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.
this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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I agree in principle, but that's not what's happening in the real world.
My husband has ME/CFS. It's a life-destroying disease, even though it doesn't usually kill you. There's no treatment, no cure, and no idea about the underlying cause, after many decades of research.
It's heartbreaking to read messages from people who caught it as a teen, seen all their schoolfriend grow up, experience life, find love etc, all while the sufferer is in pain all day, no hope of improving, relying heavily on what family they have who are willing to support.
This is by no means ideal, but neither is decades of suffering. I err on the side of reducing the constant pain.
To be fair, that's a poor example, as the research on ME/CFS is dogshit. It never gets the attention it deserves and its victims suffer in deafening silence, because it's not some sexy field to research and there's no immediate, highly visible threat to the almighty economy.
We're seeing this mirrored with long COVID. At least 16 million Americans are suffering from it β nearly 1 in 20 β and, even with rates that enormously high, research is moving at a glacial pace. There's no operation warp speed, no coordinated global effort, nobody in world leadership gives a fuck.
Mental illness treatments are often ineffective. Those with mental illness tend to suffer lifelong, even if they can afford care.
Iβm not sure itβs as crystallized as that yet, but I agree with your sentiment. Everyone should have the right to choose to die but if the reason is βthere was no other option,β then, we should be damn well sure we offered everything we could. Letβs not be taking societal shortcuts to βoh well, we gave it our best shot.β
I support someoneβs right to end their own suffering, 100%, but it is very bad form to: be ABLE to help someone, INGORE that they are suffering, but SMILE while helping them polish their gun.
Yep. I believe people should have choices, but after proper care. My daughter has Anorexia, but since she was still not an adult she had access to a counsellor, medication, and programs. It turned her life around. But once you are 19+ there is nothing unless you have lots of money
unless your have lots of money
That's the key right there isn't it?
Why should the wealthy elite of this society be the only ones to get access to the care they need to stay alive and well???
We are becoming a society with castes. This will not go well.
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It's getting exacerbated though.
It doesn't help when a government offical got in trouble for suggesting a veteran apply for MAID when they complained about having chronic pain.
There's a conspiracy theory that the government has rolled out MAID as a way to lower healthcare costs by just killing people instead of treating them and stories like these add fuel to that fire.
Man I wouldn't even be surprised at this point.
Right! This is just assisted suicide. What our government is saying is basically that they prefer you go and die instead of giving you treatment.
What the fuck.
To be honest, I'd be in support of assisted suicide. I support total bodily autonomy, in all aspects.
I agree with this as long as the solution is more healthcare, not less MAID. The latter is just cruelty.
Yeah, like I think the option should exist once you've passed certain qualifiers. But being mentally ill has so many consequences from capitalism. I myself struggle with metal health at times, and those times are always at their absolute worst financial problems come up. And our society is extremely difficult to get started in. Most people my age are only one paycheck away from desperation. When you're mentally ill poverty is a symptom, you're that much less capable of working. And society refuses to help you in the long term. You'll always have to face your own unreliability as an existential threat, which worsens how unreliable you are.
It is morally wrong to euthanize people because capitalism has decided they have no worth, and because they can never have a life worth living without society changing. But thats almost never what people want to talk about, they want to talk about how it's just wrong to let the unwell die. Never about how they can prevent us from becoming so unwell we cannot function.
Is it morally right to force them to continue living without changing the system?
We both know that the economic system won't be changed anytime soon.
Not at all, its just important not to lose sight of what the actual problem is here. The problem being that capitalism causes mental health problems, and makes it almost impossible to completely treat many mental health problems. We can't concede that point, least of all now when it is a subject of national debate. People don't want to just watch our vulnerable and impoverished choose death over continuing to suffer in ways they don't have to. Theres a real point of radicalization here, a point where people want solutions and we can actually offer real ones to them.
People choose to commit suicide all the time for thousands of different reasons, medical assistance doesn't enable suicide it simply makes it more humane.
I never said it did enable it, nor did I say that we shouldn't have legal options for people who are suffering.
But again, this isn't entirely an issue of medical ethics. I'm not saying we shouldn't have MAID, I am saying that every single time the subject comes up we should be saying as loudly and as frequently as possible that many of these people are dying of capitalism. They are dying of wage slavery. They are killing themselves because capitalism has decided they have no worth, and they are facing homelessness starvation and spiraling health conditions as a consequence.
You're misunderstanding me. I am not anti MAID. I'm not going to share too much personal details here but I've dealt with suicide many times in my adult life. I am well aware of how real the suffering of the mentally ill is. That only galvanizes my conviction that if you're talking about this subject and you're not pointing the finger at the Canadian government and absolutely demanding that they expand disability income, create UBI, and expand public Healthcare and ensure every Canadian citizen has access to widespread and competent mental health care - then you don't have any actual interest in helping the mentally ill. Only in making sure that death is an option, which is kinda like ensuring veteran's welfare after deployment by making sure they can kill themselves when society fails them. You can advocate for both. You can think that MAID should be an option and that our government has to actually make society a livable place.
You could give free mental health to every Canadian and still 3/4 of it would never use it due to stigma, so it wouldn't even cost as much as they think
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.
"[...]Canada will soon technically allow it but that person won't be eligible anyway." doesn't lead to as many clicks...
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.
She can apply but it doesn't mean she'll get it. It's being expanded to allow consideration for mental conditions. There's still a ton of hoops and second opinions needed to get approved.
There is way too much misinformation and sensationalism over MAID
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.
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.
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 arenβt 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 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.
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 agree with the disability rights advocates that we need to provide better access to social services. However, in either a world where we have sufficient access to social services, or the current world, I think expanded access to MAID is beneficial. I don't think expanded MAID is in lieu of expanded social services, nor do I think expanded MAID will discourage expanding social services.
If the religious advocates are pushing back on this, maybe they could actually push for better access to social services so less disabled people wanted to die?
I can only think of the suicide cabin from Futurama
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.
I'm still more concerned the potential of harm for peole could've recovered if they had better medical access, since the damage is irreversible.
Honestly I don't fully trust myself in this regard, so I don't really think it's a good idea. People who are very determined can just order a suicide kit online or whatever.
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