MAID in Canada - should we be killing the mentally ill?

[eyeball]

8 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Analgesia can shorten lives dramatically in people with terminal conditions. I have seen that happen in several countries without any system of legal euthanasia. Frankly, a collective sigh of relief occurs among relatives when it happens. 

When my brother was dying of cancer we were given the small control box that administered his analgesia as he became unable to do so. Little did we know the device would only dispense so much no matter how many times it was pressed. It did however record the number of times it was pressed to give staff a sense of the severity of pain. We probably pressed it enough times to kill a horse.

[eyeball]

4 hours ago, User said:

My concern isn't that people with mental illness have no agency. My concern is that we're asking the state to decide when a desire to die is a symptom that should be treated and when it's a wish that should be facilitated.

Then why don't we just leave it up patients and their doctors?

4 hours ago, User said:

Every time I hear these discussions, the line keeps moving.

That's what happens when everyone gets to stick their nose into people's business.

[SpankyMcFarland]

People have to distinguish between a momentary impulse and a settled wish. If a rational person has on multiple occasions over an extended period of time expressed a desire to die, that’s quite different from a heat of the moment thought in a state of delirium.

[gatomontes99]

1 hour ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Again, if the two events are right beside each other, how sure can you be they are so distinct? In the real world things can be a lot greyer and fuzzier than you imagine. The ‘side effect’ may not be unwelcome. 

Gawd damn boy...are you really...

No. Side effects, welcome or not, are not the same. That is just blatantly stùpid.

Chemo will either make you cancer free or kill you. Guess which one everyone hopes for. If they die, they knew the risk. That doesn't make it the same as fúcking murdering someone and calling it medical treatment. 

[SpankyMcFarland]

23 minutes ago, gatomontes99 said:

Gawd damn boy...are you really...

No. Side effects, welcome or not, are not the same. That is just blatantly stùpid.

Chemo will either make you cancer free or kill you. Guess which one everyone hopes for. If they die, they knew the risk. That doesn't make it the same as fúcking murdering someone and calling it medical treatment. 

Chemo of the traditional non-targeted sort is potentially life lengthening, although awful. People take it because there’s an overall increased chance of surviving longer. That may be an end to the cancer or an interlude before the cancer returns. That’s different from palliation. 

Edited yesterday at 02:13 AM by SpankyMcFarland

[gatomontes99]

Just now, SpankyMcFarland said:

People have to distinguish between a momentary impulse and a settled wish. If a rational person has on multiple occasions over an extended period of time expressed a desire to die, that’s quite different from a heat of the moment thought in a state of delirium.

So short term stūpidity shouldn't be indulged, but long term stūpidity must be placated? That is ridiculous.

My SIL suffered from depression for over a decade. She eventually committed suicide. It was hell for everyone. My brother. His girls. Her parents and siblings. The school she worked at.

Suicide, regardless of the reason, is a selfish decision that hurts everyone else. We can understand why without accepting why. And we can fight like hell for every day because they are all precious. But I will be damned if I will ever support death as a better option than life. It. Just. Won't. Happen.  

Any government that does, to me, is a horrific nation with the worst human rights imaginable. 

[SpankyMcFarland]

31 minutes ago, gatomontes99 said:

So short term stūpidity shouldn't be indulged, but long term stūpidity must be placated? That is ridiculous.

I think the settled wish of a person needs to be taken seriously. At a certain point in any chronically debilitating medical condition an older patient should have the right to say enough is enough. 

 

31 minutes ago, gatomontes99 said:

My SIL suffered from depression for over a decade. She eventually committed suicide. It was hell for everyone. My brother. His girls. Her parents and siblings. The school she worked at.

Suicide, regardless of the reason, is a selfish decision that hurts everyone else. We can understand why without accepting why. And we can fight like hell for every day because they are all precious. But I will be damned if I will ever support death as a better option than life. It. Just. Won't. Happen.  

Any government that does, to me, is a horrific nation with the worst human rights imaginable. 

I don’t want to encourage anybody to commit suicide and I don’t want to get too deeply into distressing personal situations here. In psychiatric cases, I know full well that relatives naturally prioritize safety for patients while patients value liberty more than family members do. At what point in a life scarred by disease should a person have the right to expect assistance in leaving it? I don’t know the answer but I don’t think it’s never. 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 02:27 AM by SpankyMcFarland

[User]

4 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Just because a line can move and is difficult to draw is no excuse for not drawing a line. Laws do this all the time with abortion, age of consent, mature minors, mental competence etc. 

What other decisions would you consider a person with schizophrenia unable to take for themselves? What about buying a house, making a will or getting married? If they’re orientated, not deluded and with capacity then they should be allowed to make decisions like the rest of us. Ditto a person with early dementia or Huntington’s disease. People without schizophrenia have all sorts of false beliefs. We don’t prevent them from making adult decisions because of that. You can’t permanently infantilize somebody simply because of a condition they have without assessing them and say they’re not fit to make decisions. If they understand what they are doing they should be allowed to give consent. 

 

 

The line already was drawn and you want to move it, and you are not answering any of my questions to the point of why it wouldn't just keep moving any more. You are not offering a place to draw the line now that is based on any kind of substantive objective reasoning to say that is where to draw the line. 

That is my point. It just keeps moving. 

[SpankyMcFarland]

27 minutes ago, User said:

The line already was drawn and you want to move it, and you are not answering any of my questions to the point of why it wouldn't just keep moving any more. You are not offering a place to draw the line now that is based on any kind of substantive objective reasoning to say that is where to draw the line. 

That is my point. It just keeps moving. 

What question do you want answered specifically? There are many psychiatric tests of competence which can be reviewed in the literature. Some patients will fail these tests but some will pass. What do you do with those older patients who have passed and seem to have capacity on clinical examination? Ignore their wishes? 

It’s not my place to draw a line. The line will change as society does. It’s a grey area and there are no absolutes. But I think there’s a place for reasonable accommodation here. Schizophrenia is a lifelong disorder to bear and at some late point in life people should be able to say enough is enough. 

 

Edited yesterday at 03:07 AM by SpankyMcFarland

[SpankyMcFarland]

Just to summarize because nuance can be lost in these pages, there is no doubt in my mind that MAID should exist for those with agonizing medical conditions like MND. That’s not a debate we need to have in Canada again. A personal nightmare of mine is to be stuck in a situation where I can’t breathe properly. Nobody should be made go through that if they don’t want to. 

On the psychiatric side, I fully understand the concerns and would accept if MAID did not apply to them. I certainly don’t want to see it used for young people with psychiatric conditions at all but would like to put the case for those older people who have already been through a great deal of anguish and have decided after reflection that they have no desire for more of the same. 

Edited yesterday at 03:28 AM by SpankyMcFarland

[John Johnston]

This is a personal decision for yourself and your care givers. Not the internet, not the politicians, not the people who insist on sticking their noses into other peoples affairs. And certainly not the religious folks. If I might need or want to use MAID. That is my decision, and mine alone. 

[CdnFox]

5 hours ago, John Johnston said:

This is a personal decision for yourself and your care givers. Not the internet, not the politicians, not the people who insist on sticking their noses into other peoples affairs

You and your fellow leftists literally spend all day thinking of new and exciting ways to stick your nose into other people's affairs.

So your comment is utterly laughable.

But beyond that what you're suggesting is that society has no duty to consider morality or discuss its laws. I mean if two people want to murder each other why should society care? If someone's abusing a child what business is it of these internet busy bodies?  Right? Right?

What a joke. The laws that govern state assisted death are a matter of public discourse and consideration and very well should be. It is beyond pathetic of you to suggest otherwise. You're just disagreeable for the sake of being disagreeable without argument

[John Johnston]

5 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

You and your fellow leftists literally spend all day thinking of new and exciting ways to stick your nose into other people's affairs.

So your comment is utterly laughable.

But beyond that what you're suggesting is that society has no duty to consider morality or discuss its laws. I mean if two people want to murder each other why should society care? If someone's abusing a child what business is it of these internet busy bodies?  Right? Right?

What a joke. The laws that govern state assisted death are a matter of public discourse and consideration and very well should be. It is beyond pathetic of you to suggest otherwise. You're just disagreeable for the sake of being disagreeable without argument

You are the one going on and on and on about all the time. Not anybody else. Shrug. 

Edited 23 hours ago by John Johnston

[CdnFox]

2 minutes ago, John Johnston said:

You are the one going on and on and on about all the time. Not anybody else. Shrug. 

LOL that was my first post on it   As usual when you can't refute the argument you just turn to lies and insults  

And it is you and the left that Constantly bring up such things, not me. I'm a comment on your reference but you don't hear me bringing up the idea that we should lock people up for words we don't like, to inhabit and use female only spaces, kill all the Jews, etc etc and all the million of other things that you and your kind are professionally offended about on behalf of others.

When I bring something up it's usually something that affects me directly either as an individual or as a group of affected people

You on the other hand.....

[User]

On 6/19/2026 at 9:39 PM, SpankyMcFarland said:

What question do you want answered specifically? There are many psychiatric tests of competence which can be reviewed in the literature. Some patients will fail these tests but some will pass. What do you do with those older patients who have passed and seem to have capacity on clinical examination? Ignore their wishes? 

It’s not my place to draw a line. The line will change as society does. It’s a grey area and there are no absolutes. But I think there’s a place for reasonable accommodation here. Schizophrenia is a lifelong disorder to bear and at some late point in life people should be able to say enough is enough. 

 

You just argued that we should draw a line… now you are arguing exactly my point! -> There is no line and it keeps moving.