Absolutely! Your Life: Your Choice and My Life: My Choice.

I just want to chime in here and say that allowing everyone the right to choose doesn’t deny anyone the right to not make a choice.

Sue McKenown, I am glad you know people who are in serious illness! Hopefully you did something to make a difference in their life. Everyone has a voice and has a choice to create their own morals too. I know people of people too and I am glad we can agree to disagree :)

Jeannie Rush,
I do personally know people with very serious chronic illnesses: 1) A woman in her late 70s with relapsing-remitting MS (she is also a cancer survivor) who must use a walker and finds riding in or driving a car for more than an hour very painful. 2) A dear friend (also a cancer survivor) who may lose her life prematurely due to a liver ailment. 3) Another person with rheumatoid arthritis in her early 60s. She would love to retire early, but must continue working until 65 for her maximum pension. (Her husband is my husband’s long-term care center.) All three not only oppose assisted suicide/MAID, but believe it to be immoral, if not evil. Could mention others, but you get the picture.

Personally, I have already lost about 20% of the hearing in one of my ears and will likely need hearing aids for both ears. No biggie. ENT doctor says I’ll be a great candidate for them and while being far from wealthy, I’ll being able to afford them. If/when they no longer do the trick, our Medicare system will pay for a cochlear implant for one ear. Way before then, I’ll learn sign language and lip reading. (Better to be prepared for the worst.) And perhaps medical technology may have something even better in store by then.

Jeannie,
I have enjoyed our discussion. You, I, and R. Cormier have disagreed without being disagreaable. In the US, given our current political climate, that’s sometimes difficult to see happen.

God bless us all when we face the final chapter in our lives, whenever that occurs. We’ll need it.

Sue McKeown, you have no idea about what others have to endure other than neurological and autoimmune pain among other health issues the person may be going through among many other things! You and I will always other points of view. People have a right, when to eat, go to the doctors, etc,. I would rather have someone be with someone for they die, then a person committing suicide and being alone like my friend who too her own life in a hotel by herself. She suffered immense pain. You stick to your beliefs and I will stick to mine.

R. Cormier,
In Washington and Oregon, nearly all people requesting a medically-assisted death cite do not severe, unremitting pain or fear of severe, unremitting pain as one of their reasons for its necessity. Most methods of refusing medical treatment can be managed without severe pain. One of my aunts refused dialysis as did my husband’s first roommate in long-term care. Their deaths were not long and drawn-out and they did not suffer. They also had the opportunities to say their good-byes. Why would this not be the case with other means of refusing treatment?

If pain can be managed (and it almost always can), where is it written that is undignified to be bedridden, incontinent, and/or require assistance with bathing, dressing, eating or other activities of daily living near the end of life? It did not used to be this way. This social construct deserves close examination. It bears no resemblance to the truth unless if we choose to make it so. It is a choice, not the truth, like 2 + 2 = 4, the Earth revolving around the Sun, the existence of gravity, or the germ theory of disease.

Sue McKeown:
Refusing cancer treatment, stopping eating and drinking, refusing dialysis, not inserting pacemakers, etc: Slow, painful deaths after prolonged suffering and loss of dignity.
MAID: Peaceful, painless, dignified and quick, with a chance to prepare and say goodbye to family and friends.
I know which I’d choose.

Jeannie Rush,
I do not live in la-la land by any means. Yes, I know people with low incomes, poor or no health insurance (I volunteer with an organization that helps them obtain Ohio Medicaid, among other benefits, if they qualify), and poor health. I have friends with cancer and those who are cancer survivors. I have survived a brush with death and seriously considering suicide (more than once). My own dear husband will likely die of complications of frontotemporal degeneration, a form of dementia. My late father died of complications of Alzheimer’s and my mother-in-law has this awful illness now. Only one of the people with whom I have a relationship has expressed any interest in a medically-assisted death. (And most don’t know of my opposition to it.)

Allowing people to end their lives prematurely because of lack of good health care or cures for all illnesses solves no problems. Will it lead to increases in health care funding or medical research? Has it done so in countries or states where it has been legal for many years? Show us the money.

No civilized nation requires anyone to submit subject to any medical treatment he/she does not want. DNR/DNI orders, not inserting pacemakers, refusing dialysis, refusing cancer treatment…there are endless ways to hasten death. (See it happen all the time at my husband’s long-term care center. I even have to give permission for my husband to have an annual flu shot!) Suicide is not illegal, nor should it be. It’s perfectly legal to stop eating and drinking as a way to die, too. There’s no need to involve the medical community.

Lest you think we are all islands, totally autonomous, think again. Ask anyone who works at a mental health center what a suicide does to those around them. It is devastating. It would not be surprising if there are silent sufferers of MAID deaths of their loved ones and friends, afraid to speak out because it has become politically incorrect to do so.

Yes, your Supreme Court has legalized MAID. Well, our Supreme Court has made unwise decisions in the past, too…like saying that segregated public schools were legal as long as they were “separate but equal”. Thankfully, they realized how wrong they were. And thankful that our Supreme Court has ruled that there is no fundamental right to assisted suicide here in the US. Each state decides on their own. Would every province in Canada legalize MAID if given that option? Food for thought.

Jeannie Rush:
Not to mention that current medical knowledge and technology simply aren’t capable of curing all ills.

Sue McKeown, you don’t know the extreme measures someone has done to get better. I cannot mention EVERYTHING, but it is not only in the conventional methods. You also don’t know much people are financially, mentally, and physically DEPLETED. It is up to each individual on when their limits come to an end. There are many people fighting ALONE. Not everyone is able to be resourceful and find the help they need. People end up in deeper into an abyss with PTSD and other issues. Maybe it is time to listen to people’s stories and not making it sound as there is a fix for every health issue. Can you imagine fighting and being abused and neglected in the health care system by doctors and calling for government care who drop your case and running around the system for at least 10 years? Torqued vertebrae from trauma with CNS and many other chronic issues and being left alone to care or yourself and not having a way to fix issues. For many people in the world, without technology and medicine, most people would be dead, but unfortunately technology and medicine does not fix all issues. Not to mention the food, chemicals and other problems in the earth. The brain gets overwhelmed and people want peace and if they choose this way I am not to condemn or condone their choice. I don’t live in their body and they don’t live in mine.

R. Cormier and Jeannie Rush,

We’ll have to agree to disagree. Not that committing suicide when one gives up hope in the face of an incurable illness is anything but tragic. Or that inadequate health care resources may frustrate a patient to the point that ending his or her life prematurely via MAID is a good thing. Don’t mean to be flippant about such serious things. Yes, we live in a very, very imperfect world. Perhaps I’m too optimistic, but I’d rather not throw in the towel that easily when it comes to human life. Can do very little, if anything, but as someone said, “Better to light one candle, than to curse the darkness.” Stop talking and get off butt and do something…anything.

I have no wish to debate .. whether you are a Canadian or American or whatever. Under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, according to the Supreme Court, Canadians have the right to an assisted death or not .. according to their personal wishes. Your life: your choice. Unfortunately, under the new law of MAID, certain Canadians are being denied their rights. The forthcoming federal data must be analyzed, and I’m sure with what information is already known, many of MAID’s shortfalls will be corrected … if the government is willing to follow its determinants of consultation and the Supreme Court. I should have the right; you have the right; we all should choose according to personal wishes - regardless of the state of health care/supports at the time of choice.

Sue McKeown;
Unfortunately for many people, they have incurable illnesses that while the illness will not kill them anytime soon, it makes living hell on Earth. All the money in the world cannot cure the incurable. 12 years ago a friend of mine killed himself because he had no hope. Sometimes a medical condition that causes great suffering just cannot be cured or alleviated. My friend overdosed on his medication and died horribly. Until we develop medicine that can do miracles and the impossible, medically assisted death is the only humane option, and needs to be easily accessible to everyone suffering from incurable illness who is suffering as a result of it.
I think the ultimate goal should be to provide those suffering intolerably, with full relief, whatever form that takes. If we suddenly develop Star-Trek-era health-care that can fix anything, then that would be great. Sadly, we are far from that, and so the best we can do is offer an escape from the suffering.

Sue McKeown, receiving proper care is already a nightmare and impossible. Sure, it would be great to find a resolution for complex cases not to mention proper housing and nutrition and more funding in health care,but unfortunately people who already have fell through the cracks and have been suffering for years or decades don’t feel hope any longer. The medical care system would cost tens of billions of dollars and the government is not interested in doing this.There needs are overwhelming from simple daily tasks to complex care. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first priority when he came into office in October 2015 was to bring in over 40,000 Syrian refugees not to mention other refugees and immigrants. Canada needs to take care of the people who are already born and or raised in Canada. (My family is 5th generation Canadian). Life is expensive to survive and not enough doctors and hospitals with all the people who need care. After suffering and fighting the medical system with many doctors and abuse and neglect in health care, it is natural to only want to die instead of suffering endlessly not knowing when it will end and having no meaning for life. I have had 5 friends who committed suicide. if people want to leave the world,it is better to have medical assisted suicide rather than die alone and take your own life sadly. As humans, suffering has its limits to how much a human can tolerate. We are not infinite beings whether the condition is terminal or not. There comes to be a time when someone wants peace.

Sorry, Ms. Rush and others. As a US citizen, that’s what I would say to my our Congress if the US Supreme Court overruled their previous decision that their is no fundamental federal right to, in their terms, “assisted suicide”. What troubles me the most, not just in Canada, but in the US states where medically-assisted death is legal, is that people seem to be interested in finding ways to opening the doors for more medically-assisted deaths, not finding ways in making them less necessary. Improve access to palliative care, if that’s an issue. Fund more medical research. Ensure there are no waits for specialized treatments, even if it increases taxes. (Wish we’d have a form of health care for all in the US, but not if medically-assisted death was the price we’d have to pay for it.) Shouldn’t the goal to be to decrease the need for medically-assisted death? Sort of what people used to say about abortion: safe, legal, and rare. Funny, but very few people say that about abortion any longer. Hope medically-assisted death remains that way everywhere it is legal, but it doesn’t look like that will happen.

Ms. Rush,
What about improving the health care system instead of making it easier to qualify for a medically-assisted death? Shouldn’t that be the ultimate goal?

Assisted suicide needs to be for people not only for palliative health but incurable long standing complex health diseases where people can no longer care and afford to care for their agonizing physical and mental suffering. Medical care in Canada is ridiculous long and wrongly diagnosed and people still need to find a way to live without sufficient daily needs and there is no system in place to care for people that need day-to-day care. Many people cant even get home support and live alone and live with complex issues and people need the right to leave the world on their own terms – not by having to commit suicide only to live and be in a worse condition or having to fly to Switzerland if this is possible.

The Canadian government needs to see these people in their suffering and hear people’s life stories because they are too stupid and ignorant to understand what it is like to live and know the huge gaping holes in the Canadian medical system!

Just joined dyingwithdignity, I have depression, psychosis and schizophrenia. I have been this way for 8 years now and no medications have been helping me. I was referred to this site by somebody who said that I would find someone to talk with who can better help me with the whole review that is being done in December of this year. There’s a review being done on MAID and mental illness and I seriously hope that the government passes the law that people with mental illness can qualify for MAID. It’s been so stressful and there have been times where I feel like I’m going to lose it, not only this but there’s a pain that I feel that gets worse over time. Was hoping if anybody can help?

R. Cormier’s comments are ‘bang on.’ Unfortunately, our politicians tend to ignore what Canadians think, eg. look at the overwhelming support for MAID and Advance Care Directives by 80+% of Canadians polled in February, 2015 – long before the ‘vote’ in June 2016.
Unless this new data is evaluated and utilized in better legislation and procedures, it will wasted.

Interesting that in both Schedule 1, 13 (a), and in Schedule 3, 2 (h), it says OR psychological suffering. I was under the impression that the government didn’t give a damn about psychological suffering, only physical, and that psychological suffering was one of the issues the Canadian Council of Academies was investigating into having qualify for MAiD.
As for Schedule 3 (i), ALL patient’s deaths are naturally foreseeable. I may not die for another 10 – 40 years, but I can guarantee you 100% that I will be dead in 50. That’s not just reasonably foreseeable, it’s ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY.

Wise caution Shanaaz. — the patient must always be first. Rules, regulations and government procedures usually reflect governance and legalistic fears. Data collection is important but not at the expense of the patient.

We, the palliative, need to have the choice, without losing insurance, pension funds, designated for the Benificaries !