agendas, and refuse to acknowledge that the right to life includes the right to choose how life ends, and to deny that is to deny the basic rights of humanity. You absolutely refuse to see that the government has no place to mandate suffering.
Why do you think the government should step in and demand people suffer? Why are you so pro-big-government?
The problem isn't people not being able to end suffering... the problem is people being ended before time and people being ended because they are poor and the government is simply cost cutting.
"created by people with agendas" and "MAID" is defended by people with agendas. Everyone has an agenda - even people like you that presumably want to "end suffering".
"why do you think the government should step in and demand people suffer" Because anyone who trusts the government with the right to end peoples lives and ignores OBVIOUS problems with such power (IE: the stories about people with "agendas" - aka those who shouldn't be getting killed) is ignorant of governments abusing powers.
"Why are you so pro-big-government?" I'm not pro big government... I'm anti-government killing people. I don't think they should have the right to cut costs by killing people who shouldn't be killed.
Don't try to spin this as pro-big government... it's actually ANTI big government because I don't trust the government. If you do? You're ignorant of history - past and present.
The case is already out there. I read an article on cbc that was reporting some insane stuff around MAID, to the point of being scary: yes the government is trying to save money.
>The majority of persons receiving MAID during 2020 were reported as having cancer as their main underlying medical condition (69.1%). This is followed by cardiovascular conditions (13.8%), chronic respiratory conditions (11.3%) and neurological conditions (10.2%)
Some additional breakdowns:
>Cardiovascular conditions were the second most frequently cited main condition for persons receiving MAID. Congestive heart failure was the most frequently cited heart condition in this category (42.2%). Under respiratory conditions, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was the most frequently listed condition.
>Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, was the leading neurological condition reported for persons receiving MAID (35.2%), followed by Parkinson's disease (18.1%) multiple sclerosis (MS) (9.7%), and progressive supranuclear palsy (4.4%).
> The Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers, the leading organization of Canadian euthanasia providers, has sat on credible evidence by its own members that people are being driven to euthanasia by credit card debt, poor housing, and difficulties getting medical care.
Did I miss the actual concrete evidence this is being purposefully being used to reduce certain populations?
Not sure if I understand, but the article gives a number of examples, such as:
> Mary knows that she could control her pain if she could take vitamin pills, eat a special diet, and go to physiotherapy. She can’t afford it. “Mary identifies poverty as the driver of her MAID request,” Gibb-Carsley writes on a slide accompanying her talk, emphasizing the. “She does not want to die, but she’s suffering terribly and she’s been maxing out her credit cards. She has no other options.”
I'm wondering, does this example work as anti-euthanasia instead of pro-UBI to anyone reading it (or the rest of the article)?
It seems excessively cruel to me to try and force people to live in misery big enough to make the want to kill themselves instead of alleviating the misery. Like, the article seems to frame the argument that MAID can be used to lobby for better welfare as a ridiculous idea, but that's really it: if the only thing keeping people in your society from killing themselves that it's hard and scary, what the fuck is your society doing to these people.
I'm wondering, does this example work as anti-euthanasia instead of pro-UBI to anyone reading it (or the rest of the article)?
This is a perverse sort of argument. I'm in favor of social services (UBI or otherwise) sufficient to prevent homelessness. There are a lot problematic things situations in this society. But these aren't going away tomorrow - in our world homeless will be with us for a while and you shouldn't add to the problem of homelessness the problem of social services making it easy to just end your life if you're threatened with homelessness.
So what is the benefit of making it painful to end your life? They'll drown themselves out of sight and hopefully wash into the ocean? What is the solution to the suffering that making killing yourself harder brings?
Extreme poverty is a chronic condition for the vast majority of people and is a undisputed cause of suffering. It's curable, theoretically, but not in practice.
> The problem of the Canadian state offering to kill people who've lost their welfare benefits is something I know independently from this article.
Do share your sources, so that we can leave ideologically biased "gotcha" journalists to do their thing while we look at a real issue.
> The larger question should be discussed rather than this particular article's slant speculated on.
Indeed. The veteran with PTSD and suicidal thoughts did the right thing by calling out the person who invited them to MAID, and it was the right thing for the person to be sacked.
> I just down voted you in both place without needing any incentive.
It doesn't really matter what the intent of the government and medical establishment is; In fact, it may not even be coherent to attribute intent to such an entity. What matters is what the system does, and the evidence clearly indicates that the MAiD system is resulting in the deaths of the socially marginalised.
> the evidence clearly indicates that the MAiD system is resulting in the deaths of the socially marginalised
The enter point of the MAiD system is to result in deaths. I think the intent matters a lot. I don't think it's a cause for alarm if we find some subpopulations that use a medical service more than others. I do think it's alarming if people are scheming to kill poor people.
What practical utility does that perspective have? The precise intention of the creators of a scheme does not have any distinct impact on anyone else, and is incredibly difficult to verify.
That isn't a solution, its a personal ideology made manifest and an extreme response to the recent controversy around a veteran inappropriately offered MAID for PTSD and suicidal thoughts, for which the offeror was sacked.
There are legitimate, compassionate reasons to allow people the choice to die with dignity.
Murder: kill (someone) unlawfully and with premeditation.
As assisted suicide is lawful in Canada, the definition does not apply.
EDIT:
> Edit: He does not know. Oh I weep for this ignorant generation. The reckoning of this will be dear.
It has also been a long time since someone has thought of me as part of a rising generation. Decades, even. While I appreciate the thought that I am youthful and ignorant, I am neither.
I'd say any state-facilitated euthanasia needs to be extremely carefully considered in situations where suicide is a recommended and facilitated option to avoid homelessness and related disasters.
Of course, I'm also in favor of just not organizing benefits so that disabled people wind-up facing homelessness and so being willing to choose death.
And there's significant evidence on this thread that Canada isn't doing that serious consideration and that's a huge problem, a literal crime against humanity imo.
The whole argument against MAID feels ridiculously like the anti-abortion position. The other option to providing it is having them end their life in a way that might be risky or fail to succeed in a way that leaves them painfully scarred for life or suffering more than they had to.
Why are people forced to live if they don't want to?
I am sympathetic to those who wish for assisted suicide to prevent pain for diseases or illnesses they've succumbed to. I agree with your thesis that death may be preferential to suffering, and should be available to those who seek it.
On the other hand, there are articles like this[1], wherein the main factor for the requested euthanasia is income.
"But until recently, he was able to live comfortably, sharing his modest home in Medicine Hat, Alberta, with his service dog.
Changes to his state benefits when he turned 65 in May meant his income was cut and he's now left with around $120 per month after paying for medical bills and essentials."
The bogeyman against a state monopoly on medical care has long been that the state will seek cost effectiveness over quality of care, and this adds the additional paranoia of worrying over whether other social safety net programs may lean into the notion that perhaps it isn't as beneficial to fund those who are less productive members of society due to age or inability when it is easier to put them down.
I don't have a particular dog in the fight either way, but where I want medical assisted euthanasia to exist as an option against suffering, I have some concern that it could become encouraged for what I consider less appropriate ailments, like poverty.
My prediction is that this poor man is the leading edge of a massive tsunami that is heading towards Canadian shores. Housing/rent prices are beyond insane in Canada, we have 500k+ immigrants per year, and with food prices now on the rise 10% to 20% at least, I can't imagine how many people there are going to be who can't afford a roof over their heads.
And I've seen zero sign that this is even on the radar of government, though perhaps that's what MAID is for. At least it's an option to homelessness.
> I've seen zero sign that this is even on the radar of government
Perhaps you're being hyperbolic, but respectfully, if you really haven't seen any sign it doesn't feel like you've been looking that hard. There have been numerous steps for addressing both housing and food prices, and neither of those can be solved overnight.
> There have been numerous steps for addressing both housing and food prices
Raising interest rates .000001% would technically qualify as "a step".
So would enacting policies that have technically more than zero effect, but also contain gigantic loopholes (purely accidental oversights, I'm sure) that facilitate avoiding the proclaimed spirit/intent of the policies.
Government is largely theatre, the manipulation of the perception of the public (producing "not to worry!" attitudes among the public if done well). Housing costs have been a MAJOR problem for WAY over a decade (as can be seen in various charts), substantial serious action could have been taken long ago before it was too late, now there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people (recent buyers) in financial positions that could cripple them permanently, in addition to the MANY millions who remain in the position of likely never being able to afford a home (in a traditional sense of the word, or recommended ratios), or will be permanently poor due to having to spend a historically anomalous percentage of their income to just cover rent and food.
When a for-profit company pays for your {healthcare, education, prisons} the quality of that service will never be top priority. Profit will. Always.
One only needs to look at how high profits are in those sectors in the USA compared to other OECD countries, and then look at the quality of those services compared to other OECD countries.
Spolier: Americans pay the most, and get the worst.
For most of your life, the state is best aligned with keeping you healthy. The state's top priority is making sure you will be working and paying taxes, and you can't do that as well when you are sick.
The state will stop caring once you dont have prospects for paying more taxes, but before then, the state has your health as a higher priority than even you do. Eg. The government doesn't like it when teens do risky behaviour, and tries to stop it, because it will have bad health, and thus tax results.
I'd add that old people still vote, so the state or more exactly some political parties will still have a massive incentive to keep people alive as long as possible.
Regardless of age, healthcare scandals are a huge political risk so governments will always overspend to avoid them.
The comment you're responding to is like a singularity of wrong.
I was first thinking "private healthcare can fix this gap". But in Canada there's no private healthcare alternative. Here in Finland we have all the alternatives: public healthcare (municipal and government level), employment health care benefit, health insurance and then even private pay cash immediately healthcare. It's got some side effects.
In a bizarre twist, the city of Espoo, which has about the highest GDP per capita in the country, is struggling with their municipal public healthcare absolutely overwhelmed and in crisis. People come to the emergency room for ailments that could have been remedied way earlier in non-urgent regular booked office hours medical center visits. But the budget for those has not been there, you couldn't get an appointment.
Why is this happening? Certainly they would have the money - it looks like they aren't acting rationally. One theory is that since most of the voters in Espoo have good jobs with a great health care benefit, they don't vote for politicians that would put money to public healthcare.
The Canadian system of there being only the public healthcare system would actually "fix" that.
I think private options just cannibalize and parasitize public health services. I see it where I live in the UK and where I'm from in Romania.
In Romania it's just outright graft: public hospital doctors direct patients for cheap procedures to their private clinics and toss anything expensive back into the public system. The government pays for all treatments anyway, but public hospital budgets end up being harmed since 'profitable' treatments are being siphoned to the public sector(and doctors outright steal stuff from the public hospital).
In the UK it's a similar selection bias in what's treated privately leading to adverse selection effects for the public sector. Combined with consultant-cancer draining tons of money in order to figure out how to save money(hint: the money-saving solution is never firing the consultants). Society is getting older faster and the government is trying to cut costs on one of the cheapest healthcare systems in the OECD. Basically sabotage from the top down.
Similar effect happens with charter schools in the US, almost impossible to prevent adverse selection effects leading to increased problem-student concentration in the public schools.
Is privatization a better alternative then? In the US, private hospitals spent years cutting staff so they were entirely unable to deal with Covid numbers.
The US Healthcare system is shamelessly intertwined with the state to limit supply and extract rent.
Try to open a hospital and you will run into certificate of need laws who's primary objective flys in the face of supply and demand:
> A primary objective of state CON laws is to control health care costs by avoiding unnecessary expansion or duplicative services within an area.
Or simply try becoming a doctor in America; also known as assuming half a million dollars in debt and 8 years of college education and another 4 years of 'residency' a program where you work yourself to the bone for peanuts. All this courtesy of the professional organizations getting in bed with the state to limit competition and enrich themselves.
Let's not even discuss the pharma industry :).
Any discussion of bettering healthcare in the US that doesn't take on the rot at the core of the system is dead on arrival. Switching to a public solution tomorrow would just further enrich the cronies at the cost of the general public - and health outcomes would be largely unchanged.
I think it is more analogous to the laws prohibiting people from selling their own organs. The problem isn't that organ transplants are immoral, the problem is that allowing it can create perverse incentives especially for disadvantaged groups.
If you squint at MAID one way, you can see all the good it does for people who really need it. If you squint another way, you can see the medical system just killing off the people it failed.
I don't have a problem with people getting MAID, but I do have a problem with medical practitioners pushing it on people who want to live but can't get basic resources to deal with very manageable disabilities.
We ensure that there are thousands more of them, promote them, and ensure that they are rewarded for denying health care to as many people as possible (after collecting money from the victims).
We'd need to do a bit of branding on the whole thing, of course. We would first want to ensure that they are not medical professionals making these decisions. "Adjusters" has a nice ring to it.
We could build an entire industry out of this. And I think if we did all of that, many people's problems with euthanasia would be ameliorated.
Being counselled to suicide should be ineffective if they want to live, no? This isn’t a 30 hour police interrogation without food, water, or sleep. Options are presented, and in some cases living with the debilitating sickness is worse than suicide. I think if they want to live, it is likely they want to live if the debilitating illness wasn’t there, but given that fact they choose death.
There's a significant cultural aspect we need to consider, too.
Many Canadians, especially older ones who grew up when Canada was still a very high-trust society, have what could be described as a reverence for authority figures. This involves a significant degree of obedience, bordering on subservience.
Medical professionals are often among the most revered authority figures to these Canadians, even to the point of being seen as infallible. There are Canadians who won't question any advice made, nor any suggestions given, by these medical professionals.
If a medical professional were to recommend euthanasia to these kind of Canadians, even if it wasn't something that they really wanted to do, I think a significant proportion would feel obliged to go along with it, as irrational as this may seem.
This attitude became quite apparent over the last three years, when many Canadians completely bought into the many obviously nonsensical, and sometimes even outright harmful, policies being pushed by medical professionals and public health officials.
At the same time, however, those three years have been a significant eye-opener for some Canadians, too. For these people, the trust they once had in the various medical professions was completely shattered.
With a larger proportion of the Canadian population no longer trusting Canada's medical professionals and health care systems, it doesn't surprise me at all that we're starting to see more questioning of policies such as this one.
Roger Foley, who has a degenerative brain disorder and is hospitalized in London, Ontario, was so alarmed by staffers mentioning euthanasia that he began secretly recording some of their conversations.
In one recording obtained by the AP, the hospital’s director of ethics told Foley that for him to remain in the hospital, it would cost “north of $1,500 a day.” Foley replied that mentioning fees felt like coercion and asked what plan there was for his long-term care.
“Roger, this is not my show,” the ethicist responded. “My piece of this was to talk to you, (to see) if you had an interest in assisted dying.”
Foley said he had never previously mentioned euthanasia. The hospital says there is no prohibition on staff raising the issue.
Catherine Frazee, a professor emerita at Toronto’s Ryerson University, said cases like Foley’s were likely just the tip of the iceberg.
which makes sense to me, in a cynical way. euthanasia was an ethical debate, so it makes sense MAID administration would go in ethics department. then as a director, their performance reviews are probably a function the hospital's bottom line. MAID was even promoted as a cost-saving measure. which.. yeah. you can save a ton of money if you only take on healthy patients and kill off the medically complex cases (like me!)
for the record I'm in favor of assisted dying, as a personal decision, but government programs for the disabled are already quite terrible, and the conflict of interest is massive and brutal.
It varied by region, but in Canada we saw nonsensical and harmful policies like the lengthy forced shutdowns of businesses (causing job loss, business loss, and immense stress), lengthy school shutdowns and other education disruptions, curfews, coerced and forced medical procedures (testing, masking, shots), the clothing and shoes sections of retail stores being deemed "non-essential" and being taped off, golf courses and all outdoor playgrounds being closed in Ontario, and so on.
> I think a significant proportion would feel obliged to go along with it, as irrational as this may seem.
It doesn't sound irrational to me. It's doctor's job to describe the available options, possible outcomes, and give recommendations. With enough trust, stating euthanasia as one of the best paths implicitly says: everything else is likely worse - do you really want to go through suffering that has the same end result anyway. And there will be lots of situations where that's literally true.
"Being counselled to suicide should be ineffective if they want to live, no?"
It should but it's possible to push real hard. There are literally TV interviews where MAID participants are like "I would like to live but they convinced me it's for the better"
I'm actually personally fine with counseling people to die, even moderately aggressively. In many cases it's the right thing to do and we should probably be doing it more. The problem is that when there is a conflict of interest because the org that is telling you to die is the org that benefits from it.
Given this conflict at best the Canadian government should be providing death services for free and mentioning it is an option. And that's it. They should be letting other nonprofit orgs with no funding from the govt counsel people to die.
> Being counselled to suicide should be ineffective if they want to live, no?
The risk is that vulnerable populations such as the elderly and the sick will be (or are being) subjected to pressure. The case where a medical "ethicist" was trying to shame someone into accepting death because of the cost they were inflicting on the medical system was chilling, and convinced me that this was a real issue. Surely we can agree that we don't want that?
This is setting the bar far too low. The system should push people in the other direction, and it should not just be a gentle push. Doctors should push hard to keep patients alive because that's what the patient (or taxpayer) pays them for. I feel like I shouldn't have to say that.
That's a bit too simple view. Another case where the often applies is older people about to die, but family arrives and demands more active treatment and care. Known as the daughter from California syndrome https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/daughter_from_California_sy...
Doctor's job is to give available paths and explain possible outcomes, their likelihood and side effects. If your options are die today or die in 3 days while a machine breathes for you and you're drugged like crazy to avoid the pain... no, they shouldn't be pushing you to live.
Then, there's the whole range where it's not 3 days, but 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years, etc. with different levels of discomfort.
And the fact that your comment was getting downvoted is also stunning. The lack of empathy in these comment threads is astounding. From the general tone, it feels like there are many people who have never dealt with anyone who is severely depressed and just don't know how on the edge that position really is. It doesn't take much to convince someone who is severely depressed to finish it off. A doctor even bringing up the option may be enough to cause ideation, and yes it's much worse if the suggestion comes from an authority figure or someone who is ostensibly there for "your health."
Would you please stop posting ideological flamewar comments to HN, regardless of how right you are or feel you are? You're welcome to be on either side of this issue, but your comments are standing out in this thread as particularly inflammatory and battle-modey. That's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
Moreover, it looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle, or perilously close thereto. That's one line at which we ban accounts (see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...). If you'd please stop doing that, we'd appreciate it. We want curious conversation here.
Dang, you are a patient moderator. I know I'm walking on thin ice here, and have not forgotten our previous interactions. Your reminder to not switch topics has been greatly beneficial to my discussions here, and off site. Regrettably, I cannot change my tone on these topics.
A statement like "if they don't want to commit suicide, then suggesting it won't have an effect" does not deserve "curious" conversation.
I have attempted to use HN for curious discussion. A perusal of my most recent comments includes the AVR-GCC compiler, carrier override of cellphone settings, Montessori schools, ChatGPT, content moderation, failures of renewable energy, and humanity's propensity for counting in 1,000's.
Admittedly, the content moderation and failures of renewable energy were not received well, and were slightly contentious. But I do not see this as primarily using HN for ideological flamewars.
You are correct that my comments here are "battle mode-y". Frankly, because HN has become swamped with things that aren't about tech and curiosity, given the sisemic political shifts in the country. Daily there are topics about assisted suicide being wonderful, calls to play Russian roulette with psychoactive substances, ministries of Truth being the greatest thing ever, and Google flagging "black owned business" being a marvelous idea, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a bigot.
These ideas herald the end of society. They receive accolades from the userbase, and attempts at serious discussion are downvoted without so much as a reply. In short, there is already an invisible ideological battle occurring, for which there are no repercussions.
Euthanasia is a decision you will never regret. We force people to live if they don't want to because of other people's feelings. Per the article, 'many people are choosing euthanasia because they’re not getting the “supports and cares” they need.'. On one hand, someone ends their suffering and stops caring about any 'what if' scenarios. On the other hand, a lot of people feel bad and look bad because they were involved in creating and supporting or failing to support the system that failed to provide the support and care the deceased needed. And the surviving friends and relatives who do care about the lost potential.
> Why are people forced to live if they don't want to?
Because we live in a society, not some libertarian utopia of sovereign citizens. Your life doesn’t belong only to yourself, but it belongs to all of us. Your parents, your kids, your friends, your acquaintances. We are all affected by what you do to yourself and, concomitantly, get a say in it.
If a person belongs to the society, then sick, suffering people are not a value but a cost and killing them becomes net gain for society.
It's very dangerous to give away body autonomy freedom to the collective as it could be potentially weaponised to target not only sick, old and poor but political opponents as well.
your life belongs to you. the options to end it on your own terms is IMHO an act of ultimate freedom. the same way where you should be free to do whatever you want as long as your actions don't impair the freedom of someone else.
Bodily autonomy is not a libertarian -only ideal, and the way you've phrased it comes across as some sort of extreme collectivism. I'm curious if anyone has a name for this philosophy.
The reason why abortion and suicide are considered fair game for regulation by some people is that it has potentially drastic impacts on the future of everyone around you and theoretically society as a whole.
There is a nanny state to some degree in all societies, and if we are obligated to put cancer warnings on cigarettes I think preventing incentives loops that lead to medically encouraged suicide is also fair game.
No, your position is extreme individualism. Most societies have taboos on suicide. Attempted suicide was illegal in most of Europe and in America, and is still illegal in many countries ranging from India to Singapore. Assisted suicide remains illegal except in a handful of pathologically individualistic western countries.
I have bad news for you. You will never gain the ability to pick and choose what your taxes fund, and the other people paying taxes have entirely different sets of important things that they wish to fund, and different sets of things that they are horrified that their taxes are supporting.
> You will never gain the ability to pick and choose what your taxes fund
This is interesting to think about, though. Ideally people shouldn't be forced to pay for things they are opposed to, right? Or do we just take it for granted that is morally acceptable to be forced to do something if 51% of our representatives at some level of government say so?
What if wars were funded voluntarily? Perhaps we wouldn't have so many offensive wars. Wouldn't it be proper for drivers to pay all their associated costs, like a use tax? And property taxes if you want police and fire protection? Maybe opt-in for things like social security? Etc.
I understand this would be a significant change, and come with its own problems, and might not work for everything, given the way we currently govern ourselves. But doesn't the sentiment behind the idea has some merit, selling people on the idea of funding public works instead of forcing them? Maybe not everyone pays for everything, but does that need to be a deal breaker? If an idea doesn't have enough support to be voluntarily funded, perhaps it's not a good idea?
Last time I checked with some exceptions especially for very rich people can't just go and land in a country of their choice. It is a rather long process that often does not lead to desired outcome.
It's strikes me as worrisome that someone who's paid to perform euthenasia would also be in a position to counsel it to patients. That seems like a rather serious conflict of interest. Discussion of this sort of thing should only ever be initiated by the patient to an objective third party review board. I personally have serious concerns about the ethics of any doctor offering death as medical advice.
This is a weird article to me. It seems to criticize the program for not failing to adequately force people to live in a society that makes them want to die. It even quotes someone pointing out that a high usage rate by people driven to give up on life by out of control housing and cost of living prices without sufficient income, or those unable to afford other treatments could be a leverage for arguing for better designed welfare (UBI?) or markets - but it's framed as callous, ridiculous idea while we still make it "too easy to die"?
Like, I don't think people need a lot of help convincing themselves of not wanting to die unless they are already desperate, and making access to death harder is like forcing the homeless to take a one way bus to another town - you are just hiding the problem. As long as nobody is pushed to use the program, the same arguments that say "well, nobody is forcing you to take that shitty job/pay that exorbitant rent" apply.
It's just that in this case, the signal sent by multiple people choosing death over life because the system isn't working for then is very clearly "what the fuck are you doing to poor people", which is an uncomfortable question, so the impulse is to make access to death harder - then you can again ignore the fact that these people might commit suicide anyway, or suffer immensely, because that will show up just as mental illness or personal failure in the statistics
No, it is not more affordable. At least in France where assisted suicide is not an option (yes, we are a barbaric and coward country in some aspects).
As for the gift of happy, healthy and fulfilling life - you may want to have a word with my wife suffering from MS. It is fortunate that we have neighboring countries that are not as hypocrite as France is and where you can end your life when you want to.
> In multiple cases, veterans requesting help from Veterans Affairs Canada — at least one asked for PTSD treatment, another for a ramp for her wheelchair — were asked by case workers if they would like to apply for euthanasia.
This is such a conflict of interest. How are you supposed to trust organizations and people who, when you ask for help, might be motivated to take advantage of your vulnerability?
It's absurd that people will show their sick pets more compassion than fellow human beings when animals can't even voice their opinions on the matter. If someone sound of mind chooses to die, that should be their right.
I don't know if people view euthanasia as being more compassionate towards their pets.
I think many people view it as being selfish. Killing the pet to avoid the hassle of dealing with it's illness and avoid the expense of it's medical care.
I don't particularly agree, I think it can be compassionate but also understand where this view comes from.
Every dog owner I’ve talked to about the end of life of their prior pets mentions how hard it was to let go. The selfish act is to preserve the relationship with your pet for your own emotional needs, and peace comes once you acknowledge the suffering of the animal.
The expense of medical care for pets is often the wrong way of looking at it. A dog doesn’t understand chemotherapy, it only knows it feels really sick. It doesn’t understand invasive surgery, it just knows pain, and wearing the cone of shame. Dogs don’t have the same inner life that we do, so a lot of medical interventions would cause a lot of suffering for what, a few months more life?
And if you don’t want the hassle of dealing with a pet’s illness, don’t get a pet. The relationship you build with a pet should make you understand you owe them your loyalty in the bad times, not just the good.
I have literally never heard of someone who killed their pet to avoid the hassle of dealing with illness. I have heard of multiple people that kept the pet alive and kept pumping in more and more expensive treatments because they could not let go.
Killing a pet that is practically family and has been part of your life for 10+ years is not something people do to avoid responsibility.
Because you're probably middle class. Talk to vets and you'll learn one of the worst parts of the job is euthanizing animals because people cannot afford or don't have the time to provide treatment for them.
I suspected as much. It must be heartbreaking to have to put your pet down because you cannot afford the treatment. Otoh, if you cannot afford the treatment should you get a pet in the 1st place? (Yes, i know that things are not created equal and probably I come at this from a privileged position)
Pets are an amazing part of peoples lives and absolutely should not just be a privilege for those wealthy enough to pay for expensive medicine and frequent vet visits.
This is kind of a pointless question imo. Animals are dirt cheap to feed, compared to the cost of adoptions and such. Yes you can get pets for free, if a stray walks up to you or something, but honestly the animal itself is the expensive part usually. If you truly cannot afford to feed a pet, you're probably so poor you'd be considering eating an animal instead of keeping it as a pet anyways.
The real question is what minimum standard of care is acceptable for humans to provide for their pets. Is it actually compassionate to take your animal to the vet, where they are scared? To have surgery done on the animal, even if it's lifesaving? The animal cannot consent so we are assuming that what we want is best. Same with end of life choices.
Edit: I was also thinking, consider the alternative for an animal at a shelter that no one is adopting. They either live in a kennel more or less at a no-kill shelter until they die, or they are put down. Compared to that, being adopted by a loving person and given a warm place to live, fed and sheltered, seems like a better life to me even if the animal eventually gets sick and put down instead of getting medical treatment.
The truth is that most pet animals don't really have any other place in modern society and given that context it seems like being a pet that gets just the basic comforts of life is always better than being a stray or shelter animal.
It's sad really that we live in a society where we value a pet's life over the life of a fellow human being that is struggling. That does not mean encouraging people to kill themselves - but I strongly agree that the option should be there and people should be free to exercise it if that's what they want to do.
Seems like a stretching propaganda hit piece from the anti-abortion crowd stretching into calling the "current" Canadian Government in power a "regime" that kills poor people by...get this...convincing doctors to convincingly get poor and unhealthy people to go past every fucking alarm bell and human instinct and literally kill themselves with their assistance to somehow be less of a burden on the state? Somehow a small group of people killing themselves will make any difference financially or politically somehow to a country or party? And every comment against it seems downvoted, yeah ok....
The breakdown of MAID by main condition is interesting, and suggests that the vast majority (~70%) are cancer patients avoiding a painful, prolonged and terrible death.
This would also suggest that once we get even better at cancer treatments, the rate of people dying to MAID will drop dramatically.
Later in the stats, ~80% of people have lost the ability to engage in activities of daily life (which IMO is a terrible place to be).
I don't think your reference supports your claim at all. In fact, it suggests that it's doing exactly what it is meant to do: ending unnecessary suffering for those who are dying of diseases we don't yet have a cure to.
There have also been many reports of people, mostly disabled, who are unable to work or afford rent in Ontario, who have applied to medically assisted death rather than face homelessness. This might be both brinksmanship and gamesmanship, but it's extremely distasteful that we are here as a society.
Your claim requires some specific evidence (reports meaning one, two, ten?), and that would need to be both weighed against the immense relief in suffering enjoyed by the people who are demonstrably benefiting now, as well as the freedom for people to control their own destiny.
You're of course welcome to be on either side of this issue, but please edit swipes like that out of your comments here. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
> go past every fucking alarm bell and human instinct
This is mind blowingly archaic as an attitude and very dangerous. Maybe you don’t know many people or are lucky to only be surrounded by mentally healthy individuals but many in the spectrum of depression and other ailments which are pretty common feel suicidal. They fight the urge not to consider this fate. If a doctor comes and tells them maybe you should consider killing your self, it’s alright, I’ll help you, guess what, they’re going to feel utterly helpless.
Agreed that MAD for cancer patients and patients with unimaginable incurable chronic pain is not bad, but there needs to be immense scrutiny into every case where this dangerous tool is used for people who have mental disorders.
It's a real weird wedge issue for sure. Many stories portraying poor and disabled people resorting to MAID are being pushed by historically conservative and right leaning publications (ex. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11516989/Canadian-m...).
MAID didn't create or change the conditions these people are in and it's not like the Conservatives pushing this narrative are known for anything but outrage and cuts to social safety nets..
> But the CAMAP recordings plainly suggest that exactly this is happening, that euthanasia workers know it, and that they are acting with no urgency to stop it.
One example: this is an assertion made from cherrypicked quotes above. Having seen apologists and detractors from other domains sets off a red flag when this happens.
Is it "factual error"? Depends. Do you consider logical fallacies to be factual errors? I encourage a re-read of the article with skepticism.
70% of the Canadians reported cancer as the reason for MAID. It sounds like thousands of Californians are experiencing unnecessary and extended end of life suffering.