Suggested reading: All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews, a fictional chronicling of the real life struggle and eventual and death by suicide of her sister after a lifetime of crippling depression. After years of begging her family members to support her in a trip to Switzerland where she could have a medically supported death (this was refused), she ended her life by lying down on the railway tracks in Winnipeg.
Keeping someone alive against their will is not always the kindest or the most ethical choice.
*Edited to add: the book is beautifully written and laugh out loud funny in places. POI - Toews is also the author of the brilliant “Women Talking”, adapted for the screen last year.
"The Fifth Estate" did a follow up on Kiano Vafaeian (CBC Gem documentary season 48 "A Complicated Death", first aired January 19, 2023, and available to stream). 45 minutes long; Kiano starts at 1 minute 50 seconds.
Well, it'd be better for some to take advantage of this option rather than progressing to mass-shooter status and seeking death by cop, or jumping in front of the nearest semi-truck or bus, or eating the muzzle of a shotgun. People harming only themselves and not killing or traumatizing others is preferable to me. Sure, your loved ones may be sad, but it's an entirely individual decision, or should be.
This is one of the sloppiest and, in some ways, deceitful articles that I have read of TFP. It is replete with what I despise about decaying journalistic practices of the last 25 years: lead with an extended tearjerker “story”, throw in a bunch of what looks like data (the data did NOT support the main proposition nor was there any attempt at probing deeper evidentially), but really factoids, have a bunch of back-and-forth detailed voices of both experts and others affected by this (which are all cherry picked to not really be representative samples, like a MAID supporter, who of course doesn’t believe in the Hippocratic oath; there were no others?), And when real data won’t support your contention, just keep throwing stories at us. Tugging our heart springs and making us wring our hands in service of what: having a very few outliers change the entire program (and by the way, the reason why it’s a small but meaningful percentage of deaths is otherwise they’d be dying of cancer, ALS, etc.;shabby to not even point that out) that has benefited so many. I know many people who have taken advantage of it and it is ended their misery.
Hopefully we won’t see many articles from this non-journalist in future FTPs but actually linking to it today – October 17, 2024 – is not a good omen
The passing reference to the physician who, the author is compelled to mention, dismisses the Hippocratic oath (and he’s right. It is outdated and, for example, includes a vow to never assist a woman in terminating a pregnancy), encourages the reader to gloss over the doctor’s very salient point that prior to MAID the hoarding of meds to allow some control over ones death in a terminal situation where a person is in contestant pain, has lost all dignity and quality of life has been extremely common. Other than this mealy-mouthed insertion, we do not hear from a single person who makes a case for using this support to plan a good death for oneself.
I have to wonder reading some of the comments here if many of the people wringing their hands have come to terms with the fact that their life will inevitably end one day. We’re all on the road to going back into the eco-system from which we emerged and quality of life is a valid consideration along side of quantity. I feel that this extremely unbalanced reportage mines our youth-focussed culture that fears and denies death.
I personally know of five people who have family members who have opted for MAID in the past year and it has been a relief for the person dying to have some control over their last days. My father recently died with advanced dementia. His illness came on before the program was in place so he was past the point of being able to provide informed consent. The final 3 months of his life horrific. When he was awake he was disoriented, could not recognize anyone and was in a constant state of terror. The only choice was to keep him sedated in an essentially vegetative state with paid carers treating his poor irritated skin from being in one position and from wearing diapers continually. He was a brilliant man in his lifetime and in his rare moments of clarity leading into those last months, he felt horrific humiliation at his circumstances. There is such a thing as a good death and his was not one.
The Free Press purports offer an alternative to the widespread loss of journalistic integrity in legacy media. This sensationalist article leaves me wondering if they are capable of delivering on that promise.
I agree with your viewpoints. As to TFP I find that they do have a diverse selection of articles and views as I sometimes disagree with a particular perspective, which is fine. In this case I disagree strongly with the journalistic practice which is not to investigate but to promulgate a certain agenda. It is also not well written
You are right about TFP and I do appreciate the diversity of viewpoint I can find on the platform, this poor showing notwithstanding.
As a life-long leftist, I have been horrified by many of the current Liberal government’s destructive policies, mostly to do with compelled speech and a very partisan and inconsistent notion of whose rights require active protection in law and media, but MAID is one thing they’ve got right.
You missed the context, which was UK's recent decision to emulate Canada by tabling their own assisted-suicide bill (Oct. 16, 2024). Click on the link provided at the beginning of the FP news brief.
That report includes the MP's denialist statement that “There is absolutely no question of disabled people or those with mental illness who are not terminally ill being pressured to end their lives.”
This is Gaslighting of the First Order. And Rupa's investigative reporting from 2 years ago is proof.
Rupa documented Canada's trajectory down that slippery slope, which began with that same reassurance -- and after only 5 years (2017 - 2022) it came to include people who were simply depressed, or in a financial crisis and convinced they "can't afford to live". There were even cases of disabled people asking for rehab support, but they are offered assisted suicide as the first option. (The other options are more expensive, therefore less accessible.)
It's always been about the money since Day One.:
"The predicted gross reduction in health care costs amounts to $109.2 million while the cost of administering MAID is estimated at $22.3 million. Thus, the difference between the two represents a net cost reduction for provincial governments of $86.9 million." -- COST ESTIMATE FOR BILL C-7 “MEDICAL ASSISTANCE IN DYING” (Parliamentary Budget Officer, Oct. 2020)
And as of 2024, MAID is now offered to "mature minors", aka Canadian teenagers who struggle with the roller-coaster feelings of adolescence. They can make that impulsive, irreversible decision without parental knowledge or consent.
If this information is your idea of manipulating readers with "sloppy, deceitful, tearjerker stories", then fine -- count me as guilty.
I didn’t miss the context at all. I knew why they relinked to the articles. My comments refer only to her article about the Canadian situation. The MAID information presented in federal parliament was the financial implications not the driving force behind the legislation. Your belief in that concept amounts to a conspiracy belief. The financial implications are as a result of what I indicated in my comment – long-term terminal care for those who are desperately ill and it’s related expenses will naturally drop when their lives are ended much earlier. That is the intent of the legislation and that is what the most people are taking advantage of. By, most I mean a very very large percentage, which again I pointed out her data didn’t support it but the real data does. I guess that you would deny a humane end to people who my wife sees every day struggling in hospices and who choose MAID for a couple, cherry picked tearjerker stories. That is irrational and lacks sympathetic and insightful perspective.
"I guess that you would deny a humane end to people who my wife sees every day struggling in hospices and who choose MAID..."
You guess wrong.
But if you think financial priorities are not helping to drive MAID, consider that for years Canada has ranked near the bottom of universal health-care countries in health-care quality and accessibility, even though it's near the top in per-capita spending. For years they have been scrambling for a way to close that gap. The shortfall is not from long-term terminal care, it's systemic (not enough hospital capacity, long waiting times for specialists, that sort of thing).
Also more than 40% of disabled Canadians live below the poverty line, with no way out. The numbers of disabled people seeking MAiD (who would have continued living if not for the dilemma of poverty) are not being reported, but the anecdotal evidence means they exist.
"When people are living in such a situation where they’re structurally placed in poverty, is medical assistance in dying really a choice, or is it coercion? That’s the question we need to ask ourselves.” (Dr. Naheed Dosani, a palliative care physician in Toronto)
What WAS reported in 2022: around 5% were helped to die who didn't have any terminal disease or need for hospice care. Sounds small, but that was over 460 people, for a reason where even a few would be too many.
What's more, a full one third (some 5000 people) asked to die because they felt themselves to be a burden on others. That is not a medical issue, it's a nasty social construct which is typical for secular materialist cultures.
To dismiss hundreds of needless premature deaths as "cherry-picked tearjerker stories" is a very callous position, IMO unworthy of someone as perceptive as you seem to be.
Holy shit, this article floored me. The fact that the MAiD website touted their work as “end-of-life planning [that] leads to a meaningful and transformational experience.” Right. A hydraulic compactor is a "meaningful and transformational experience,” too.
Amazing how much people expect from the state, in other words, from the taxpayer. All these examples of people seeking to have the taxpayer kill them have any number of alternatives for a painless death through suicide, and have the faculties to execute their own demise. But even suicide is now considered the responsibility of the state to be paid for by taxpayers whose moral compass would never allow them to kill another human being. The left wants all control in the hands of the state, even killing those who have become a burden on themselves or the healthcare system.
Compassion isn't telling someone that their life is not worth living. Compassion is coming beside them and helping them. The church has failed to provide the material help that people need and failed to instill the sense that life is sacred and a gift from God. Death is not the solution to life's problems, and death is not final. Man is created for eternity. The "right to die" will quickly evolve into the "duty" to die, just as the "right" to abort has become a duty to abort.
Well at least it’s a quicker death than the “gender affirming care” that is happening today that will take a lot of these kids later in life, likely with worse means.
This is so sad. My son has addiction issues and our insurance denied rehab until I fought them . I told them that I understand how insurance works . They would rather he die now and not pay for a lifetime of addiction issues . They paid . I can see how death is now an easy option to rehab and am happy he doesn’t live in Canada .
The idea of assisted suicide was supposed to be for the elderly and terminally ill. This has creeped . Thx for the info .
As the parent of a child who went through a *brief* time of feeling despair, this is horrifying. As a person who has often, like so many others, felt as having reached the end of a rope, this is horrifying. So much (that feels hopeless) comes to pass, landing great happiness. How dare anyone under the guise of a medical professional take advantage of a sad condition, that's quite fixable, & turn it into something from which there is no return. Greed has no boundary.
The system is not working for so many. Covid worsened and exposed this. Kindness and intellect are at an all-time low and law of the jungle is the new status quo.
This tragedy of human sadness and loneliness playing out needs careful, considered, humane attention. How do we rebuild true communities? How do we care for the vulnerable and illl?
Family, work, faith were the foundation of healthy societies. But the mentally ill and otherwise disenfranchised have always suffered. The new way- the terrifyingly dystopian way, appears to see the answer in simply having them "voluntarily" disposed of.
What we need is an education system, healthcare system, and system of governing that directs resources to support and care for those truly in need. Instead billions of dollars are misused due to corruption and incompetence.
Suggested reading: All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews, a fictional chronicling of the real life struggle and eventual and death by suicide of her sister after a lifetime of crippling depression. After years of begging her family members to support her in a trip to Switzerland where she could have a medically supported death (this was refused), she ended her life by lying down on the railway tracks in Winnipeg.
Keeping someone alive against their will is not always the kindest or the most ethical choice.
*Edited to add: the book is beautifully written and laugh out loud funny in places. POI - Toews is also the author of the brilliant “Women Talking”, adapted for the screen last year.
"The Fifth Estate" did a follow up on Kiano Vafaeian (CBC Gem documentary season 48 "A Complicated Death", first aired January 19, 2023, and available to stream). 45 minutes long; Kiano starts at 1 minute 50 seconds.
Well, it'd be better for some to take advantage of this option rather than progressing to mass-shooter status and seeking death by cop, or jumping in front of the nearest semi-truck or bus, or eating the muzzle of a shotgun. People harming only themselves and not killing or traumatizing others is preferable to me. Sure, your loved ones may be sad, but it's an entirely individual decision, or should be.
This is one of the sloppiest and, in some ways, deceitful articles that I have read of TFP. It is replete with what I despise about decaying journalistic practices of the last 25 years: lead with an extended tearjerker “story”, throw in a bunch of what looks like data (the data did NOT support the main proposition nor was there any attempt at probing deeper evidentially), but really factoids, have a bunch of back-and-forth detailed voices of both experts and others affected by this (which are all cherry picked to not really be representative samples, like a MAID supporter, who of course doesn’t believe in the Hippocratic oath; there were no others?), And when real data won’t support your contention, just keep throwing stories at us. Tugging our heart springs and making us wring our hands in service of what: having a very few outliers change the entire program (and by the way, the reason why it’s a small but meaningful percentage of deaths is otherwise they’d be dying of cancer, ALS, etc.;shabby to not even point that out) that has benefited so many. I know many people who have taken advantage of it and it is ended their misery.
Hopefully we won’t see many articles from this non-journalist in future FTPs but actually linking to it today – October 17, 2024 – is not a good omen
I agree with you 100%.
The passing reference to the physician who, the author is compelled to mention, dismisses the Hippocratic oath (and he’s right. It is outdated and, for example, includes a vow to never assist a woman in terminating a pregnancy), encourages the reader to gloss over the doctor’s very salient point that prior to MAID the hoarding of meds to allow some control over ones death in a terminal situation where a person is in contestant pain, has lost all dignity and quality of life has been extremely common. Other than this mealy-mouthed insertion, we do not hear from a single person who makes a case for using this support to plan a good death for oneself.
I have to wonder reading some of the comments here if many of the people wringing their hands have come to terms with the fact that their life will inevitably end one day. We’re all on the road to going back into the eco-system from which we emerged and quality of life is a valid consideration along side of quantity. I feel that this extremely unbalanced reportage mines our youth-focussed culture that fears and denies death.
I personally know of five people who have family members who have opted for MAID in the past year and it has been a relief for the person dying to have some control over their last days. My father recently died with advanced dementia. His illness came on before the program was in place so he was past the point of being able to provide informed consent. The final 3 months of his life horrific. When he was awake he was disoriented, could not recognize anyone and was in a constant state of terror. The only choice was to keep him sedated in an essentially vegetative state with paid carers treating his poor irritated skin from being in one position and from wearing diapers continually. He was a brilliant man in his lifetime and in his rare moments of clarity leading into those last months, he felt horrific humiliation at his circumstances. There is such a thing as a good death and his was not one.
The Free Press purports offer an alternative to the widespread loss of journalistic integrity in legacy media. This sensationalist article leaves me wondering if they are capable of delivering on that promise.
I agree with your viewpoints. As to TFP I find that they do have a diverse selection of articles and views as I sometimes disagree with a particular perspective, which is fine. In this case I disagree strongly with the journalistic practice which is not to investigate but to promulgate a certain agenda. It is also not well written
You are right about TFP and I do appreciate the diversity of viewpoint I can find on the platform, this poor showing notwithstanding.
As a life-long leftist, I have been horrified by many of the current Liberal government’s destructive policies, mostly to do with compelled speech and a very partisan and inconsistent notion of whose rights require active protection in law and media, but MAID is one thing they’ve got right.
You missed the context, which was UK's recent decision to emulate Canada by tabling their own assisted-suicide bill (Oct. 16, 2024). Click on the link provided at the beginning of the FP news brief.
That report includes the MP's denialist statement that “There is absolutely no question of disabled people or those with mental illness who are not terminally ill being pressured to end their lives.”
This is Gaslighting of the First Order. And Rupa's investigative reporting from 2 years ago is proof.
Rupa documented Canada's trajectory down that slippery slope, which began with that same reassurance -- and after only 5 years (2017 - 2022) it came to include people who were simply depressed, or in a financial crisis and convinced they "can't afford to live". There were even cases of disabled people asking for rehab support, but they are offered assisted suicide as the first option. (The other options are more expensive, therefore less accessible.)
It's always been about the money since Day One.:
"The predicted gross reduction in health care costs amounts to $109.2 million while the cost of administering MAID is estimated at $22.3 million. Thus, the difference between the two represents a net cost reduction for provincial governments of $86.9 million." -- COST ESTIMATE FOR BILL C-7 “MEDICAL ASSISTANCE IN DYING” (Parliamentary Budget Officer, Oct. 2020)
And as of 2024, MAID is now offered to "mature minors", aka Canadian teenagers who struggle with the roller-coaster feelings of adolescence. They can make that impulsive, irreversible decision without parental knowledge or consent.
If this information is your idea of manipulating readers with "sloppy, deceitful, tearjerker stories", then fine -- count me as guilty.
I didn’t miss the context at all. I knew why they relinked to the articles. My comments refer only to her article about the Canadian situation. The MAID information presented in federal parliament was the financial implications not the driving force behind the legislation. Your belief in that concept amounts to a conspiracy belief. The financial implications are as a result of what I indicated in my comment – long-term terminal care for those who are desperately ill and it’s related expenses will naturally drop when their lives are ended much earlier. That is the intent of the legislation and that is what the most people are taking advantage of. By, most I mean a very very large percentage, which again I pointed out her data didn’t support it but the real data does. I guess that you would deny a humane end to people who my wife sees every day struggling in hospices and who choose MAID for a couple, cherry picked tearjerker stories. That is irrational and lacks sympathetic and insightful perspective.
"I guess that you would deny a humane end to people who my wife sees every day struggling in hospices and who choose MAID..."
You guess wrong.
But if you think financial priorities are not helping to drive MAID, consider that for years Canada has ranked near the bottom of universal health-care countries in health-care quality and accessibility, even though it's near the top in per-capita spending. For years they have been scrambling for a way to close that gap. The shortfall is not from long-term terminal care, it's systemic (not enough hospital capacity, long waiting times for specialists, that sort of thing).
Also more than 40% of disabled Canadians live below the poverty line, with no way out. The numbers of disabled people seeking MAiD (who would have continued living if not for the dilemma of poverty) are not being reported, but the anecdotal evidence means they exist.
"When people are living in such a situation where they’re structurally placed in poverty, is medical assistance in dying really a choice, or is it coercion? That’s the question we need to ask ourselves.” (Dr. Naheed Dosani, a palliative care physician in Toronto)
What WAS reported in 2022: around 5% were helped to die who didn't have any terminal disease or need for hospice care. Sounds small, but that was over 460 people, for a reason where even a few would be too many.
What's more, a full one third (some 5000 people) asked to die because they felt themselves to be a burden on others. That is not a medical issue, it's a nasty social construct which is typical for secular materialist cultures.
To dismiss hundreds of needless premature deaths as "cherry-picked tearjerker stories" is a very callous position, IMO unworthy of someone as perceptive as you seem to be.
Holy shit, this article floored me. The fact that the MAiD website touted their work as “end-of-life planning [that] leads to a meaningful and transformational experience.” Right. A hydraulic compactor is a "meaningful and transformational experience,” too.
Amazing how much people expect from the state, in other words, from the taxpayer. All these examples of people seeking to have the taxpayer kill them have any number of alternatives for a painless death through suicide, and have the faculties to execute their own demise. But even suicide is now considered the responsibility of the state to be paid for by taxpayers whose moral compass would never allow them to kill another human being. The left wants all control in the hands of the state, even killing those who have become a burden on themselves or the healthcare system.
Compassion isn't telling someone that their life is not worth living. Compassion is coming beside them and helping them. The church has failed to provide the material help that people need and failed to instill the sense that life is sacred and a gift from God. Death is not the solution to life's problems, and death is not final. Man is created for eternity. The "right to die" will quickly evolve into the "duty" to die, just as the "right" to abort has become a duty to abort.
Well at least it’s a quicker death than the “gender affirming care” that is happening today that will take a lot of these kids later in life, likely with worse means.
This is so sad. My son has addiction issues and our insurance denied rehab until I fought them . I told them that I understand how insurance works . They would rather he die now and not pay for a lifetime of addiction issues . They paid . I can see how death is now an easy option to rehab and am happy he doesn’t live in Canada .
The idea of assisted suicide was supposed to be for the elderly and terminally ill. This has creeped . Thx for the info .
As the parent of a child who went through a *brief* time of feeling despair, this is horrifying. As a person who has often, like so many others, felt as having reached the end of a rope, this is horrifying. So much (that feels hopeless) comes to pass, landing great happiness. How dare anyone under the guise of a medical professional take advantage of a sad condition, that's quite fixable, & turn it into something from which there is no return. Greed has no boundary.
The system is not working for so many. Covid worsened and exposed this. Kindness and intellect are at an all-time low and law of the jungle is the new status quo.
This tragedy of human sadness and loneliness playing out needs careful, considered, humane attention. How do we rebuild true communities? How do we care for the vulnerable and illl?
Family, work, faith were the foundation of healthy societies. But the mentally ill and otherwise disenfranchised have always suffered. The new way- the terrifyingly dystopian way, appears to see the answer in simply having them "voluntarily" disposed of.
What we need is an education system, healthcare system, and system of governing that directs resources to support and care for those truly in need. Instead billions of dollars are misused due to corruption and incompetence.
Canada Health, as they should, have postpones opening up MAID to mental illness in March of 2023.
Here is the government link:
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/medical-assistance-dying.html
....*to see
They, the Canadian government, probably made this move due to accurate reporting on MAID.
I was very happy too see this news outlet chipping in on that.
I'm gonna stop talking now.
*Canada
Sorry. I'm not trying to make jokes on this one.
I am in no way defending what Canafa is doing here....I thinks it's evil. But in the spirit of this website, it should be noted that
Very thankfully, Canada Health has at least postponed opening up MAID to anyone who qualifies as mentally ill in March.
Don't take MY word for it:
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/medical-assistance-dying.html