[ffujdefvjg]

I think doctor assisted suicide is something we should have, but I've read some really messed up stuff about Canada's program.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/06/canada-...

https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c63...

One case (can't find it now, I think it may have been Alan Nichols') had someone claiming the doctor basically pressured them into it, implying they were taking up resources from other patients in Canada's health care system who could use it more.

[candiddevmike]

At the end of the day in Canada, it's the individuals decision. And you can find tons of examples of folks making poor decisions for all kinds of situations, possibly due to the influence of others.

Bodily autonomy should be a universal right. No one should be able to control what adults do with their bodies, IMO. It may lead to some dark places, but that's freedom I guess.

[roughly]

> Bodily autonomy should be a universal right. No one should be able to control what adults do with their bodies, IMO. It may lead to some dark places, but that's freedom I guess.

I agree with you, but this is one of those things where you need a whole lot of the rest of society built to avoid the kinds of abuses this opens up. Think about things like labor laws - why do we restrict the conditions under which a competent adult can consent to work? Because the power imbalance in the labor market and the broader economy led to working conditions we considered abhorrent and a great many people were forced to work in them on fear of starvation. The posted article points to a similar dynamic - "fears of homelessness led people to euthanasia" is not a problem with euthanasia, it's a problem with homelessness. A doctor pressuring a patient to commit suicide so they don't stress the medical system isn't a problem with euthanasia, it's a problem with resourcing of the medical system.

Again, I'm strongly in favor of bodily autonomy, and I do think that people will do things with that we wish they wouldn't and that's none of our business, but we can't ignore the power and resource dynamics that affect people's lives. We need to also build a society in which we can be sure that people who are exercising that autonomy are doing so freely and without coercion.

[tharmas]

The issue in question regarding the above comment is not about autonomy its about being persuaded by someone in authority to do something that they are not keen on originally. That something being terminating their life. And its not purely voluntary if someone in authority is trying to steer you into it.

[threatofrain]

Doctors make strong suggestions all the time. Does that mean it’s all non consensual? I think strong opinion is part of what you’re paying for.

[Tostino]

I'd say it is quite different than the usual doctor patient relationship. Wildly different in fact.

In the usual case, the doctor is working on behalf of the patient and is optimizing for the best outcome for them.

In this case, the doctor is is potentially attempting to optimize for the system as a whole. Why should the doctor I'm paying for have the incentive to not care about the outcome for me?

[threatofrain]

It's not wildly different. You have this assumption of doctors that is not secured by the structure of incentives, so where does your confidence in this assumption come from? We just had a discussion¹ on HN a few days ago about routine unnecessary dental procedures. When a professional recommends that you get a root canal, how is that not coercion under this perspective? Whether we're talking about euthanasia or organ transplants or plastic surgery, to what degree is the doctor on your side? How do you know?

Ofc the above discussion is about asymmetry of information and the structure of incentives. Let's also try another idea. What if professionals don't try to push you in any particular direction and instead just dump information on you?

Oh, you're getting sued? Here's some case law. But what should I do with this case law? Should I countersue? How should I defend? Well, maybe you want to do this, in the past some clients have done this, but some clients have also done something else. Whatever choice you make I'll support you all the way.

People pay for strong persuasion. In other words, people pay for the professional to take over decision making. If that's the case, then professional trust and the structure of incentives are the only factors left in play. If the professional tries to play with a light hand and just throws facts at people without putting their thumb on the scale, in some sense they're dumping some of their responsibility back onto the client.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41842294

[Ferret7446]

> At the end of the day in Canada, it's the individuals decision

That is a really, really poor justification. Your boss asking you for sexual favors, is also the "individuals decision". Pressuring people is a no-go.

[Teever]

It's not freedom if a government is coercing people into making this desperate 'choice' by failing to provide a reasonable level of social support for the disabled that would prevent them from wanting to end their lives.

People on welfare shouldn't be afraid that they're going to end up homeless because the government is implementing wildly out of control immigration policies and piss poor zoning and permitting that is wildly driving up the cost of living beyond what their non indexed to inflation welfare covers.

[vitehozonage]

People can and will kill themselves regardless of whether there is legal euthanasia. Regardless of euthanasia there has never been a sufficient level of social support for people in certain situations, and i highly doubt there will ever be. Removing the possibility of euthanasia does literally nothing except force people to die without dignity, alone, in pain, by brutal methods

[llm_trw]

The issue here is that government is using murder to solve housing. This was a conservative fever dream 10 years ago. We now have credible claims it's happening.

[nickff]

How was this a “conservative fever dream”? The majority of advocacy for assisted suicide seems to originate from the left-wing, as does the majority of advocacy for restrictive zoning.

[big-green-man]

You're in agreement you just misunderstood. He's saying, to paraphrase, that the conspiracy theories keep eventually showing to be true, it's not a good look for the left that they keep demonstrating how the slippery slope is real, etc.

Conservative people were calling this abhorrent, that people will be euthanized by their aptly named health care system due to lack of aptly named welfare, killed to maintain cost efficiency, and were dismissed as religious loons who want to restrict the right to bodily autonomy because suicide is a sin by scaremongering. Hence fever dream. Well now, that fever dream is proven to be a reality and we risk losing the principle of bodily autonomy in the public consciousness as the public learns that doctors are offing people because they're homeless.

[bathtub365]

“Death panels” were a talking point from American conservatives in the late 2000’s referring to the eventual end point of a fully liberalized healthcare system. A panel of bureaucrats that would decide who does and doesn’t get medical care, effectively killing those who weren’t selected to get care. It was considered ridiculous and not grounded in reality at the time, i.e, a fever dream. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_panel

[beedeebeedee]

minor knit-pick: immigration policies are not driving the cost of living crisis

[Teever]

The current immigration minister of Canada disagrees with that assessment.[0]

[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/immigration-housing-crisis-...

[beedeebeedee]

At the bottom of the article you linked: "Hulchanski said that focusing on immigration as a cause, and promising to reduce it in order to bring housing costs down, is 'just another way of avoiding the real discussion, that we need systemic change.'"

Focusing on immigration is convenient (riles up nativists and doesn't threaten entrenched interests), but it is not what is causing the housing crisis or inflation

[tubalcain]

Mass importation of cheap labor and rent serfs certainly does have an effect on worsening the cost of housing for citizens. It's simple supply and demand economics. To dismiss criticism of the current human quantitative easing that's occurring as merely nativism is reductive. The smart money is buying property because they know there will always be demand for it. Adding over 1 million people a year to the nation ensures that their investments will remain profitable. People talk about systemic change but I wonder what that would be. Effective policies that would have prevented this situation would have been a reasonable immigration strategy coupled with stricter application of money laundering penalties, but that horse is out of the barn now.

[Teever]

"David Hulchanski, a professor of housing and community development at the University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work" is not the current immigration Minister in Canada.

Marc Miller is the current immigration Minister and you can see his comment on immigration in the video on that link.

[tubalcain]

What's your reasoning here?

[beedeebeedee]

corporate pricing is driving inflation. housing as an investment is driving the price of rent (in addition to collusion on pricing through RealPage, et al)

[rendang]

How is it conceivable that huge numbers of immigrants coming in every year don't drive up housing prices?

[snapplebobapple]

If it's a universal right then having it gate kept by doctors isn't a good idea because of the gatekeeper influence. We need age verified/breathalyzer tested suicide booths like in futurama.

[g-b-r]

As others said, in many cases people would desperately want to live, just not in their condition anymore.

And the condition can be poverty, loneliness, and other things for which solutions could be provided.

I had run into this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxqVaaBx3gg

[swat535]

I'm curious, do you think there should there be certain requirements before someone can be Euthanized/receive assisted suicide? If so, what are they? Or are you arguing for removing any restrictions on suicide?

For instance: 18 year old woman decides life is too hard and wants out, 30 year old person committing suicide because they lost their job, .. etc?

[2-3-7-43-1807]

you argument makes the typical mistake done by nerds here to conflate "realism" with "idealism". yes, freedom and individual decisions ... 100%! but ... the point here is not that but what society would we like to live in? i don't want to live in a society suggesting self-evacuation upon productivity falling below some threshold - empathy is what we need and want.

[belter]

Sounds like where it all started...efficent and clean...

"Death on demand: has euthanasia gone too far?" - https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jan/18/death-on-demand...

"...In the past few years a small but influential group of academics and jurists have raised the alarm over what is generally referred to, a little archly, as the “slippery slope” – the idea that a measure introduced to provide relief to late-stage cancer patients has expanded to include people who might otherwise live for many years, from sufferers of diseases such as muscular dystrophy to sexagenarians with dementia and even mentally ill young people.."

[tharmas]

This. I know someone personally who had this exact experience.