Next year's expansion of the criteria for medically assisted death will allow Canadians like Lisa Pauli, whose sole underlying condition is mental illness, the choice to die in this way.
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 people problems 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.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !canada@lemmy.ca
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.
Ah okay, that is for sure a valid concern. Thanks for the explanation.