Canadian euthanasia deaths vs. US gun deaths

Headline:

MAID in the Great White North: Canadian per Capita Euthanasia Deaths Now Beat U.S. Gun Deaths

Back in March, Canada added mental illness to its list of MAiD-eligible conditions. What's MAiD? It's Canada's 'Medical Assistance in Dying' program. It was meant to help patients with terminal illnesses die with 'dignity' and now it's devolved into being used to off the poor, Canadian military veterans, the disabled, and the mentally ill.

This writer has written about MAiD several times, and now here [are] some number[s] from 2023.

FIVE PERCENT of Canadian deaths were medically-assisted suicide[s] last year.

In Canada you can get euthanized if you are suicidal.

1 in 20 Canadian deaths were from medically-assisted suicide in 2023: report https://t.co/xmpr86HzJt

— Libby Emmons (@libbyemmons) December 15, 2024

The story in question is about Kathrin Mentler, a woman who struggles with suicidal ideation. She sought help for a crisis and was offered assisted suicide rather than suicide prevention:

More from Castanet:

“It was pretty disheartening and made me feel helpless,” Mentler says. “I’m coming here because I’m looking for help[,] and you’re telling me there is no help.”

That’s when the counsellor asked Mentler if she’d ever considered medically assisted suicide.

Mentler says she was “shocked” and “sickened” because she [had come] to the Access and Assessment Centre for help, “not for recommendations on how to kill myself.”

She says the counsellor explained how MAID worked and said lots of patients asked about it, adding patients don’t “suffer” because they take benzodiazepines before receiving the lethal injection.

Mentler says the counsellor also told her about another patient who had several [mental-health] diagnoses and had been taking several different medications when they’d drowned.

“She said she felt sad but that she also felt relief for this person to pass away,” Mentler says.

The story — and the counsellor’s “relief” — disturbed Mentler. She says it felt [as if] the counsellor [were] making a judgement that it was better for that patient to have died.

Lord have mercy.

If you run the numbers more Canadians are euthanized per capita by their own government than the US has firearms deaths (per capita!) Yet we have a “gun” problem. If so they clearly have a “government killing their own people” problem!

— colovion (@Colovion) December 15, 2024

Read the reply by Colovion to the above tweet. 

The Canadian government just banned pretty much all guns, too.

Nothing good comes from this.

Expect those numbers to go up as the government accountants figure out that end of life care is expensive.

— RickNotRockets 🌻 (@rjward1775) December 15, 2024

Read the reply by RickNotRockets to the above tweet. 

Sad. I assume we're talking percentages and not raw numbers. I have nothing against being terminally ill and wanting to go out on your own terms while ending the suffering, but if the rest of the article is true re: poor folks, vets, disabled folks, and the mentally ill... well, I don't know what to say. So in Canada, I guess the rooftop-suicide talk would be something like, "Get down from there, and we'll help you off yourself more neatly! No need to splatter yourself."