A while ago the ethical question was raised about MAID in Canada on how theyâre supposed to distinguish between âgenuinely ill people making good use of the serviceâ and âdepressed people who have simply lost hope and are using MAID as a more formal way to kill themselves.â As far as I know, they really canât. Not to mention the stories of people turning to MAID as an alternative to dealing with Canadaâs broken healthcare system. A healthy society doesnât encourage its members to kill themselves.
Former funeral director. I understand what this doctor is saying. Iâve sat with many people planning assisted death and they were understandably happy that their pain and suffering will soon end. Itâs normal to be afraid of death and not understand why someone would want to die until you sit across from someone with bones growing out through their skin because of cancer or someone who will soon lose the ability to move their muscles and be trapped in their paralyzed body until they die. The most common reason to not follow through with a planned death is death. As in, the person waited until the last possible moment to request assisted death. Nobody wants this until they really need it, and when they really need it, theyâre thankful.
I donât think assisted suicide is dystopian, I think itâs incredibly progressive and I wish it was more widely available. We give our pets more dignity in death than our loved ones and it sucks. The fact that weâll keep a corpse animated for years just because we canât let go is pretty fucking dystopian though.
I donât like it because, as a person with chronic mental illness, itâs legitimizing me committing suicide rather than learning to cope with my symptoms. I already think too much about how nice itâll be to be dead and not having to worry about dealing with my symptoms. If one day I decided that my life was no longer bearable, whatâs the practical difference between me making an attempt on my own life that allegedly needs to be urgently stopped, and me going through months of paperwork and evaluations to do the same thing? If suicide is wrong, if we shouldnât use a permanent solution for a temporary problem, then why should we turn it into a medical procedure? It feels dystopian because the medical industry, in my case, would be throwing up its hands and saying âyou know what, youâre right, youâre completely broken and thereâs no possible way to fix you. Letâs just kill you instead.â
My greats fear isnât to die in an accident, itâs to barely survive an accident. To be kept alive but with no quality of life and in constant pain, thatâs not life, thatâs hell.
I donât want people in that situation to be euthanized, i just want them to be given the choice, because that is what i would want
