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Matsu
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2022-08-12, 07:47

It's not a trivial thing, but I don't believe assisted dying is driven by economic considerations, though I think there is a significant ideological divide there, and one, I will say, personally, which has me deeply conflicted. To reduce it to a partisan line about Trudeau is wrong, not for any affection for the current PM, it is wrong because this line of thinking obliterates what little capacity modern politics has for such a question at all.

Outside of politics, a problem with governments is that they are often too blunt an instrument to apply to a delicate topic. The best they can do is codify some generally held societal ideals, and their tools for understanding those and rationalizing decisions are limited. Immediately, my public policy mind wants more information, a demographic breakdown of age, wealth, marital status, family size, dependents, education, occupations, geography, length and type of illness just to start. This would help understand what's happening in those 3% of all deaths, but this alone still can't fully resolve the question...

Medically and ethically, I think that if there is to be a choice it already exists on a continuum of decisions about (both) how we treat people and how we respect their wishes. We already apply medical criteria to who gets any number of treatments, transplants, etc... Those in the unenviable position of deciding may from time to time apply their own emotional and psychological rationale in any given case. Theirs is to work in a grey area that no amount procedure can make fully black and white.

Maybe the best we can do is clear a space for such decisions to be made as a matter of conscience and devise some protections against bad faith motives, because I think as long as people must face dying, they will differ in how they choose to face it.

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