Would you be in favour of assisted dying being introduced for terminally ill patients in your country?

With the discussion of whether assisted dying should be allowed in Scotland befing brought up again, I was wondering what other people thought of the topic.

Do you think people should be allowed to choose when to end their own life?

What laws need to be put into place to prevent abuses in the system?

How do we account for people changing their mind or mental decline causing people to no longer be able to consent to a procedure they previously requested?

BonesOfTheMoon,

We have that in Canada. I think dying with dignity is important and why suffer in agony when you can plan it out if you’re terminally ill?

But it made Canada show how poor its social supports are for this guy: …citynews.ca/…/ontario-man-applying-for-medically…

When this news broke everyone came out of the woodwork to help him and he is no longer applying for MAID.

My coworker’s husband has end stage COPD and has been in and out of hospital a lot lately. She says she felt pushed for him to accept MAID, but they didn’t and he is doing somewhat better now. It’s temporary obviously but I also understand not wanting to lose him. There have been other stories where some people feel the decision was made irresponsibly, this is a good article about it: www.newyorker.com/magazine/…/the-death-treatment

I don’t know what I think about MAID for mental health conditions. Not that I don’t think they are debilitating, but I wonder how sound of mind someone who is suffering so much is in. I really don’t know the answer to that.

Ultragigagigantic,
@Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world avatar

We all know things won’t get better anytime soon.

Hope yall find what peace you can in this life.

bloodfart,

No.

I used to think yes but canadas maid (I should have known by the abbreviation) program has been a crazy disaster and completely changed my mind.

PerogiBoi, (edited )
@PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca avatar

We humanely end the suffering of our old cat or dog. Heavens forbid we let grandma go out peacefully. Sorry gramma ya gotta slowly drown in your own blood because I’m afraid of theoretical scenarios in which the government decides to kill everyone.

dragontangram88,
@dragontangram88@lemmy.world avatar

No. It should never be legal. You will see an increase in people trying to get power of attorney over their spouse, or relative, so that they can advocate for assisted death, when that might not be what the patient actually wants. I don’t want to see abusive people having the power to legally murder other people.

Cris_Color,
@Cris_Color@lemmy.world avatar

Thats not a take on the subject I’d seen before. Thanks for sharing your thoughts

Kalcifer,
@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works avatar

Canada currently has assisted dying (referred to as MAID — Medical Assistance In Dying). The issue that I see with it, in Canada, is that it is a conflict of interest; Canada has public healthcare, so all patients are seen as a net drain on the system. Because of this, It is in the government’s best interest to reduce the cost of healthcare by lessening the number of patients in hospitals. In my view, it is, therefore, in the Canadian government’s best interest to encourage assisted dying over treatment to the absolute limits of what is ethically or legally allowed.

Yerbouti,

It’s actually really really hard to have access MAID. Multiple doctors needs to give consent and they have no financial interest to do so. I’ve read an article about this and even if it was easier to access MAID, the overall savings would be negligible.

Kalcifer,
@Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works avatar

I wasn’t making a claim regarding how easy or difficult it is to get MAID; I was only stating that it is a conflict of interest for a public healthcare system to provide it.

HarbingerOfTomb,

1000% yes

letsgo,

No, for several reasons.

Death is final. There is no coming back from it.

A cure, or at least an effective treatment, might be just around the corner. HIV used to be a death sentence; it isn’t any more (and from what I understand, carriers can now have unprotected sex without passing it on). I wonder how much medical research into treating HIV wouldn’t have been possible without sufferers to try out potential treatments. Maybe it would still be a death sentence today if assisted suicide had allowed people to escape it.

There is no way to be 100% certain someone isn’t being pressured to die. If they answer all the questions correctly, that only shows they know the right answers; it doesn’t show they are being truthful.

Justifying assisted suicide on the basis of the worst cases is not sufficient. There will always be worst cases. Let’s say we define a limited set of the worst cases; those are now effectively solved and everything else jumps up a level. There is now a new set of worst cases. How long before someone catching the common cold gets put to death? You may say this is ridiculous but the worst case justification means that the cold WILL eventually rise to the top, and there WILL be arguments like “giving evolution a helping hand”, or “for the benefit of the species”, and as we will by then be routinely applying AS there’ll only be a low bar to jump.

If palliative care isn’t producing sufficient quality of life, we can put people into a medically induced coma (IANAD so there may be good reasons we can’t, but idk). There they stay until (a) a cure or treatment is available, or (b) they die naturally anyway.

Obviously this needs sensible public healthcare in place. Where medical treatment is expensive and life is cheap, this won’t work. I’m in the UK where healthcare is provided by the state and we have the luxury of considering life to be priceless.

For those who say we euthanise animals - well society in general doesn’t want to pay for their healthcare and doesn’t consider their lives to be infinitely precious. Also there is the question of how much they understand what is happening to them; maybe the terror of being hooked up to a machine would make their QOL effectively non-existent anyway.

rowinxavier,

The bioethicists have ready worked out the kinks of assisted suicide laws and I would defer to them. You don’t offer it to people who cannot make the decision, you make sure people are fit to make the decision before they become too impaired, and you have plenty of checks for elder abuse, family pressure, and so on. Ultimately right now I can choose to end my life and that knowledge has made bearing some really painful medical things much easier.

We can all do things that make us less safe. We can drive, we can eat unhealthy food, we can drink alcohol, we can smoke, we can have unprotected sex, we can go base jumping, and so on. There is a concept called Dignity of Risk, meaning that while we have a duty of care, a responsibility to protect someone, we also have to respect that person enough to let them make choices, including choices we disagree with. If we don’t have this then we treat people as less than human and in the process we are stopping them living the life they want.

If we are going to say life choices should be in your hands then I think death choices should be too.

Lovstuhagen,

It does exist here.

I opposed its legalization… but supported its existence in practice. In fact, I need its existence… Medical technology has created a lot of complicated situations because we have the ability to keep people alive to carry on in suffering even when there is no hope of recovery.

It is the unspoken duty of a modern doctor to deliver a coup de grace when this point has been reached - I think even without asking permission. The old Greek or Mexican lady with a cross around her neck and the Priest coming to visit her and deliver communion can never assent to be euthanized… She needs her doctor to read the situation and to send her off when recovery is impossible and only suffering remains.

When we make it a process that requires her consent & signature, we deny her a peaceful death…

And, when we legalize it, we open the door to some upsetting things, like the euthanization of people for merely mental health conditions. There’s something profoundly ugly & disturbing about someone in their 20s being put to death by a doctor for their mental anguish. Yes, mental suffering is very real, and it should absolutely be addressed… But, just like in the case of prostitution, it is just not something the state can set a moral precedent of approving of it when it happens.

Croquette,

Any person should have the choice to die at the moment they want with dignity.

If you’ve lived 40 years of a terrible life and want out, you should be able to.

The legislative side of this issue would be a mess, but the work has to start now.

Illuminostro,

The reason it’s not legal is because dead peasants don’t increase profits or pay taxes.

Croquette,

I didn’t write it in my post, but that’s a 100% correct. Keep the machine running.

Eldritch,

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is also yes.

Alpha71,

As long as it is kept to terminally ill people. Here in Canada, it’s being offered to people with life long health issues (Chronic pain etc.) But for us the slippery slope is it has been offered to people with mental health issues as well. I can’t verify if it is an officially sanctioned offering, but people have come forward with stories of it being offered to them.

JackGreenEarth,

I’m glad that no one has said no!

Tarquinn2049,

Yeah, it’s not like it’s done on a whim. As long as there is someone on staff that is comfortable administering it, I have no problem with it. I wouldn’t want it to be forced as an option if there is no one on staff comfortable doing it. But transferring to a place that does offer it should be an option for those cases.

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