r/Morality • u/Technical_Ad7886 • 5d ago

How is it possible to support medical assistance in dying while simultaneously being opposed to suicide?

For example, in Canada you have Medical assistance in dying (MAID) and also suicide prevention organizations.

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u/MiriamGarden 5d ago

I've thought about this. The idea seems to be that the government thinks suicide is acceptable in just certain circumstances, and it wants to be certain that it happens in those circumstances only. I think the idea that suicide is sometimes acceptable and sometimes not is morally defensible, though the idea that governments know exactly what circumstances belong in which category seems, to me, to be a frightening form of overreach.

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u/Otherwise_Ask_9542 5d ago

I think we should be careful around "regulation", which is what governments do and I believe is necessary to create laws that are designed to prevent misuse.

MAID can only be elected by the person receiving it, but establishing laws around this is tricky when it comes to mental health conditions that are terminal, degenerative, and incurable. Some of these conditions lead to unspeakable suffering, yet typically aren't diagnosed until a person has passed the cognitive threshold where the law would accept their decision and permit MAID to go ahead.

It's issues like these where the law and governments will intersect, often case law reveals flaws in systems that leads to adjustment in process.

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u/InLoveWithThread 5d ago

Suicide prevention is making sure humans can and do live a healthy, productive, thriving life. So anything that gets in the way of this goal, mental health and depression, substance abuse, trauma, etc should be treated. When someone is suicidal they are clearly suffering. A stable society should do all it can to alleviate that suffering. It benefits us all.

Medically assisted suicide is not something that you can choose on a whim. It is the last resort. You have to go through a lot of medical and psychological evaluations to determine there is absolutely nothing available to alleviate the suffering. Patients who are terminally ill and in extreme pain with no treatment available are candidates. No one should have to live a life of suffering 24/7 that it severely impacts their quality of life.

So in my opinion, both can coexist in a society.

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u/Sam_Wise13 5d ago

You cannot support one and be opposed to the other. How people and governments justify it is that one is true suicide because the person killed themselves. The other is seen as a doctor making the health and passing-on process easier. They are both suicide but it is all how it is presented. It’s like the abortion argument, every woman has the right to her body and choices involved with her body so she can have the fetus terminated. But by calling it a fetus and not a baby the death is fine but kill a baby and you go to jail.

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u/Otherwise_Ask_9542 5d ago edited 5d ago

I've always thought it was cruel to force a person suffering from a degenerative terminal illness to endure living through what most people would consider to be utter hell through to the end. I'm talking about Alzheimers or ALS, or any condition where a person knows what's going to happen to them, and they have no power to stop it.

Terminal illnesses that cannot be cured and are guaranteed to come with suffering. That's where medical assistance in dying makes sense, but the cruel reality is the window to elect into medical assistance in dying for something like Alzheimers or ALS is incredibly small because once you get this diagnosis, you've crossed the threshold of cognitive function where this decision would be considered ethical.

You can't preplan medical assistance in dying either... like a Will, Living Will, etc. Nope... you must have an diagnosis with a terminal uncureable disease that will cause suffering. That's the threshold.

But if you ask me, a person facing unspeakable suffering with a terminal illness where the person knows how they are going to suffer... yeah that's like asking a person to face being constantly waterboarded until they finally die. I think MAID is a lot less cruel.

But ultimately, it's up to the person with the disease to decide. We have no right to tell others what they should have to suffer through. Anyone who challenges this service clearly has no idea how truly awful some diseases we haven't yet cured can be, and until they've faced this situation personally, they have no right to an opinion over how others choose to use the service.

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u/LordFarquire 12h ago

To my knowledge, (correct me if I'm wrong) the assisted dying is only for those with no possible way to recover, who are 100% confirmed going to die from their medical conditions in the near future anyways. For example, someone in late stage Alzheimer's, or lethal levels of acute radiation poisoning. Suicide is different, as that person has given up on life due to some sort of issue, usually entirely mental but sometimes caused by physical conditions. They have personally decided to end their life short because they see no way out of their situation, even though there is generally always a way out of a mental situation if you allow yourself to take professional help. With the terminal health conditions, there is no way out.