Do Patients Without a Terminal Illness Have the Right to Die? Canada—mentions CFS

J

Jaybee00

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Do Patients Without a Terminal Illness Have the Right to Die?

“Paula Ritchie wasn’t dying, but under Canada’s new rules, she qualified for a medically assisted death. Was that kindness or cruelty?”

Solid in depth article. Mentions CFS at least twice.

Author put the term “functional disorders” in quotation—nice touch.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/01/...e_code=1.Lk8.yxzr.Q3UKBGDFGUoG&smid=url-share
 
I have not read it yet, but one of the serious issues with assisted suicide is that it’s a lot cheaper for the government. When assisted suicide is allowed, the financial incentives to provide adequate care and to invest adequate resources into research are greatly diminished, and the effect is greatest for those who suffer the most.

It essentially creates a perverse situation in which the government benefits from letting personal suffering and despair become so immense that people are driven past the point of no return.
 
I have strong feelings about it and don't want to read about it right now. But, I was reading on the issue the other week, here in the UK, and while they are talking about assisted dying... palliative care in one of many things that is slated to have less funding which really needs more funding. That is a balance that makes me suspicious.
 
* Trigger warning - please don’t read if you find the subject of this thread distressing *



I don’t consider it a ”kindness”, but a fundamental human right.

Before I became ill with ME/CFS I had no strong opinions about suicide or assisted suicide. Since becoming this ill, I have thought a lot about these two topics, and I am pro choice when it comes to suicide, and pro MAID for everyone, not just terminally ill patients.

I believe every individual should have the right to choose when to exit this world in a peaceful and painless manner.

I understand the arguments against suicide and assisted suicide, I understand the risks, but after having spent years in bed, in constant PEM, in darkness, in agony, with no hope for improvement or treatment in my life time, I want nothing more than the comfort of knowing I can choose when to end my suffering, in a dignified, painless way. Sadly, MAID is illegal in Sweden.
 
Utsikt said:
I have not read it yet, but one of the serious issues with assisted suicide is that it’s a lot cheaper for the government. When assisted suicide is allowed, the financial incentives to provide adequate care and to invest adequate resources into research are greatly diminished, and the effect is greatest for those who suffer the most.

It essentially creates a perverse situation in which the government benefits from letting personal suffering and despair become so immense that people are driven past the point of no return.
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Yeah. For example last week I think France passing an assisted suicide bill while their palitative care system is so underfunded many people prefer to die alone at home. That was pretty grim to see.

In theory I definitely support the right to die. In practice in a neoliberal system. It scares me how we can be pressured towards it in a dehumanising way due to “austerity”. It also scares me that some governments seem to put more effort into helping us die than helping us live.
 
Yann04 said:
In theory I definitely support the right to die. In practice in a neoliberal system. It scares me how we can be pressured towards it in a dehumanising way due to “austerity”. It also scares me that some governments seem to put more effort into helping us die than helping us live.
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Same.

The societal context matters, because it’s possible to affect the probability that someone with a certain health condition will choose suicide. If you get everything you need (within reason), and still want to die - I’d want you to be able to do it without added suffering for you and those around you.

But that simply isn’t the case, not even in Norway with a very good healthcare and welfare system in general.

You could say that it’s impossible to make it so that everyone gets what they need, so it’s humane to let people have a way out without suffering regardless, but then we’re back to the issues you mentioned.

And it also makes the class differences larger, because people with more resources will be able to pay for more services and care, so they will have less things to live despite, and there will be fewer suicides for the same conditions.
 
It does seem to me that there is an apparent paradox within the Canadian system that the suffering arising from ME/CFS is not such that the state recognises as warranting financial remedy in terms of the benefit system, but may be recognised as, along with that lack of financial support, rising to the level of justifying assisted dying.

From an individual’s view point it would add insult to injury if they were denied access to assisted dying because of the state’s refusal to recognise their support needs through the benefits system, as this is not something the individual alone can remedy.

Perhaps in an ideal system, part of any assisted dying scheme would ask the question, how much of an individual’s suffering is inherent in their underlying condition and how much is due to lack of appropriate support, that is how much is unavoidable and how much is potentially remediable. Then this hypothetical system would have access to funds to provide appropriate support to see if that reduced suffering enough for the individual to no longer seek their own death.

For many assisted dying is only seen as justified for those with a terminal condition. The current legislation under consideration in the UK would allow for assisted dying only when an individual has a life expectancy of six months or less. This too contains a contradiction that assisted dying then is only offered to those that have an end in sight through the terminal nature of their medical condition, however it is denied to those that may have equal or more severe suffering with no end in sight. Though we lack a way to adequately quantify suffering, is it consistent to say that someone with only six months of suffering ahead should be allowed access to a way out that someone facing decades of equal or worse suffering is denied.

It may be that any assisted dying scheme would contain contradictions and inequalities. Personally I remain conflicted about what might constitute an acceptable state sponsored system.

[edited to clarify wording and correct typos]
 
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I feel like all these assisted suicide bills require some very particular previsions. They ought to support people trying whatever treatment plan they want and exhausting all the possibilities. If they get to the stage of assisted suicide and that hasn't happened then serious questions need to be solved and an investigation started, but not doing it can't stop the assistance process from happening. There also ought to be a requirement for palliative care, which if it hasn't been fully applied also results in serious issues for the medical system and requirements to fix it. There is probably more but the key is to stop the system failing patients to their literal death just to save a buck or withholding treatments due to ignorance.
 
Archived version:

"Over the years, she had collected varied and sometimes competing diagnoses: fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic pain, chronic migraine. Also bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, substance-use disorder (marijuana)."
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And then there were the Track 2 patients whose suffering couldn’t be pinned down at all. They had chronic aches, or mysterious fevers, or fatigue that no amount of sleep would resolve. They had “functional disorders” that couldn’t be picked up on any blood test or body scan, that had no obvious medical explanation — disorders that are poorly understood within medicine, and disputed within medicine, and that some clinicians believe have a significant psychological component. Fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, irritable-bowel syndrome, some kinds of chronic headaches, many types of chronic pain. Whether a clinician found such a patient eligible depended, in part, on how comfortable he or she was with ambiguity. The law itself did not require diagnostic certainty.
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January 29, 2026

Man suffering from 'profound loneliness' receives MAiD

"In another case of euthanasia via Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program, a man in his 60s with a disability was euthanized despite his main source of suffering being loneliness.

Referred to as Mr. B in a 2025 report by the Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee (OMDRC), he was living with cerebral palsy, a condition that affects an individual's ability to move, and is usually caused by damage to the developing brain before birth.

This meant Mr. B was wheelchair-bound — but could independently control his wheelchair, transfer himself, and use the bathroom independently.

He lived in a long-term care facility (LTCF) due to his advanced care needs and had been living there for many years.

His life, partly due to his disability, was characterized by much isolation."

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