Medical assistance in dying is no solution

[blackbird]

Five Reasons to Oppose Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide There are many reasons to oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide (also known as assisted death). Here we focus on five key reasons.

1 Assisted death should be opposed because it involves causing a person’s death (killing)

Laws permitting assisted death give doctors (and nurse practitioners in Canada) the right to cause a person’s death. Society should never allow one person to legally kill another. In Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, assisted death is done by euthanasia. Euthanasia is intentionally injecting a person with a combination of lethal drugs. In most countries it is prohibited under murder or homicide laws. In the United States and Switzerland, assisted death is done by assisting a person’s suicide. This is when a doctor prescribes a combination of lethal drugs that the person self-ingests. Euthanasia and assisted suicide involve another person, Five Reasons to Oppose Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide There are many reasons to oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide (also known as assisted death). Here we focus on five key reasons. usually a doctor, who directly kills or is involved with causing the death of another person. Those who promote assisted death focus on the difficult life conditions that pressure someone to request to die. They argue from a situational ethics’ standpoint to justify killing, an act which is normally considered to be universally wrong. Assisted death is sold as healthcare. In an interview, psychiatrist and ethicist Mark Komrad said: “If you were just to replace the image of the needle or the pill with a gun, I think that would make a much more vivid picture of something that would be transculturally wrong.”1 People go through difficult physical or psychological conditions, but these human experiences must not be exploited to justify killing. Providing proper care and support is the appropriate response.

2 Assisted death should be opposed because “safeguards” only protect the physician; they do not protect vulnerable people. Assisted death laws are designed to protect the physician (or another) who is willing to participate. These laws do not provide effective oversight and protection for the person who is being killed. These “safeguards” are designed to sell the legalization of assisted death to politicians who have concerns about killing, but they include exceptions that are wide enough to drive a hearse through. The State of Oregon was the first jurisdiction to legalize assisted death in 1997.2 The assisted suicide lobby did not challenge the safeguards in the law because they wanted to convince other jurisdictions that there is no “slippery slope”. However, in 2019, the assisted suicide lobby announced that the problem with assisted suicide laws is the restrictions. That year the Oregon legislature removed the 15-day waiting period.3 The euthanasia lobby alleges that the Netherlands have not changed their euthanasia law since it was passed in 2002. This is inaccurate: the language of the Netherlands’ euthanasia law has not changed but the interpretation of the law has. The most recent example is the extension of euthanasia to include incompetent people with dementia.4 Canada is a prime example of a country where safeguards lack effective definition or meaning. For instance, Canada’s euthanasia law required that a person’s “natural death be reasonably foreseeable”. However, the meaning of this phrase was not defined5 and, consequently, the application of the law varied. In September 2019, a Québec Superior Court decision struck this phrase from the law.6 Canada is also a prime example of how a euthanasia law can incrementally expand. Canada passed its assisted death law in June 2016. In February 2020, Parliament introduced Bill C-7 to expand the law by eliminating the waiting period, permitting euthanasia of an incompetent person who requested an assisted death in advance, and eliminating the terminal illness requirement.7 Safeguards in assisted death laws are designed to politically sell killing. These laws protect physicians who are willing to kill; they do not protect those who die from the lethal drugs.

3 Assisted death should be opposed because it is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer. The American Medical Association Code of Ethics Opinion 5.7 (Physician-Assisted Suicide) states that: …permitting physicians to engage in assisted suicide would ultimately cause more harm than good. Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks. Instead of engaging in assisted suicide, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life.8 Assisted death laws are designed to protect physicians who are willing to cause the death of a patient, usually upon request. When the role of a physician changes from healer to killer, it fundamentally changes the physician. In August 2016, 25-year-old Candice Lewis, who had several medical conditions, was pressured by a doctor to “request” an assisted death while she was in the hospital. Candice’s mother Sheila Elson stated in a CBC News story: “His words were ‘assisted suicide death was legal in Canada,’” she told CBC. “I was shocked, and said, ‘Well, I’m not really interested,’ and he told me I was being selfish.” According to Elson, Lewis was within earshot when the doctor made the comment – which she said was quite traumatic for her daughter to hear.9 Sheila said the following in the film Fatal Flaws: Not once did Candice say to them, “I want to end my life.” The doctor came in the next day after he told me about assisted suicide, stuck his face down in Candice’s and said, “Do you know how sick you are?” When I got his eye contact, we went out in the hallway and I told him, “Don’t you ever pull something like that again.”10 The fact that Candice was a person with disabilities should not change the value of her life. How many people are pressured by a medical professional and, unlike Candice, die by assisted death?

I will only give three of the five reasons.  You may read the full article at:

5-Reasons-to-Oppose-Euthanasia-and-Assisted-Suicide.pdf (epcc.ca)

Edited October 6, 2023 by blackbird

[OftenWrong]

11 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Just spell out the changes you want in the legislation. I don’t think we disagree that much in this matter actually. 

I should solve the problem now?

It's easy to criticize (and fair, because we need to) but it takes experts to come up with workable solutions. My concerns are to always protect the weakest and most vulnerable, people who get swept under the rug by the mighty broom of progress. lol

Anyone with terminal disease should be given this option, because at the end it can be an unpleaseant way to go. Most are generally put under in a coma, until they pass so it's the same thing anyway. I say when the outcome is determined, which is a legal term, then clearly the option should be there. For these people MAID should be allowed. It's the humane thing to do when they reach a point where there is nothing left for them but suffering and inevitable death.

Given we have technology today to keep people alive on life support, this is not natural either. Without that intervention they would pass, but if we provide it, even beyond the state where they would not want to live anymore because of their condition, what are we achieving? Shut off the machine and let nature take its course. Help them to be comfortable.

To me the administration of lethal drugs is fine under those conditions.

And for any holy rollers out there, I say mankind has the right to protest to their god, and take their own way out.

Edited October 6, 2023 by OftenWrong

[blackbird]

"

Euthanasia without brakes.

This article was published by the Epoch Times on December 7, 2022.

By Wesley Smith:

Wesley Smith

In my first ever anti-euthanasia piece, which was published in Newsweek back in 1993, I warned that legalizing assisted suicide would lead to organ harvesting of those killed by doctors “as a plum to society.” For my trouble. I was called alarmist and hysterical—and those were the nice letters.

Alas, rather than being alarmist, I was prescient. Today in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Canada, people who ask to be killed by doctors are sometimes organ harvested too. Not only that, but the phenomenon was celebrated in the media as “a growing boon to organ donation” in the Ottawa Citizen, with the story sighing, “Ontarians who opt for medically assisted deaths (MAiD) are increasingly saving or improving other people’s lives by also including organ and tissue donation as part of their final wishes.”

Understand that in Canada, one need not be terminally ill to qualify for a lethal injection. The patient can be disabled, elderly and lonely, or chronically ill—and starting next year, people with mental illnesses will also be eligible for killing. Not only that, but once someone is accepted for euthanasia in Ontario, he or she doesn’t receive suicide prevention. No. No. Instead, the Trillium Gift of Life Network in the province contacts the soon-to-be-killed person to ask for their heart, liver, and kidneys. As the story reports, “Ontario, through Trillium, immediately moved to the forefront of organ and tissue donation through MAiD, becoming the first jurisdiction in the world to proactively reach out to those who had been approved for assisted death to discuss donation.”

Remember, many of these patients wouldn’t be dying if they weren’t going to be lethally injected. That serves the organ harvesting agenda well, according to the Citizen, “MAiD donations also typically provide more time for testing donor organs and better matching with recipients.” Again, that time lag would also permit intensive suicide prevention efforts, but that isn’t a public policy priority in Canada when one asks for euthanasia.

But here’s the thing that rarely gets mentioned: Conjoining organ donation and euthanasia can be the tipping point for deciding to choose to be killed by a suffering patient, particularly one who is mentally ill. Remember, these are despairing people who could easily come to think that their deaths have greater value than their lives. It’s a monstrous abandonment.

I wish I could say that organ donation conjoined with lethal injections was the only slide down the slippery slope I have predicted correctly in my decades of anti-euthanasia advocacy. Here’s a short list of some of the other wrongs I warned against that have, indeed, come to pass.    unquote

For more of this piece:

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Euthanasia Prevention Coalition: Andrew Coyne (alexschadenberg.blogspot.com)

[CITIZEN_2015]

On 10/5/2023 at 11:24 PM, blackbird said:

Five Reasons to Oppose Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide There are many reasons to oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide (also known as assisted death). Here we focus on five key reasons.

1 Assisted death should be opposed because it involves causing a person’s death (killing)

Laws permitting assisted death give doctors (and nurse practitioners in Canada) the right to cause a person’s death. Society should never allow one person to legally kill another. In Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, assisted death is done by euthanasia. Euthanasia is intentionally injecting a person with a combination of lethal drugs. In most countries it is prohibited under murder or homicide laws. In the United States and Switzerland, assisted death is done by assisting a person’s suicide. This is when a doctor prescribes a combination of lethal drugs that the person self-ingests. Euthanasia and assisted suicide involve another person, Five Reasons to Oppose Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide There are many reasons to oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide (also known as assisted death). Here we focus on five key reasons. usually a doctor, who directly kills or is involved with causing the death of another person. Those who promote assisted death focus on the difficult life conditions that pressure someone to request to die. They argue from a situational ethics’ standpoint to justify killing, an act which is normally considered to be universally wrong. Assisted death is sold as healthcare. In an interview, psychiatrist and ethicist Mark Komrad said: “If you were just to replace the image of the needle or the pill with a gun, I think that would make a much more vivid picture of something that would be transculturally wrong.”1 People go through difficult physical or psychological conditions, but these human experiences must not be exploited to justify killing. Providing proper care and support is the appropriate response.

2 Assisted death should be opposed because “safeguards” only protect the physician; they do not protect vulnerable people. Assisted death laws are designed to protect the physician (or another) who is willing to participate. These laws do not provide effective oversight and protection for the person who is being killed. These “safeguards” are designed to sell the legalization of assisted death to politicians who have concerns about killing, but they include exceptions that are wide enough to drive a hearse through. The State of Oregon was the first jurisdiction to legalize assisted death in 1997.2 The assisted suicide lobby did not challenge the safeguards in the law because they wanted to convince other jurisdictions that there is no “slippery slope”. However, in 2019, the assisted suicide lobby announced that the problem with assisted suicide laws is the restrictions. That year the Oregon legislature removed the 15-day waiting period.3 The euthanasia lobby alleges that the Netherlands have not changed their euthanasia law since it was passed in 2002. This is inaccurate: the language of the Netherlands’ euthanasia law has not changed but the interpretation of the law has. The most recent example is the extension of euthanasia to include incompetent people with dementia.4 Canada is a prime example of a country where safeguards lack effective definition or meaning. For instance, Canada’s euthanasia law required that a person’s “natural death be reasonably foreseeable”. However, the meaning of this phrase was not defined5 and, consequently, the application of the law varied. In September 2019, a Québec Superior Court decision struck this phrase from the law.6 Canada is also a prime example of how a euthanasia law can incrementally expand. Canada passed its assisted death law in June 2016. In February 2020, Parliament introduced Bill C-7 to expand the law by eliminating the waiting period, permitting euthanasia of an incompetent person who requested an assisted death in advance, and eliminating the terminal illness requirement.7 Safeguards in assisted death laws are designed to politically sell killing. These laws protect physicians who are willing to kill; they do not protect those who die from the lethal drugs.

3 Assisted death should be opposed because it is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer. The American Medical Association Code of Ethics Opinion 5.7 (Physician-Assisted Suicide) states that: …permitting physicians to engage in assisted suicide would ultimately cause more harm than good. Physician-assisted suicide is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks. Instead of engaging in assisted suicide, physicians must aggressively respond to the needs of patients at the end of life.8 Assisted death laws are designed to protect physicians who are willing to cause the death of a patient, usually upon request. When the role of a physician changes from healer to killer, it fundamentally changes the physician. In August 2016, 25-year-old Candice Lewis, who had several medical conditions, was pressured by a doctor to “request” an assisted death while she was in the hospital. Candice’s mother Sheila Elson stated in a CBC News story: “His words were ‘assisted suicide death was legal in Canada,’” she told CBC. “I was shocked, and said, ‘Well, I’m not really interested,’ and he told me I was being selfish.” According to Elson, Lewis was within earshot when the doctor made the comment – which she said was quite traumatic for her daughter to hear.9 Sheila said the following in the film Fatal Flaws: Not once did Candice say to them, “I want to end my life.” The doctor came in the next day after he told me about assisted suicide, stuck his face down in Candice’s and said, “Do you know how sick you are?” When I got his eye contact, we went out in the hallway and I told him, “Don’t you ever pull something like that again.”10 The fact that Candice was a person with disabilities should not change the value of her life. How many people are pressured by a medical professional and, unlike Candice, die by assisted death?

I will only give three of the five reasons.  You may read the full article at:

5-Reasons-to-Oppose-Euthanasia-and-Assisted-Suicide.pdf (epcc.ca)

No instead give yourself the right to choose for him and her and force the powerless sick person suffer with pain in undignified manner. You have no right.

Edited October 7, 2023 by CITIZEN_2015

[CdnFox]

9 minutes ago, CITIZEN_2015 said:

No instead give yourself the right to choose for him and her and force the powerless sick person suffer with pain in undignified manner. You have no right.

I believe in the concept of maid.  But if we're going to support it then there has to be an answer as to how to prevent the abuses we've seen. It can't be allowed if we don't have a solution for that or we're just condoning murder by bullying.

[eyeball]

7 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

But if we're going to support it then there has to be an answer as to how to prevent the abuses we've seen.

Or else scrap the whole program? The answer in that case are cameras and microphones to prevent abusers.  Everyone should have the right to make a record of what's going on around them. I'd argue this should be a duty in certain settings, especially official ones.

 

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, eyeball said:

Or else scrap the whole program? 

 

Yes.  Kinda like we should have done 100 years earlier wiht the res schools when we didn't feel like coming up with an answer for the abuses there.

Quote

he answer in that case are cameras and microphones to prevent abusers. 

How would that prevent abuses? The abusers would just wait till the cameras are off , It is nuts to suggest that cameras or mics would be avaialbe and in place and on 24 hours a day.

And the last thing we should be doing is forcing people like vets with PTSD to have their deepest fears and thoughts recorded so they feel even less comfortable speaking freely with mental health professionals.

But hey - at least that was an effort.

[eyeball]

9 hours ago, CdnFox said:

How would that prevent abuses? The abusers would just wait till the cameras are off , It is nuts to suggest that cameras or mics would be avaialbe and in place and on 24 hours a day.

You wear the camera.  Everyone should have one for personal security and protection against abuse, fraud or corruption at the hands of public or corporate officials. Takes no effort at all.

https://www.google.com/search?q=personal+secuity+body+cam&rlz=1CAUBRP_enCA1054&oq=personal+secuity+body+cam&aqs=chrome..69i57.33903j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[blackbird]

On 10/6/2023 at 8:28 PM, CITIZEN_2015 said:

No instead give yourself the right to choose for him and her and force the powerless sick person suffer with pain in undignified manner. You have no right.

 Just following liberalism or liberal ideology is leading Canada into a culture of death.  Death by MAID is not "dignified death".  It is pure killing and a violation of the sanctity of life.  People who support MAID do not respect the sanctity of life and do not understand what it means.  This is a consequence of the modern liberal belief that everyone should be free to do their own thing.  But they forgot one thing.  This does affect more than the person being killed.  It teaches society that human life is not really worth much.  It devalues human life.  Where is the dignity in that?  There is none.  It is the opposite of dignity.  It is a denial of the dignity of human life.

Edited October 8, 2023 by blackbird

[CdnFox]

46 minutes ago, eyeball said:

You wear the camera.  Everyone should have one for personal security and protection against abuse, fraud or corruption at the hands of public or corporate officials. Takes no effort at all.

 

So your solution is that everyone should be required to wear a body camera at all times.  Not a big fan of personal freedoms are you  Sometimes i forget how far left you are.

[eyeball]

14 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

So your solution is that everyone should be required to wear a body camera at all times. Not a big fan of personal freedoms are you

No, I'm suggesting people are free to take personal measures to protect themselves.

Quote

Sometimes i forget how far left you are.

Your partisan ideology has nothing to do with anyone taking measures to protect themselves - if anything I fully expect your's will be directed at preventing people from using this technology to protect themselves. 

[CdnFox]

28 minutes ago, eyeball said:

No, I'm suggesting people are free to take personal measures to protect themselves.

 

So people who are already emotionally a mess and suffering from mental health issues are expected to make good decisions along tohse lines.

Honestly you sound more whakadoodle every day.

Quote

Your partisan ideology has nothing to do with anyone taking measures to protect themselves

Conservatives are PRO maid stupid.  Your brain just thinks anything that disagrees with your bizarre thoughts (like logic, or reason, or fact) is " partisan"

Reasonable protections are necessary to have maid. Forcing everyone to alwyas wear a body cam is not reasonable.

[eyeball]

9 hours ago, CdnFox said:

So people who are already emotionally a mess and suffering from mental health issues are expected to make good decisions along tohse lines.

It's entirely their choice. I'm simply saying a simple effective means exists that could prevent the abuse you say is enough to shut down the MAID option for everyone.

9 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Conservatives are PRO maid stupid.

You're not a conservative though, you're a chud.

9 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Forcing everyone to alwyas wear a body cam is not reasonable.

Of course it isn't reasonable. Are you nuts? 

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

It's entirely their choice.

Well no it isn't.  That's the problem with mental illness - it robs people of their ability to make good choices.

You're living proof. You literally think the solution is to permanently affix cameras on people, and you think that's sane.  How the hell can someone that far gone be expected to make good decisions for themselves?

[eyeball]

27 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

You literally think the solution is to permanently affix cameras on people

? If you say so.

[CdnFox]

47 minutes ago, eyeball said:

? If you say so.

well you said so so there you go

[blackbird]

We live in a period of history that has obviously turned its back on historic Judeo-Christian ethics of right and wrong.  This is tragic.  I watched a movie a while back about a Christian man who was alive in 1890 and travelled into the future about a century.  He spent a four days in the future.  He was shocked to see what was happening in society and how the world had changed.   You can watch "Time Changer" movie free online at:

Bing Videos 

quote

Euthanasia, sometimes called “mercy killing,” can be a difficult issue. On one hand, we do not want to take a person’s life into our own hands and end it prematurely. On the other hand, we do not want to prolong the process of dying more than necessary—that is, we want to preserve life, but not prolong death. At what point do we simply allow a person to die and take no further action to extend his or her life?

A related issue is that of assisted suicide. Essentially, a person seeking assisted suicide is seeking to euthanize himself, with the aid of another person to ensure that death is quick and painless. The person assisting the suicide facilitates death by making preparations and furnishing the needed equipment; but the person seeking death is the one who actually initiates the process. By taking a “hands-off” approach to the death itself, the facilitator seeks to avoid charges of murder. Proponents of assisted suicide try for a positive spin by using terms like “death with dignity.” But “death with dignity” is still death, “assisted suicide” is still suicide, and suicide is wrong.

We live in what is sometimes described as a “culture of death.” Abortion on demand has been practiced for decades. Now some are seriously proposing infanticide. And euthanasia is promoted as a viable means of solving various social and financial problems. This focus on death as an answer to the world’s problems is a total reversal of the biblical model. Death is an enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). Life is a sacred gift from God (Genesis 2:7). When given the choice between life and death, God told Israel to “choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Euthanasia spurns the gift and embraces the curse.

The overriding truth that God is sovereign drives us to the conclusion that euthanasia and assisted suicide are wrong. We know that physical death is inevitable for us mortals (Psalm 89:48; Hebrews 9:27). However, God alone is sovereign over when and how a person’s death occurs. Job testifies in Job 30:23, “I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.” Ecclesiastes 8:8 declares, “No man has power over the wind to contain it; so no one has power over the day of his death.” God has the final say over death (see 1 Corinthians 15:26, 54–56; Hebrews 2:9, 14–15; Revelation 21:4). Euthanasia and assisted suicide are man’s attempts to usurp that authority from God.

Death is a natural occurrence. Sometimes God allows a person to suffer for a long time before death occurs; other times, a person’s suffering is cut short. No one enjoys suffering, but that does not make it right to determine that a person should die. Often, God’s purposes are made known through suffering. “When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other” (Ecclesiastes 7:14). Romans 5:3 teaches that tribulations bring about perseverance. God cares about those who cry out for death and wish to end their suffering. God gives purpose in life even to the end. Only God knows what is best, and His timing, even in the matter of one’s death, is perfect.

We should never seek to prematurely end a life, but neither must we go to extraordinary means to preserve a life. To actively hasten death is wrong; to passively withhold treatment can also be wrong; but to allow death to occur naturally in a terminally ill person is not necessarily wrong. Anyone facing this issue should pray to God for wisdom (James 1:5). And we should all remember the words of former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who warned that the practice of medicine “cannot be both our healer and our killer” (from KOOP, The Memoirs of America’s Family Doctor by C. Everett Koop, M.D., Random House, 1991).   unquote

What does the Bible say about euthanasia / assisted suicide? | GotQuestions.org

  The ultimate authority is Jesus Christ and his written word, in English, the King James Bible.

Without that authority, one man's opinion is no different than another man's opinion.

This is the bottom line.  What final authority do you believe in to determine right or wrong?  Your own, liberal ideology, the state's or the authority of Jesus Christ, who is God.

Edited October 8, 2023 by blackbird

[blackbird]

"Our ultimate hope is not in this world or in gaining earthly comfort; our hope is in God and in His greater plan. It requires faith to please God (Hebrews 11:6), and the faithful know that a lack of suffering is not a reliable indication of His pleasure. Neither is the experience of suffering proof of His displeasure."

Why do Christians suffer? | GotQuestions.org