Canadian Euthanasia laws may be extended to minors and mentally ill

Somewhere between allowing - proscribing in fact, because of the Law - terminally ill people to suffer agonising death, and 'encouraging' mentally and physically disabled people towards euthanisa, there must be a middle-ground. And I suspect most on GN do not want either of these scenarios.

Back in the late 40s I know that our family doctor "assisted" my desperately ill grandmother who was pleading with everyone to "take me out of the road", to die. He simply gave her massive doses of whatever the opiate was that was used in those days to try to control the pain, and told the family that it would probably end her life sooner rather than later. Which it did, and they were grateful.

My only fear is not having the discussion - we need to have it - my fear is that in an economic climate that the world is suffering at the moment - who is going to make the decisions and just as importantly, on what basis. I don't personally believe the 'slippery slope' is a fallacy - laws are 'updated' and extended, and I don't believe a law on euthanasia would be static.

Let me put it this way... I'd have more faith, generally, in a bunch of grans on GN making the decisions than I would in a government - any government in any country - that is fixated on the small-state ideology, who want to cut state-spending and privatise the services that many, many people rely on. I believe there is such a thing as a compassionate Conservative, but the way we are heading is very much to the right of compassionate Conservatism and under that political environment, I would be very very afraid.

I'm concerned about control of peoples rights to do what's best for them too Grantanow

I’m so sorry Lathyrus that your mother had to endure this.

I don’t believe for a second you needed to be braver.

I think society needs to be braver.

Sometimes it’s not that the palliative care needed to be better. I’ve read that palliative care does not mean a pain fee end of life for everyone. No one should be made to end their life in intolerable prolonged pain. And no loving family member should have to endure their loved ones suffering.

I'm in favour of voluntary euthanasia. Some pain cannot be managed. Of course some religions are against it but they should be allowed to control the rest of us.

“Somewhere awful is already here”.

Thank you for this *Leavingnormal”.

25Avalon

Leavingnormal I’m afraid that’s not quite true. The legislation was amended so persons don’t have to be at the end of their life, and as of 17th March 2023 people with mental illnesses will be eligible for Medically Assisted Dying. This is not a scare story but what is actually going to happen. It smacks of eugenics.

eligible not forced

Blossoming

Lathyrus I am sorry for your loss. I wish your parent had received better palliative care. However, I still think there is a debate to be had.

She received the very best palliative care that could be given.

It is an illusion that pain can always be managed. People want to think something can be done because it’s unthinkable that we would actually chose to torture another human being.

But that what we do.

Please don’t try to dismiss the horror of my mother’s experience by suggesting that with better care it would have been different.

It wouldn’t have been. Dying is often slow, painful, desperate. It’s not like the media show it. One last quiet breath.

I’m not that informed about this, but two things I’ve just read from the Psychiatric Tines is that a mental illness has to be both untreatable and untenable to allow to allow for Medically Assisted Dying. So this is still, to my mind, extreme untreatable illness. But I’d still have to give a lot more thought to it, before agreeing absolutely.
. I’m neither agreeing or disagreeing at this point.

Also, “Once a society embraces doctor prescribed death as an acceptable answer to human suffering or as some kind of fundamental liberty right, there are no brakes.” This, I find hard to accept. But I’d have to think more on this too.

My concern at this moment is that people who are living with intolerable pain with no hope of cure. That they should be made to endure this because society has other concerns is not right. And it’s not okay to say, ‘while we feel for these people, we aren’t going to help them because it could lead to somewhere awful.’ Somewhere awful is here already, I believe, and the people living in it are those with terminal untreatable pain and suffering who want medically assisted dying as an option, but can’t access it.

Lathyrus I am sorry for your loss. I wish your parent had received better palliative care. However, I still think there is a debate to be had.

I too, nursed my mother and then my mother in law through palliative care. It is heartbreaking when those you love beg you to help them to end their lives, and the fear of the law prevents you from doing so. Had I been stronger, I would have complied with their wishes. I genuinely hope, that in my lifetime, voluntary euthanasia will be an option if I find myself in this position.

👍😊

Useful Blossoming
There are always more sides to any argument
Hence the need for discussion

Namsnanny

Thanks again Blossoming I should have asked earlier, but can you post the name of the scientist who wrote this article?

Yuan Yi Zhu is a politician scientist at the university of Oxford.

Here is a link to an article from the “other side” for those who feel The Telegraph gives a one-sided view. This article appeared in The Guardian in May 2022.

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/11/canada-cases-right-to-die-laws

Thanks again Blossoming I should have asked earlier, but can you post the name of the scientist who wrote this article?

I really, really object to the point of fury to an article that uses dismissive phrases like “*trot out heart-rending cases”.

Wherever the author of the article is coming from it is not from a point of view if compassion and caring for people.

Watching my mother die for weeks in screaming agony, a nightmare nobody could alleviate or get away from, sitting beside her and hearing her plead “Can’t you help me to go” and having to say no, because of the law.
Living with the emotional agony that in the end she died alone in a hospital bed with nobody who loved her with her.

If a euthanasia law had been in place her death could have been so very different. Her case was terminal. What could be the justification for keeping anyone alive in those circumstances?

But there we are, just trotting out that experience.

Leavingnormal

Blossoming,

I have no idea what paper The Telegraph is, I live in Australia.

Leavingnormal, some GNers will routinely dismiss anything in the Telegraph (often known as the Torygraph) because it’s traditionally been right wing.

Blossoming,

I have no idea what paper The Telegraph is, I live in Australia.

I knew someone would dismiss the article because it has been published in The Telegraph. The writer is a political scientist and lecturer at the University of Oxford.

Leavingnormal I’m afraid that’s not quite true. The legislation was amended so persons don’t have to be at the end of their life, and as of 17th March 2023 people with mental illnesses will be eligible for Medically Assisted Dying. This is not a scare story but what is actually going to happen. It smacks of eugenics.

Leaving normal thank you so much for putting a more balanced view.

When the discussion back in th 60's on abortion was taking place, we had all these same sort of 'scare stories'. Of course, the rich could always get a safe pregnancy termintion - it was the poorer members of society that had to seek out the back street abortionist, with all the dangers that entailed.

So, with assisted dying. How cruel our society has become when we prolong the living death of the peope with serious highly painful, debitating illness - do not do that for our pets only for humans.

I have a fatal illness - it is called 'old age' and I really do not understand why I should not have the right to decide the time, place and manner of my death - in the same way I have to decide all that about the manner of my living.

Obviously, much care and protection needs to be put in place, but that is most definitely not beyond the ability to do.

Bill Gates has made a speech (I think at the fringe if G20 or the latest COP) where he said the world had to weigh up was it worth spending $millions prolonging the life of terminally ill patients when the money could be put to other uses like teachers etc.

Worrying times.

Exactly allsorts
May I add another level but about the same thing who decides …….in Iceland downs syndrome babies are aborted
Iceland has a tiny number of Downs ‘that have slipped through the net’ but on the whole it is almost ‘downs free’
Is this not all genetic selection by the state

The problem is who has the power to decide.

I’m not sure this is not a rather one sided article. Assisted suicide has often been used as a political tool to install fear and sway minds. Canadian parliament may well be discussing things like a parents access to euthanasia for a severely disabled child but it would not be discussing it ‘calmly’ as the newspaper writes. (When have parliamentary discussions about anything ever been discussed calmly - unless it’s in the vein of wage rises for politicians?)

This is a political tool to stir up dissent in society that’s increasingly divided, something newspapers, alongside politicians, also do regularly. It’s a long long arc from assisted suicide to euthanising people who may be seen as a drain on society.

Postulating that an 18 year old depressed person will be able to access assisted dying because some teens are talking about it on social media is not a balanced assessment of the subject.

I’ve read articles like this before. They are designed to alarm the reader and cause a reactionary response.

Inevitably, there will be a line like this in the article:

“ While our sympathies will be with those at the end of their lives suffering from great pain” which is a big f you to those people. Empty words.

“the Canadian experience should serve as a warning to anyone who thinks euthanasia will be confined to those cases divided”

All I can tell is that legislated assisted dying in Canada is ONLY for those at the end of their lives suffering from great pain

I’m sure if we examined the text of this telegraph article further, we could see how it’s been designed to stir up emotional responses, that they’ve set up a series of ‘what ifs’ and then come to some frightening conclusion when there is no real basis for the conclusion they have come to..