Perhaps the fact its PM is a sad, dissociated narcissist with a saviour complex, the son and heir of one of the original Club of Rome obsessed with population reduction as a utopian means of saving humanity from itself, a clever, emotionally illiterate cipher of a “leader” barely able to think and act independently of the exclusive little groupthinking club of cosseted, delusional globalist puppets to which he belongs just might, perhaps, have something to do with it?
Well, sometimes the truth hurts and I would say that his government’s policies, included those described in the article, are in much poorer taste than my comment. I might be totally wrong of course – I don’t actually know the guy. But the way I see it is that Trudeau does not value individual human life in the way that most ordinary people do. But from his public persona, pronouncements, and policies, it strikes me that he prioritises ideas and ideology over individual people and that can lead one down a utilitarian path in which it’s OK to cause, or at least allow, fellow human beings to die for the greater good or in pursuit of some idealistic aim or another.
No Andrew Hosman. The truth sometimes hurts is a cop-out. A great deal that was said in this piece was extremely one-sided. That is a red flag. Also, little if no reference is offered for the reader to verify the information. Another red flag. Lastly, we have absolutely no idea what was going on in the man’s mind and how the hospital navigated the necessary hurdles to make the decision to assist. Not a peep. Another red flag.
The piece was written by Alan Nichols’ brother so I would hope we could forgive a one-sided view. The bald fact is that Alan was phyically well but mentally tormented. The argument or the practice has moved on from assisted dying for the terminally ill to spare them weeks or months of unbearable pain and indignity, to assisted dying for the depressed and suicidal. A red flag surely?
I’m afraid I don’t buy the indignity argument.
There isn’t anything dignified about dying.
The notion of creating a ‘dignified’ death is a myth.
What’s really being asked for is the right to be killed.
Logically I find this whole debate curious.
As a society we get concerned about suicide rates amongst younger people, but somehow if they’re older or ill, then it seems ok to cull them off.
I’m at that age where I’ve buried both my parents.
My mum hadn’t been well for a while & after a fall needed nursing care. We’d noticed her mental state starting to decline but then she was diagnosed with cancer if the stomach & was gone in 3 months.
My dad (who outlived my mum by 6yrs) developed Alzheimer’s. His decline was more gradual, but after having to go into hospital for a minor procedure during one of the Covid lockdowns went downhill really quickly.
With both of them my sisters & I had some difficult decisions to take alongside the medical professionals including signing DNRs.
But at no time did it ever occur to us that killing them early was an option.
Present medical care & drugs are such that neither was distressed or in pain, close to the end.
The most distressing thing for us at the bedside was watching someone you loved slip away. But I fail to see how ending their life early (no matter how humanely), could have helped
The federal government does bear responsibility for the crafting of the laws around MAID and for their increasing liberalisation. It should be noted, however, that it was the Supreme Court that first determined that physician assisted suicide was a Charter right. As a Canadian, I am against the law and the very slippery slope we now find ourselves on, but it’s pointless blaming it all on Trudeau. The widespread (and concerning) popularity of the law is due in part to years of relentless lobbying by pro euthanasia groups. Even the name of the process, “Medical Assistance in Dying”, elides the fact that that is what we used to call palliative care.
The death culture of euthanasia and abortion is much, much wider than one bloke.
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
I always used to think the ‘thin edge of the wedge’ argument against legalising assisted suicide was weak – that it wouldn’t be exploited to allow suicide cases well beyond the expected cohorts of people with terminal illness, serious health issues or the extremely frail.
But now assisted suicide is established policy in several countries it’s obvious that it’s being used by people well outside the expected cohorts, culminating in the appalling case reported last week of a 23 year old woman with mental health issues being assisted in her suicide in Belgium, and with the support of her parents. That’s just wrong. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11295095/Belgian-woman-euthanised-traumatised-ISIS-attack.html
Is it wrong? Maybe. That depends on whether one considers mental suffering to be more bearable long-term than physical. And that these two can be separated. If motor neurons disease is an example of a justifiable basis for assisted dying is that because of the physical consequences or the mental challenges of dealing with it?
The topic is complex and individual cases as reported in the media rarely carry the detail need to establish their relevance to the debate
So if you happened to come across a young girl about to commit suicide you’d let her get on with it, on the basis that it’s a complex topic, she’s made her decision and you don’t know the details behind that decision?
Of course not, as the article states many people who try to in the spur of the moment end up regretting their choice. However these people have a long time to think about their decision before actually going through with it so in my mind it’s a different situation.
I’m not saying I agree with the liberalisation of assisted dying, in all honesty I still can’t make up my mind whether I’m for against it
AC Harper
1 year ago
Not really acknowledged in the article is the sometimes tyranny of relations. A spouse that refuses a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ notification. Siblings that insist on increasingly invasive treatment despite it being unwelcome. In effect being condemned to live by other people.
In Britain many people choose to ‘go home to die’. Perhaps because they cannot ask for assisted death, but choose to escape from medical interference?
I often think of the case of Terry Schaivo, whom I believe was painfully kept alive by her family. Trapped in her broken body, unable to communicate for over a decade…
Families should have no say in what a person wants to do. As long as the person is of sound mind, they should have full autonomy over their life.
I have had a living will for the last 44 years. My parents knew what was in it. My partner now knows as do my siblings and their children It has never changed. I know what I want in the event of certain things happening to me. It is written into my medical notes. My life, my choices. My family have no right to go against my directions even if I am not of sound mind as I was when I write my living will.
Quincy Collins
1 year ago
Around 1980, the Christian philosopher who welcomed young people from around the world, Francis Schaefer, argued that should we permit abortion, we would eventually permit Euthanasia. With the Canadian medical system breaking down due to COVID’s stresses on caregivers, etc. and with the knowledge the most health care costs are incurred in the last year of life, do we not realize that we will be told we cannot expect any quality of the life, hence we can be painlessly medicated out of existence? Can we not see a desperate government, trying to save dollars hustling us in our gurneys toward the hospital morgue with an automated phone call to our family saying we have passed on ? Please collect your late family’s possessions at the front desk.
Sorry to take this line of thinking but having been a Pastor for 40 years, and conducting mostly funerals in an increasingly non-Christian society, the value of life to the State is if we are productive consumers, not Useless Eaters. State sanctioned Euthanasia is on its way. Don’t solely blame Trudeau. There has been no outrage from Canadians at these bills being passed therefore, politicians, ever sensitive to public opinion, have passed these laws on our behalf.
Until we search our souls and ask what we have become without God, things will not change. And watch,” Logan’s Run.”
I don’t believe in God. I have never believed in God. I don’t have to search my soul or anything else. I believe that women have a right to chose to abort the foetus growing inside them if they need to ( I have no children as I couldn’t carry to term and as I wasn’t married the good Christian doctors were not willing to help me and my partner have children). I also believe in autonomy over our health, our bodies and our own lives. We should be allowed and, if necessary, helped to die at a time and place of our own choosing. And the state should allow that to happen. There will always be people who think they are a burden and want to opt out. There will always be families who say No or Yes against the opinion of the individual. That can be legislated for. But it should be a personal choice. Nowt yo do with whatever you call God.
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Currently, the UK is considering legislating to make it legal to kill off unproductive people, notably the old and the sick and those in terminal pain.
This is an instance where a law’s primary importance is its role as a cultural catalyst in the post-Christian West’s reversion to its former death culture. I’ve helped care for relatives before their deaths. As anyone who has experience of such caring knows well, DNR and DNF notices are commonplace when someone is approaching the end. That is, de facto, assisted dying already exists. It’s just that there is not a culture of encouraging it. Legislating for it will have a powerful cultural effect. For instance, in a related context, abortion always sells itself by reference to the hard cases of rape, likely major birth defects and risk to the health of the Mother; yet the majority of abortions are not done for such reasons, but are done for reasons of convenience or poverty. Similarly, while the incurable pain narrative will loom large in the euthanasia debate, the unintended reality will be vulnerable elderly people (who aren’t in unbearable pain) being murdered by lazy and greedy younger relatives.
Face facts, folks. Humans aren’t generally sufficiently noble to withstand the temptations and opportunities of state-sanctioned senicide, and you may be a little naive if you think otherwise.
Having watched two grandparents go through the end stages of terminal cancer, I have always been firmly on the side of approving assisted suicide but stories like this give me pause. I never gave much credence to the ‘slippery slope’ argument that opponents always used, but hearing stories like this makes me think maybe I was wrong. It’s always the ice you don’t see that causes a slip.
Arkadian X
1 year ago
The article for Bari Weiss is well worth reading, but heart-wrenching.
Brett H
1 year ago
I find it hard to believe in an omnipotent god. I’ve never felt anything that would convince me. But regardless of whether there is a God or not it seems to me there is the word of God and the laws of God as we find them in the Bible. By breaking them and tossing them aside we find ourselves adrift and lost. The decisions we make seem to lead to more complications that we don’t know how to address. Euthanasia, something to me that seemed a reasonable idea, and still does, is one of those decisions that seems to be skidding out if control already. The more of these laws we break the more complex our lives become. I think it’s too late now to turn back. Perhaps it was our fate. But we seem to have transgressed our own laws.
Martin Bollis
1 year ago
The article opened with “they’re going to say that all suicides are way down.” I’d have liked some expansion of that. If it’s true does it not imply that many suicidal people are now able to end their lives in less agonising circumstances?
This article seems to me to do what so much modern reporting does – twist the heart strings rather than analyse the issue.
I tend towards the thin end of the wedge argument but would be interested to read a proper look at both ethical pros and cons as well the emerging empirical experience in those countries that have already gone down the path.
I really don’t see why having some nurse give you a lethal injection would be less agonising to the suicidal than taking an overdose or jumping off a bridge. Maybe the lethal injection would be less physically painful. But, if you have a suicidal mindset, you are in a world of pain already.
Ian Barton
1 year ago
One of the more balanced pieces on this subject. The reasonable principle of Assisted Suicide in the “right” circumstances” seems to now have become socially accepted – but there is still a lot of work to do to clarify what the “right circumstances” are, and how “authorisation” should be provided.
Maighread G
1 year ago
I quote from the Julie Burchill article linked above: She refers to the Samaritans guidance on reporting suicide. ‘This holds that journalists should “steer clear of presenting suicidal behaviour as an understandable response to a crisis or adversity”.
Surely offering assisted suicide to those suffering from mental health issues is presenting suicidal behaviour as a understandable and acceptable response to a crisis or adversity. It’s dangerous. It’s lunacy.
Martin Smith
1 year ago
This is always a hard issue, hard cases bad law etc., but I do wish proponents wouldn’t use the ‘we euthanise our pets’ argument: our pets have no say in the matter, and can be put down just because they have become inconvenient.
Last edited 1 year ago by Martin Smith
Mustard Clementine
1 year ago
This makes a pretty thin case against assisted dying – not really the best example to use. Definitely not worth over 40 minutes of focus.
There are far better and more obviously grey examples that have been covered quite recently in our media here (in Canada), such as:
As someone who is generally pretty supportive of assisted dying – even I am not sure what I think of that one. Allowing depressed teenagers to make that decision is also something that gives even me pause (to say the least).
A worthwhile topic to explore in general but I would say the article and video here are pretty lightweight – not only in no way unheard, but far less in depth than many other sources who have provided much better coverage.
As an aside, any 3rd-trimester abortion is an example of a parent requesting medically assisted euthanasia of children. More relevant is that I am one of those unfortunate individuals affected by lifelong intractable mental health problems that want the option of an assisted death. November 13th, 2022 would suit me just fine were it not that I am stuck in the UK with little prospect of ever leaving my house, or the UK passing legislation that would help bring an end to my suffering any time soon.
I listened to the interview and thought it made an excellent case against assisted suicide in many instances.
John Findlay
1 year ago
Almost exactly a year ago, I lost my youngest son, aged 25, to suicide. He wasn’t ‘assisted’, but his death was not prevented when it could have been, in my view, because of the casual attitude of the psychiatric services he’d been referred to, and the barriers put up by the privacy legislation (him being legally an adult) , that inhibited us as parents from talking to the medics involved about exactly what had been going on. This article has eerie parallels with our own experience here in the UK. I was once generally in favour of the idea of medically assisted suicide, not any more. It’s far too easy for the ‘machine’ to say “sign here, or get your attorney to sign”.
M. Jamieson
1 year ago
There has not been a recommendation by reviewers in Canada that Assistance in dying be opened up to infants.
Apart from the immediate issue, this is good example of how social “progress’ is now being perused through the legal system. Advocates make a case for a new law to MPs and to the public, using emotive hard cases and promising all possible protections will be put in place. It’s all done very conservatively.
Immediately once the law is passed they look for opportunities to remove the protections through the courts, by arguing they are in some way unconstitutional. At the same time they find more hard cases involving the limits on the law which they present to the public to gain support for removing protections.
And so within a very short time of said law being passed it no longer applies only to people with a foreseeable death, or to people who can actively say they want it at the time, nor does it exclude people who have mental illnesses or who are children.
The hope is that they get these changes made before people begin to see significant negative examples of what happens when the protections are removed.
Guy Pigache
1 year ago
The Canadian system may well be flawed. But that is not proven by one case where we (sadly) can only hear the story of the bereaved. I would suggest the journalist does some proper research
There are only two stories that can be told. That of the bereaved. And that of the professionals paid to do this. The most important story – that of the euthanised – can’t be told.
And one case is enough to prove an abuse of a system. In fact, it takes only one abuse of a system to demonstrate that system’s failure.
Neil Clover, “…it takes only one abuse of a system to demonstrate that system’s failure.” That comment doesn’t reflect critical thinking on your part. Let’s see… the Americans voted in the stupidest and most dangerous president in their entire history. Did you think of Trump? By your definition, we should scrap the republic?
The Spectator has been following this story for some time. You can read many more examples there. The service has now been opened up to those who can no longer afford medical care and “mature minors” whatever that means. I would suggest you do some proper research.
You don’t like debate then Guy? Your consistent position in this thread is that we’re all too uninformed and therefore can’t possibly discuss this matter using real case evidence – as this story did and I linked to above too. It’s an article about the extremes of the policy where single cases are quite appropriate for that debate.
This article focussed on one case. It was about one man and the family he left behind. There are certainly more articles to be written about this issue. But the journalist did research this one case properly and well.
Barry Murphy
1 year ago
I believe assisted suicide should be legal for those suffering from depression – but only if they have already sought treatment several times and the treatment has failed. Some people genuinely want to die – why should they be forced to live?
Fred Paul
1 year ago
Wait… let me see if I got this right. A democratic and free country re-elects a party back into office in last year’s snap election, and the party, not Trudeau, is making crazy decisions about allowing anyone to die, because they wish to die, because it is in line with their political beliefs, which by far right conservative measures, is considered total liberal? “Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, is barreling at breakneck speed towards near total liberalisation.” In the comments section, I see conservative-thinking people using this sad story to promote their brand of politics at the expense of a prime minister and the party he represents.
Anyone who uses critical thinking, no matter which side of the political spectrum they rest, can identify several red flags here. This piece is extremely one-sided. We have no unbiased case history of the individual. We have no access to the case file to determine how the hospital came to the conclusion that this man was suffering well beyond his ability to cope with it, and it was probably going to get worse. Although the piece mentions other countries, we are left to do our own homework to dig for information to find out exactly what is going on in their decision-making process that seems to parallel Canada’s and verify or debunk what the author is saying. All we have is a brother who couldn’t read the body language or whatever else that was communicated by his long-suffering brother to him that this was it… he couldn’t take it anymore, it is his decision, he’s leaving you out of it. It’s done.
Don’t ever mix politics with the country’s social moral standards or mankind’s universal moral standards. Google moral universalism. It will only come back to bite you.
And while we’re on the morals kick, I’ve been living for 34 years in a country that prides itself on freedom and high morals. That country is all talk. It’s somewhere in the 50s percentile in Freedom House’s list of free countries worldwide. Google Freedom House list of countries. Canada is in third place. Does that surprise you? What kind of a country would elect a man like Trump and keep supporting him when all his failings surfaced, and all his legal challenges confronting him were piling up? Talk about morals.
Does Freedom House’s listing take account of Canada’s shameful treatment of those who decided not to get the Covid vaccine? Obviously not if the country is still at number three on the list!
Why did Canada help my brother to die?
Perhaps the fact its PM is a sad, dissociated narcissist with a saviour complex, the son and heir of one of the original Club of Rome obsessed with population reduction as a utopian means of saving humanity from itself, a clever, emotionally illiterate cipher of a “leader” barely able to think and act independently of the exclusive little groupthinking club of cosseted, delusional globalist puppets to which he belongs just might, perhaps, have something to do with it?
May Alan rest in peace.
Your comment strikes me as being in poor taste, suggesting to me that Trudeau wishes to see the death of fellow Canadians
Well, sometimes the truth hurts and I would say that his government’s policies, included those described in the article, are in much poorer taste than my comment. I might be totally wrong of course – I don’t actually know the guy. But the way I see it is that Trudeau does not value individual human life in the way that most ordinary people do. But from his public persona, pronouncements, and policies, it strikes me that he prioritises ideas and ideology over individual people and that can lead one down a utilitarian path in which it’s OK to cause, or at least allow, fellow human beings to die for the greater good or in pursuit of some idealistic aim or another.
No Andrew Hosman. The truth sometimes hurts is a cop-out. A great deal that was said in this piece was extremely one-sided. That is a red flag. Also, little if no reference is offered for the reader to verify the information. Another red flag. Lastly, we have absolutely no idea what was going on in the man’s mind and how the hospital navigated the necessary hurdles to make the decision to assist. Not a peep. Another red flag.
The piece was written by Alan Nichols’ brother so I would hope we could forgive a one-sided view. The bald fact is that Alan was phyically well but mentally tormented. The argument or the practice has moved on from assisted dying for the terminally ill to spare them weeks or months of unbearable pain and indignity, to assisted dying for the depressed and suicidal. A red flag surely?
I’m afraid I don’t buy the indignity argument.
There isn’t anything dignified about dying.
The notion of creating a ‘dignified’ death is a myth.
What’s really being asked for is the right to be killed.
Logically I find this whole debate curious.
As a society we get concerned about suicide rates amongst younger people, but somehow if they’re older or ill, then it seems ok to cull them off.
I’m at that age where I’ve buried both my parents.
My mum hadn’t been well for a while & after a fall needed nursing care. We’d noticed her mental state starting to decline but then she was diagnosed with cancer if the stomach & was gone in 3 months.
My dad (who outlived my mum by 6yrs) developed Alzheimer’s. His decline was more gradual, but after having to go into hospital for a minor procedure during one of the Covid lockdowns went downhill really quickly.
With both of them my sisters & I had some difficult decisions to take alongside the medical professionals including signing DNRs.
But at no time did it ever occur to us that killing them early was an option.
Present medical care & drugs are such that neither was distressed or in pain, close to the end.
The most distressing thing for us at the bedside was watching someone you loved slip away. But I fail to see how ending their life early (no matter how humanely), could have helped
The federal government does bear responsibility for the crafting of the laws around MAID and for their increasing liberalisation. It should be noted, however, that it was the Supreme Court that first determined that physician assisted suicide was a Charter right. As a Canadian, I am against the law and the very slippery slope we now find ourselves on, but it’s pointless blaming it all on Trudeau. The widespread (and concerning) popularity of the law is due in part to years of relentless lobbying by pro euthanasia groups. Even the name of the process, “Medical Assistance in Dying”, elides the fact that that is what we used to call palliative care.
Trudeau has stopped wishing and started enabling.
Everything Justin Trudeau does is in poor taste.
The death culture of euthanasia and abortion is much, much wider than one bloke.
I always used to think the ‘thin edge of the wedge’ argument against legalising assisted suicide was weak – that it wouldn’t be exploited to allow suicide cases well beyond the expected cohorts of people with terminal illness, serious health issues or the extremely frail.
But now assisted suicide is established policy in several countries it’s obvious that it’s being used by people well outside the expected cohorts, culminating in the appalling case reported last week of a 23 year old woman with mental health issues being assisted in her suicide in Belgium, and with the support of her parents. That’s just wrong.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11295095/Belgian-woman-euthanised-traumatised-ISIS-attack.html
Is it wrong? Maybe. That depends on whether one considers mental suffering to be more bearable long-term than physical. And that these two can be separated. If motor neurons disease is an example of a justifiable basis for assisted dying is that because of the physical consequences or the mental challenges of dealing with it?
The topic is complex and individual cases as reported in the media rarely carry the detail need to establish their relevance to the debate
So if you happened to come across a young girl about to commit suicide you’d let her get on with it, on the basis that it’s a complex topic, she’s made her decision and you don’t know the details behind that decision?
Of course not, as the article states many people who try to in the spur of the moment end up regretting their choice. However these people have a long time to think about their decision before actually going through with it so in my mind it’s a different situation.
I’m not saying I agree with the liberalisation of assisted dying, in all honesty I still can’t make up my mind whether I’m for against it
Not really acknowledged in the article is the sometimes tyranny of relations. A spouse that refuses a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ notification. Siblings that insist on increasingly invasive treatment despite it being unwelcome. In effect being condemned to live by other people.
In Britain many people choose to ‘go home to die’. Perhaps because they cannot ask for assisted death, but choose to escape from medical interference?
I often think of the case of Terry Schaivo, whom I believe was painfully kept alive by her family. Trapped in her broken body, unable to communicate for over a decade…
Families should have no say in what a person wants to do. As long as the person is of sound mind, they should have full autonomy over their life.
I have had a living will for the last 44 years. My parents knew what was in it. My partner now knows as do my siblings and their children It has never changed. I know what I want in the event of certain things happening to me. It is written into my medical notes. My life, my choices. My family have no right to go against my directions even if I am not of sound mind as I was when I write my living will.
Around 1980, the Christian philosopher who welcomed young people from around the world, Francis Schaefer, argued that should we permit abortion, we would eventually permit Euthanasia. With the Canadian medical system breaking down due to COVID’s stresses on caregivers, etc. and with the knowledge the most health care costs are incurred in the last year of life, do we not realize that we will be told we cannot expect any quality of the life, hence we can be painlessly medicated out of existence? Can we not see a desperate government, trying to save dollars hustling us in our gurneys toward the hospital morgue with an automated phone call to our family saying we have passed on ? Please collect your late family’s possessions at the front desk.
Sorry to take this line of thinking but having been a Pastor for 40 years, and conducting mostly funerals in an increasingly non-Christian society, the value of life to the State is if we are productive consumers, not Useless Eaters. State sanctioned Euthanasia is on its way. Don’t solely blame Trudeau. There has been no outrage from Canadians at these bills being passed therefore, politicians, ever sensitive to public opinion, have passed these laws on our behalf.
Until we search our souls and ask what we have become without God, things will not change. And watch,” Logan’s Run.”
I don’t believe in God. I have never believed in God. I don’t have to search my soul or anything else. I believe that women have a right to chose to abort the foetus growing inside them if they need to ( I have no children as I couldn’t carry to term and as I wasn’t married the good Christian doctors were not willing to help me and my partner have children). I also believe in autonomy over our health, our bodies and our own lives. We should be allowed and, if necessary, helped to die at a time and place of our own choosing. And the state should allow that to happen. There will always be people who think they are a burden and want to opt out. There will always be families who say No or Yes against the opinion of the individual. That can be legislated for. But it should be a personal choice. Nowt yo do with whatever you call God.
Currently, the UK is considering legislating to make it legal to kill off unproductive people, notably the old and the sick and those in terminal pain.
This is an instance where a law’s primary importance is its role as a cultural catalyst in the post-Christian West’s reversion to its former death culture. I’ve helped care for relatives before their deaths. As anyone who has experience of such caring knows well, DNR and DNF notices are commonplace when someone is approaching the end. That is, de facto, assisted dying already exists. It’s just that there is not a culture of encouraging it. Legislating for it will have a powerful cultural effect. For instance, in a related context, abortion always sells itself by reference to the hard cases of rape, likely major birth defects and risk to the health of the Mother; yet the majority of abortions are not done for such reasons, but are done for reasons of convenience or poverty. Similarly, while the incurable pain narrative will loom large in the euthanasia debate, the unintended reality will be vulnerable elderly people (who aren’t in unbearable pain) being murdered by lazy and greedy younger relatives.
Face facts, folks. Humans aren’t generally sufficiently noble to withstand the temptations and opportunities of state-sanctioned senicide, and you may be a little naive if you think otherwise.
Rubbish.
Having watched two grandparents go through the end stages of terminal cancer, I have always been firmly on the side of approving assisted suicide but stories like this give me pause. I never gave much credence to the ‘slippery slope’ argument that opponents always used, but hearing stories like this makes me think maybe I was wrong. It’s always the ice you don’t see that causes a slip.
The article for Bari Weiss is well worth reading, but heart-wrenching.
I find it hard to believe in an omnipotent god. I’ve never felt anything that would convince me. But regardless of whether there is a God or not it seems to me there is the word of God and the laws of God as we find them in the Bible. By breaking them and tossing them aside we find ourselves adrift and lost. The decisions we make seem to lead to more complications that we don’t know how to address. Euthanasia, something to me that seemed a reasonable idea, and still does, is one of those decisions that seems to be skidding out if control already. The more of these laws we break the more complex our lives become. I think it’s too late now to turn back. Perhaps it was our fate. But we seem to have transgressed our own laws.
The article opened with “they’re going to say that all suicides are way down.” I’d have liked some expansion of that. If it’s true does it not imply that many suicidal people are now able to end their lives in less agonising circumstances?
This article seems to me to do what so much modern reporting does – twist the heart strings rather than analyse the issue.
I tend towards the thin end of the wedge argument but would be interested to read a proper look at both ethical pros and cons as well the emerging empirical experience in those countries that have already gone down the path.
Agreed, I’d be interested to see if the reduction of suicides corresponds with rise of assisted dying
“Assisted dying” is suicide. Plain and simple. One can euphemize it all they want, but it’s suicide, now with the blessing and help of the state.
Suicide is simply dying at your own hand. “suicide” is a euphemism. Plain and simple.
“I’d have liked some expansion of that. If it’s true does … “
I thought the writer made reference to that, with a link.
I really don’t see why having some nurse give you a lethal injection would be less agonising to the suicidal than taking an overdose or jumping off a bridge. Maybe the lethal injection would be less physically painful. But, if you have a suicidal mindset, you are in a world of pain already.
One of the more balanced pieces on this subject. The reasonable principle of Assisted Suicide in the “right” circumstances” seems to now have become socially accepted – but there is still a lot of work to do to clarify what the “right circumstances” are, and how “authorisation” should be provided.
I quote from the Julie Burchill article linked above: She refers to the Samaritans guidance on reporting suicide.
‘This holds that journalists should “steer clear of presenting suicidal behaviour as an understandable response to a crisis or adversity”.
Surely offering assisted suicide to those suffering from mental health issues is presenting suicidal behaviour as a understandable and acceptable response to a crisis or adversity. It’s dangerous. It’s lunacy.
This is always a hard issue, hard cases bad law etc., but I do wish proponents wouldn’t use the ‘we euthanise our pets’ argument: our pets have no say in the matter, and can be put down just because they have become inconvenient.
This makes a pretty thin case against assisted dying – not really the best example to use. Definitely not worth over 40 minutes of focus.
There are far better and more obviously grey examples that have been covered quite recently in our media here (in Canada), such as:
Canadian parents have asked for medically assisted death for babies, doctors say
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-maid-medical-assistance-in-dying-children
As someone who is generally pretty supportive of assisted dying – even I am not sure what I think of that one. Allowing depressed teenagers to make that decision is also something that gives even me pause (to say the least).
A worthwhile topic to explore in general but I would say the article and video here are pretty lightweight – not only in no way unheard, but far less in depth than many other sources who have provided much better coverage.
As an aside, any 3rd-trimester abortion is an example of a parent requesting medically assisted euthanasia of children. More relevant is that I am one of those unfortunate individuals affected by lifelong intractable mental health problems that want the option of an assisted death. November 13th, 2022 would suit me just fine were it not that I am stuck in the UK with little prospect of ever leaving my house, or the UK passing legislation that would help bring an end to my suffering any time soon.
I am so sorry to hear this Gareth, I wish you peace xx
I listened to the interview and thought it made an excellent case against assisted suicide in many instances.
Almost exactly a year ago, I lost my youngest son, aged 25, to suicide. He wasn’t ‘assisted’, but his death was not prevented when it could have been, in my view, because of the casual attitude of the psychiatric services he’d been referred to, and the barriers put up by the privacy legislation (him being legally an adult) , that inhibited us as parents from talking to the medics involved about exactly what had been going on. This article has eerie parallels with our own experience here in the UK. I was once generally in favour of the idea of medically assisted suicide, not any more. It’s far too easy for the ‘machine’ to say “sign here, or get your attorney to sign”.
There has not been a recommendation by reviewers in Canada that Assistance in dying be opened up to infants.
Apart from the immediate issue, this is good example of how social “progress’ is now being perused through the legal system. Advocates make a case for a new law to MPs and to the public, using emotive hard cases and promising all possible protections will be put in place. It’s all done very conservatively.
Immediately once the law is passed they look for opportunities to remove the protections through the courts, by arguing they are in some way unconstitutional. At the same time they find more hard cases involving the limits on the law which they present to the public to gain support for removing protections.
And so within a very short time of said law being passed it no longer applies only to people with a foreseeable death, or to people who can actively say they want it at the time, nor does it exclude people who have mental illnesses or who are children.
The hope is that they get these changes made before people begin to see significant negative examples of what happens when the protections are removed.
The Canadian system may well be flawed. But that is not proven by one case where we (sadly) can only hear the story of the bereaved. I would suggest the journalist does some proper research
Maybe you could present your case for saying that.
In other words, mere speculation.
There are only two stories that can be told. That of the bereaved. And that of the professionals paid to do this. The most important story – that of the euthanised – can’t be told.
And one case is enough to prove an abuse of a system. In fact, it takes only one abuse of a system to demonstrate that system’s failure.
Neil Clover, “…it takes only one abuse of a system to demonstrate that system’s failure.” That comment doesn’t reflect critical thinking on your part. Let’s see… the Americans voted in the stupidest and most dangerous president in their entire history. Did you think of Trump? By your definition, we should scrap the republic?
Dude this discussion has nothing to do with Trump. Focus!
The Spectator has been following this story for some time. You can read many more examples there. The service has now been opened up to those who can no longer afford medical care and “mature minors” whatever that means.
I would suggest you do some proper research.
I think he knows that already – he’s just trying to censor any discussion.
You don’t like debate then Guy? Your consistent position in this thread is that we’re all too uninformed and therefore can’t possibly discuss this matter using real case evidence – as this story did and I linked to above too. It’s an article about the extremes of the policy where single cases are quite appropriate for that debate.
There is no other side because patient privacy prevents the hospital from discussing.
This article focussed on one case. It was about one man and the family he left behind. There are certainly more articles to be written about this issue. But the journalist did research this one case properly and well.
I believe assisted suicide should be legal for those suffering from depression – but only if they have already sought treatment several times and the treatment has failed. Some people genuinely want to die – why should they be forced to live?
Wait… let me see if I got this right. A democratic and free country re-elects a party back into office in last year’s snap election, and the party, not Trudeau, is making crazy decisions about allowing anyone to die, because they wish to die, because it is in line with their political beliefs, which by far right conservative measures, is considered total liberal? “Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, is barreling at breakneck speed towards near total liberalisation.” In the comments section, I see conservative-thinking people using this sad story to promote their brand of politics at the expense of a prime minister and the party he represents.
Anyone who uses critical thinking, no matter which side of the political spectrum they rest, can identify several red flags here. This piece is extremely one-sided. We have no unbiased case history of the individual. We have no access to the case file to determine how the hospital came to the conclusion that this man was suffering well beyond his ability to cope with it, and it was probably going to get worse. Although the piece mentions other countries, we are left to do our own homework to dig for information to find out exactly what is going on in their decision-making process that seems to parallel Canada’s and verify or debunk what the author is saying. All we have is a brother who couldn’t read the body language or whatever else that was communicated by his long-suffering brother to him that this was it… he couldn’t take it anymore, it is his decision, he’s leaving you out of it. It’s done.
Don’t ever mix politics with the country’s social moral standards or mankind’s universal moral standards. Google moral universalism. It will only come back to bite you.
And while we’re on the morals kick, I’ve been living for 34 years in a country that prides itself on freedom and high morals. That country is all talk. It’s somewhere in the 50s percentile in Freedom House’s list of free countries worldwide. Google Freedom House list of countries. Canada is in third place. Does that surprise you? What kind of a country would elect a man like Trump and keep supporting him when all his failings surfaced, and all his legal challenges confronting him were piling up? Talk about morals.
So glad you brought Trump into this……..
Does Freedom House’s listing take account of Canada’s shameful treatment of those who decided not to get the Covid vaccine? Obviously not if the country is still at number three on the list!