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H. E. Baber's avatar

I'm old and I don't want to get put down!!! My objection isn't religious but selfish: I care about me, me, me. The question about assisted dying is if passed will it mean that more people get what they want or fewer. Are there more who want to want to get put down who will get what they want? Or more, like me who don't want to get put down who will be wheedled, pressured, or effectively forced by having support services cut who will not get what they want.

The elderly and infirm, and the chronically ill and disabled, are a burden financially and emotionally to caregivers and to their families. There's plenty of motivation to get them to get themselves euthanized. I'm cynical and a pessimist about human nature. If assisted dying people will be better able to practice self-deception, to imagine that by inducing inconvenient, expensive relatives to have themselves put down they're doing a good thing.

I want to survive as long as possible and I don't care how much of a financial or emotional burden I am on anyone. My life is all I've got, it's me, and I want as much me as possible. And I hope that during my final days I will be thoroughly doped up and high as a kite so that I don't know what is happening and don't care.

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Ryan's avatar

It’s pretty common that Canada is used in persuasion as an example of a country that has gone to far with its Medically Assisted in Dying (maid). However, why is it a mistake? Persuasion is a liberal magazine and believes in reasonable disagreement, even fairly unreasonable disagreement in politics. However, when Canadians as a democratic society broadly support MAID with a supermajority, we receive the patronising label of “mistake” rather than a liberal democratic society with slightly different value needs. When an American takes a principled libertarian position, I may strongly disagree. I certainly would fight to live in a different society. Yet, if a principled libertarian would rather all the ills of a libertarian society, including an increased chance of violent death, persuasion will greet that as a political preference with different values, something one can discuss and appreciate yet disagree in a liberal society.

MAID was brought about and expanded in Canada based on human rights lawsuits by citizens who were suffering and not able to go their own way. It has not been a top-down process.

The vast majority of patients using MAID, have terminal cancer. There is no conspiracy to depopulate our country of unproductive assets. Some with non-terminal illnesses suffer also want relief, but government has resisted doggedly for years. Our Liberal party may be a little woke, but it is also a small ‘c’ conservative centrist party. Now, you may not agree, but it is like gay marriage. You don’t have to get in a same sex marriage, you don’t even need to think them moral: you are free to do those things, but others are also free to enter such arrangements with legal protection.

Critics like to point out about slippery slopes, but slippery slopes are infantile argue. Nothing but a pure deontologies can worry about slippery slopes. Common law is grounded in reasonable judgement, and tends not to be to prescriptive. To check the executive and legislative powers, there is the judicial.

So please, explain why you disagree, but save us the patronising label of ‘mistake’ that you wouldn’t jump to put on someone who merely disagrees. Not only is it patronising, but indicating a laziness for not having engaged the issue. Perhaps you have considered it in a certain environment, but broaden your horizon of dialogue.

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