A handful of doctors and nurse practitioners are taking on skyrocketing medical assistance in dying requests in Newfoundland and Labrador.
But in the province’s eastern region, which includes the capital of St. John’s and is home to roughly three-fifths of the provincial population, the number of people seeking medically assisted death climbed from 16 in 2019 to 107 in 2022, McKim said in his briefing note. There were 37 requests in the first quarter of 2023.
Each application for MAID must be evaluated by at least two assessors, who can be doctors or nurse practitioners. Seven medical professionals did 75 per cent of the primary assessments for all requests in the region between 2016 and Aug. 31, 2021, McKim’s note said. Eight people did 76 per cent of the primary assessments in 2022.
This is not about mentally ill people, this is about people with stage 4 cancer, ALS, and other diseases which cannot be treated, who have a choice between dying in moderate pain now and dying in excruciating pain less than a year down the road, but are physically unable to go find a bridge and throw themselves off. I agree that any other uses of MAID need extremely careful scrutiny, but the person who accused you of throwing the baby out with the bathwater was right on the mark. Making terminally ill people suffer out of a misguided notion of morality benefits no one.
By bringing up eugenics, you’re making the claim that specific groups of people are being pressured to request MAID. Where’s your evidence? Extraordinary assertions need extraordinary proof.
Anyone that wants to end their life should be able to do so, regardless of their condition, as long as they are considered sound of mind by the current standards.
There should be a rigorous process, but at the end of that process, if the person still want to end their life, then they should have the opportunity to do so with dignity and no pain.
Actually, no it hasn’t. Not one single study have I seen in the science or the mainstream news, just people foaming at the mouth who were really short on facts. Speculation and alarmism are not truth.
Let’s look at some, y’know, actual statistics. Nearly everyone who received MAID in 2022 was at least 46, which means that they’re not relevant to any eugenics claim—eugenics means removing undesirable traits from the gene pool, and if you’ve already had kids, killing you doesn’t get rid of your genes. People who are more than 20 years past the age of majority have had plenty of time to reproduce if they want to do so.
In order to justify a claim of eugenics, you’re therefore going to have to prove that the 1.3% of MAID recipients under the age of 46 were disproportionately slanted toward a specific group, and that this happened because their genes were considered undesirable, and that they weren’t terminally ill to begin with. There were 463 people in 2022 who received MAID even though it wasn’t projected that they would die soon. 16 of those were under the age of 46, and some may not have been fertile. I think you’re going to have a hard time proving a eugenecist agenda based on a sample of less than twenty people.
Most of the MAID recipients under 46 appear to have been terminal cancer patients.
From that, I would say that there is currently no eugenicist agenda that’s actually having any effect, and that the system to prevent improper MAID requests from going through is working, at least for the most part.
You obviously have never experienced someone forced to live horribly. Both my parents had horrible ends. One from alzheimers and one from a stroke. I want the option of mercy for myself and yes I don’t care if other individuals decide to utilize it when other people who are not them think its to soon. The individual gets to decide and even then they have to get permission to proceed.
Okay, now I better understand your argument. I was ready to just dismiss you as a crank.
I agree with you that governments should not be in the death business. But they already are, in a sense, in their legislation of things like murder, negligence causing death, etc.
I think that proper legislation would allow for someone to help me carry out my wishes in dignified ways that are less traumatic to those I leave behind. Obviously, that means regulation to ensure that nobody is imposing their will on mine.
At the very least, I don’t want anyone charged with negligence just because they didn’t stop me from taking what turns out to be my final swim.
I mean my original comment on comment action was a quote from the article so hardly a crank. I was just giving context and sorta assume the first comment was done without reading the article, but maybe you mean once I was responding to the response as that where it became more of a debate. But yeah I just don’t want to lose the right to die if my life circumstance is aweful.
its not effing eugenics. None of this can be done without consent. Its a ridiculous argument. I surrender my fate to my wife if I am incapable of decision making and I am very happy she will not take some sort of twisted fringe political view to make her decisions about me. My god I can’t believe you just said you would allow your loved ones to live torturous lives if the decision was yours.
It amounts to the same thing though. I was using it as an example because right now im relatively healthy and don’t currently need the maid option but if I did I want that option.
You seem to be advocating to throw out the baby with the bathwater here. In no way, shape or form is MAID a bad thing … even tho there are documented cases of bad actors being involved. Better training and regulation are required - and I question opening MAID to those suffering from mental health issues - but putting an end to it completely makes it sound like you’re a right-wing fundamentalist who is simply looking to force your beliefs on us all.
Did you even bother to read the article? Or is your snap judgment of a headline sufficient information? It’s very saddening to see this sort of dimness is addressing a real problem for many, many Canadians.
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You probably don’t want a nurse on a 12 hour shift who just spent 8 hours cleaning…
Also, your $1200 figure fails to include expenses and travel time.
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This is not about mentally ill people, this is about people with stage 4 cancer, ALS, and other diseases which cannot be treated, who have a choice between dying in moderate pain now and dying in excruciating pain less than a year down the road, but are physically unable to go find a bridge and throw themselves off. I agree that any other uses of MAID need extremely careful scrutiny, but the person who accused you of throwing the baby out with the bathwater was right on the mark. Making terminally ill people suffer out of a misguided notion of morality benefits no one.
By bringing up eugenics, you’re making the claim that specific groups of people are being pressured to request MAID. Where’s your evidence? Extraordinary assertions need extraordinary proof.
Anyone that wants to end their life should be able to do so, regardless of their condition, as long as they are considered sound of mind by the current standards.
There should be a rigorous process, but at the end of that process, if the person still want to end their life, then they should have the opportunity to do so with dignity and no pain.
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Actually, no it hasn’t. Not one single study have I seen in the science or the mainstream news, just people foaming at the mouth who were really short on facts. Speculation and alarmism are not truth.
Let’s look at some, y’know, actual statistics. Nearly everyone who received MAID in 2022 was at least 46, which means that they’re not relevant to any eugenics claim—eugenics means removing undesirable traits from the gene pool, and if you’ve already had kids, killing you doesn’t get rid of your genes. People who are more than 20 years past the age of majority have had plenty of time to reproduce if they want to do so.
In order to justify a claim of eugenics, you’re therefore going to have to prove that the 1.3% of MAID recipients under the age of 46 were disproportionately slanted toward a specific group, and that this happened because their genes were considered undesirable, and that they weren’t terminally ill to begin with. There were 463 people in 2022 who received MAID even though it wasn’t projected that they would die soon. 16 of those were under the age of 46, and some may not have been fertile. I think you’re going to have a hard time proving a eugenecist agenda based on a sample of less than twenty people.
Most of the MAID recipients under 46 appear to have been terminal cancer patients.
From that, I would say that there is currently no eugenicist agenda that’s actually having any effect, and that the system to prevent improper MAID requests from going through is working, at least for the most part.
This may be the most unintentionally dystopian thing I’ve ever seen written.
Stop with facts, this is about emotions!
“The overwhelming majority of requests were for track-one medically assisted deaths, which are cases where a natural death is foreseeable.”
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You obviously have never experienced someone forced to live horribly. Both my parents had horrible ends. One from alzheimers and one from a stroke. I want the option of mercy for myself and yes I don’t care if other individuals decide to utilize it when other people who are not them think its to soon. The individual gets to decide and even then they have to get permission to proceed.
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Okay, now I better understand your argument. I was ready to just dismiss you as a crank.
I agree with you that governments should not be in the death business. But they already are, in a sense, in their legislation of things like murder, negligence causing death, etc.
I think that proper legislation would allow for someone to help me carry out my wishes in dignified ways that are less traumatic to those I leave behind. Obviously, that means regulation to ensure that nobody is imposing their will on mine.
At the very least, I don’t want anyone charged with negligence just because they didn’t stop me from taking what turns out to be my final swim.
I mean my original comment on comment action was a quote from the article so hardly a crank. I was just giving context and sorta assume the first comment was done without reading the article, but maybe you mean once I was responding to the response as that where it became more of a debate. But yeah I just don’t want to lose the right to die if my life circumstance is aweful.
Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have written the “crank” bit. It seems my battle against stream of consciousness writing continues…
My apologies.
its not effing eugenics. None of this can be done without consent. Its a ridiculous argument. I surrender my fate to my wife if I am incapable of decision making and I am very happy she will not take some sort of twisted fringe political view to make her decisions about me. My god I can’t believe you just said you would allow your loved ones to live torturous lives if the decision was yours.
I’m not a lawyer but I don’t think substitute decision makers or advanced directives are legal for MAID. Only for withdrawal of life support.
It amounts to the same thing though. I was using it as an example because right now im relatively healthy and don’t currently need the maid option but if I did I want that option.
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You seem to be advocating to throw out the baby with the bathwater here. In no way, shape or form is MAID a bad thing … even tho there are documented cases of bad actors being involved. Better training and regulation are required - and I question opening MAID to those suffering from mental health issues - but putting an end to it completely makes it sound like you’re a right-wing fundamentalist who is simply looking to force your beliefs on us all.
And if that’s the case you can just gtfo.
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Sort of an important detail although death by economic despair is also important to realize is very much a thing
yeah but you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. The right to die is an important right.
Did you even bother to read the article? Or is your snap judgment of a headline sufficient information? It’s very saddening to see this sort of dimness is addressing a real problem for many, many Canadians.