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.

And I think that's the case too with the poll. Some people would say that everyone would have the right to live or die. This is the actual Canadian law

https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/ad-am/bk-di.html

It's too lax for me, personally, I think there should only be a law to allow people in their last months or life to die peacefully.

However, I don't live in Canada and my opinion doesn't count.

@Itslegitimatesalvage in canada savings is not considered in the cost of care home fees.
only income be it pension or government assistance type income.
so home sales, investments etc. are not part of any long term care costs.
however the cost is steep between 75%-80% (after tax) to a maximum amount of about 3.5K a month (so the wealthy with higher incomes still have a good amount to gift).
all care homes are similar although there are some private places.

I doubt any country’s laws on this are somehow objectively perfect, but Canada’s are immeasurably preferable to the UK’s on this issue. Forcing terminally ill people, in agonizing pain, to stay alive against their wishes is appalling.

I think what the article is saying is that if a person is miserable enough to feel they no longer wish to carry on living then a third of people wouldn't stop MAID if that's what the person wanted. Poverty/homelessness could be a factor. What it also says it twice as many people think this is wrong.
Personally I think everyone has a right to die and its for the individual to decide if they want to opt out of living. Many homeless people struggle with mental I'll health and addiction. It's not simply about poverty. Many endure years of pain and suffering before eventually deing 'before their time'.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing our best to stop people getting into these situations in the first place but sadly I do believe that not everyone can be saved.

We now have voluntary euthanasia in any states if Australia with strict guidelines. As an option for the terminally ill or with intractable pain or suffering for medical reasons I support it completely. The version Canada has is abhorrent. Especially when coupled with their current social issues.

I agree with that. The UK situation is the other unacceptable extreme.

allowed to terminate that choice if I wish

This has been echoed a few times. As noted, you can do so anytime and it doesn’t have to be jumping off a building talk about emotive hyperbole

This is not the same as saying it’s your choice to compel someone else to help you.

It seems to me that there have been many measured comments on this thread acknowledging the complexity of assisted dying including how desperately we have to look at a person’s wider circumstances. As said, people don’t live in a social vacuum. Widening up a law designed for the terminally ill is dangerous.
Especially when those making the call will go from physicians to psychiatrists.
After working for many years in psychiatry, that shift alarms me.

Posters are also missing the point about the person making the suggestion of MAiD to the para Olympian. First, unqualified people will of course increasingly begin to make the suggestion the more commonplace it becomes perhaps out of good intentions. People make suggestions above their pay grade all the time. Two, if the para Olympian was able to have a ramp immediately, this suggestion would never have occurred to the person making it. Many of the people living miserable lives would not countenance ending it if they had received more resources and support in the first instance. If that argument holds true, then absolutely it is morally wrong to offer MAiD in those instances ie under what circumstances do people feel desperate enough they don’t see other viable options.

I’ve also looked after many patients who survived their suicide attempts and were incredibly happy and felt so lucky to be alive. Including one patient going through extensive facial reconstruction surgeries. Feelings can and do change.

The key is looking at how society treats its most vulnerable. We’re not doing great on that front as the income gap widens. One person’s £65m yacht would go a long way to supporting mental health services.

Well, I have to retract my erroneous belief.

Apparently "Canada is notable for its relative lack of checks on the procedure: MAID can be approved and administered by nurse practitioners whereas most countries require the approval of a physician." So not even a physician or a psychiatrist, but a mental health nurse?

An overworked and underpaid mental health nurse in the prison system? "MAID is routinely practised within the Canadian prison system"

The first three Canadian inmates to die by assisted suicide were Indigenous, and remained shackled during the procedure. The first MAiD in prison was a inmate serving a two-year sentence for a non-violent offence when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and opted for MAID after his request for compassionate parole was denied. The University of Calgary’s Jessica Shaw studied MAID in Canadian prisons and found prisoners saying assisted suicide would be preferable to serving a long sentence. What does that say about the unfairness and craziness of this system that denies compassionate parole for someone with a terminal illness, but happy to let them be helped to die in prison?

And perhaps it doesn’t even have to be a nurse practitioner for people (though prison regulations stipulate it has to be a nurse or doctor) as the wording in the legislation only refers to an "independent practitioner" as the person who "must confirm all eligibility criteria are met" and "who has expertise in the condition". What constitutes a ‘practitioner’? Expertise as determined and assessed by whom??

With a majority in the poll who think it’s okay to request MAiD in cases of an “inability to receive medical treatment" This in a country where my DS and her children could not get a GP for over 9 months and were lucky when they found one willing to take them on.

Where the rates of assisted dying increase annually and by 32% in the space of one year. Those numbers in red account for those whose deaths were not reasonably forecasted.

And still no alarm bells or concerns?

That's Canada's business and there's nothing I can do about it. It should not prevent Assisted Suicide being allowed in the UK.

This does not make it less scary. These laws were passed with the understanding that they included significant safeguards.

That these advocacy groups were immediately prepared to take the small window opened up by the legislation and use that principle to get the courts to begin to wipe away the safeguards shows how little power elected officials have, and the degree to which law in Canada can be made by the courts.

This is why countries with court systems like Canada's have to be so very very careful about any legislation they pass. If it is in the least bit imperfect it can be used as a lever to get the courts to change the laws. And right now, no one seems to be careful about the laws they are passing, it's largely virtue signalling.

I wonder how long it will be before this government starts getting ideas along the same lines? Then they'll probably move on to the chronically sick and disabled, the unemployed, the elderly..... Anyone who is not seen to be 'paying their way' or 'contributing to society' basically.

On the topic of assisted dying, BBC R4 Briefing Room did a nice overview recently. One of the striking findings is that the main people who take it up are affluent and well-educated. They like being in control of how they die. Socially marginalised people or lifelong disabled people are strongly under-represented.

Did you read the entire thread? The Canadian Government isn't doing this.

@Lilifer @PurpleChrayne

PurpleChrayne
Canada, along with Australia and the Republic of Ireland, is living proof of the absolute failure of modern Western democracy.

Yes, indeed. 😥

Pardon? Some MN posters seem to have really odd ideas about Australia. I live here. I haven't noticed anything odd about it. Democracy is still very much intact. We did vote in a more left-leaning Government though?

Of course it is. I think you need to do so research

Would you say that about abortion? So wouldn’t it be better if someone who wanted an abortion were instead given “support”? Thought not. It’s called bodily autonomy and if it’s good for the goose it’s good for the gander.

I agree. If someone is that set on it, there is nothing stopping them. It's not like they'd be prosecuted for not waiting for the government.

I do wish everyplace would allow medically assisted death for terminal people who cannot do it themselves. But it should never become a government "suggestion" to do it and I don't think it is. Yet.

No, the actual wording of the Canadian law is not "terminal" its "grievous and irremediable".

There are cases on record of successful applicants ranging from suicidal ideation, allergy syndrome not managed by the housing authority to other disabilities/chronic conditions which could be managed with appropriate support/housing if the sufferer had money. It is simply not true that every successful applicant needs to be terminally ill in the way we typically consider it - the stage 4 painful cancer, the later stages of MND which are the examples always given by the euthanasia campaigns.

The boasts about increasing organ availability are also on record (if tasteless).

Extending what is already a poorly worded law to broad scope mental health conditions is open to much greater abuse. I'm sure its a total coincidence that those MH conditions so frequently occur alongside poverty and disability and other inconveniences.

You can ignore one poll or several. There are plenty of documented examples out there, some on this thread and I'm cross checking with the experiences of Canadian colleagues.

I would say authoritarian rather than liberal. Trudeau is like many other MC and wealthy white people, usually men IME who style themselves as super liberal-left but are pretty damned authoritarian in practice toward anyone who disagrees with their ideologies. They know best what minorities, the poor, the disabled and women need in exactly the same way that the authoritarian right always know what is best for us.

Its the difference between "you may think and do this" and "you must think and do this"

Wow, this is so abhorrent.

@Skimm I agree. It terrifies me. If it's brought in here, it would start off with tight protective measures, which would be watered down over time (as happend with abortion)

Does anyone have the text of this article? It’s paywalled.

I’ve found a non paywalled version now.

I recently read a book written by the doctor mentioned in the article who is a MAID practitioner herself and despite her intentions being to write in a positive way about it, a lot of the book horrified me.

As a disabled person I could see myself in some of her cases, people who could have had reasonable lives if they had support and treatment but because social care seems so difficult to access in Canada, ended up so desperate that MAID was their only way out.

It’s a hugely difficult subject, but there is a reason so many disabled people are against assisted dying, especially in the society we live in today where the support we need to live well is being eroded.

The problem is whatever the issue you need to be rich to fix it basically. No healthcare system in the world is amazing or rarely even great when it comes to life long or mental health issues. If you have money you can go private to “fix” your issues or pay to die with dignity aboard.

If you are the average or poor person you suffer the nhs/medicare/no care/low health insurance care and get to suffer or have an undignified often messy suicide.

We can all wish for free better mental heath care better support and more money for terminal disabled all we want. But you might as well be wishing for real unicorn glitter shit. No that’s not a race to the bottom stuff either but it’s bloody realistic.

If I had the choice of waiting and hoping for a magical utopia or a dignified death rather than suffering along. Dignified death every time.

Rather than news reports best to review the actual court findings.
https://www.ourcommons.ca/documentviewer/en/44-1/ACVA/meeting-30/evidence