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Mr_Mons_of_Nibiru t1_j2b934g wrote

Canada is about to vote on whether or not their Medical Assistance In Death(MAID) act will extend to mental health patients that are suicidal. They tried to sell an aging Paralympian on considering euthanasia instead of getting a hip replacement.

Plus, there's this guy in Switzerland that is trying to patent an actual suicide pod. It's currently sitting in an art gallery on exhibition. I believe it kills you with gas, nitrogen I think.

In Walter Tevis's glorious unsung masterpiece, "Mockingbird" he postulates a future where all services are automated, nobody works, drugs are mandatory this making humanity sterile and unable to read or tell time or think, and talking to each other is made illegal as an "invasion of privacy". And there is an epidemic if elderly people lighting themselves on fire in public.

We're close.

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Grayman222 t1_j2d73kr wrote

MAID is scary as it looks like a fast ride down the slippery slope. I've seen a story or two of people going into the process because they have a medical condition that cannot be comfortable with their current finances. If various social safety nets and healthcare were enhanced more the person would prefer that to MAID.

The concept of MAID for non-curable pain, losing your mind, terminal conditions and removing the legally grey exposure to doctors, nurses, and family on itself seems ethical and moral but oh boy does it open a flood gate.

I think the paralympian you mention was also a vet, and one employee at VA had pushed MAID to 4-5 people who called in before it made the news. Still scary, but the media spun it off into a more outrageous second terrible story instead of part of an existing one.

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Mr_Mons_of_Nibiru t1_j2d9apw wrote

I read that an 18 year old went behind his parents' back at a clinic and he had gone through the whole process without their knowledge he just had to make it there on the date. Incurable nerve pain condition.....that has to be living hell ....but 18?

I thought Canada was medical utopia compared to us here, has to be. But I'm curious, what safety nets could be improved?

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b00ks101 t1_j2divgn wrote

[I am not mad and there is no darkness in my soul.] I welcome a future where a much older, dilapidated version of me is able to have access to the 'suicide pod' you mention. I think if you have ever actually seen the terrible end that faces some old people in our current health care system - begging to go home at each family visit, unending pain, bed sores, catheters, urinary infections, gasping for breath and the eventual 'drowning' as your lungs fill with fluid or if you are lucky heart failure - YOU WOULD BEG for a such a peaceful, painless transition on your own terms.

We would be arrested if we treated animals the way we treat some humans stretching out their last weeks or months for no other purpose than "it is gods will" or some other ancient hierarchical bullshit. If you haven't seen it you are lucky - but you are also uninformed and should not be allowed to have an opinion until you have actually seen what awaits you with your own eyes. If that was gods plan for us all along - then he needs a new playbook or we need a new coach.

Personally I welcome the suicide pod option for me as a sane choice in a hopefully more compassionate, rational future.

TLDR: Personal choice is always good - especially if its about how you die.

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Mr_Mons_of_Nibiru t1_j2djkh1 wrote

You should embroider the words in the brackets on your soapbox preach. Uninformed. Not allowed. The whole point of that paragraph was to address the MAID act being extended to the mentally ill. Hope you enjoyed yourself.

But sure, because I didn't extend it to the population YOU had in mind for euthanasia, you know how I think and what I deserve.

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b00ks101 t1_j2efvsg wrote

please dont consider my comments a personal attack - they were a pow only.

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WholeEmbarrassed950 t1_j2dlxgs wrote

As someone who has been suicidally depressed for literally decades I would like to die in a dignified way. The main thing stopping me is that I don’t want to traumatize my wife or kids when they come across me hanging or with a shotgun in my mouth.

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