5 ms·

These are all excellent examples of how MAID should be used, I think the concerning thing is the widening of the eligibility criteria - especially when things l

These are all excellent examples of how MAID should be used, I think the concerning thing is the widening of the eligibility criteria - especially when things like mental illness start to make you eligible. Like... If your illness makes you suicidal... Is offering assisted suicide REALLY the best we can do? That starts to feel a lot like "eghh you're too hard for society to care about... We'll just let you die". As horrible as this might sound, often it's failed suicide attempts that actually are the catalysts for people being able to get their lives back on track... What happens in a society where the government helps facilitate suicide and there's never any "attempts" anymore... Just successes...

navane 2y ago
That concerns a small minority of cases, the vast majority is elderly dying people who want to keep their dignity. By steering the discussion to that minority, which even itself is still debatable, you risk flushing the child with the bath water.
- larme 2y ago
  The same logic applies to capital punishment
  - cocacola1 2y ago
    I don't think Canada has the death penalty.
  - addicted 2y ago
    I don’t follow. How does this apply to capital punishment?
    - itake 2y ago
      Many people are opposed to capital punishment due to the small minority of innocent folks it eliminates. > By steering the discussion to that [innocent] minority, which even itself is still debatable, you risk flushing the child with the bath water [and killing the really bad criminals].
      - areoform 2y ago
        There's a difference. The people with MAID choose to die. When innocent people are killed via capital punishment, they have no choice. And it's not a "small minority" either. We don't have good numbers, but it's significant enough to be over 22% or roughly 1 in 5. That's not a small minority. For Florida, since 1973, 30 people awaiting execution have been exonerated so far. The state has executed 106 people. Out of 136 cases, 30 were shown to be innocent beyond any reasonable doubt. I have no doubt that there might be other innocent people within the 106 that were executed. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence/innocence-by-the-numbers https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence/innocen... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_in_Florida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_in_Flo...
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  By hesitating to discuss, you enable bureaucrats to suggest maid when they want to save money instead of treating a disability (which has already happened in the case of the Olympian).
  - defrost 2y ago
    The single bureacrat in question was flagged, investigated, and removed from contact with veterans. Their action in suggesting MAID was not policy, was rapidly caught, and was the subject of a very public inquiry. Had the suggestion been followed up by the veterens in question there were layers in place, interviews and checks, to make sure that MAID was both desired and appropriate.
    - mensetmanusman 2y ago
      This is like trusting people to behave while owning guns. Curse of knowledge writ large.
      - defrost 2y ago
        It's a demonstration that the system currently in place has verification checks. No one was killed against their will here. There's a legitimate debate to be had on the question of whether it was even wrong to alert an injured veteren that MAID was an option given they had the free will and the gumption to reply No way, Feck off, Not interested. The onus here should be on secondary interviews sorting out whether a person really did have insurmountable chronic pain and problems or whether they were depressed and lacked resources to deal with a situation.
        mensetmanusman 2y ago
        There have been people killed against their will at the time because they previously signed something to ignore their future self.
        2y ago
defrost 2y ago
I'm with @navane, you're concerned about what is very much a minority edge case. Still, I'll bite - it's a good thing. Why? Well an official path to suicide, as per the arrangements already in place, comes with layers of professional guidance and counselling. It's not a dispassionate "wave 'em through" treadmill of corpse creation. The best thing for young people with suicidal affixations is to talk to them and take their concerns seriously, correctly established this could arguably reduce teen suicides by recognising the problem, giving the at risk a place to go, requiring them to detail why they want to die, etc. If you want to take a dim view of faceless government motivations then you might ask yourself why such a souless collective would want to deprive itself of a potential taxpayer before they've even really started to chip in.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - kareemm 2y ago
    > The primary goal is to physically exterminate the population. Um, source?
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      [flagged]
- llamaLord 2y ago
  I get your point, but there are already MULTIPLE examples of people combining the mental-health component + some externality that is fundamentally a societal failing and coming to the conclusion that MAID is the optimal outcome. "An expert committee reviewing euthanasia deaths in Canada’s most populous province has identified several cases in which patients asked [AND WERE APPROVED] to be killed in part for social reasons such as isolation and fears of homelessness, raising concerns over approvals for vulnerable people in the country’s assisted dying system." - "Another case focused on Ms B, a woman in her 50s suffering from multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome, who had a history of mental illness including suicidality and post-traumatic stress disorder. She was socially isolated and asked to die largely because she could not get proper housing, according to the report." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/17/canada-nonterminal-maid-assisted-death https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/17/canada-nonterm...
MegaDeKay 2y ago
"Some provisions are in place, including a requirement of having two independent healthcare providers confirm that the patient is eligible before their request is approved."
- llamaLord 2y ago
  Oh well that settles it then, because TWO medical professionals could never get something wrong, could they?
TexanFeller 2y ago
Suicide is the ultimate “my body, my choice” issue, even more than abortion is. It’s monstrous to force someone with severe mental health problems to live if they don’t want to. I live an incredible life now that people envy, but I’ve had been through torturous mental health problems in the past. If I knew I had to face a year or two of my dark times again and I’d have 50 more years of my great life afterward I’m not sure if I’d choose to live.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  They should do a study where they do fake maids (like catching a jumper) and then seeing if they regret living another month.
  - dns_snek 2y ago
    Are you calling for nonconsensual human experiments that will (depending on the outcome) either inflict grave emotional injury onto people who are already so badly injured that they want to die, or that'll be used as a justification for stripping people of their bodily autonomy?
    - mensetmanusman 2y ago
      Yes, like catching people with nets who jump off bridges (and a vast majority are thankful of it).
      - alphan0n 2y ago
        MAID is the net in the context of impulse driven suicide. If a person’s natural death is not reasonably foreseeable, there is a 90 day assessment period.
        mensetmanusman 2y ago
        The government defines reasonable to save money. I’m surprised at people who think bureaucrats like those from the motor vehicle licensing departments will be able to handle such decisions.
DanHulton 2y ago
If you are sufficiently mentally ill and determined enough to die that you get through the MAID screening, counselling, information sessions, etc, then you are determined enough to die by other, messier, likely more painful, certainly more traumatizing to the people around you methods. As well, mental illness is not just a state of mind. Sure, there are stories where a failed suicide attempt was the catalyst for someone finally being able to reach out for help, there are also the stories where people have been reaching out for help forever, and help's just not coming. Where they can't afford the medication, or no medication seems to work, or they have an addiction problem and there just isn't any way for them to get into a treatment program, etc. Not to mention the stories where their attempt left them powerfully sick and/or disabled. We're talking near-miss fatalities here -- recovery from those is rarely painless, quick, or complete. This isn't a case of medical professionals and program officials just not caring. These eligibility criteria are very carefully considered. In fact, they're SO carefully considered that they've delayed eligibility for MAID due solely to mental illness THREE TIMES to ensure proper safeguards are in place. Currently, it's pushed back to 2027, so we're not even talking about anything that is even a present-day concern. (https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/ad-am/bk-di.html#s1_1 https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/ad-am/bk-di.html#s1_1)
- kstenerud 2y ago
  My wife helped a friend die in Germany 10 years ago. He'd acquired some cyanide, which resulted in a long, protracted death because he took too much and vomited most of it up. It was messy, painful and traumatic, but she sat with him until the end. When someone is determined enough to die, they find a way.
  - jamal-kumar 2y ago
    That's wild, because in my understanding it's an indictable offence to aid and abet someone to end their own lives in Canada. Like more than 10 years jail https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-241.html https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-241.ht... Counselling or aiding suicide 241 (1) Everyone is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than 14 years who, whether suicide ensues or not, (a) counsels a person to die by suicide or abets a person in dying by suicide; or (b) aids a person to die by suicide. The document goes on to detail the medical exemptions we're talking about here. What's the law in Germany?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
datavirtue 2y ago
Oh well. You don't need to nanny everyone. They have probably tried all the drugs that have made it all worse. You don't have any real context for someones personal decision like this.

navane 2y ago

That concerns a small minority of cases, the vast majority is elderly dying people who want to keep their dignity. By steering the discussion to that minority, which even itself is still debatable, you risk flushing the child with the bath water.

larme 2y ago
The same logic applies to capital punishment
- cocacola1 2y ago
  I don't think Canada has the death penalty.
- addicted 2y ago
  I don’t follow. How does this apply to capital punishment?
  - itake 2y ago
    Many people are opposed to capital punishment due to the small minority of innocent folks it eliminates. > By steering the discussion to that [innocent] minority, which even itself is still debatable, you risk flushing the child with the bath water [and killing the really bad criminals].
    - areoform 2y ago
      There's a difference. The people with MAID choose to die. When innocent people are killed via capital punishment, they have no choice. And it's not a "small minority" either. We don't have good numbers, but it's significant enough to be over 22% or roughly 1 in 5. That's not a small minority. For Florida, since 1973, 30 people awaiting execution have been exonerated so far. The state has executed 106 people. Out of 136 cases, 30 were shown to be innocent beyond any reasonable doubt. I have no doubt that there might be other innocent people within the 106 that were executed. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence/innocence-by-the-numbers https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence/innocen... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_in_Florida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_executed_in_Flo...
mensetmanusman 2y ago
By hesitating to discuss, you enable bureaucrats to suggest maid when they want to save money instead of treating a disability (which has already happened in the case of the Olympian).
- defrost 2y ago
  The single bureacrat in question was flagged, investigated, and removed from contact with veterans. Their action in suggesting MAID was not policy, was rapidly caught, and was the subject of a very public inquiry. Had the suggestion been followed up by the veterens in question there were layers in place, interviews and checks, to make sure that MAID was both desired and appropriate.
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    This is like trusting people to behave while owning guns. Curse of knowledge writ large.
    - defrost 2y ago
      It's a demonstration that the system currently in place has verification checks. No one was killed against their will here. There's a legitimate debate to be had on the question of whether it was even wrong to alert an injured veteren that MAID was an option given they had the free will and the gumption to reply No way, Feck off, Not interested. The onus here should be on secondary interviews sorting out whether a person really did have insurmountable chronic pain and problems or whether they were depressed and lacked resources to deal with a situation.
      - mensetmanusman 2y ago
        There have been people killed against their will at the time because they previously signed something to ignore their future self.
        2y ago

defrost 2y ago

I'm with @navane, you're concerned about what is very much a minority edge case. Still, I'll bite - it's a good thing. Why? Well an official path to suicide, as per the arrangements already in place, comes with layers of professional guidance and counselling. It's not a dispassionate "wave 'em through" treadmill of corpse creation. The best thing for young people with suicidal affixations is to talk to them and take their concerns seriously, correctly established this could arguably reduce teen suicides by recognising the problem, giving the at risk a place to go, requiring them to detail why they want to die, etc. If you want to take a dim view of faceless government motivations then you might ask yourself why such a souless collective would want to deprive itself of a potential taxpayer before they've even really started to chip in.

carlosjobim 2y ago
[flagged]
- kareemm 2y ago
  > The primary goal is to physically exterminate the population. Um, source?
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    [flagged]
llamaLord 2y ago
I get your point, but there are already MULTIPLE examples of people combining the mental-health component + some externality that is fundamentally a societal failing and coming to the conclusion that MAID is the optimal outcome. "An expert committee reviewing euthanasia deaths in Canada’s most populous province has identified several cases in which patients asked [AND WERE APPROVED] to be killed in part for social reasons such as isolation and fears of homelessness, raising concerns over approvals for vulnerable people in the country’s assisted dying system." - "Another case focused on Ms B, a woman in her 50s suffering from multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome, who had a history of mental illness including suicidality and post-traumatic stress disorder. She was socially isolated and asked to die largely because she could not get proper housing, according to the report." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/17/canada-nonterminal-maid-assisted-death https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/17/canada-nonterm...

MegaDeKay 2y ago

"Some provisions are in place, including a requirement of having two independent healthcare providers confirm that the patient is eligible before their request is approved."

llamaLord 2y ago
Oh well that settles it then, because TWO medical professionals could never get something wrong, could they?

TexanFeller 2y ago

Suicide is the ultimate “my body, my choice” issue, even more than abortion is. It’s monstrous to force someone with severe mental health problems to live if they don’t want to. I live an incredible life now that people envy, but I’ve had been through torturous mental health problems in the past. If I knew I had to face a year or two of my dark times again and I’d have 50 more years of my great life afterward I’m not sure if I’d choose to live.

mensetmanusman 2y ago
They should do a study where they do fake maids (like catching a jumper) and then seeing if they regret living another month.
- dns_snek 2y ago
  Are you calling for nonconsensual human experiments that will (depending on the outcome) either inflict grave emotional injury onto people who are already so badly injured that they want to die, or that'll be used as a justification for stripping people of their bodily autonomy?
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    Yes, like catching people with nets who jump off bridges (and a vast majority are thankful of it).
    - alphan0n 2y ago
      MAID is the net in the context of impulse driven suicide. If a person’s natural death is not reasonably foreseeable, there is a 90 day assessment period.
      - mensetmanusman 2y ago
        The government defines reasonable to save money. I’m surprised at people who think bureaucrats like those from the motor vehicle licensing departments will be able to handle such decisions.

DanHulton 2y ago

If you are sufficiently mentally ill and determined enough to die that you get through the MAID screening, counselling, information sessions, etc, then you are determined enough to die by other, messier, likely more painful, certainly more traumatizing to the people around you methods. As well, mental illness is not just a state of mind. Sure, there are stories where a failed suicide attempt was the catalyst for someone finally being able to reach out for help, there are also the stories where people have been reaching out for help forever, and help's just not coming. Where they can't afford the medication, or no medication seems to work, or they have an addiction problem and there just isn't any way for them to get into a treatment program, etc. Not to mention the stories where their attempt left them powerfully sick and/or disabled. We're talking near-miss fatalities here -- recovery from those is rarely painless, quick, or complete. This isn't a case of medical professionals and program officials just not caring. These eligibility criteria are very carefully considered. In fact, they're SO carefully considered that they've delayed eligibility for MAID due solely to mental illness THREE TIMES to ensure proper safeguards are in place. Currently, it's pushed back to 2027, so we're not even talking about anything that is even a present-day concern. (https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/ad-am/bk-di.html#s1_1 https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/ad-am/bk-di.html#s1_1)

kstenerud 2y ago
My wife helped a friend die in Germany 10 years ago. He'd acquired some cyanide, which resulted in a long, protracted death because he took too much and vomited most of it up. It was messy, painful and traumatic, but she sat with him until the end. When someone is determined enough to die, they find a way.
- jamal-kumar 2y ago
  That's wild, because in my understanding it's an indictable offence to aid and abet someone to end their own lives in Canada. Like more than 10 years jail https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-241.html https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-241.ht... Counselling or aiding suicide 241 (1) Everyone is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than 14 years who, whether suicide ensues or not, (a) counsels a person to die by suicide or abets a person in dying by suicide; or (b) aids a person to die by suicide. The document goes on to detail the medical exemptions we're talking about here. What's the law in Germany?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

datavirtue 2y ago

Oh well. You don't need to nanny everyone. They have probably tried all the drugs that have made it all worse. You don't have any real context for someones personal decision like this.