Why is Canada euthanising the poor?
spectator.co.ukI don't agree with the premise that because people are suffering societal neglect, they are unable to consent to die.
> When the family of a 35-year-old disabled man who resorted to euthanasia arrived at the care home where he lived, they encountered ‘urine on the floor… spots where there was feces on the floor… spots where your feet were just sticking. Like, if you stood at his bedside and when you went to walk away, your foot was literally stuck.’ According to the Canadian government, the assisted suicide law is about ‘prioritis[ing] the individual autonomy of Canadians’; one may wonder how much autonomy a disabled man lying in his own filth had in weighing death over life.
My counter would be: are you telling me it is better to live in your own filth. Unless somehow the man's living conditions would be better were suicide not allowed, then that's pretty bad and I think society's response shouldn't be to stop him from killing himself, but improving his living conditions. Because it's unlikely that his living conditions would've actually improved, and ultimately he would just live in suffering for another thirty years.
There is the argument that "oh well maybe in 5 years it would improve, and his living conditions would get better", but I would argue, that's really for him to decide. Does he believe that society will actually improve his life? Does he want to take that gamble or not? He's probably been living in these awful conditions already for a decade, does he feel like he can endure another decade of suffering.
I do agree that society's failure to provide social care is a big problem, but I don't think we should force people to endure more suffering to encourage the systematic change.
I also agree that coercion to kill yourself is completely unacceptable, and should be addressed with more checks and balances.
"I think society's response shouldn't be to stop him from killing himself, but improving his living conditions."
I don't think the article is opposed to this. It sounds like the care home was violating their existing duty of care in not proving a clean living environment. I mean, who isn't going to want to kill themself when the people paid to take care of you and are legally obligated to take care of you let you live in sewage and you have no where else to go with nobody looking out for your best interest. So you aren't making the decision to kill yourself based on your medical condition but rather on the illegal level of care the facility is providing.
Although based on your statement about consenting to die, I could see that if you believe people should be allowed to consent to die without a terminal illness. For example, someone if someone is simply poor but is in good health. Although society has generally frowned on that so far.
That's a seriously misleading headline.
The situation is tragic enough, but the Canadian government most certainly did not force her to kill herself. What they did do, which was almost as bad, was to fail to offer her any viable choice for dealing with her disabilities.
"Why is Canada euthanising the poor?"
This doesn't seem to be seriously misleading, in my opinion. It's quite common to use the country's name to refer to something the population is doing and not the government.
No but in many cases you could rewrite it as "why does Canada let rich people live long, drawn out, painful deaths of suffering?"
Given that everyone is going to die, defaulting to euthanasia in the majority of cases is probably better for the eithanized without taking into account class (let's suppose that life-continuation was permitted by lottery).
Of course people have emotional hangups, or religious beliefs around death that make the net human condition worse.
'No but in many cases you could rewrite it as "why does Canada let rich people live long, drawn out, painful deaths of suffering?"'
From the article, your proposed rewrite does not make sense. There's nothing to say that these people would have drawn out and painful deaths if they're doing it simply because they don't have money to support themselves. There are also medications to alleviate pain.
"Given that everyone is going to die, defaulting to euthanasia in the majority of cases is probably better for the eithanized without taking into account class"
Maybe. The real question at the heart of the story isn't whether to allow euthanasia, but whether the change to more permissive regulations is leading to abuses.
As a counter argument to this, you could produce some numbers on how many of your majority of cases would not be allowed under the old wording.
"assisted suicide only costs the taxpayer $2,327 per ‘case’."
That seems absurdly expensive.
I have family in medicine in the US. They have seen other doctors basically over medicate people until they slowly slip away in the name of "compassionate care". They don't trust have little trust in the system and recommend against DNR/living will other than to name a trusted family member to make medical decisions for you. My wife's grandmother had a stoke and a living will. She was showing signs of getting better after the stoke but that quickly turned downhill since they weren't feeding her since she wasn't passing the swallow test and the living will didn't allow for a feeding tube. And of course the doctors had her pretty drugged up too, so she wasn't coherent.
My dad was severely disabled and in a good care home (after joining a wait list and having his sister as his advocate) for some years when part of his insurance ran out, requiring me and a sibling to begin paying part of the monthly bill. Shortly afterward the nurses in the home sent him to the hospital where I went to pay him a visit. This happened somewhat regularly, he would be temporarily sent to a hospital after an incident and then sent back to the care home. He seemed normal enough to me, and in fairly good spirits. But this time he did not get sent back to the home, instead the hospital called me and said my dad was in a life threatening condition and might die shortly. I went to the hospital again and visited with him and he seemed more tired but still not too different from himself. But the nurses and doctor nevertheless asserted that he was close to death. We ultimately agreed to put him in palliative care where he soon passed away. Looking back I sometimes feel that I implicitly agreed to euthanize my dad. And that if he were still fully insured that he would have been sent back to the care home as normal. His life at the time was painful no doubt but the more I think of it the more I feel like this incident was a contrivance to clear his room for the next guest who had insurance. I had no clue of the legal going ons around euthanasia at the time, my thoughts on this are not effected by any of that. It may have been more humane to euthanize my dad from some perspective as well. But the real trigger to his demise was perhaps simply the hospital's knowledge of his financial situation, as communicated to them by his care home.
I have a total solution: If a patient asks for painless quick death, we should ask "Would you rather take this here Million Dollars and then rot slowly to death".
Wait. I have another solution: "Those who die before their god-ordained time, loose all their wealth and die poor".
But I think this was used in medieval times, at least they did lose their advantageous spot in the graveyard.
That sounds nice, where do the million dollars come from?
In the Nordic countries the obligatory minimum care of terminal cancer patient is often quoted as 100,000 euros. So this sum might be cumulative and we start from the 100,000.
The Nordic countries have a much more social government which requires a much higher level of social trust than we have in the North American countries.
Erh. What? You should point out that if give the patient 100,000, and the minimal terminal care, the government loses 200,000.
But I have solution. Now that the patient is rich, we can tax him more. In Finnish terminal homes they can take 90% of government-paid pension.