To not get the controversy over Canada expanding assisted dying for mental illness?

[janef001]

I’ve been reading online and watching videos regarding Canada expanding MAID for those with incurable mental illnesses in March of this year. It’s been getting a lot of backlash.

I understand that a lot of mental illnesses can cloud someones judgement but does that really make them inherently irrational? In almost every other case, an adult with depression/bipolar/schizophrenia would be considered competent in other aspects of life when it comes to signing a contract, purchasing a home. If they were to get in trouble with the criminal justice system, they'd be seldom shown any leniency and considered as responsible as someone without mental illness.
In an ideal world, mental disorders would be properly treated so that people wouldn’t resort to dying but the public resources (therapists, psychiatrists) are not easily accessible. Many meds prescribed also take too long to work, don’t work much/at all, or have unpleasant side effects.

It seems fair to allow death in certain cases even if the mental illness might not be terminal itself.

Same

I’d happily create a legal document now, whilst I’m fit and well and of sound mind, to authorise euthanasia to be performed on me should I lose capacity to make such a decision.

What if, when the doctors decided the time was right, you had actually changed your mind. Your life was fine for you, and you wanted to live? Would you want your family to hold you down and the doctor to inject you with lethal drugs whilst you were screaming and resisting and begging not to be killed? Because that's what happens in the Netherlands.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/doctor-netherlands-lethal-injection-dementia-euthanasia-a7564061.html?amp

That doesn’t mean for a moment it is beyond the wit of man to develop one.

That article does not remotely say what you have posted. I also have to assume you have no knowledge or experience of working with patients with dementia..

If you've been researching MAIDS online, how have you never come across the problem cases? I am generally in favour of elective euthanasia, but the way MAIDS is being offered should concern anyone interested in human rights. there are some terrible cases from Canada, disabled people asking for help with medical issues or gadgets to assist living, and being offered MAIDS instead.

Do you think what was done to that woman was OK?

I do understand why people would think it’s wrong, but as a chronically depressed person, who’s tried multiple courses of treatment all of which have failed, this is the only thing that’s given me hope in years.

I find life utterly exhausting. I am rational and sane. Why shouldn’t I have the option to end my life without having to damage someone else with other methods (trains etc)?

There is one example of a burnt out frustrated social services case worker who wrote in a letter to four of his clients that if their lives where so miserable then they should consider MAiD. He wasn't actually offering them MAiD - he has nothing to do with MAiD. He didn't have access to the resources they needed / wanted but was their contact person and so they were pushing him for those resources and he was completely over the line and inappropriate in mentioning they look into MAiD as an option in the letter. And he was fired.

@dollymixtured here is some more detail

The patient in question suffered from Alzheimer's disease. When she was diagnosed in 2012, she requested the procedure occur at a time she deemed appropriate and before she was placed in a nursing home.
"I want to be able to decide (when to die) while still in my senses and when I think the time is right," she told the public broadcaster NOS, according to Courthouse News.
Four years later, the woman was admitted to a care home in The Hague, where she was placed under Arends' care.
A second specialist agreed that she was suffering unbearably. However, when Arends asked her directly if she wanted to die, the patient repeatedly responded, "Not yet."
"If you asked her: 'What would you think if I were to help you to die?', she looked bewildered and said: 'That's going a bit far!'" Arends told Nieuwsuur.
However, she contended, "I saw in her eyes that she didn't understand it any more."

Despite asking the patient three times, and receiving a negative reply each time, Arends went through with the euthanasia on April 22, 2016. She secretly put a sleeping drug in the patient's coffee. However, the patient woke up and appeared to recoil from the lethal infusion, and her daughter and husband had to restrain her while the procedure was completed.

www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/44875/dutch-doctor-who-euthanized-woman-without-final-consent-defends-decision

Not a surgeon but surely general anaesthesia then sugically disconnect the spinal cord and disconnect the heart is pretty much gonna do it ?

I really don’t think there is much point reading a link to a catholic news site, however based on your additional information it seems that the expressed wishes of the deceased were carried out. Of course they weren’t actually carried out as she wished as it looks like she was subjected to being in a care home which she expressly wished not to happen.

So you think that is satisfactory consent? When someone has repeatedly said, "no, I don't want that to happen"?

@dollymixtured

A different news article, giving the same information, if you doubt that it is true?

That is really what happened, and that was why the doctor was charged with murder. She does not deny that these conversations took place.

www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/06/doctor-cleared-of-murder-in-euthanasia-case-says-she-would-do-it-again/

Neither you nor I have the full details of this particular case but the fact that the doctor was cleared by people who did have the full facts suggests that she made the right call. Discussion of individual cases where the full facts are not known is IMO wholly unhelpful when considering matters of law and principle.

This.

What fact could possibly turn a person saying "no, I don't want that" into any kind of consent?

I think it's extremely important to illustrate the reality of how these laws are being used in other countries, when we are considering introducing them in this country.

Many people are unaware.

This woman could be you, or your loved ones, if physician assisted suicide is legalised in the UK.

Well it seems that the court who had all the facts disagreed with you but I am sure that will not stop your inflated sense of self righteousness and entitlement. I don’t agree with you and as I have said I think bringing up selective information about individual cases is wholly unhelpful. You clearly disagree with assisted dying in all circumstances, I don’t. Please just accept that other people are allowed to have differing opinions and stop trying to impose your views on me.

I’d happily create a legal document now, whilst I’m fit and well and of sound mind, to authorise euthanasia to be performed on me should I lose capacity to make such a decision. Surely we all deserve autonomy over our own lives, even if it’s a decision that makes others uncomfortable?

Having spent more time than I'd really like to in care homes and then EMI units, I think it's very difficult for people with dementia. "Hazel with dementia" might be perfectly happy pottering about, doing some colouring and being looked after, while "Hazel pre-dementia" would be horrified.

Obviously that's not true of every patient, but while I feel I definitely wouldn't want to live like that now, if I am unlucky enough to have dementia in the future, it wouldn't surprise me at all if I was happy to keep going in that situation.

I think there are two groups of people concerned about MAID:

1. There are people who are deeply opposed to assisted dying, on principle, in any circumstances whatsoever, often due to strongly felt religious beliefs. That is not my view, though I respect people's right to feel this way.

2. There are people who are not necessarily opposed to all assisted dying per se, but who are not confident that Canada is offering a sufficiently tight level of safeguarding here, especially after watching the way Canada has merrily thrown itself down the transgender activism rabbit hole.

I'm a big fan of assisted death in general but am aware of the negative historical connotations of euthanasia for the infirm which is probably why some people would initially baulk at the idea

The law in Canada is badly drafted, too open to decisions taken too quickly and without proper safeguard.

I'm Dutch. In the Netherlands you can already request assisted suicide for mental ill health, as you can in Belgium. But it isn't a quick fix and the bar is set high for proving capacity. That is not the case with the Canadian law.

I live and work in Canada. An example of a woman I work with:

Trauma history, chronic pain from a degenerative (terminal) condition. She has to live in a completely unsuitable place because her disability payment is <$400 for housing. The average apartment is around $1500. She spent >5 years on a list for a place that isn't adapted, had to take it because it was that or remain homeless. She's 'lucky' because she actually got a place. She's in pain. Can't bathe , can't cook because it's not adapted. Family and carers can't get in to assist because of the building. No trauma counselling for her past, no adapted place, no good pain management. It's a crime-ridden building and she's vulnerable.

She could access assisted death. She can't get decent pain management, decent care, decent housing, decent MH support, safety or anything else that would help her.

Canada needs to address all the other things before this. If someone is in pain, looking at homelessness, of course they may consider assisted suicide. FN particularly have horrifying health outcomes and a high suicide rate. Until that is healed, you will have FN people accessing this when white Canada does nothing. And Canadians can consider themselves compassionate for granting it. I personally believe until everyone can get proper treatment, housing and care, we shouldn't.

And I believe in assisted suicide. I want it to be available.

There are people who are not necessarily opposed to all assisted dying per se, but who are not confident that Canada is offering a sufficiently tight level of safeguarding here, especially after watching the way Canada has merrily thrown itself down the transgender activism rabbit hole.

I agree with this one.

@PoIIyPandemonium me too.

No offence but there are plenty of ways to do that if it's what you really want. I agree that there are cases where chronic mental illness make suicide a valid choice, I'm just not really sure that the state should be promoting it though.