Assisted suicide offered to homeless people in Canada

[gnarlynarwhal]

I came across an article online about this earlier today and I’m shocked this is seen as acceptable by so many people in Canada. It’s advertised on the tv over there as if it’s a perfectly acceptable thing to do. The National Post is claiming that one third of Canadians think that it’s perfectly acceptable to approve medical assistance in dying ‘MAID’ to healthy people purely because they are impoverished. I find it really saddening.

Anyone should be able to obtain a medically assisted death for whatever reason they choose. Their body their choice. Same as abortion. No one has any right to tell me or anyone else that I must continue with my life (or my pregnancy)

With no safeguards? You do realise that we would see hundreds of elderly vulnerable people putting themselves forward for not because their children have convinced them that’s it’s for the best, before the inheritance has to go on care fees.

Notwithstanding euthanasia laws, Canada’s social safety net is abysmal. It is a very capitalist country (I dare say, dragged down by neighbouring the US) and there is rampant homelessness in some regions.

As has been mentioned there are a lot of untruths on this thread as there has been on various other Canada & MAID threads. As stated in the original article this was a poll of 1000 people over the course of 2 days. Not sure it’s fully representative of the 35 million people who live here.

I believe there’s also a link to the huge increase in MAID but it still amounts to 11 000 cases, again with a population of 35 m.

I live in Canada and personally know of one person who accessed MAID. They chose to do this before becoming severely disabled from Parkinson’s disease. Their family was sad but in agreement and they passed peacefully.

All this being said, we do have a homelessness issue. Some of this is due an influx of asylum seekers, some due to opioid crisis/ addiction, some due to cost of living. There needs to be a new strategy on this as there are increasingly desperate, sick people on the streets in freezing weather. If I was homeless, addicted and physically sick I may choose MAID too. Which is awful.

Hello from one of those countries.

Your comment reads like a Facebook boomer meme from artists who enjoy Clipart exclamation marks.

Feel free to ask questions about how dignified dying can be legislated but I'd appreciate you dropping the froth first.

This is genuinely chilling. Absolutely horrifying policy. And in a country like Canada! You don’t expect it there. Has the whiff of genocide about it.

Which policy @bonzaitree ?

I'm guessing the non-existent policy that might possibly perhaps allow poor & terminal people to access the same level of dignity in death that is now sometimes afforded to housed/wealthier patients.

This is odd. Nobody is being forced to stay alive. Anyone can off themselves any time they feel like it, if they are physically capable of doing so. I could be dead within the next hour if I so wished.
The only thing we don't currently have is the option to medically-assisted suicide. But most people don't need to be medically assisted to do that.

🙄🙄

Make sure and tell all your Facebook friends hun

Have you only read the OP or the many responses debunking it?

Two things that are true:

• Canada needs to tackle its widespread poverty and homelessness issues;

• Based on this thread, the UK needs massive investment to promote better literacy.

So who decides what can’t be further shifted? Because with mental health, if it’s medics then that is unacceptable. The medical model is rubbish at understanding mental health and none of the diagnoses stand up to rigorous scientific scrutiny. I know plenty of psychiatrists that think that. The evidence base on talking therapies is constantly growing so what is available at point A will not be the same 10 years later at point B. I work in mental health and there is always hope. I’ve seen people come through the most horrendous situations.

Literacy? What have people misread?

To be honest I’m in two minds about this. People should get support to not be in poverty or suffer from homelessness, the government should support that and help them with their mental health as it’s obviously stressful. However equally if someone (anyone not just specifically struggling) wants to commit suicide then where is the line drawn, do they need a diagnosis of a terminal illness for example? It’s weird to state assisted suicide is okay in some scenarios and not others as people have agency over their own decisions. It’s either accepted or completely not accepted imo, grey areas don’t help anyone

I think two main things are crucial;

1. having a trauma informed society. Trauma (including childhood trauma/abuse etc) is one of the key factors in people becoming addicted and a key cause in mental health difficulties. Services need to be front loaded. We need to spend more in the early years than we do in later years, but it’s the other way round.
2. Address the causes of inequality

When I was in my teens I had suicidal thoughts a lot of the time. I couldn’t see a future where I would be happy. Today my life is completely different. I live in a beautiful home, have a loving husband and two beautiful children.

What frightens me is that there might be another teenager at some point in the future who is given a medically assisted death who would have eventually overcome those dark thoughts like I did. I think I could be comfortable with assisted suicide if someone is in agonising unrelenting pain but only where there are strict checks in place to make sure it is their choice, for their own benefit and not under the influence or for the benefit of others.

one third of Canadians think that it’s perfectly acceptable to approve medical assistance in dying ‘MAID’ to healthy people purely because they are impoverished.

Without having read the study I'd imagine that a lot of those people just believe that MAID should be offered to everyone, rather than specifically poor people.

That seems quite irrational of him.

Even if his children are monsters would who happily have him killed, this would require an actual dr taking the word of a patient's child, and then killing their patient.

Your instincts are correct.

Even ignoring that 27/28% is not a third-

20% of people think that it should be open to anyone, for any reason.

Only 7-8% dont agree that it should be open to everyone but do think that homelessness or poverty would be sufficient reason.

The human brain doesn’t finish developing until mid 20s so I would hope that in the absence of a terminal illness there would be a minimum age.

What about the health care professional who is being asked to prescribe the drugs required for this? It's a very different ask to someone who is terminal or seriously ill and suffering.

I'm pro assisted suicide but I think it needs to be optional for HCPs to be involved and for a very tight range of conditions.

A teen with suicidal thoughts isn’t going to meet the criteria though;

• have a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability
• be in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability
• have enduring and intolerable physical or psychological suffering that cannot be alleviated under conditions the person considers acceptable

@gnarlynarwhal but teenagers aren't just eligible under sensible assisted dying laws. Even under Dutch law, you would have to show that you had been suffering with depression for many years, that you had tried all possible medication and therapy routes and that they had all failed - and even then, as a teenager, you would most likely not be permitted an assisted death.

I often see the case of Noa quoted on here as an example of why euthanasia for mental health should never happen, because she was only 17 when she died. The people saying this seem to completely ignore that this was a young woman who was horrifically raped and abused as a child, who had tried everything - and who, in the end did not have an assisted suicide at all - she simply chose to stop eating and drinking and was allowed to do this because she demonstrated capacity. Suicide, but not assisted.

There is so much misinformation and catastrophising on this thread. People yell about slippery slopes, write as if all countries which have assisted dying are the same - and are like Canada. It would be so much better if people could think and read critically, and take into account that this is a complex subject.

@sleepyscientist I agree 100% that healthcare professionals should have the right to opt out. But like opt outs from providing abortion care or the morning after pill, they should not be allowed to refuse to refer to someone who will help.