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Canada has gone too far in terms of who is eligible for assisted suicide in many people’s opinions. For example people who are mentally ill are able to request assisted suicide from the state.
I mean mental illness can cause plenty of suffering so I don't see why it should be excluded. As long as that person can give fully informed consent the same as other conditions.
So why do we have suicide hotlines, then?
Suicide is not assisted, leaves a mess for those that discover a corpse, EMT's and others to clean up. Someone's suffering might end when they jump in front of a train but the train driver's suffering only just begins at that point.
Suicide is often an unmanaged, chaotic process which causes trauma. It also often fails whilst leaving those that attempt it in bad physical shape. A law like this reduces the necessity of discussing, normalizing or enabling suicide because there is a safe and properly counseled path out of a no-win situation for those that truly need it. A policy on containment when there are probably household cleaners that could do the job effectively with a small amount of chemistry knowledge is absolutely insane - and if someone truly is in that much pain, they'll find a way. Families and loved ones also have time to work through grief and loss rather than getting the wind knocked out of them when they hear the news.
The fact that we've hit a point where we can even have a discussion about this is probably something that should be celebrated, rather than being so totalitarian and controlling that we effectively force people to live even when they're in enormous pain.
So the problem with suicide isn't people taking their own life, but the mess they leave behind? How heartless is this attitude?
I'd hoped nobody would come to the conclusion that was the core argument, but it is a consideration.
And I would like to draw attention to the totalitarian nature of our attitudes towards suicide. It's been enforced heartlessly for a very long time - if you commit suicide, you'll go someplace worse. It's this, it's that. All ultimately to remove the last escape for people who are in some form of extreme physical, mental, emotional or existential pain to the point where they don't believe there's another solution.
I'd sooner discuss why we have those attitudes - maybe it's so we get a free pass to be extractive and shitty whilst simultaneously denying the people we abuse even the dignity of leaving on their own terms.
So we're better letting people kill themselves than help them?
I don't think anyone could look at the evidence and come to a different conclusion, honestly.
There was a case like that somewhere in Europe earlier this year. I think it was in the Netherlands, but it was a young woman who had numerous mental health issues that were causing her real suffering and she would probably have done the deed herself at some point.
It was only about the second time it had been approved, and required a lot of time and numerous doctors to sign off on their being nothing they could do to help her professionally.
It made me feel quite uncomfortable, but then thinking about it logically she met all of the criteria, the only real question was about confirming she knew what she was doing.
Well that seems like a bad idea
Person,: "I'm suffering paranoid delusions that the state is out to get me and want to end my life!"
The state: "well, we'll be happy to help.."
Yeah it's the so-called slippery slope argument people are making that countries which have legalised assisted dying so far have tended towards making increasingly more people eligible over time.
Conflicted on that tbh. Slippery slope is one of the classic logical fallacies but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't happen.