Nine inmates in Canada have elected to use medical assistance in dying. Some felt it part of their duty to own their debt to society was to free up space, essentially. Gee, I can't see any potential for abuse of a government having no incentive to make a person's life bearable if they thought it would be more convenient if they died, can you? Well, we don't care because they are prisoners and a lot of people wish they could be executed or at least not given the least comfort. But as Lyman Stone says "It's capital punishment by another name." We won't have the cleanness and courage of executing them and owning it. We sneak it in by a back door, where we can look away and pretend we had nothing to do with it. No, no, no, it was their choice. You want this, don't you Jasper? You said so just yesterday at group therapy, didn't you?
It all sounds so sensible, doesn't it? Just like in The Giver.
"You wouldn't want us to waste all that money looking after you in your last years, would you? Think of all the good that could be done with that money!" That is much of how I fear it will play out in families as well, because grandparents want their children and grandchildren to not be burdened. They want the granddaughters to be able to go to college. It's so easy to think of it as generous - and in one way it is, whatever selfishness lies underneath it in teaching said granddaughters what their worth is dependent on going forward. But families at least might have some barriers within, or eventually, at least noticeable in looking at other families where this value is common and contemplating how that seems to be working out for that subculture. Though the less family you have (in any sense) the less barrier, I suppose. Something else that may be following the depressed birthrates.
But for government to provide the service is communicating at some deep level "The tribal elders have decided that your life no longer has value. You mean nothing to us now. Produce food of be food."
As one of my sons observed, it's pretty sad when human beings cannot observe Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
Bsking mentions a book Resisting Throwaway Culture: How a Consistent Life Ethic Can Unite a Fractured People. She notes that the reviews of the book all seem to disagree with (different) parts but still find it compelling. I can only say it looks interesting from here.
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The penitent ones would seem to be exactly the ones you _don't_ want to execute.
I suspect that even very uncooperative prisoners could find that they requested MAID service whether they knew it or not.
MAID's façade of mercy can't last anyway.
Any one in Canada can elect for medical termination, not just inmates of our penal system. You have to want this to happen, or it will not. Now if your fear your government, like in America, this may be harder to implement.
As I have said two people I know have taken this route and died with their family around them. Avoiding needless suffering for both the person and the people who love them.
It is a freedom really.
Assisted suicide (aka homicide) can be made a good idea .... for somebody else (including your future self).
Feeling compelled to use euphemism and TLAs when referring to it should, but likely won't, make people think about it harder.
You know that this is an evil, insidious behavior getting established when the stories start to leak out on (a) the uncomfortably higher-than-expected frequency of its incidence, and (b) some of the sub-rosa, coercive elements that trigger it and (c) the uncanny way that nobody can easily be named that is in charge of its administration. I can't comment on whether society should offer an easy way out for those who want it (haven't made my mind up yet), but what is notable is that many of the stories emerging from Canada and the Netherlands are not about that - they are about the almost immediate abuse of a newly-established procedure.
Social media will make you crazy. All of those with a dog in any fight, will go the extra mile to prove they are right. It leads to vast amounts of BS, being aggressively promulgated.
I don't think that Social media will make you crazy, but some of the people that use it, seem to be, already.
I am struck by the comparison of imposed death in our culture: On the one hand, we have a legally-bounded system of execution, the Death Sentence, whereby people are found guilty of offenses punishable by death and have their sentence carried out. And then we have this other system, designed to be voluntary on the part of the subject. Consider the amount of energy being poured into subverting / preventing the legally-bounded former, and compare it to the amount of energy being poured into promoting the latter. The two efforts are similar in more ways than one; I find that odd.
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