This opens some uncomfortable doors for people who have a severe negative and abusive view towards drug addicts.
I know multiple doctors involved in the panels that make these decisions and the people that have negative and abusive views towards drug addicts don’t really get input into this process.
If you can find a panel of doctors stack full of fucking assholes who want addicted people to die. That’s a different story, but I would argue the people I know involved in this processing. Canada albeit just a few of them are genuinely good people who don’t judge you for the issues you’re going through and just want you to be helped and at peace.
Yeah the risk with panels: look at the SCJ right now. Its supposed to be an ethics committee but almost all of them got in there doesn’t have a shred of ethics.
So if you’re relying on a panel of voted doctors It’s just a bribe away from complete negligence and apathy to human life over a slight inconvenience and $$.
It’s not exactly prime objective material.
If you’re wondering how fun this could get, here’s an article from the National Post arguing that poverty should be a qualifier for assisted suicide
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-medical-aid-in-dying
Here’s another where a woman with sensitivities to various chemical smells chose to die because she couldn’t find an apartment that was affordable and didn’t reek of noxious chemicals
The people who are worried about this aren’t worried about people who genuinely want to die committing suicide. It was always nearly impossible to stop them anyway, and there’s no way to change that. What we’re worried about is people being pushed toward MAID because they’ve been systemically denied things they need to live that are absolutely available. We’re worried about mentally ill people being told “do the right thing, don’t be a burden” when they want to live. We’re worried about suicide becoming the answer to problems that are caused by social and legislative conditions. We’re worried about becoming the kind of society where, rather than help one another, it’s expected that anyone who needs help just off themselves.
This is all coming from someone who tried twice and will be eternally grateful that I managed to fuck it up both times.
This is the best answer.
I think everybody deserves the right to end their life in a humane way.
I think you should never have to feel that suicide is your only option because material conditions outside of your control suck so hard.
Having people kill themselves because they can’t afford to live is the opposite of humane.
Within reason.
But if the reason given is because classists don’t want you dirtying up their sidewalk with a wheelchair ramp, that’s just unreasonable.
This is what the anti-suicide crowd fucking told you would happen if you legitimized or legalized suicide, and now that it’s happening, you’re once again refusing to connect it with supporting bad policies with no thought or consideration for the consequences.
But you’re not the one who’s gonna suffer so why should you give a shit, amirite? 🤷
I love it when people are so fired up that they yell at me for agreeing with them
I love it when you are so hopped up on the smell of your own shit that you give away you’re just being a skeevy fuck by trying to make the discussion all about your opponent’s emotions and not about the topic at hand.
You didn’t consider at all what I said isn’t only directed at you, but who cares as long as you get to win something?
What we’re worried about is people being pushed toward MAID because they’ve been systemically denied things they need to live that are absolutely available.
Like here, where you are steadfastly defending assisted suicide and not acknowledging anywhere this is what opponents told you would happen. And you argue you want it both ways afterward and you don’t get that you can’t have it both ways; humanity is too immature and tyrannical for that, so if you want to save the impoverished people being targeted for suicide, you have to ban ALL legally assisted suicide outright. There is no middle ground with depraved fucks in western governments.
But you don’t care about the topic, you just want to win an argument on the internet. Well, here’s your trophy 🏆 But the policy is still bad and you’re still wrong for defending it.
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Facts. Facts
I got close to trying several times. I suffer from anxiety and depression, I’m obsessive but I love life. I just wish I could solve my mental issues. Offing yourself is not a solution. It’s like I have a math question in front of me and I rip up the paper and toss it in a can.
Glad you pushed through this.
As someone with a disability, this is one of my biggest fears: Social pressure to seek assisted suicide.
I’m glad you made it here.
As a mental health professional, the slow leaning towards mental health issues being a qualification for MAID is terrifying.
Your comment brings up the most relevant point against MAID and it’s clear we can be a better society than one which pushes people over the edge, or let’s them fall despite their pleas.
I too am glad that you managed to fuck it up and that you’re here with us.
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The government: Can’t function well enough to perform tasks that increase the GDP? We have a drug for that.
Lord have mercy. Canada has lost their minds.
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Long time ago, so I heard but it seems they are still “sinking” deeper.
“Canada has just announced that people claiming that Canada has ‘lost their minds’ are now eligible for mandatory assisted suicide.”
“Canada announces technology that allows anybody, anywhere in the world to undergo mandatory medically assisted ‘suicide’ without consenting or being informed beforehand said operation”
will be expanded next March to give access to people whose sole medical condition is mental illness, which can include substance use disorders.
So not drug use, but mental health conditions which the government considers drug addiction to be.
This will never be used by a drug addict. It will be used by people with untreatable and severe schizophrenia or similar afflictions. If you don’t want to live in a nightmare world with no hope I think it should be your right to end it peacefully.
I get suicide makes people uncomfortable, but you’re uncomfortable with it in a cozy apartment and good health. You think your protecting vulnerable people from a big scary government, but you’re just forcing them to suffer needlessly.
Good to see at least someone around here has some fucking clue regarding the purpose of this law…
- Just “feeling mentally unwell”, as another commenter put it, is not enough to qualify. The law specifically requires the applicant “experience unbearable physical or mental suffering from your illness, disease, disability or state of decline that cannot be relieved under conditions that you consider acceptable” and “be in an advanced state of decline that cannot be reversed”
- If someone makes a “request for medical assistance in dying, 2 independent medical practitioners (physicians or nurse practitioners) must assess it.”
And that’s just a couple of the high bars one must clear to qualify.
But, I can say this about Lemmy: given the quality of the discussion on this post, this place really has turned into an excellent replacement for Reddit!
It’s totally different information from the OP.
It’s probably reasonable for untreatable patients who suffer to no end.Exactly.
It’s a hard argument, but untreatable depression can technically be terminal.
If mine weren’t treatable, it would be.
Assisted suicide and euthanasia are messy subjects, but it’s just so awful to not allow this for situations where we’d consider it cruel if an animal were in the same situation.
We can provide a “good death” to people who have nothing but suffering left in their life.
If my time comes, I’ll take it in my own hands, but the fear is that something will happen where I can suddenly no longer make that decision.
“We’d consider it cruel if an animal where in the same situation”
Mercy killing animals isn’t an actual thing, they can’t possibly consent. The reality is that we kill animals at will for basically any reason, so we have no problem lying to ourselves that we are performing a mercy killing.
You are making no sense.
I have pet ducks.
Most recently one had a problem with bone loss in its femoral head. It couldn’t walk much at all and was getting further injuries because of that. The other ducks would also leave it behind. Being alone is very stressful for a duck.
You can’t do a hip replacement on a duck. They wouldn’t understand or be able to recover. In any case, she’d easily get picked off by a daytime predator. Eaten alive.
You better believe that euthanasia was the best course of action for her.
So you read the duck’s mind? Do you think the duck even has a conception of what death is? According to you it wouldn’t even understand a hip replacement. Why are you assuming that it therefore wishes for death?
Anyway the point of this is that killing the duck is permissible because killing ducks is always permissible. The delusion that you are making the best decision for it is impossible to know. And more importantly it is completely irrelevant to the permissibility of killing humans.
The criteria by which we are able to kill mentally incapable animals (species membership or even low mental ability) is not the same by which we can argue for assisted suicide. Because humans and ducks are radically different objects with different inherent moral valuations.
Additionally consider that your comparison is morally relevant. If it is permissible to mercy kill ducks based solely on presentation, without being able to determine the ducks desires. Then it follows that we can kill humans based on presentation alone as long as we don’t know there desires. Even worse if we undermine the validity of there expression of desire it is permissible to kill them anyway.
“Look this paraplegic wants to live, they must be delusional who would want live like that, time to get the MAID”.
Even stupid films like Million Dollar Baby, embed the perception that disabled people just want to die.
As much as people want to be nice and give people whatever they want, it is without question that as soon as you permit others to actively kill other people, it’s going to be open to abuse and severe ethical consequences. The history of MAID is a fine example of that, it’s expansion was actually made by a court decision to make the law more consistent. True logical consistency would naturally follow to permit assisting suicide in all cases, after all why are we discriminating against people with very temporary conditions. Clearly they are just as capable of experiencing suffering as any other person.
This place is full of raving lunatics.
I’m not used to a world where left wing thoughts are this stupid and ill informed. That’s the realm of right wing media, ime.
You’re not even acknowledging any of my argument.
It’s so fucking weird.
You think
No, people against assisted suicide are likely the same types that say “life begins at conception” or “the death penalty is perfectly fine the way it is”. I don’t think they think beyond how they can control other people’s lives.
You don’t fucking know that. Stop supporting bad policies you know are harmful.
How this works in real life:
Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) is a process through which a doctor or nurse practitioner assists an individual, at their request, to intentionally end their life[2]. The process for MAID in Canada involves the following steps:
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Eligibility: To access MAID in Canada, you must meet specific eligibility criteria. You must be at least 18 years old, capable of making decisions with respect to your health, and have asked for MAID yourself without any pressure from others. You must also have a grievous and irremediable medical condition, which means that you have a serious and incurable illness, disease, or disability, you are in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability, and your illness, disease, or disability causes you enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable to you and cannot be relieved under conditions that you consider acceptable[5].
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Request: If you wish to request MAID, your health care provider will ask you to complete and submit the Request for Medical Assistance in Dying form. By submitting this form, you are formally asking for MAID and stating that you believe you meet all the eligibility criteria[2].
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Assessment: Two independent medical practitioners must assess your eligibility for MAID. They will review your medical history, conduct a physical examination, and discuss your options for care. They will also discuss your decision with you to ensure that you are making an informed choice[2].
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Final Consent: You must provide final consent immediately before receiving MAID. You can withdraw your request for MAID at any time and in any manner, even if you are found eligible for MAID[4].
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Procedure: MAID can happen in one of two ways: a doctor or nurse practitioner gives a drug to the patient that causes the patient’s death, or a doctor or nurse practitioner prescribes a drug for a person, at the person’s request, that the person can swallow and cause their own death[5].
The 2021 revisions to Canada’s MAID law enhance data collection and reporting to provide a more comprehensive picture of how MAID is being implemented in Canada, including under the new provisions. The monitoring regime is important to supporting transparency and public trust in how MAID is being delivered[1].
Citations: [1] Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) law - Department of Justice https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/ad-am/bk-di.html [2] Medical Assistance in Dying - Provincial Health Services Authority http://www.phsa.ca/health-info/medical-assistance-in-dying [3] Medical assistance in dying: Overview - Canada.ca https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-services-benefits/medical-assistance-dying.html [4] Get the facts on MAID | Dying With Dignity Canada https://www.dyingwithdignity.ca/end-of-life-support/get-the-facts-on-maid/ [5] MAiD - End-of-Life Law and Policy in Canada http://eol.law.dal.ca/?page_id=2472 [6] A medically assisted death - Canadian Virtual Hospice https://www.virtualhospice.ca/maid/articles/a-medically-assisted-death/
Except all of that is bullshit now, because now they’re allowing drug addiction to be a qualifying condition to get assisted suicide, and you’re trying to cover up how fucked up that is with outdated information and lies.
Jesus Christ, people. Just because you want a policy in place doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful. Would it fucking kill you to be honest about one damn thing?
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Given that the intent here is to make assisted suicide legal for people who by definition are not of sound mind what protections are in place for people who would qualify for assisted suicide by way of mental health issues but also might not be fully competent to make this decision themselves? Who can step in and say that the patient actually is competent, and by what standards is that judged? Who can step in and say a patient that wants assisted suicide is not competent, or has been manipulated? I’m not worried about people who are genuinely suffering, the fact is we’ve never been able to stop them from killing themselves and we never will be. I’m worried about someone putting poison in the ear of someone with a treatable disorder, convincing them to “do the right thing and not be a burden”.
Not many really ever look into safeguards of these programs and let their imaginations take the reins. Here’s the basics of MAID.
The things you need to get the process started is sign off from two doctors or nurse practitioners from two completely independant medical practices who are not directly involved in any long term care planning for the patient and are not experiencing any financial incentive. Doctors are allowed to refuse participation for any reason. They also must have demonstrated expertise in treatment of the condition for which someone is using as their reason for seeking MAID.
In the event of a non terminal illness one also needs a witness to back up your decision to pursue MAID to sign off on all the papers. There are some restrictions about who can count as a witness but in addition to those this person cannot :
-benefit from your death -be an unpaid caregiver -be an owner or operator of a health care facility where you live or are receiving care
The law requires all other potential services and harm reduction strategies be discussed as options and made available and stress is to be put on that you can opt out of the process at any time.
Once the paperwork is signed it begins a 90 day minimum assessment period. Witnesses found to be in violation of any of the witness or doctor restrictions are liable to be criminally charged.
People without decision making capacity are ineligible to apply for MAID. If their case is degenerative they can waive their final consent requirements but people can legally specify under a different program in palliative care a pre-determined termination criteria to pick what level of mental degeneration activates the order and it must be signed off on while the person is of sound mind or else your only choice is a naturally occuring death.
Lastly the final assessment requires active consent and cannot be in a state judged to be mentally incapable of decision making authority unless they previously waived that requirement. The person must be given every opportunity to opt out.
Finally the assessment request now requires a mandatory sign on for data collection for posterity. This is for purposes of determining if the system is being potentially exploited requiring the data in regards to identifying whether race, Indigenous identity and disability seek to determine the presence of individual or systemic inequality or disadvantage in the context of or delivery of MAID. The data regarding everyone who seeks the program, the doctors and the witnesses who signed on and those who decided later not to pursue then is referred to an investigative inquest body and the presence of the program has to be occasionally reviewed by federal Parliament and actively renewed over a predetermined cycle.
So what’s stopping two Kevorkian’s from just signing off on everything?
You can pretend that safeguards will prevent undesirable deaths (like say patient manipulation, or informed consent which Canada has stopped pretending to care about), but the permissibility alone makes it inevitable.
Part of the system works off of a similar system to triplicate prescriptions which has a cooling effect. Basically every time a single doctor signs off on this it gets flagged in the system along with what other doctor is doing it. Doctors know their data is being tracked by an active investigative body, physical hard copies are required and who their second doctor is is relation to their participation is actively logged and guaged. A two kevorkian system would set up a red flag and cause an in depth investigation with potential criminal persecution.
Not saying that it could not happen but it would create an undue legal risk for any doctors who would try it and doctors are made very aware of the data logging requirements of the program.
Backflips and somersaults scenario. How many people in every hospital right now are spending the last week of their lives suffocating? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?
You invent scenarios to make MAID unpalatable. The people who want MAID have actually lived through reality.
It’s unfortunate that people want to die and they physically can’t kill themselves at that moment, but there is no moral obligation to grant desires that people can’t fulfill themselves. (There is also the autonomy objection, even if the patient has perfect decision making, killing them now derives then if any future decision making).
We do have an obligation to prevent unreasonable deaths, especially if we are the one’s actively killing them as is the case with MAID.
Therefore a system that potentially (or rather inevitably) causes moral bad without any moral good, is not a morally good system and has no benefit to existing.
The reality is that unreasonable deaths will happen, and expanding it (and lowering the thresholds) will increase the percentage of assisted suicides that don’t meet some metric of moral permissibility.
There is also the societal harm objection, if illnesses/conditions are treated by euthanasia, and euthanasia becomes a popular way of death (like it is increasingly so in Canada) the incentive to improve treatment of those conditions is weaker. It does not result in a improving society in the long run if euthanasia is an acceptable option to certain conditions (note, this refers to more than just medical health but also living or social conditions).
Fight to make these services easier to access then. If they are easier to access, the poison wont take. If you waste all your pooitical energy fighting this, and then dont have enough to fight for better social supports and easier access to them, well then you’ve just made things worse
Edit: I’ve chosen life, I know how dark depression and hopelessness gets, but I’ve also been abandoned by my family and original community, and have spent almost a decade now being my own support network in a metropolis where I cant keep a community for very long. Our social support systems are GARBAGE right now and if I ever DID end up chosing death, I wouldnt want some bleeding heart like you who’s going to fight this instead of making community supports easier to access blocking me from ending my suffering. Living alone with multiple different conditions that prvent you from being stabily employable is fucking hard, and if it’s not something you’ve chosen its cruel to leave someone with no way out if it
Edit 2: I like the downvotes with no comments, really shows that people want to just be against something to feel good about themselves without having to think about the consequences of denying said thing
I agree with you. I’m pretty sure some Nordic countries have had this policy for some time, too.
California and Canada have similar populations and both allow medically assisted suicide. Canada last year performed this on 20x more people. It’s well documented that many would prefer treatment to death but it isn’t provided as an option due to cost. This is eugenics
Agreed. Medically-assisted suicide cannot be offered to anyone who doesn’t have all of the health care they need without bankrupting themselves. Therefore I don’t think it’s ethical to ever offer it in a country where health care is a financial transaction for the patient.
Otherwise the government might as well be handing the patient a huge bill in the left hand and a gun in the right.
I agree with one exception. It should be allowed only when no treatment is capable of helping. The idea that it can be done in other contexts is not good
Agreed. Which is why drug addicted as a target group is so weird. We have tons and tons of treatments for addiction both chemical and mental. The only “terminal” addict I’ve heard of are the alcohol addicts who have destroyed their liver. But even they have transplant options.
From a patient perspective, though, it might make more sense in a society where healthcare is limited to allow people to choose to just die. Without it they’re forced to live a life of suffering and pain based on a taboo.
I think there’s a case to be made that medically assisted suicide is always an ethical option to have available to anyone.
If there was actually a shortage of healthcare that couldn’t be solved by mere reappropriation of funding, then sure I could see that. But universal healthcare is absolutely doable in the US (can’t speak to Canada and any limitations there).
Therefore using death as an option for those who can’t afford health care that is priced aggressively is akin to genocide of poor people. And the price of this health care could simply be adjusted and the death option subsidized to the government’s whims. Couple that with the persecution (legally that leads to financially) of certain classes or groups of people by a hostile government and you have a recipe for a government to conduct ethnic cleansing while having an “out” in that the poor, sick people are choosing to die.
I didn’t say it was a good ethical argument 😅
Seriously though, I couldn’t agree with you more. My assertion is def built on the premise of healthcare being a scarce resource, which in the US in particular it is not.
Got a source for these numbers?
No since this isn’t currently a covered condition so these people wouldn’t be eligible for this completely voluntary program currently.
“In Canada, which has a smaller population than California, physicians or nurse practitioners directly ended the lives of 31,664 people between 2016 and 2021. That compares to just 3,344 in California.”
This is an opinion piece article and I’m not sure where they’re pulling numbers (I only had time to skim through it)
But if true, let’s add a loose and relatively subjective term like “addiction” to the legislation and these numbers will go up.
Maybe this is how the government was planning to tackle the housing problem lol
That’s a Postmedia Network owned paper. They’ve got a conservative bias, best known for that Tory rag the National Post.
I don’t think I’d trust unsourced statistics from an opinion piece in a Postmedia Network paper myself.
Here it is from the Gov of Canada. The Canadian side of the stats in that article are correct.
So OP’s statement that it was 20x California’s is still inaccurate. Either way all this really indicates is ease of access in Canada. The idea that people are being forced into it is ludicrous conspiratorial thinking with absolutely no basis in fact.
OP said “last year” - the Canadian stats I could find were from 2016-2021, which was still 10x the amount of the alleged California stats over a longer duration.
Don’t throw caution to the wind just because some people are throwing in conspiracy theories. This kind of thing absolutely needs public scrutiny and to be watched very carefully.
MAID is already under heavy scrutiny. MAID assessors and providers are heavily regulated by independent bodies in each province/territory.
Its up to patients to decide whether they want MAID, and there are strict safeguards in place.
This particular comment chain stems from a dude claiming that MAID is just eugenics. Doesn’t that seem a little ridiculous to you?
This is eugenics
How so?
Both have state-provided rehab.
This is completely bullshit about what it really is about. Anyone with an addiction can easily commit suicide. It’s not exactly something they need ‘help’ with to do. Passing a law about just allowing that seems suspect. Suspect in that I don’t think it’s about ‘allowing’ but more ‘encouraging’ or just not injecting someone ODing for the umpteenth time with naxolone and not facing any legal consequences with corrupt/inept lawyers. They should just come out and fuckin say it. It’s a class war. Nothing to do with empathy.
For the last two months I’ve been seriously considering taking my own life. What holds me back is that I’ll severely fuck up my loving family, my mum, dad and brothers and my girlfriend/ex-girlfriend (it’s complicated). It would hurt them so much. If it wasn’t for them I would have already done it.
So what I want to know is why shouldn’t I just end my 33 year old Swedish life right now when there’s just too much stuff to battle. Before I wanted to battle my way through this. But I can’t take this anymore. I’ve never posted something like this before. Sorry everyone. I don’t know why I did it.
I’m not qualified to answer this even though I want to help you. If you are considering suicide please don’t. Please find a helpline and talk to someone who can help you so much better than me.
Hey there, I’m sorry to read about these thoughts you’re having. I urge you to consider using one of the services available to you in Sweden and talk to someone about it here : https://mind.se/chatt/
Wish you all the best get better man life is worth living it’s all we have.
I hope you have someone to talk to about this. Your life is worth living, the people who you don’t want to hurt love you and want you in their lives even if it’s complicated.
Wishing you all the best.
I’ve been in a very dark place myself a few times. Knowing that my wife is and will always be there for me is the only thing that gave me hope for the future, even when I was at my lowest. I don’t know what you’re struggling with but I can tell you from my own experience, the darkness is not permanent.
As other commenters have said, please take advantage of the help that’s available. Your life is valuable, you are worthwhile, and the present is not the future.
Hey thanks for posting this. I understand you are feeling the fight is too long and too big. With everything going on in the world it can feel pretty defeating. You have a lot of people around standing through it with you. Please reach out to anyone close by.
I think the brain can go through waves of defeat and sometimes it’s the feelings we might have we just want to have a break from it. Can you workshop a bit with these feelings? Do you have a workbook maybe you can write out everything that is happening right now that you just hate and bringing up these feelings, places, people and things. You don’t have to worry about showing it to anyone. It’s purely just for you. No shame. It’s to just put it somewhere so you don’t feel like you’re abandoning it but just like file it so you can have a break from it.
After that :write out how you feel about your family and girlfriend and the ex(and however it’s complicated) and write out how you feel about them. Maybe write out why you want to stick around for all of them.
After that: write out as if you’re someone who isn’t you but as a witness to yourself. Like a summary or just a separate entity, maybe you from the future or past (or both) or a role model, what would you say to you to help you?
I can see you’re doing it here already. So keep doing it. Write it all out.
This seems reasonable. Lucid only, there’s a big talk about it, gernerally seems in-line with how other countries handle it. If you were slowly dying of rabies, prions, ebola, rat-lungworm, or other terrible maladies/injuries, I could see this being beneficial.
This is already in place in Canada. They want to take it further and just off the people who inconvenience the upper class but without getting their hands dirty doing it themselves. Just want the ‘unwashed to go away’
When you really consider it, anyone with an addiction can easily commit suicide. It’s not exactly something they need ‘help’ with if that was a conscious intent. So a law to allow this is a misnomer and a bit on the nose of what it really is about: class war.
It is a bit unfair that only drug addicts get this. Assisted suicide should be available for the general population.
Just to make extra sure it isn’t eugenics, have everyone asking for assisted suicide, provide proof of having reproduced, or get enrolled into forced reproduction first… /s
Though only after a consultation with a philosopher
Yes definitely
The article says that the mentally ill also get this option.
Have any of their politicians taken them up on the offer?
Aha ok. Thank you for clarifying 🙌
That’s good. I’ve been watching this bill closely ever since they said they’d add it for mentally ill patients in early 2023.
Oh that’s really bad. That’s even less capable of being terminal
“Terminal” isn’t the only standard. “A lifetime of irremediable physical and/or psychological suffering” is another.
Getting addicted to drugs isn’t exactly an insurmountable barrier
It is for some
it doesnt have to be if there was resources
sounds like theyre just not sugar coating what they want ppl dealt a shitty hand to do
That not how it works. Addiction is simply not something some people can overcome. It’s a condition that affects everyone differently, and, for some, it doesn’t matter how many resources you throw at it. It’s not a condition one can reason or rationalize one’s way through. For some, recovery itself presents irremediable psychological suffering from which they seek a permanent release.
You seem to be asserting that the state wants addicts to kill themselves, but there’s no evidence for this, as anyone seeking this remedy would have to apply for it and go through multiple steps of evaluation before being permitted. Such a high bar of entry - plus all of the treatment options available - are evidence that it’s the option of last resort for the most extreme cases and not for just anyone.
This seems very odd when the data indicates we are entering a period of breakthrough medical discoveries thanks to AI. I suspect addition will be something we will be able to address sooner than later. Seems unnecessary too given how many deaths are already happening thanks to fentanyl. So very odd.
Honestly just seems like a tee up so the government can “persuade” these people to kill themselves. It’s a bold strategy, Cotton.
Could be a dry run for when life gets so bad in the next few years that people just look for the exit.
This feels very click-baity. As far as I can tell, the assisted suicide law is being extended to include people in unbearable pain from mental health problems, not just physical ones. Because substance abuse is classified as a mental health problem, people with drug addictions would have the right to request assisted suicide under this extension to the law.
The objections being raised speak to the same fears many disabled people have about legalising assisted suicide: that people struggling with their health might be, or feel, pressured to end it for the convenience of others, not because it is the best thing for themselves. I assume that the existing law attempts to address this properly, with safeguards against external pressures.
Assisted suicide is most valuable for people who do not have the physical capacity to do it themselves, and do not want to put a loved one at risk of a murder charge. In practice, most people with a serious drug problem can quite easily end it themselves if they want to. Access to assisted suicide doesn’t seem particularly likely to change much, except perhaps offer a more peaceful, dignified death for those who want it anyway.
This article seems to be pushing the conservative narrative. They make a leap from mental health to eugenics, which is a stretch. I call BS
Denying the people the right to die with dignity is a sick perversion of morals.
Sort of, but it’s basically state assisted suicide not because of terminal illness, or horrific physical impairment. It’s for people with who are depressed, or otherwise mentally ill, including addicts.
Yes, I know they say they’re safeguards and assessments, and that it’s for people that treatment has failed, but who knows how that’ll actually be implemented, or practically be enforced.
Chronic depression and your wife just divorced you? You’re in luck, the state can help end your pain, permanently.
Lose your home and job because of your addiction? We’ll kill you, no problem.
Should they be allowed to kill themselves? Sure, I don’t think suicide should be illegal, but extending state sanctioned assisted suicide to a junkie, who’s bottoming out, or someone with chronic depression, seems like the pendulum swinging way way way to far outside what should be acceptable for this type of state intervention.
But I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the nuances of this law, or how it will be implemented, just proving my take on the information I read in the article.
It’s not an easy one, at all. My answer is the same as that for severely physically disabled people who may feel pressured for reasons external to themselves. And that is funding. People must have the support they need, whether it’s professional care for support with daily living, or adequate treatment programmes, or secure housing from which to rebuild a liveable life.
That is not the world we live in, sadly. I understand why people fear that assisted suicide could be used to disappear a problem by a heartless state, and it’s a reasonable fear, no matter how good the original intentions. This law can only be a good one if real safeguards are in place, with generous collective provision for those of us who find ourselves struggling for whatever reason.
Fucking up a suicide can make your life so much fucking worse than it was before you decidee to end things, and quite possibly less likely to be able to attempt it again. I’d rather people use their fear of those scenarios to fight for better social support networks and mental health services, because right now what we have is atrocious. I’ve chosen life, but because I lost ALL of my support networks and the trauma that left me with, its been 7 years since that incident and I’ve struggled to be able to maintain a job or a community, losing job after job and friend group after friend group is hard enough as it is (while I watch my debt spiral) if I hadnt CHOSEN this struggle
Vice isn’t exactly a reputable news source.
