MAID Concerns - How Will Our Politicians Respond?

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

So, are you suggesting that there can be quality of life, when someone has the following at the extreme end

1. – Cannot speak or communicate -
2. – Require help with most activities -
3. – Loss of motor skills
4. – Cannot walk

I am witnessed folks who live for 2 yrs in that state, and are "comfortable".
But there are those who are not.

I am interested in yoru analysis, but, I can say that I saw exceptional care which resulted in less agony, but, what kind of a life is that for anyone?

It's life for lots of people. How dare you think it has to be hopeless. People are being killed because of this ableist attitude.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

Kimmio, people with dementia run away. They freeze to death sometimes when they do it. When my father-in-law ran away, he would always run away with his wife's deodorant, because he'd say "then she'll follow me! D never goes anywhere without deodorant!" Sounds kinda comical, yeah? Until they do it in the middle of winter, in their PJs.

So, when they get to be a handful it's ok to kill them, even if they are capable of having content days, but they can't change their mind anymore? Is that what you're saying?

 

[BetteTheRed]

I don't think that it's ableist to suggest that someone who, through inherent disability - disease, birth accident, etc., has never known any different, should have different options than someone who acquires these difficulties much later in life.

So, that would mean, practically, that someone like Daisy's son, who was never "competent" to make life decisions, is in a totally different category than Pinga, who has been extraordinarily competent, and wishes not to die of dementia.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

I don't think that it's ableist to suggest that someone who, through inherent disability - disease, birth accident, etc., has never known any different, should have different options than someone who acquires these difficulties much later in life.

So, that would mean, practically, that someone like Daisy's son, who was never "competent" to make life decisions, is in a totally different category than Pinga, who has been extraordinarily competent, and wishes not to die of dementia.

So the mainstream definition of "competent" is what determines whose life has value?

There was a man once, in Germany, who felt the same way.

I don't know but it seems to me there are a lot of "competent" people missing "hearts". How do we fix that? I think that's a more dire problem than living with disabilities in a caring society could be.

 

[BetteTheRed]

No, in fact the very opposite.

Matthew had an inviolable to right to life under any and all circumstances. By virtue of current competency, I think that Pinga has the right to determine her own death.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

I don't think that it's ableist to suggest that someone who, through inherent disability - disease, birth accident, etc., has never known any different, should have different options than someone who acquires these difficulties much later in life.

So, that would mean, practically, that someone like Daisy's son, who was never "competent" to make life decisions, is in a totally different category than Pinga, who has been extraordinarily competent, and wishes not to die of dementia.

It is still ableist.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

No, in fact the very opposite.

Matthew had an inviolable to right to life under any and all circumstances. By virtue of current competency, I think that Pinga has the right to determine her own death.

You are saying that a life is worth less once someone loses their present competencies that they are used to - and that it's a good reason not to live anymore. That's ableist.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

No, in fact the very opposite.

Matthew had an inviolable to right to life under any and all circumstances. By virtue of current competency, I think that Pinga has the right to determine her own death.

If doctors are allowed to kill people with dementia because they've become a handful - and they can't consent or release their consent based on a pre directive - I promise you we are going to make monsters out of doctors. And families. And the public.

 

[paradox3]

It is still ableist.

Sorry, I don't see how labelling others' views as ableist is helping this dialog in any way.

I recently lost my dad, as many of you know. He experienced a long, slow decline through dementia. I could share my experiences but this thread doesn't feel like a safe place to do that.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

I'm labelling attitudes as ableist. Ableism exists and it isn't helpful, just like racism isn't helpful and shouldn't be a valid position to argue from - you can't just skip over that.

This thread or any thread has never been a safe place for me to discuss my knowledge and experiences relating to my opinions about MAID - which is in line with every major disability organization across the country. It's been harmful to me. I do it anyway because it needs to be said. Because the mainstream needs to hear it and sit with it even if it's uncomfortable or points to their own ableism. Just like racism is an uncomfortable topic for people who don't want to acknowledge racism.

I'm not saying any of this to diminish or disregard the pain of losing someone close. I'm saying it to avoid needlessly losing human beings to ableism.

People with disabilities are on the precipice of having our human rights disregarded by law, unto death. That's what this thread is about. We've had enough of being dehumanized.

 

[BetteTheRed]

So, if 20 years from now, Pinga is entitled to MAID and takes that road, we would be "needlessly losing [a] human being to ableism"?

I get you that we have to remove "disability" from the legislation, but I don't get that we can't include "dis"ability, which implies a formerly much loved ability. My mother, who remained quite competent from an intellectual POV until just before her final decline and death, although difficult to comprehend, asked me a thousand times, in the five years it took her to go from her first major stroke to death, bitterly, why God hadn't properly finished the job he started.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

So, if 20 years from now, Pinga is entitled to MAID and takes that road, we would be "needlessly losing [a] human being to ableism"?

I get you that we have to remove "disability" from the legislation, but I don't get that we can't include "dis"ability, which implies a formerly much loved ability. My mother, who remained quite competent from an intellectual POV until just before her final decline and death, although difficult to comprehend, asked me a thousand times, in the five years it took her to go from her first major stroke to death, bitterly, why God hadn't properly finished the job he started.

You're making up words to suit your argument. "Disability" is not a word you can use like that at your whim.

The problem is in reinforcing the idea that our lives are without worth if our competencies change. People adapt and learn to like different things. I can't do some of the things I used to be able to do. My symptoms are not unchanging. My body is not unchanging. Nobody's abilities stay static, in fact. That's not a reason for MAID. It's ableism and reducing human beings to expectations about competency. It's not encouraging adaptation or resiliency. One of my biggest regrets is that so much stock was placed on what my body could or couldn't do - due to internal an external ableism throughout life - it took up time I could've gotten a PhD with. And I theoretically would've kicked some comfortably numb mainstream ass and done something good with those letters beside my name. I would've had, not a different mind, but more credibility. Rather than have people thinking its better to shut me up and keep me in my lane.

Although, if the mainstream is rejecting thousands of doctors and ethicists, across the country, and the UN, my PhD might've made no difference anyway. The public ignorance is strong on the MAiD issue. The world has become heartless. Canada is heartless. Even the "progressives". It's sad and dismaying. Adults in my life told me not to listen to people who say I'm less worthy because I'm disabled - when I was a young child. Perhaps they didn't really believe it and wouldn't apply the same advice to themselves, and I felt that. That's a f***ing sad statement on what we've become.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

Disabled kids are going to feel that even more - the disingenuousness, the disconnect between adults words and their own behaviours and actions - and that undermines their resiliency as they grow up. But you don't care about the impact on them, and their futures, do you (to nobody in particular)? You just want what you want when you want it.

Are the kids with disabilities supposed to look up to the disabled neighbour who killed themselves (or to be perfectly clear - had someone employed by the state do it) because they were disabled? What kind of message does that send to them? That they have to be Christopher Reeve for their lives to be worthwhile? They can't just be a regular person with a disability because nobody wants to live like "that"? That's the message that they're going to get. So, no, this is not just a personal choice that doesn't impact anyone else. It will devalue and dehumanize disabled people's lives.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

To Pinga who said that if she'd become paraplegic she'd have been begging for someone to kill her, because she's "not Christopher Reeve". That wins the prize for the most toxic comment on the thread.

Check your ableism people. Please.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

Sorry, I don't see how labelling others' views as ableist is helping this dialog in any way.

I recently lost my dad, as many of you know. He experienced a long, slow decline through dementia. I could share my experiences but this thread doesn't feel like a safe place to do that.

Paradox3 I am sorry for your loss. This isn't the right place. I really am sorry for your loss.

I think there is a thread about dementia. It shouldn't overshadow the human rights discussion and the UN and Human Rights Commission warnings and observations about MAID and disabilities. It shouldn't overshadow our lawmakers abilities to really hear and heed those concerns. Talking right past those observations which are supported by evidence and international law - which has happened frequently - is behaviour I'm labelling ableist. I mean what could be more ableist in "polite society" than sidelining what the UN and the Human Rights Commission have to say in defense of disabled people's human rights? That's been happening in this "polite place" for 6 years, trying to point out that disability was not a reason for MAID and shouldn't be included. And I was told to politely go away, because the polite bullies said I was sick and delusional. That was also ableism, toward me. And lo and behold, here we are with disabled lives under consideration for MAID. The polite people who didn't want to hear it said it wouldn't happen. And it did, it is. Because of ableism in "polite" society. I'm calling ableism, ableism.

 

[BetteTheRed]

So, @Kimmio, can we tease these apart?

There is a total difference between disability and dementia. Is this a distinction you can see?

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

So, @Kimmio, can we tease these apart?

There is a total difference between disability and dementia. Is this a distinction you can see?

Well no. Because lots of people with disabilities lack some, or a great deal, of cognitive capacity but their lives still have worth. This is about you saying lives of others, even your future self is a different person, always - have no worth if they are cognitively impaired. And a pre-directive cancels out the life of the person you will have become, at the hands of someone else, because of your predetermined and internalized ableism about yourself, and your self worth with cognitive impairment.
.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

So, @Kimmio, can we tease these apart?

There is a total difference between disability and dementia. Is this a distinction you can see?

And quit watering down and distracting from the Human Rights crisis we're facing! f***! Get your head around this danger that's upon us now with this law - it's a public health issue worse than covid because it's a permanent measure - and stop hypothesizing about yourself and your personal choices as if they have no impact on the wellbeing of everyone else.

 

[Pinga]

Wait, wait. This isn't about a loss of cognitive abilities.....

Again, you are NOT understanding what end-stage dementia is like.

I have been trying to find information that helps you to understand. I am unwilling to post photos of my father, but, i did try to explains ome. I have the images of him burned in my brain.

I found some images of another man that line up to him about a year before hi death....but again not close to end-state.

There are articles,such as this one, which talk about treating dementia as a terminal illness with the same respoect for it. End-of-life issues in advanced dementia
The problem is that you can't give an advanced directive.

 

[BetteTheRed]

My father in law, early/midstage in his decline, was asked by his daughter, a nurse, what it felt like to him (yeah, we're an honest sort of family). He closed his fists tight and said that it was like his brain was collapsing/shrivelling upon itself.