Home » Canada set to put into effect medically assisted suicide for the mentally ill

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Canada set to put into effect medically assisted suicide for the mentally ill — 22 Comments

  1. I fully agree with your concern Neo. I was going to add something about a slippery slope, but I think this would carry us immediately to the bottom.

    There are circumstances in which an assist is easily supportable. My wife died of a terminal cancer that essentially amounted to slow suffocation. Before and when she entered into hospice, we were assured they would keep her comfortable. But when things got unbearable near the end, they failed to keep their promise. They needn’t have worried about any legal ramifications; my wife and I would both have signed any waiver necessary.

    But situations life my wife’s are far from what appears to be a “duty to die” or “make it easy for the relatives to get rid of an unwanted family member” philosophy that seems to be taking hold.

  2. TimK, deepest condolences. I do agree that hospice care for intractable discomfort should be able to ignore normal limits on pain meds. It is unreasonable to worry about addiction or possible overdose in these extreme circumstances when death is very near.

    But this is a different question from taking action to kill people who are not in the throes of death, or who are not terminally ill.

    The issue to watch in these nations which are enabling euthanasia is how soon they will shift from assisted death on request to assisted death for lives deemed not worth continuing.

  3. The slope was first lubricated with “right to die”. How cruel to keep people alive against their will, even though there was no one wanting to do that and all the financial incentives for all stakeholders run toward letting people die.

    Thou shalt not kill, but needs not strive
    Officiously to keep alive

    was what they sold us. But what we got instead was Lebensunwertes Leben.

    C. S. Lewis once said “The painless death of a pious relative at an advanced age is not an evil. But an earnest desire for her death on the part of her heirs is not reckoned a proper feeling, and the law frowns on even the gentlest attempts to expedite her departure.” Not anymore.

    Finally told me, said: I dont like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I dont think you got any worries about the way the country is headed. The way I see it goin I dont have much doubt but what she’ll be able to have an abortion. I’m goin to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she’ll be able to have you put to sleep. Which pretty much ended the conversation. –Cormac McCarthy, “No Country For Old Men”

    The slippery slope is a fallacy of formal logic, but it is an empirical fact when it comes to human behavior.

  4. Perfect. Teen-age girls can have their breasts cut off, and then a few years later when they are depressed about their bad decision they can off themselves with their doctor’s help.

  5. Kate says, “The issue to watch in these nations which are enabling euthanasia is how soon they will shift from assisted death on request to assisted death for lives deemed not worth continuing.”

    Trudeau is one of Klaus Schwab’s little darlings– I’m not in the least surprised he’s in favor of death-on-demand. It’s a small step from “You will own nothing and be happy” to “You will have no rights even over your own life.”

  6. Well, once this “solution” is implemented for a person, there wouldn’t be a need for any other solution. It would be rather… final.

  7. A way to deal with the Lebensunwerte Leben dilemma!

    Perhaps centralized places to help carry out the suicides, some sort of camp, perhaps.

  8. The slippery slope has been well lubricated by the example of other countries.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/10/15/netherlands-prepares-to-expand-euthanasia-to-children-under-12/

    I remembered reading about this story, but that particular link is dead now.
    Rather fitting, in the context.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_in_the_Netherlands
    “Euthanasia of children under the age of 12 remains technically illegal; however, Dr. Eduard Verhagen has documented several cases and, together with colleagues and prosecutors, has developed a protocol to be followed in those cases. Prosecutors will refrain from pressing charges if this Groningen Protocol is followed.”

    “Under current Dutch law, euthanasia by doctors is only legal in cases of “hopeless and unbearable” suffering. In practice this means that it is limited to those suffering from serious medical conditions like severe pain, exhaustion or asphyxia. Sometimes, psychiatric patients that have proven to be untreatable, can get euthanasia. There is much discussion about people with early dementia who have previously stated in a written will that if they ever got dementia, they would want to get euthanasia.[12]

    In February 2010 a citizens’ initiative called Out of Free Will further demanded that all Dutch people over 70 who feel tired of life should have the right to professional help in ending it. The organisation started collecting signatures in support of this proposed change in Dutch legislation. A number of prominent Dutch citizens supported the initiative, including former ministers and artists, legal scholars and physicians.[13][14] However, this initiative has never been legalised.

    In 2016, the Dutch Health Minister of the Second Rutte cabinet announced plans to draft a law that would allow assisted suicide in cases without a terminal illness, if the person feels they have completed life.[15]”

  9. ‘ Trudeau is one of Klaus Schwab’s little darlings– I’m not in the least surprised he’s in favor of death-on-demand. It’s a small step from “You will own nothing and be happy” to “You will have no rights even over your own life.” ‘

    Indeed.
    And—whaddayaknow—right on cue, the WTF’s Dear Leader is now spewing TRUTH (for a change)!
    (I.e., spouting its TRUE raison d’etre….)
    ‘WEF’s Klaus Schwab Gives Speech To G20 On The “Need To Restructure The World” ‘
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/wefs-klaus-schwab-gives-speech-g20-need-restructure-world

    No doubt, euthanasia will figure large.
    Make that, “huge”.

  10. AesopFan– If the Netherlands continues to implement their ruinous “climate change” laws favored by the usual suspects, Dutch farmers will leave en masse, the country will starve, and euthanasia will be unnecessary. News item from July: “Dutch farmers turned out in their thousands to speak out against the World Economic Forum (WEF) climate change policies of their government.”

    https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/07/dutch-farmers-in-tractor-blockade-protesting-climate-change-restrictions-that-threaten-farms/

  11. Question to any that may support this; how it is it not cruel and unusual?

    Since TimK has noted a reason to support, which I used to disagree but no longer do; my point in asking the question ought to be obvious. If it is now ok to help the mentally ill commit suicide, then what then is the argument against capital punishment (unless you are against the government having that power generally, in which case, don’t blame cruel and unusual).

  12. Kate:

    The infamous Zeke Emmanuel had a thing called the Quality Life Matrix IIRC for allocating “resources” based on your age, skills, education, “value to society,” and if your score was at some level, the state would be justified in giving you a final prescription. Only so much oxygen to go around? Anyway, Zeke and Klaus are past their expiration date in the socialist utopia, except that in such a paradise there are always special rules and exemptions for them. Some are always more equal than others.

  13. So all those people found to be mentally incompetent to stand trial for a criminal offense are suddenly competent to agree with someone talking them into assisted suicide.
    Got it.

  14. Posted on Powerline’s Picks today.

    The article includes a short history of the increasingly easier procedures for doctor-facilitated suicide — short, since it was first legalized in Canada in 2016.
    Highly recommended.

    https://lawliberty.org/canadas-orwellian-euthanasia-regime/

    Despite having had among the harshest lockdown policies and highest vaccination rates, it is possible that by this time next year the number of deaths from euthanasia will surpass the total number of deaths from COVID in this country.

    However, it may soon be hard to keep track given the deliberate obfuscation and falsification of euthanasia records.

    Ontario is Canada’s most populous province. Its College of Surgeons and Physicians provides the following definition for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID):

    Under the federal legislation, MAID refers to circumstances where a physician or nurse practitioner, at a patient’s request: (a) administers medications that cause a patient’s death; or (b) prescribes or provides medications for a patient to self-administer to cause their own death, in accordance with the legal requirements. (emphasis mine)

    Having clearly acknowledged the procedure causes death, it is curious that the same governing body wants to omit any reference to it as a cause of death for the purpose of completing death certificates.

    This month, the College is soliciting feedback on a draft policy, which includes this section concerning death certificates:

    Physicians who provide MAID must complete the medical certificate of death.

    When completing the medical certificate of death, physicians: must list the illness, disease, or disability leading to the request for MAID as the cause of death; and must not make any reference to MAID or the medications administered on the certificate. (emphasis mine)

    Here we have the deliberate directive by a governing professional body to falsify medical records. A doctor’s administration of midazolam, propofol, and rocuronium is undeniably the cause of his or her patient’s premature death. But soon, we may no longer know the number of Canadians being euthanized because of the host of other “causes” being listed on death certificates to mask the widespread death-by-doctor.

    This will become more bizarre when, beginning on March 17, 2023, mental illnesses such as depression, which are not normally fatal in and of themselves, begin being listed as the underlying cause of death on certificates.

    Many Canadians think that what makes euthanasia acceptable is that the patient him- or herself has requested it. But then why not list the cause of death as “the patient’s will”?

    We also know that the legalization of euthanasia is drastically undermining suicide prevention efforts (this is apparent because practically every euthanasia death is an assisted suicide). The question becomes: Who gets suicide prevention and who gets suicide facilitation? If death is executed on the basis of anybody’s momentary consent, then whither the legitimacy of ever attempting to dissuade a person in distress?

    Furthermore, we know from first-hand testimony that Canadians are being severely tempted to ask for euthanasia on the basis of homelessness, poverty, lack of homecare, inadequate housing, depression, and diabetes and blindness.

    Being truthful is the first step to restoring moral sobriety. According to the government’s own survey on the nature of suffering among those requesting euthanasia, 86.3% cited “the loss of ability to engage in meaningful activities.” The cause of these deaths is, by people’s own admission, existential rather than physiological. This is important and deserving of our attention. And we do no one any service by listing false causes of death in place of the person’s own stated rationale. We need to know why we are seeing a 32.4% increase in euthanasia deaths from one year to the next.

    The falsification of medical records is sinister and reminds me of an exhibit I saw last spring at the former concentration camp, Mauthausen. This was a site at which the Nazis conducted some of their so-called medical experiments of which they kept meticulous records that are now on public display.

    Beneath the glass case, there is a book with elegantly legible handwriting. It is a death register of the SS chief physician of the camp. The accompanying museum caption says:

    The SS has false causes of death registered. The prisoner Ernst Martin, assigned as a clerk, puts secret marks in the death register against cases where he learns that the prisoners were killed deliberately. By putting a dot after the place of birth, he identifies the victims of lethal injections.

    If, years from now, someone finds a discreet dot on each of the medical certificates of Canadians who were in fact euthanized, we’ll know where they got the idea and be glad they did so we can know the truth.

  15. @ Leland > ” If it is now ok to help the mentally ill commit suicide, then what then is the argument against capital punishment ”

    Looking for consistency on the Left is like looking for snowflakes in Hell (oh, wait..)
    It’s been long noted that the pro-abortion and anti-execution stances are mutually contradictory.

    Footnote: I support capital punishment only for truly heinous crimes with no doubt about the perpetrator’s guilt, but the Left seems to champion those cases with as much fervor as they do relatively-lesser crimes, which makes their support for the execution of the absolutely innocent by abortion even more perverse.

    What’s even more puzzling to me, because the former contradictions are amply explained by the Leftist Rule to oppose anything valued by conservatives or religious people, is that abortion and euthanasia have the effect of disproportionately reducing numbers on their own “side,” and now they are enacting policies to eliminate some of the anchor babies that are arguably Democrats-in-utero as well as socialist-welfare-state magnets.

    https://notthebee.com/article/biden-is-using-your-tax-dollars-to-pay-for-access-to-abortion-for-immigrant-minors

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