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.

If they only have 2p in the bank , and that is the reason they want to die, then that is a national disgrace.

Heres another appalling story from Canada

https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/warmington-transgender-female-swimmer-50-changes-with-young-girls-at-barrie-event

Here are the eligibility criteria:

“As of March 17, 2021, persons who wish to receive MAID must satisfy the following eligibility criteria:

• be 18 years of age or older and have decision-making capacity
• be eligible for publicly funded health care services
• make a voluntary request that is not the result of external pressure
• give informed consent to receive MAID, meaning that the person has consented to receiving MAIDafter they have received all information needed to make this decision
• have a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability (excluding a mental illness until March 17, 2024)
• 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”

This is a perfect example of how easily social media spreads dangerous misinformation.

How many idiots, off the back of this thread, will go away and tell everyone they know that "omg you won't believe what's happening in Canada".

Lots more information here: https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/ad-am/bk-di.html#:~:text=As%20of%20March%2017%2C%202021,the%20result%20of%20external%20pressure

Utterly horrifying.

Very convenient for the government too, I should imagine. Homelessness down, unemployment down, hospital waiting lists down …

Chilling and dystopian.

But not actually true😂

Good job it's total bollocks then isn't it.

Yes I am just reading the full thread now and gathering this fact 😂

However, I do still think it’s chilling that so many of the people polled seem to think it would be acceptable!

The thing is, not everything can get sorted by giving people support. Also, not all suicuide attempts are of the "cry for help" sort. You cant fix all of the wide variety of circumstances that lead people to wanting to die.

Me, too. I want to be able to die at a time of my choosing. And I will know when that time has come.

Canada is increasingly becoming a very scary country to live in if you’re not a particular type of person with a particular lifestyle. The Nordic countries and their very specific idea of what ‘community’ means is similarly worrying. We may have our problems in the UK but I thank God I live here when I read stuff like this.

Not only is it untrue (as I think you’ve now noted) but, to the extent that eligibility has widened (e.g. to include people with serious and untreatable mental illnesses), it isn’t the government that is leading the charge. Some groups had successfully challenged certain restrictions on access to medically assisted suicide as being unconstitutional, via the court system, so the government has become required to amend its legislation.

If someone is terminally ill, they have the right to end their lives on their terms. I will even say I can agree with many who have chronic illnesses with a low quality of life who are suffering and don't wish to suffer any longer. The fear is what condition might be next on the "allowed" list? I hope they make the language very clear.

Very slippery slope.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/christine-gauthier-paralympian-euthanasia-canada-b2238319.html

Disabled woman asking for a ramp was offered MAID

It might be just the first step
Overton window - Wikipedia

Absolutely. I think people should have a choice. If I want to die because I am sick or sad or because I have addiction issues or life is a shitty endless cycle of work with an impoverished retirement on the horizon. It should be my choice.

Lots of people who suffer will choose to live given the option but it’s a safety net for those who feel it’s too much of a struggle to go on.

Well when March 2024 comes round and mental illness is included, people who are considering suicide (most people consider it at least once in their lives) can be asked if their psychological suffering is such that they feel they cannot go on.
Has no one ever had therapy? Feelings are not facts.
What a terrible potential for tragic and unnecessary loss of life

I think the "rules" are a bit strange and within a few months, they will include mental illnesses.

• have a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability (excluding a mental illness until March 17, 2024) *alcoholism, drug use, severe depression, and many forms of disability*
• be in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability *again, drug use, alcoholism, aging*
• have enduring and intolerable physical or psychological suffering that cannot be alleviated under conditions the person considers acceptable *conditions they consider acceptable could be a very low bar for many. When does it start to become a suggestion?*

Like I say, it's a slippery slope and anyone that thinks it might not end up being abused is a bit naive.

Absolutely! Imagine pressure on the homeless if this becomes a policy

Not by anyone qualified to offer it. The Canadian government launched an inquiry. A Veteran's Officer was reported to the police for doing so on at least 5 separate occasions.

It's beneficial to look at what's happening in Canada and other countries that allow Assisted Suicide. What is not beneficial is the spread of misinformation.

Canada’s MAID program sounds extremely worrying.

“A Paralympic army veteran told stunned lawmakers in Canada when she claimed that a government official had offered to give her euthanisia equipment while fighting to have a wheelchair lift installed in her home.
Retired corporal Christine Gauthier, who competed at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics, testified on Thursday that the unnamed veterans affairs case worker had offered in writing to provide her with a medically-assisted dying device, the CBC reported.

“I have a letter saying that if you’re so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAID, medical assistance in dying,” Ms Gauthier, 52, told a House of Commons veterans affairs committee, according to the CBC.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/christine-gauthier-paralympian-euthanasia-canada-b2238319.html

• Amir Farsoud, 54, applied for Canada's controversial medical assistance in dying program, known as MAID, after the house where he lives was put on the market
• Farsoud lives with debilitating, untreatable back pain, which allowed him to qualify for MAID
• It wasn't his pain that drove Farsoud's decision, but rather his prospects of homelessness after Canada's social services failed to provide him support
• Farsoud received one of the two doctor signatures required to be accepted by the MAID program, and expected to be euthanized this month

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11441995/Canadian-man-facing-eviction-accepted-countrys-controversial-legal-EUTHANASIA-program.html

“We’re hearing about people who are choosing medical assistance in dying or thinking about it more because they don’t have money to live.”
Dr. Dosani is a palliative care physician and Assistant Professor in the Department of Family & Community Medicine at the University of Toronto.
“People are living in abject poverty when they’re on social assistance, in almost every province and territory across Canada.”

“But the legalization of MAiD has brought to the fore some disturbing moral calculations, particularly with its expansion in 2019 to include individuals whose deaths aren’t “reasonably foreseeable.” This change opened the floodgates for people with disabilities to apply to die rather than survive on meager benefits.

I’ve come to realize that euthanasia in Canada represents the cynical endgame of social provisioning within the brutal logic of late-stage capitalism — we’ll starve you of the funding you need to live a dignified life, demand you pay back pandemic aid you applied for in good faith, and if you don’t like it, well, why don’t you just kill yourself?

The problem with my previous perspective was that it held individual choices as sacrosanct. But people don’t make individual decisions in a vacuum. They’re the product of social circumstances, which are often out of their control.”
https://jacobin.com/2023/01/canada-medically-assisted-dying-poverty-disability-eugenics-euthanasia

Posted already on this page alone, several times elsewhere in the thread, and still a load of bollocks. She doesn't have a letter proving it happened, admits she lied when she said she did, and the person that she says offered it had as much right to do so I as I do i.e. none!

I agree so much with this. It's actually similar to people who are anti-abortion, yet do nothing themselves to take in and care for unwanted children.

Sorry didn’t see. These still stand though:

”Amir Farsoud, 54, applied for Canada's controversial medical assistance in dying program, known as MAID, after the house where he lives was put on the market

Farsoud lives with debilitating, untreatable back pain, which allowed him to qualify for MAID

It wasn't his pain that drove Farsoud's decision, but rather his prospects of homelessness after Canada's social services failed to provide him support

Farsoud received one of the two doctor signatures required to be accepted by the MAID program, and expected to be euthanized this month

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11441995/Canadian-man-facing-eviction-accepted-countrys-controversial-legal-EUTHANASIA-program.html

“We’re hearing about people who are choosing medical assistance in dying or thinking about it more because they don’t have money to live.”
Dr. Dosani is a palliative care physician and Assistant Professor in the Department of Family & Community Medicine at the University of Toronto.
“People are living in abject poverty when they’re on social assistance, in almost every province and territory across Canada.”

“But the legalization of MAiD has brought to the fore some disturbing moral calculations, particularly with its expansion in 2019 to include individuals whose deaths aren’t “reasonably foreseeable.” This change opened the floodgates for people with disabilities to apply to die rather than survive on meager benefits.”

I’ve come to realize that euthanasia in Canada represents the cynical endgame of social provisioning within the brutal logic of late-stage capitalism — we’ll starve you of the funding you need to live a dignified life, demand you pay back pandemic aid you applied for in good faith, and if you don’t like it, well, why don’t you just kill yourself?

The problem with my previous perspective was that it held individual choices as sacrosanct. But people don’t make individual decisions in a vacuum. They’re the product of social circumstances, which are often out of their control.”
https://jacobin.com/2023/01/canada-medically-assisted-dying-poverty-disability-eugenics-euthanasia