Juno News - October 20, 2022


We need to talk about assisted suicide in Canada

Mentioned
Common Sense Barry Weiss Keanu Vafayan Soylent Green Albert Camus Letranger Tennyson
LAWTON： The right to protest no longer exists True North fact-checks Reuters fact-check

Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

140.27

Word count

2,179

Sentence count

103

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of The Rupa Subramanya show, I discuss the controversial topic of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) in Canada. MAID, officially known as "assisted dying" in Canada, stands for medical assistance in dying, which is a relatively obscure acronym for a rather grim procedure where a patient can get a caregiver to assist in their death. In this episode, I talk about the economics behind MAID and the role of family in the context of a family-based society.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hi everyone, welcome back to the Rupa Subramanya show. It's great to have you here with me once
00:00:23.340 again. If you're joining for the first time, thanks for tuning in. Today's show is going
00:00:29.140 to be a little different. We're not going to have a guest today that I'll be interviewing,
00:00:33.920 but instead you'll have me sharing some thoughts on a very important debate that is currently
00:00:39.920 unfolding in Canada on assisted suicide, officially known as MAID, which stands for Medical Assistance
00:00:47.540 in Dying. Now it's a very innocuous sounding acronym for a rather grim procedure. Now some
00:00:56.180 of you might have seen my long piece for Barry Wise's Common Sense, which interviewed a range
00:01:02.620 of different people who wanted to apply for assisted suicide in Canada and their reasons
00:01:07.920 for wanting to get it. In none of these cases was their death imminent or foreseeable, which
00:01:14.100 used to be the norm before the rules were considerably relaxed back in 2021. If you haven't read it,
00:01:21.380 I would really encourage you to check it out. I spent two months researching and writing it and
00:01:27.100 interviewing the people who went into the story. And many of the stories I heard from people
00:01:33.740 applying for MAID or contemplating applying for MAID were absolutely disturbing and heartbreaking.
00:01:41.900 But today I wanted to chat with you at a much broader level about the rationale for MAID in the context
00:01:49.140 of a democratic and free society like Canada. Now I'll be very honest with you. It's been a challenge
00:01:55.720 for me as someone who identifies as being on the libertarian end of the spectrum on various issues
00:02:04.200 to wrap my head around this particular issue. But here's the thing. In morality as in economics,
00:02:11.100 there are often two definitions of who the decider is. Sometimes it's described as the individual or the
00:02:21.100 agent, as they say in economics. And sometimes it's described as the household, which is the family.
00:02:27.680 All sounds fairly simple and innocuous, but that makes a huge difference to how we look at issues
00:02:34.360 like MAID, whether a family and an individual member of the family may be at odds.
00:02:39.860 Now a libertarian who believes the individual is all that matters and that the family is irrelevant
00:02:46.640 would argue that the individual can choose whatever they want, as long as they're of sound body and mind.
00:02:53.200 And it doesn't matter what their family thinks because it's the individual is all that counts.
00:02:58.940 So if they want to die by suicide or get someone's help to do it, they should be allowed to do that.
00:03:04.220 Ironically enough, the view of the individual is everything and the family is nothing.
00:03:10.500 And this is a view that is actually echoed by the far left as well, who believe that the family,
00:03:16.720 as we've had it for thousands of years, in fact, for all of recorded history,
00:03:22.000 is nothing other than a patriarchal construct suppressing women. 0.90
00:03:27.140 And this concept just needs to be destroyed, essentially.
00:03:31.460 Now, this is one strange situation where the far left and a pure individualistic libertarian
00:03:38.480 actually happen to agree that it's the individual that counts, although they think so,
00:03:44.380 for very, very different reasons.
00:03:47.140 But now let's look at the other side of the coin and the definition of the basic unit as the family
00:03:53.620 or as economists call the household, and you get a totally different understanding.
00:03:59.080 On this view, individuals are bound together in a family and the decision that one individual
00:04:05.120 makes within the family impacts everybody else.
00:04:09.940 Again, in the language of economics, it's the household that is optimizing for the best outcome
00:04:15.580 and not the individuals within the household doing so separately.
00:04:19.460 Now, this gives you a very different perspective on medical assistance in dying or MAID.
00:04:25.940 You have to consider the totality of the impact on a family and, by extension, the larger community
00:04:33.800 or society, which is, after all, a web of interconnected families as compared to where everyone just
00:04:40.900 decides for themselves.
00:04:43.240 Surely, when you've had to contemplate a tough decision in life, and I'm not even talking about
00:04:49.240 something as grim and existential as MAID, you know, it could be anything from whether
00:04:54.020 you want to change your job or you move to a different place or break up with a partner.
00:05:00.240 You generally tend to discuss these issues with the people in your life, the people you care
00:05:06.200 about, whether they're your family or your close friends, and what they say will likely inform
00:05:11.520 and influence your final decisions, I would imagine.
00:05:15.260 But what's happening in Canada, we seem to be moving towards a situation where these family ties
00:05:22.840 are broken apart by government policy.
00:05:25.980 And every individual, and perhaps even a minor, if the government gets its way,
00:05:30.960 can make up their own mind on whether to end their life without considering the impact
00:05:36.460 on your family or your loved ones more generally and without taking their concern into account.
00:05:42.760 Again, for specific examples of what I'm talking about, I'd really recommend you take a look
00:05:48.060 at my piece for Barry Wise's Common Sense, which brings all of these points that I'm making
00:05:54.040 into sharp relief.
00:05:55.940 Now, philosophers and writers have also held forth on the question of suicide, and by extension,
00:06:04.000 assisted suicide.
00:06:05.980 For example, the great French writer and philosopher Albert Camus wrote a classic short essay called
00:06:13.320 The Myth of Sisyphus, which I'm sure you read when you were in high school.
00:06:18.860 It's a Greek myth in which an unfortunate individual has been condemned by the gods to push this heavy
00:06:25.540 rock up the side of a hill.
00:06:27.940 He spends all day doing it.
00:06:29.840 At the end of the day, the rock slides down, and he has to start all over again the next
00:06:36.860 day.
00:06:37.760 And this goes on day after day, exactly the same way for all of eternity, basically arduous
00:06:46.600 labor that ends up being completely meaningless, completely useless, and resulting in not much
00:06:52.840 of a life in the end.
00:06:53.900 Now, Camus wondered whether such a situation might provide a valid rationale for suicide,
00:07:02.580 but he decided that it didn't.
00:07:06.000 In the end, Camus valued human relationships and human solidarity above everything else.
00:07:12.780 And he thought, ultimately, we would find our salvation in relationships with our fellow
00:07:19.140 human beings, with fellow men and women.
00:07:21.460 And this would be our escape from the absurdity of life, lived as a single individual connected
00:07:28.760 with anyone else.
00:07:31.860 This is also the point of his classic novel, Letranger, translated either as the outsider
00:07:38.860 in the UK or the stranger in the US.
00:07:42.960 Yes, it's about an individual completely alone in the world.
00:07:46.660 He has no reason to live.
00:07:48.340 And in the end, he commits a murder just so he's arrested by the police, and then he's
00:07:53.360 sent to the guillotine.
00:07:54.780 It's a tragic story of what happens to an individual who's completely cut off from people
00:08:00.700 around him, has no family or friends, and feels he has no reason to live, no stake in life.
00:08:06.780 Likewise, there's a classic poem called Titonus by the British poet Lord Tennyson, which is
00:08:15.640 again based on a Greek myth about an individual who's asked and received a boon from the gods
00:08:23.060 for immortal life.
00:08:25.140 How great is that?
00:08:26.480 But he forgets to ask one important thing, which is immortal youth.
00:08:30.640 So year after year, over the centuries and millennia, he's still alive, but he grows more and
00:08:38.300 more frail.
00:08:39.420 He's getting older and eventually wishes for death, which of course he never gets.
00:08:46.640 The most famous line in this great poem is a quote, after many a summer dies the swan.
00:08:53.760 It refers to the swan, which lives year after year and finally succumbs to death, something
00:08:59.220 Titonus is wishing for.
00:09:02.280 But let's step back from the world of literature and poetry and philosophy to our real world,
00:09:09.140 where individuals are bound together by family and community ties.
00:09:13.980 And a decision to apply for something as irreversible as medical assistance in dying sends shockwaves
00:09:22.500 through family and members of the community.
00:09:25.620 Now, of course, it's important to note that there's a difference between someone who is
00:09:31.720 terminally ill and in excruciating pain and suffering is just extraordinary for whom
00:09:40.440 maid is genuinely an option, a blessing.
00:09:44.340 And many of us might agree that someone in this situation should have a right to speed
00:09:51.360 things up and save themselves some of this excruciating pain and suffering and die with
00:09:59.340 some dignity.
00:10:00.960 But what about an able-bodied person?
00:10:04.180 What about an able-bodied young person like Keanu Vafayan in my story for Common Sense?
00:10:12.180 Someone like that applies for maid for reasons other than that their death is within sight and
00:10:17.880 that they're living in constant excruciating pain for which there is no cure and no treatment.
00:10:24.540 And it's granted under Canada's increasingly permissive maid laws. 0.99
00:10:29.080 This just seems absolutely perverse, right?
00:10:32.840 It's more like maid is actually substituting for social services and family support or maybe
00:10:39.720 it's a new form of eugenics to cull the unwanted who are seen as a drain on resources 0.99
00:10:45.080 and whose life is not considered intrinsically valuable.
00:10:50.480 If all of this sounds familiar, you might recall a classic dystopian science fiction film called
00:10:56.060 Soylent Green, which I watched many, many years ago, in which the elderly are forced to
00:11:02.980 go in for assisted suicide where they have a great last meal and evening and then they're
00:11:10.260 listening to their favorite music and they're burned to death. 0.91
00:11:13.280 As it turns out, the cynical society wants to kill its old people because from the remains
00:11:18.920 of the dead, they produce artificial chemical products that keep society alive.
00:11:23.920 It's a very scary and dystopian vision.
00:11:27.600 And while we're not there yet, we might as well be heading in that direction here in Canada.
00:11:34.400 Now, again, I would encourage you to read the stories of the people that I interviewed for
00:11:40.520 Common Sense, the folks who are grappling with the decision to apply for MAID or not.
00:11:45.480 For my part, for those who are in a truly terminal situation, living in excruciating pain, they're
00:11:54.120 suffering every day.
00:11:56.180 And it would seem, in my opinion, it would seem cruel to deny them this opportunity, an opportunity
00:12:03.720 to lessen that pain and suffering if they're of sound mind to make that decision for themselves.
00:12:09.220 But here's the thing, so many cases of MAID recently seem far removed from this threshold
00:12:18.700 and MAID just comes across as being some kind of a substitute for a well-functioning society. 1.00
00:12:27.100 It's really hard to disagree with those who point to this as a sign of serious moral decay
00:12:33.100 in Canada and perhaps a bellwether for what is to come in other Western societies.
00:12:40.420 So why should we care about the ultra-permissive rules that allow assisted suicide in Canada?
00:12:47.640 Why is this an issue?
00:12:49.220 Why should we care?
00:12:50.920 We seem to be on a slippery slope with assisted suicide in Canada where just about anything
00:12:57.520 is enough to qualify for medical assistance in dying.
00:13:01.600 The law is currently being studied and reviewed for next year when it could possibly be extended
00:13:10.640 to mature minors and it will be expanded to those with mental illness where mental illness
00:13:20.760 would be the sole underlying condition to qualify for MAID. 0.97
00:13:24.540 You no longer need to have a physical ailment, but mental illness would be the sole underlying
00:13:30.480 condition.
00:13:31.520 Now, even the most hardcore libertarian would have serious issues when it comes to minors
00:13:38.840 being allowed to opt for medical assistance in dying without their parents' consent.
00:13:45.360 Mature minors can't vote, they can't drive a car, they cannot purchase a gun or join the army 1.00
00:13:53.640 for that matter, but they're going to have a right to assisted suicide.
00:13:58.780 This frankly seems completely insane.
00:14:02.060 And as for mental illness, what exactly qualifies as mental illness?
00:14:11.060 Who decides?
00:14:12.420 Mental illness is not like having cancer.
00:14:14.960 If you have cancer, that can be established by a battery of different tests, different medical
00:14:19.800 tests.
00:14:20.600 There's no judgment involved.
00:14:22.000 But who decides if someone has a mental illness apparently so bad, so severe that they should
00:14:28.820 be allowed to end their lives or they should be, they should receive help to end their lives.
00:14:34.640 I think this is a dangerous territory.
00:14:38.560 I think we're heading in a very dangerous direction here.
00:14:43.120 And the law has just been made progressively.
00:14:47.760 It's just getting progressively looser and looser and more liberal.
00:14:51.740 And chances are that unless there's a very strong opposition to where we're going with MAID,
00:14:58.300 I think the experts will support it and the government will go along with it.
00:15:04.920 So for conservatives and pragmatic libertarians, where we're heading with assisted suicide ought
00:15:12.880 to be of great concern.
00:15:15.880 I'd love to hear your thoughts.
00:15:17.780 What do you think?
00:15:18.920 Do you think that Canada is on a slippery slope to assisted suicide on demand?
00:15:24.640 I'm worried that we are.
00:15:26.080 With that thought in mind, I want to thank you for tuning in and see you again next week.