I am a proponent of MAID, but I find it extremely disturbing that we’re opening up MAID to conditions that aren’t even covered under our social health system. We are openly saying that we consider mental health issues too expensive to treat and would prefer that people with these conditions just die already. Social supports for people with disabilities and expanding health care to include mental health coverage should absolutely be part of this, or we’re just being murderous ghouls as a society.
The title of this article is deplorably sensationalistic, but the article itself isn’t bad. I guess they couldn’t fit this into the title:
It requires a written application and assessments from two independent medical practitioners, including at least one specialized in their condition if the applicant is not near their natural death.
The article also notes:
Even after the change in the legislation [to allow non-foreseeable death applications], about 98% of the assisted deaths in 2021 were people deemed near their natural death, according to Health Canada data.
My Grandfather in law just went through this.
94, came down for a vacation, had been having trouble eating more months. Went from ER to CAT scan in 6 hours, to a diagnosis of esophageal cancer.
Requested MAID, took 5 days, and he was very thankful to receive it.
If people wanna die, they’ll die.
Our choice is whether it’s humane, or super cruel and messy. It’s a binary choice; you pick.
MAID prevents messier suicides.
The fact that it’s necessary is a disappointing condemnation of our healthcare system, but it’s better than blowing your brains out or jumping off of a bridge.
I knew someone who threw themselves off a bridge. Well, I knew their sibling. I was there when the call came through from the RCMP that they were missing. Then the call that the body was found. To say that it destroyed that family would be an understatement. I remember that my friend had to go down with their mother and identify what was left of the body. They were (understandably) never quite the same after that.
I don’t know if I support expanding MAID to people with mental health issues or not. I have a feeling their sibling would’ve found a way to kill themselves one way or another. Maybe something more dignified would’ve been easier on the family? I don’t know.
If you want to die and are found competent, then who the hell are we to deny you?
I’m all in favor for life termination by choice.
As someone with a medical condition I am afraid assisted suicide could become the expected solution. The same for old people or people with complex mental health issues or symptoms that aren’t curable yet. I wonder how it can be prevented to go down that path.
But then it wouldn’t be by choice, or am I not understanding you correctly? Assisted suicide without consent would in my mind always be considered murder or at least 2nd degree murder.
I would consider it a very fine line because suicide, by nature, is always a consenting choice. This does not mean anyone wants to die, most don’t. If you ask them whether they would feel the same if all their problems were magicked away, you wouldn’t really even need time to think. It’s just that, for them, there is no other solution. Or at least, not one that seems like it could ever possibly be attainable. You’re forced into it because there’s no other way to make it fucking stop.
Your condition that patients be mentally sound, I question. Either understanding the consequence of their actions (the concept of death) would be enough and nearly everyone would be greenlit with an appropriate time span for consideration, or nobody would be because in order to make that choice you’re almost certainly mentally ill.
If all it takes is understanding my own actions, I’d be approved tomorrow. Doesn’t mean it’s the first or even third option I’d choose. Just means I’m chronically broke, often homeless, and have been used and abused often enough that I don’t even bother with the idea of a support system anymore. The most impactful of my illnesses is so rare it’s hard to even find a therapist who mentions it at all, let alone one I’d click with. Of the medication legal in the states, one is not something I want to do because it has a risk of heavily worsening the dissociation that already leaves me non-functional, and the other causes brain damage.
It would be my choice, but it would not be a voluntary choice. It’s just…the option that I have that isn’t this. Which is by far the biggest risk here, of simply shrugging and egging those suffering to take the painless way instead of funding and supplying adequate treatment.
(this is, for somewhat obvious reasons, not to say I’m against MAID. I think since people are going to do this, they should have a way to do so that isn’t horrifically painful, with a lower likelihood of just making someone’s hilariously shit life somehow even shittier. But this is not a game, and the inexpensiveness of handwaving the
peopleproblems is a genuine danger.)I mean an unspoken expectation. Don’t know if you’ve personally dealed with a disability, but it is quite shocking how some people think you should live your life (or rather shouldn’t) when you are disabled.
“Gently nudging” people into assisted suicide is something I can guarantee you will happen in situations where a person is considered a burden to the ones around them. The question is, can you make such a system safe in an environment where we still attribute value to people in dependence on how productive they are? Or, even worse, how do we protect people who cost society a lot of money and aren’t considered valuable?
When mental health issues are considered a valid reason for assisted suicide, I think these cases become an issue.
Capitalism needs meat for the grinder. This is the heart of forced birth as well. Dying means you’re escaping.
You’re not wrong, but man that is dark.
It’s actually the least dark way though. The alternative can get pretty messy.
Everyone should have the right to end their life when they see fit - and the reality is people do it whether it’s legal or not - but it’s so sad when someone with treatable mental health issues can’t see any light or hope because the issues are untreated. I’ve known so many people over the years who talked of ending things because of depression, who were eventually able to get to a better place and were so happy that they pushed through it.
