I would look into countries where euthanasia has been already implemented. It doesn't seem like it's a widespread problem, so apparently they made it work somehow.
Does it mean it's absolutely bulletproof and no-one will ever be pressured to undergo euthanasia? No, but you can't ever achieve such certainty, and it's better to look at it from the utilitarianism view - allowing euthanasia will prevent much more suffering than it will cause.
That's what puts me off of the idea in the first place. Cases like Christine Gauthier (a former army corporal and paralympian) who was offered euthanasia when trying to seek government disability benefits to install a wheelchair ramp. If it takes someone with existing fame to speak out about this, how many more people has this been pushed on?
> from the utilitarianism view - allowing euthanasia will prevent much more suffering than it will cause.
I'm not totally convinced. I haven't run the numbers, and this also certainly takes into account my personal views on valuing life and family, but I do fear more pain and suffering will come with legal euthanasia than it will solve.
Just look at the end of the article. It gives several examples of the kind of thing that allows me as a utilitarian to say that the suffering of a few terminally ill is not as bad as the harassment of countless vulnerable people.
If an individual in a difficult life situation comes to the state for help as a last resort, and there is a chance the representative they are assigned would recommend they should consider just dying as their last resort, the state has already failed to protect someone vulnerable, and obviously won't be giving them the help they deserve/need/should be entitled to as a human.
Any wrongful death is horrible, but I sincerely believe a "representative" like this and the harm they inflict is going to have an almost identical death toll, even if it's by way of consigning people to sub-human lives of physical or mental torment instead of pushing them towards a tool that "everyone" understands we need to keep a close eye on. My utilitarian take would be that many would happily extend the torment of the terminally ill and suffering, as long as they don't have to deal with the suffering their neglect inflicts on countless vulnerable people and the terminally ill already. (For e-clarity, I don't mean to imply that's your motivation here!)
Medical assistance in dying is a medical act, reserved to doctors. Just like a car salesman can't legally recommend you an abortion. No one in the government has the legal right to discuss it, even less offer it.
The Christine Gauthier case is used to justify the idea that the government will use it to reduce spending, when what happened to her is appalling, but was absolutely not something the government employee that offered it to her had the legal permission to do so.
What the Quebec law regarding medical assistance in dying does is guarantee its existence as a medical act. It does not allow any low-level government employee to offer it wily-nily to anyone. It is a medical act, reserved to doctors, to discuss assistance in dying.
Countless vulnerable people haven't been harassed. There are 12 documented cases in the history of MAID in Canada where someone was allegedly offered MAID innapropriately. There have been inquests and reports that have counted them. Not one resulted in a death. Christine Gauthier's experience couldn't be substantiated when they reviewed her records, but they did find in that investigation that a single case worker had offered MAID to 4 veterans.
On the other hand there have been over 50k successful petitions for MAID most of which were for people with Cancer.
As a utilitarian, you should presumably look at the actual numbers, and balance the tens of thousands of people who chose not to suffer agonizing deaths against the 12 documented cases of people who were offered MAID as an option when they think they shouldn't have been.
I have worked in hospice and they do MAID there all the time. It was a weird feeling to see a family and their loved one head into the downstairs where they would all sit around and tell them person how much they are loved and then that person would end their life. But I know it is the right thing.
Is the fact that the process of suicide is slower/more conventional a difference?
People seeking this process go through a psychological evaluation to determine if they are under duress and of clear mind. Also there's liability to the ones applying undue pressure which can be criminal.
I think there's a point of personal responsibility. Potential abuse of the system should not be the reason to deny it to everyone. I want to have control over the way I live and die. Alzheimer's is unfortunately in both sides of my family, if it has no treatment and I start showing signs I would rather die than live. It would be torture for me to put my family through that.
But please don't get me wrong, I am absolutely full of sympathy to people so desperately ill they want to call it quits.
I don't want to appear dismissive of your concerns because I'm not. Such abuse is horrible, criminal and tragic. No question. But looking at the morality issue and consistency I think the answer is pretty clear. We need to give people agency over their own lives. Safeguards are essential for sure, and abuse will happen even with the safeguards in place. But the current situation is just tragic. People are afraid to go to the hospital because they're afraid they will be kept alive and in-effect tortured to a slow death.
I'm not sure how these were resolved but it's very messy and hugely traumatic for all involved.
Either way, the government is profoundly involved.
Either the government is in the business of telling us we cannot end our own lives in humane and medically-assisted ways, and that medically assisted deaths are equivalent to murder with all of the attendant legal issues.
Or they are in the business of enforcing rules about how those medically-assisted deaths can happen.
Deciding as a matter of policy, not law, “No, we don’t do that outside of extraordinary circumstances” is something a government institution can do.
This is why it's important to have a pretty detailed living will[1]. Especially is you're already chronically ill and have a pretty good idea of how that road ends.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_healthcare_directive
This seems to me like good enough safeguards, don't you think?
Keep mind: I'm not asking "Do those cases ever happen"? Of course they do. There's already been stories. The question is what are the statistics. Every policy, every procedure, every decision can have mistakes and negative outcomes. Some homeless and disabled people have been offered euthanasia. Those cases should be investigated and the policies should be updated. But nothing will be perfect.
You can say "if you can't have a perfect system then you shouldn't have it at all." and while that may be philosophically justifiable in the same way that "I'd rather let 10,000 guilty people go free than convict 1 innocent person" is, but it's important to remember that despite that we still convict innocent people.
Some trans people regret their transition. They're a tiny minority. Some people abuse welfare. They're a tiny minority. Some people are pushed towards euthanasia when they shouldn't be. They're a tiny minority.
The government has no incentive to provide better housing or disability benefits to the working class when they can instead withhold those things and watch legions of poor & desperate people die. Do you know they actually calculate how much money killing all of these marginalised people saves them? That Canadian media advertises these figures to sell the state killing program?
What was Canada's excuse for poor healthcare before MAID existed then?
This to me feels like a very dystopian way to have a relationship with it's government, and is a uniquely american perspective amongst the developed world.
The government is a proxy for society leadership. I expect human society to protect it's humans, and most of the world with functioning government does too.
The biggest threat to Canadian prosperity today is these american ideas percolating above the border and infecting the mind of Canadians who previously believed and trusted their government and no longer does.
On what basis do you call yourself a communist when you explicitly advocate "trust" in a bourgeois government on the topic of state killings of homeless & disabled people? Shouldn't that be one of the last topics you would ever trust them on, given their clear class interest in killing members of the proletariat who are unable to continue labouring for profit? It seems fine to trust them not to lie about easily verifiable facts that don't threaten them, like weather warnings, but you should trust them about literally everything else before trusting them to "fairly" and "consensually" carry out killings of proletarians.
I remember reading about one where someone drugged their mother to bring her in for euthanasia. What the naysayers didn't report was that that was by her own wishes--she knew her mind was going and set it up for when it was too far gone. I have no problem with that.
No. I think it’s too much.
Nobody else should be deciding that my mind is unsound.
And if my body being “unsound” is a reason that makes it OK to want to die, why should an “unsound” mind be different?
Even if you think the current safeguards are the "sweet spot," continued pressure to make it more difficult will be necessary to prevent it from being made less difficult. (And if you don't think it would be a problem for it to be made less difficult, then citing those safeguards as part of your argument would be disingenuous.)
How do you even measure if it's working "well" in Canada? They have a process. There is no way to question the people who went through with it whether, on reflection, it was their own free will.
But of course looking at how others do it is a good starting place for further analysis and I'll go now and educate myself.
How often does this actually happen?
EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying this doesn't happen, I'm really asking.
There are plenty of ways to pressure people into death, as you have already demonstrated. That’s not going away.
Emotional burdens to encourage people to live as long as possible even if you think they’re suffering are likely a far bigger problem. People know it’s unethical not to euthanize animals that are suffering. Lacking the social apparatus to suggest euthanizing humans is almost certainly a huge moral weakness.
In a friend's family, there was a big rift as one family member in direct line of inheritance was accused of (successfully!) pressuring his mother to refuse medical care. She died sooner and more unpleasantly than she likely would have otherwise, leaving more money sooner to her children. And that wasn't even with euthanasia being legal.
I have lots of sympathy for people so desperate they would rather kill themselves, but I don't know how you square that circle.