The Supreme Court of Canada's warped thinking on medical assistance in dying or legalizing assisted suicide.

[blackbird]

18 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

Well our 1.3 birth rate just adds to the shame of Canada’s disregard for human life.  

A central policy of the Liberal party is "freedom of choice" or freedom to kill one's pre-born baby. They are proud of it.

[TreeBeard]

13 hours ago, Army Guy said:

Closing on 100,000 people put to death

Who cares what the number is if they wanted to die with some dignity and not in agony $hitting themselves helpless in bed? 

[Venandi]

41 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

not in agony $hitting themselves helpless in bed? 

That was the concept I reluctantly agreed to, that's not where we are nor where we're headed though and you damn well know it. 

Deflecting your argument back to a concept most people would (reluctantly) agree to (in principle) doesn't alter the trajectory here. My fear was always what you would do with a reasonable concept after you stuck your head in the tent and if you would then defend it in a manner that suggests that was the plan all along. Which is what I see now.

IMO, "you people" sold this knowing where it was heading... the fact you now defend the trajectory of it speaks to that IMO.

I reluctantly believed you on the gun registry, and I reluctantly believed you were sincere about MAID.... frankly, I feel a bit silly for doing that now. Guess what happens next time? Next time, the "HELL NO" you'll hear will be impenetrable to liberal BS, sarcasm, ridicule and promises not to fuc& it up in a predictable fashion. 

 

 

 

Edited April 13 by Venandi

[Zeitgeist]

7 hours ago, blackbird said:

A central policy of the Liberal party is "freedom of choice" or freedom to kill one's pre-born baby. They are proud of it.

Increasingly, Canada is first out of the gate embracing dubious social experiments that violate the thousands-of-years-old wisdom with regard to taboos on infertile lifestyles, abortion, hard drug use, gender identity, and assisted suicide.  As a result, Canada is becoming an extreme-liberal pariah and suffering the consequences with a collapsing birth rate and an attack on the country’s founding cultures, French and English, including these cultures’ Judeo-Christian values.

I’m very worried that this snowball effect or vicious cycle can’t be reversed or stopped, because the only way Canada can now prop itself up economically is through mass immigration, and the current prevailing Liberal ideology is to favour non-traditional immigrants.  In Canada, you get extra points for entry and employment if you’re LGBTQ, non-white non-European, etc..  Canada is ideologically captured and is failing to support its own founding cultural values and peoples.

MAID is simply the normalization and state support of suicide, administered ironically by our “healthcare system”.  When the state says an inherently dangerous or bad practice is fine and even goes so far as to fund it and do the killing, the inevitable result is that more people do it.  It’s a fast-growing industry in Canada, with professional ceremony planners at the ready.  

Edited April 13 by Zeitgeist

[Army Guy]

2 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

Who cares what the number is if they wanted to die with some dignity and not in agony $hitting themselves helpless in bed? 

Yes there are some on that list that truly needed maid....but that is not where maid is at today...today a young man with a hearing impairment was granted maid and his family wants to know why, or the woman that could not find a an apartment that would suit her allergies needs....Not in agony, not sh!tting themselves, not helpless in bed...and in the near future we are going to add mentally ill, which includes depression, PTSD, or just mentally challenged....they are not in pain, all of it can be treated, and definitely not shitting themselves....

So not all of that 100,000 k fit those conditions, a lot of them are fit, people that have found doctors willing to sign off on MAID...

[TreeBeard]

4 hours ago, Army Guy said:

today a young man with a hearing impairment was granted maid and his family wants to know why

Too many rightwing outlets are just making stuff up to try and further their anti-choice causes.  It’s like the hysteria promulgated about abortions at 9 months, or some crap.  Rightwingers lap up the lies. 

[blackbird]

4 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

Too many rightwing outlets are just making stuff up to try and further their anti-choice causes.  It’s like the hysteria promulgated about abortions at 9 months, or some crap.  Rightwingers lap up the lies. 

You are completely ignorant of the facts.  All you have to do is a little reading to learn the truth.

quote

In Belgium, euthanasia was legalized in 2003. Recent studies have revealed significant abuses of euthanasia and signs that it is “out-of-control.” Independent studies, published in May 2010, looked at the practice of euthanasia in the Flanders region. They revealed that 32% of the euthanasia deaths in that region were done without request or consent (8) and that 45% of all euthanasia deaths done by nurses in Belgium are without request or consent. (9) Another highly disturbing study published in October 2010 found that nearly half of the euthanasia deaths in the Flanders region are not reported and that “controversial” euthanasia deaths are usually not reported. Under-reporting explains why the “official” Belgium government report suggests that few if any problems exist. (10)   unquote

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Euthanasia Prevention Coalition: choice is a lie

You support MAID.  Remember that thinkin could turn against you and you could become a victim.  Or your warped thinking could cost you your life prematurely.  It is happening to countless people in Canada now.  People take it lightly and think MAID is a solution to any problem and just off the cuff they take it.  Or someone recommends it to them and believe what they're told.

 

[blackbird]

4 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

Too many rightwing outlets are just making stuff up to try and further their anti-choice causes.

You obviously have read nothing about what has been going in in the euthanasia field.  There are thousands of true stories.  You need to start reading some.

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Euthanasia Prevention Coalition: choice is a lie

[blackbird]

5 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

Too many rightwing outlets are just making stuff up to try and further their anti-choice causes.  It’s like the hysteria promulgated about abortions at 9 months, or some crap.  Rightwingers lap up the lies. 

"

Marginalization and MAiD

The Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario is seen in Toronto in September 2024. (AP Photo/Angie Wang)

Many have warned for years that when facilitated suicide is expanded to those with disabilities who have decades left to live, it is impossible to filter out suffering due to poverty, loneliness and other marginalization fueling MAiD requests. The medical disability becomes the foot in the door to open eligibility for MAiD, but social suffering pushes the marginalized through that door to seek state-sponsored death for their life struggles.

The coroner’s report uses a marginalization index based on area of residence (similar to the way impacts on marginalized populations were identified during COVID-19) to divide the population into five levels, each representing 20 per cent of the population. The data shows a much higher proportion of Track 2 MAiD recipients come from highly marginalized categories than Track 1 MAiD recipients, or the general population.

People in the lowest “material resource” category (i.e. poverty) represent 20 per cent of the general population, but they make up 28.4 per cent of Track 2 MAiD recipients, compared to 21.5 per cent of Track 1 recipients.

People in the lowest 20 per cent of the population with the worst housing instability made up 48.3 per cent of Track 2 MAiD recipients, compared to 34.3 per cent of Track 1 recipients. Track 2 recipients were also far more likely to come from the most vulnerable 20 per cent of the population in terms of age and labour force participation, with 56.9 per cent of Track 2 MAiD recipients coming from this category compared to 41.8 per cent of Track 1 MAiD recipients.

Gender gaps of more women than men receiving Track 2 MAiD are also emerging.

Additionally the report shed light on specific cases of concern, including people receiving Track 2 MAiD for social and housing vulnerability, and for unclear reasons while still suffering from inadequately treated mental illness and addictions.

This includes a man with a history of suicidal ideation and untreated addictions whose psychiatrist asked during a session whether he was aware of MAiD. After being approved, he was “personally transported (by the MAiD provider) in their vehicle to an external location for the provision of MAiD”.

Denialism

Policy mistakes can occur, but these marginalized deaths result from wilful avoidance and denial of evidence-based cautions. I have previously written of the lack of safeguards and absence of evidence informing MAiD expansion.

Beyond the evidence in the coroner’s report, there are clear signs of this denial:

Leaders of the Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA) supported euthanasia for depression and addictions without once mentioning suicide risks of mental illness or the need for suicide prevention in any of their consultations and testimony that led to Bill C-7’s “sunset clause” for introducing MAiD for mental illness, literally not once mentioning the words suicide, suicidal or any variant in these consultations on death and mental illness (in disclosure, I am a past president and distinguished fellow, but no longer a member, of the CPA);

The federally appointed chair of the MAiD expansion panel charged with recommending safeguards for psychiatric euthanasia recommended no additional legislative safeguards and said the gender gap of twice as many women as men being euthanized for mental illness in Europe “doesn’t concern” her, testifying:

“It doesn’t concern me, in the sense that I don’t think anybody knows what it means. We can make all sorts of hypotheses about what it might mean, but nobody really knows. What I would caution you about is drawing inferences, like the one in your question with respect to male-to-female suicide ratios, because we don’t know what it means.” (It should be noted that there is longstanding evidence of a 2:1 gender gap of more women than men attempting suicide when mentally ill, most of whom do not die by suicide and do not try again.)

Well-funded lobby groups like Dying With Dignity continue to claim that it is a “myth” that “vulnerable populations can be eligible for MAiD if they are suffering from inadequate social supports, including housing,” erasing Canadians who have literally said they chose MAiD precisely for those reasons — their disability made them eligible for MAiD, but it was the lack of social supports that led them to request it;

Groups presenting as experts continue providing false reassurances that their CAMAP (Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers) training guidelines filter out suicidality, despite criticisms their guidelines lack any evidence-based factors distinguishing motivations for expanded MAiD requests from traditional suicide

These repeated refusals to have our MAiD expansion be informed by evidence have led to a MAiD house of cards wilfully blind to suicide risks.

Denialism of all sorts is dangerous. Canada’s expanded MAiD policies have fallen prey to a new form of it: suicide denialism. What else can it be called when expansion ideologues repeatedly ignore and deny the fact that some Canadians are getting Track 2 MAiD fuelled not by illness suffering, but by known suicide risk factors of social deprivation?"

MAiD and marginalized people: Coroner’s reports shed light on assisted death in Ontario

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, blackbird said:

People in the lowest 20 per cent of the population with the worst housing instability made up 48.3 per cent of Track 2 MAiD recipients, compared to 34.3 per cent of Track 1 recipients. Track 2 recipients were also far more likely to come from the most vulnerable 20 per cent of the population in terms of age and labour force participation, with 56.9 per cent of Track 2 MAiD recipients coming from this category compared to 41.8 per cent of Track 1 MAiD recipients.

Socialism would probably go a long way towards making life easier for these folks.

I know that panders to Beelzebub but I'm just saying.

[CdnFox]

I happen to agree that people should have the right to decide whether they are to live or to die. I don't have a problem with that option being available

But I have a problem with is when the government or the medical community pushes it as a solution. When it's a recommendation, not a request

A number of our veterans were offered it instead of treatment when struggling with stress disorders

It is frequently been mentioned that it has been brought up to people who are suffering significant illnesses which are treatable

It's even becoming a cure for homelessness. People that can't afford to get into a care facility are being encouraged to consider this option

That I have a problem with. The government should not be using this as a substitute for medical treatment or for providing services and they are

[Army Guy]

23 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

Too many rightwing outlets are just making stuff up to try and further their anti-choice causes.  It’s like the hysteria promulgated about abortions at 9 months, or some crap.  Rightwingers lap up the lies. 

OK....well there is always goggle, you can try, CBC and CTV have reported on the issue....takes a couple of mins...

[Goddess]

The government of Norway reviewed Canada's MAID system when considering whether to expand the assisted dying laws they already had.

After examining Canada's experience, they decided not to move forward with it, citing Canada's rapid expansion and the slippery slope controversies of offering it to those with mental illness.  They concluded that expanding assisted dying was not compatible with Norway's ethical and social framework.

This was before Canada recent foray into expanding it to children.

Sounds like Norway actually gives a shit about their citizens' welfare.

 

[TreeBeard]

3 hours ago, Army Guy said:

OK....well there is always goggle, you can try, CBC and CTV have reported on the issue....takes a couple of mins...

There was no deaf person. 

[SpankyMcFarland]

I hope we agree that assisted dying should be available under certain circumstances? People shouldn’t have to depend on relatives, foreign travel or their own amateur efforts to avoid an agonizing death. 

Edited April 15 by SpankyMcFarland

[Army Guy]

20 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

There was no deaf person. 

It is clearly mentioned in black birds sources....try again....Let me guess you did not read them...

[TreeBeard]

8 minutes ago, Army Guy said:

It is clearly mentioned in black birds sources....try again....Let me guess you did not read them...

As I said, lying right-wing rags are not reliable sources of information.  

[Army Guy]

32 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

As I said, lying right-wing rags are not reliable sources of information.  

Here is one from CTV, that mentions the story, it really took a few minutes of my time to find it....hope it is not to right wing for you...

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/family-says-bc-man-with-history-of-depression-wasnt-fit-for-assisted-death/

[Venandi]

2 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

As I said, lying right-wing rags are not reliable sources of information.  

What a pathetic, weak sister lens to view the world through.

You willfully ignore 50% of the available information and all alternate assessments whilst thinking your opinion has merit because you shouted it.

If you do that, how do you make decisions in any sort of business or military environment (they have more similarities than differences BTW) where there are multiple threats, multiple assessments, and a variety of possible courses of action available?

Does your head explode?

Maybe this is why we collectively keep making bad choices and embarking on ill-fated undertakings like defunding police, safe supply and unhinged immigration levels that exceed our capacity to absorb.

And then.... gasp, there's MAID.

Since that's the topic at hand, I have a question: WTF did you think was going to happen?

Are you surprised that this has morphed into a liberal shi$ show? I'm not... and the reason I'm not is because I looked at both sides of the issue including advocacy group clashes in other jurisdictions and after doing that, I became convinced that this was where you were headed all along 

In short, the reason this topic even exists is because people just like you refused to acknowledge that other opinions and other experiences in other places might be worthy of consideration when planning complex solutions to complex problems.

How else do you trap unintended consequences before they eat your lunch and kick your a$$?  That's a sincere question BTW, depending on your answer we may have to retrain an entire generation of military planners.

 

Edited April 16 by Venandi

[TreeBeard]

1 hour ago, Army Guy said:

Here is one from CTV, that mentions the story, it really took a few minutes of my time to find it....hope it is not to right wing for you...

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/family-says-bc-man-with-history-of-depression-wasnt-fit-for-assisted-death/

What happened to the deaf person?  
 

How do you know that it wasn’t legitimate?  The family is making an accusation, but there’s no evidence.  
 

Are you in favour of capital punishment?

8 minutes ago, Venandi said:

You willfully ignore 50% of the available information

I would say closer to 75% of media are lying rightwing rags.  Even that CTV article only contains accusations and no evidence.  It’s media rage-bait. 

Edited April 16 by TreeBeard

[Venandi]

15 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

Are you in favour of capital punishment?

Try and stay on point.

15 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

I would say closer to 75% of media are lying rightwing rags.  Even that CTV article only contains accusations and no evidence.  It’s media rage-bait.

Instead of ignoring those raging rightwing ravings, I would be listing them, carefully confirming why they aren't applicable, and developing contingency plans on the off chance that they were.

Isn't that the sort of decision making and problem solving you would demand from an airline Capt in bad weather or from your kids Platoon Commander in Afghanistan?  

How  did you become so arrogant as to assume that nothing could possibly go wrong with your excellent plan? That's not how the world works. 

Your solution is covering your ears, shouting racist, and teaming up with Herb and Flybaby to shout down rational, well articulated concerns.

It doesn't seem to be working for us and yet you keep voting for it. But that's another thread.

Edited April 16 by Venandi

[TreeBeard]

15 minutes ago, Venandi said:

Try and stay on point.

We can’t ask questions?  Why are you afraid of that question?

 

16 minutes ago, Venandi said:

carefully confirming why they aren't applicable

I explained why.  There was zero evidence in the article of any wrongdoing. 

[Venandi]

15 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

Why are you afraid of that question?

From a practical and scriptural perspective the two are distinct islands in the Gulf Of Silly Deflections.

15 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

There was zero evidence in the article of any wrongdoing. 

Let's assume for the moment that I agree with that (because I don't).... do you really require firm evidence of total structural failure and complete disintegration before developing the willful motivation and contingency planing required to avoid it?

If so, please pick an occupation other than airline pilot, military planner, or intelligence analyst. 

Can I assume that you're happy with status quo and potential trajectory then? Because if you aren't, it's past time to speak out, and way past time to start considering unintended consequences.

Edited April 16 by Venandi

[TreeBeard]

16 minutes ago, Venandi said:

Can I assume that you're happy with status quo and potential trajectory then?

Yes.  Happy.  No evidence that the sky is falling other than religious BS and rage-bait in the media. 

[Venandi]

23 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

Yes.  Happy.

Then we've arrived at the cross road and there's nothing more for me to do than show up on election day to cancel your vote and hope the mess you make can be unfuc%ed in a timely manner.

As it stands now, I think we're 20 years away from solving some of the other messes you created but I'm optimistic it can still be done.

Some European countries have left these things a bit late IMO. They will soon be left with one of two stark choices:

- shrug their shoulders and accept fundamental changes in the fabric of their country without having had so much as a rational discussion about it; or

- take on the sort of draconian measures (no one wants to see) in order to preserve it knowing full well those measures could have been avoided by doing things right in the first place. 

I would also point out, and I think this is telling, that had you tried to sell MAID in the form that you're currently "happy with" that it absolutely wouldn't have passed muster in Canada. I'd ask you how much MAID is too much but it doesn't actually matter since I stand opposed to what you've already accomplished anyway.

 

Edited April 16 by Venandi