Talk:Euthanasia in Canada

Passive euthanasia and living wills

I carried out some radical surgery and excised these sections... On no basis could they be called NPOV, nor was any of the substantive content referenced. I would normally have tagged the one that was not previously tagged, but I really could not see how the comments could be justified under NPOV. Please revert and continue discussion if you disagree. Matruman (talk) 14:07, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Relevance?

I am unsure that this page really conveys much compared to Suicide legislation and the actual cases recorded. Possibly the material in the suicide page relevant to Canada could be combined with this. There seems to be a terminology problem that is not entirely NPOV, such as the use of Euthanasia, assisted suicide, and physician assisted dying.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:56, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

That makes sense, but I feel like the topic of Euthanasia, specifically, is a current event (at least in Canada) and/or political topic worthy of separate recognition outside of suicide in general. While there may be some NPOV issues, I think there is still some value in the article... Notwithstanding requiring a bit of facelift. —f3ndot ^{(TALK) (EMAIL) (PGP)} 16:02, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Euthanasia vs Assisted Suicide

I think there is a linguistic crisis experienced on this page. The distinction between assisted suicide (whether physician or not, whether passive or not) and euthanasia is barely expanded upon. And the International Wikipedia article on Assisted Suicide leads to this Canadian article on Euthanasia. We need to distinguish euthanasia, where a person directly takes on the death of another vs assisted suicide (physician or not) where the patient needs to perform the final action, whether by an injection machine, or by consuming a lethal product.

Removing life-support is euthanasia, not suicide. If our court system isn't clearly making these distinctions, we as citizens need to ensure this is discussed.--Tallard (talk) 01:22, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

"Value placed on human life"

I'm contemplating deletion of this section. For one, it's not clear which "current federal government" is being referred to. The citation provided dates back to 2000, which is three or four administrations ago. It is also unclear whose position is being quoted. At first glance it looks like it's quoting a statement by the federal government, but alas, this is not the case—it's just paraphrasing a 15-year-old book. And what follows that is nothing more than (slightly perplexing) editorializing. Any objections to a deletion? TheBlueCanoe 23:14, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Since no response, I'm going to go ahead and delete this section for now.TheBlueCanoe 02:26, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

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Ground-up Rewrite Required - Bill C-7

This article requires a complete rewrite due to the substantial changes in Bill C-7, which eliminates the "Foreseeable Death" clause, as well as the limitations to mental illness. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/pl/charter-charte/c7.html

I lack the capability of doing this myself, so in lieu of this I've created this post as well as flag the article with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Update in the hopes that it gets noticed and fixed. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/ad-am/bk-di.html The Legacy (talk) 02:53, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

I didn't rewrite the article from scratch, but the entire article has been significantly updated to reflect all the changes made by Bill C-7 and other recent court rulings. The flag can be removed now. Veritas0000 (talk) 18:20, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

The lead is quite long

Is there any way to reduce the length of the lead? It's quite long at the moment. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 06:02, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Wrong Gloria Taylor

Link in section Carter v. Canada (Attorney General) decision goes to wrong Gloria Taylor. Should be -

Gloria Taylor (patient)

and not Gloria Taylor who was a Nigerian Activist.

never edited in Wikipedia before so I have no idea how to change it. Mistress Insanity (talk) 17:36, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Fixed! Cornelius20 (talk) 06:22, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Public opinion

Dying with Dignity (an advocacy group) should not be used as a source to claim that the majority of Canada's public supports MAiD. Many reliable sources state that this is clearly not the case, particularly in regards to the mental health expansion.

• Most Canadians don't support latest planned MAID expansion, survey finds
• Fewer than half of Canadians support assisted death for mental disorders: poll

Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 12:08, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Para. in Permissiveness section makes no sense.

"However, Canada's law no longer requires the presence of a terminal illness, like the Netherlands, Belgium's, Switzerland's, Austria's, Spain's, Italy's, Colombia's, Germany's, and Luxembourg's, allowance of euthanasia or assisted-suicide for people suffering from a long-term disability." This needs amendment, but I don’t know what the words after Luxembourg are supposed to mean. Boscaswell talk 05:08, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

It's basically a convoluted way of saying that many countries require a terminal illness for assisted suicide. This used to be the case in Canada but it isn't anymore. Does that help clarify things for you? Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 11:00, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

article needs reorganisation

page should be reorganised to include the following:

developments in Quebec and British Columbia

effects on Catholic hospitals and pallitative care facilities

Bird244 (talk) 18:55, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Comparison with Aktion T4 in See also section

@User:70.51.152.47 added Aktion T4 in the See also section; I undid it a month later; @Clovermoss reverted my change soon after. I contend that this is not a fair choice for the See also section, because it equates the Canadian policy with the Holocaust-era governmental directive to deliberately identify and then kill people with purportedly undesirable characteristics. Aktion T4 took place under fascist governance without democratic accountability (not dominant in Canada); its alleged purposes "includ[ed] eugenics, racial hygiene, and saving money" (not objectives of the Canadian policy); and it was mostly carried out without attempting to obtain informed, voluntary consent of the patient or their medical guardian (completely antithetical to the Canadian policy). Aktion T4 is not a synonym for Euthanasia in Germany, and even that would only be an appropriate see also entry if this article had some implication of parity between the situation in Germany vs. Canada (otherwise every country-specific article would link to every other one). Also, the original addition was unexplained, and I surmise that it was done this way to avoid accountability for the insertion of a politically-charged insinuation: that IP address has used edit summaries before but did not do so here. TheFeds 17:54, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree with all of your arguments and have went ahead and removed the link again. If we are going to equate Canada's euthanasia programme to a policy of mass murder, I think there should be discussion and consensus before its inclusion, not after. Adam Black ^{talk • contributions} 18:13, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm noting that reliable sources that we use in this article, such as this one have made the comparison: Tim Stainton, director of the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship at the University of British Columbia, described Canada’s law as “probably the biggest existential threat to disabled people since the Nazis’ program in Germany in the 1930s.” I don't think it's vandalism to have it in the see also section, like your initial revert implies. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:06, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

WP:SEEALSO, which is linked in the initial revert, also says One purpose of "See also" links is to enable readers to explore tangentially related topics; however, articles linked should be related to the topic of the article or be in the same defining category. Articles that are about concepts that have been compared to each other seemed to reasonably fit that definition to me. Obviously that page also says this is a matter of editorial judgement, so this discussion makes sense. It might be better to have the comparison in the body in the "controversy" section (should probably be renamed to criticism). If that's done, it shouldn't be in the see also section per WP:DUPLINK. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:30, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

I'd say that given the substantial distinctions I listed, the comparison between the two concepts needs context. In that regard, I wouldn't object to placing attributed, referenced information in the Criticism section, with the effect of advising the reader that Stainton (or others) made this comparison, without risking the mistaken understanding that directly equating MAiD to Aktion T4 is generally accepted.

Also, Stainton appears to have written academically about the topic (e.g. [1] & [2]), and it's possible that his views are more nuanced—quoting the first link (Reinders, Stainton & Parmenter):

Describing the various practices of terminating human lives affected by ID in terms of the “new eugenics” is not an innocent move. Given the emotivist force of the term “eugenics” in view of its past, using that term in the present connection suggests a link with horrible crimes against humanity that have been perpetrated in its name, particularly in the third reich. Insofar as the proponents of the practices described above are concerned, there is no such link. Their ranks are filled with scientists, doctors, healthcare professionals, lawyers, politicians, ethicists, none of whom has in mind or is engaged in acts that the Nazis had in mind or were engaged in. None of the current practices is motivated by the same eugenic ideology. As opposed to the collectivist ideal of a purified German race that led them to eradicate human beings whose lives contradicted it, the underlying concern of medical scientists and professionals engaged in what has been described above primarily seeks to alleviate suffering for the human beings involved. The contemporary perspective on ending human life affected by IDD is individualist rather than anything else, and the understanding of suffering is primarily subjectivist. [...] Given the need for all these qualifications of our historical equation, then why describe these practices in terms of “eugenics” anyway? The reason is the similarity that objectively links the justification for the kinds of acts that have been reviewed in this article with the “old” eugenics. In one way or another, it is based on the preconception of a life lived with IDD as a life of “poor quality”; that is, the cause of unbearable suffering for the persons and families involved. This preconception is disproven in too large a number of cases to be credible. People with IDD rarely describe their own lives in negative terms. Even when they do it is often because of the environmental responses of rejection they have to deal with.

It seems like he's admitting some level of appropriation of the analogy to draw attention to one fundamental similarity (he contends that MAiD policy and Nazi eugenics each presume life with disability to be less desirable), while acknowledging that the means and motivations are very distinct (and thus that it is indeed unreasonable to equate them in totality). TheFeds 23:26, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. I'm going to be busy for the next day or so, if you wish to add such content yourself in the meantime. Or I could try later when I have more time. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:33, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

My recent bold edits

I've made some bold edits lately where I've removed a considerable amount of content: [3][4][5]. I figured I should start a talk page discussion just in case there's objection to said bold edits. My rationale is mostly trying to cut down on duplicative content or content that's otherwise tangential to the current legal status of euthansia. However, maybe a split article would be a better solution for this? If anyone thinks I'm going too far here, feel free to let me know. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 02:01, 18 May 2024 (UTC)