So I just voted on a referendum here for/against legalising euthanasia. What are my chapos thoughts on the matter?
I’m torn. Not being alive to see through the climate apocalypse or terminal illness sounds pretty good, but this has to exist under capitalism and a healthcare system that’s underfunded.
Disability rights groups always come out against bills like this, and it does seem like it could easily lead to abuse.
Could this lead to less funding for palliative care? Is a young person with non-responsive depression a valid context for euthanasia (wouldn’t be legal yet but has been added to the law in other countries like Belgium)?
Thoughts?
I support the ideology of self-actualized euthanasia (this is from me experiencing one grandparent die from ever progressive cancer and personally wished that he could just "end it"), but yes it is rife with the possibility of abuse within our current system and is something that should only be used within a post-capitalist system in which human lives and health conditions are not commodified.
Being able to say "look there's no cure, sorry, we spent all the money on advertising, but here's some cyanide" would be a useful out for corporations when they get confronted with moralistic arguments
If someone is 80 and living a horrible painful life, sure, but don't be surprised if a lot of "depressed" black people critical of policing or "depressed" rape victims who speak out are suddenly taking the euthanasia route
As it is a lot of marginalized and suffering people just don't live as long as majority population bourgeois people, so think about this carefully
If you're talking about the NZ law then I think the specific requirement that the disease be terminal AND a hard prohibition on physicians even bringing up the concept of euthanasia with their patients makes the risk tolerable in light of the benefits.
Any good thing can be tainted by constrained resources and capitalist greed, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
I heard the argument that doctors shouldn't be forced to break an oath by ending people's lives, but upon reading the actual bill it says that the doctor is allowed to not personally deal with the request but they must pass it on to someone who can. In my opinion this is the best possible way of doing it.
I agree.
Also, many doctors don't take the hippocratic oath at all, or take a variant that doesn't have the "first do no harm" wording.
Not to mention that you could very easily interpret "harm" either way philosophically to justify or argue against Euthanasia.
Yes, talking about the NZ law. I'm surprised by how many of my friends who are doctors are against the law, I don't think any who I've spoken to about it (about 8 or so) are for it. Part of me wonders if that's mostly fear of change though as it will be something they have to deal with in their day to day, and changes how their patient interaction will work in a way they're unsure about.
Could this lead to less funding for palliative care? Is a young person with non-responsive depression a valid context for euthanasia (wouldn’t be legal yet but has been added to the law in other countries like Belgium)?
Belgium still has paliative care, and I find that your charachterisation of the Belgian law isn't correct. So I transalted this Belgian article about it for you.
In order to get euthanasia, four conditions must be met. First, the patient must be willing, both at the time of demand and in the execution of euthanasia. Thus, the patient must be able to make decisions independently. A second condition is that euthanasia is requested in writing several times. Thirdly, the patient must suffer unbearably, physically or mentally. That unbearable suffering - and that is the fourth condition - must be the result of an incurable condition. Thus, the patient must be in a "medically hopeless state".
If these four conditions are met, the euthanasia procedure can be initiated. In the case of mental suffering, there must be at least one month between the first question and the execution of euthanasia. In addition to the doctor who performs the euthanasia, two other independent doctors must also give their advice, including a psychiatrist. This advice is non-binding. Thus, the euthanasia can continue even if the two doctors give a negative advice.
After the euthanasia, the executive physician must submit a registration document to the Federal Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission within four working days. This committee, composed of 16 physicians and lawyers, will verify that the euthanasia law was correctly applied and that the conditions were met.
Because, according to many doctors and psychiatrists, the euthanasia legislation in the case of mental suffering was a little too vague, additional guidelines were issued in 2017 and 2019 - partly in response to the euthanasia of Tine Nys - by the Flemish Association for Psychiatrists and the Order of Physicians. These guidelines state, for example, that the three physicians must meet physically to consult, that the patient must be treated, and that the physicians must also involve the patient's next of kin in the euthanasia request.
How often does it happen?
Up to 2018, 19,420 people in Belgium have undergone euthanasia. There are no figures for 2019 yet, but we can assume that the 20,000 mark has been exceeded. The graph (scroll down in the actual article: blue is euthanasia for physical suffering, red is for mental suffering) also shows a strong increase: if you compare 2018 with 2003, it is ten times higher.
The figures also show that the number of euthanasies for psychological suffering is only a very small part, in 2018 it is only 2.8 percent of all euthanasies: 57 people received euthanasia for psychological suffering, while a total of 2,357 people received euthanasia.
transalted this Belgian article
Hey thanks so much for this 💚 You're right my knowledge about other countries is just from reading news articles without actually looking into things properly.
That does seem like a sensible way to word the law, and like it's working as intended. It also looks like similar wording to the way the law is written here from my quick read of it so that's encouraging at least.
Idk what your laws say, but in most of the bills I've seen it's for terminally ill patients who don't want to suffer through brutal health conditions. So if that's what yours says I would vote for it. People should be able to choose to not go through that pain.
Yea that’s the thing. It feels like it comes down to how the law is written, and therefore very nuanced. And also potentially easier to abuse once you get into grey areas in the way the law is written. The current law is: terminally ill, needs multiple doctors to sign off. But what is terminally ill really? Who actually knows when someone will die, doctors can’t see the future. I dunno, seems trickier than my peers are treating it, but feels weird to be agreeing with religious groups objections
It’s legal in some states right now. I wonder if there’s data on it’s abuse. Or any changes that have been made since approval.
In the US deathcare is a huge industry. They'll siphon off all your assets until they're gone regardless of your actual wishes. Once you get on the conveyer belt it's almost impossible to get off. If your family tries to help enforce your decisions, the administrators will say they're deranged with grief and make sure they're forbidden to see you or make any healthcare decisions on your behalf. This may be more widespread in some areas than others, but money is such a huge motivator here I don't see any alternative but making sure patients have an out.
When you say deathcare here, are you meaning palliative care and symptom management type approaches? That's a fair point, if there's more financial incentive to keep you alive for a long time to charge healthcare fees, rest-home care etc then that's also a perverse incentive. I'm not in the states at least so public healthcare should limit this aspect a little bit, although the rest-home system is still a rort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuY5sTe0YF8
Now that I've got that out of my system... It's a tough one. On one hand I feel like people should be able to exit in peace if they really want to. On the other hand, it is the social bonds of a healthy society that prevent the impulse of self-destruction in the first place (in most cases imo), which is something we do not have.
Yea this played a larger part in my decision than it probably should have haha
