In 2016, Canada enacted a law allowing medical assistance in dying, known as MAID, for people whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable. Under the law, following a process establishing that all eligibility criteria have been met, a physician or nurse either directly administers a substance that induces death or prescribes a drug that the person takes themselves.

Five years later, the law was expanded, no longer requiring a person's death to be reasonably foreseeable as an eligibility criterion for adults with a grievous and irremediable medical condition. Under the changes, individuals suffering solely from mental illness were temporarily excluded for eligibility until March 2023.

On August 18, 1939, the Reich Ministry of the Interior circulated a decree requiring all physicians, nurses, and midwives to report newborn infants and children under the age of three who showed signs of severe mental or physical disability.
Beginning in October 1939, public health authorities began to encourage parents of children with disabilities to admit their young children to one of a number of specially designated pediatric clinics throughout Germany and Austria. In reality, the clinics were children's killing wards. There, specially recruited medical staff murdered their young charges by lethal overdoses of medication or by starvation.

At first, medical professionals and clinic administrators included only infants and toddlers in the operation. As the scope of the measure widened, they included youths up to 17 years of age. Conservative estimates suggest that at least 10,000 physically and mentally disabled German children perished as a result of the child "euthanasia" program during the war years.

All that horror and skullduggery aside, do you think someone facing a terminal disease should be able to have medical assistance ending their life?

Brewha wrote:

Good question, IMO, it would not be medical care. More importantly, the sanctity of life is something we should not be fooling with.

As a small government interference sort of person, It would be easy to say, "Well it's a personal decision so do whatever suits you.", but what if the abolitionists movement had said, something similar, it's not for me, but you can do what ever you feel is good?

Regardless of laws, if someone is determined to kill themselves it's not that difficult to do, but the government and certainly not the medical profession should be involved, let alone promoting the idea.

Gene363 wrote:

+1.

Kinda defeats the whole Hippocratic Oath eh?

"I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not", nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help"

While I do feel some that reach the decision to end it all really want an out for their release, the medical community shouldn't have to bear that burden. Something a bit more compassionate like in "Soylent Green" except we don't turn them into sustenance would fit the bill. Free market wins again!

DrMaddVibe wrote:

No, the original Hippocratic oath does not include the phrase "do no harm". However, the oath does acknowledge the principle of non-maleficence, and many medical schools and students have added the phrase to their own versions of the oath.
The phrase "first, do no harm" is often attributed to the Hippocratic oath, but it actually comes from another of Hippocrates' works, Of the Epidemics. In this work, Hippocrates wrote, "the physician must have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm".

Good question, IMO, it would not be medical care. More importantly, the sanctity of life is something we should not be fooling with.

As a small government interference sort of person, It would be easy to say, "Well it's a personal decision so do whatever suits you.", but what if the abolitionists movement had said, something similar, it's not for me, but you can do what ever you feel is good?

Regardless of laws, if someone is determined to kill themselves it's not that difficult to do, but the government and certainly not the medical profession should be involved, let alone promoting the idea.

Gene363 wrote:

I see your point. At the same time allowing long term suffering of a terminally ill person in order to protect “the sanctity of life” is not humane. I mean you wouldn’t do it to a dog.

Anyway - If the person and their doctors judge it to be appropriate, we wouldn’t want the government involved, would we?

Brewha wrote:

What do you call it when their gov is purposely making life miserable and difficult…..and offers this option?

Our hat is sad. It’s another sign of Making Technocracy Great Again.

ZRX1200 wrote:

Why would hospice not involve "medical care". It is run by doctors and nurses who diagnose and treat conditions with RX medicines. Life is sacred, but living in misery at the end is not a blessing, IMO.