Assisted Suicide – mackaycartoons

Tuesday January 16, 2024

January 16, 2024 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 16, 2024

Expanding MAID to Mental Health Patients: A Costly Shortcut Amidst Healthcare Failures

February 6, 2015

In recent discussions surrounding the expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) to include patients with mental illnesses as their sole underlying condition, there is a pressing need to reassess the implications of such a move. While proponents argue for inclusivity and compassion, it is crucial to acknowledge the severe drawbacks and potential consequences associated with this proposed expansion.

The first glaring issue lies in the nature of mental illnesses themselves. Unlike physical ailments, mental disorders lack a clear and definitive prognosis of irredeemability. Studies reveal that psychiatrists, tasked with determining the course of a patient’s mental health, are wrong in their predictions nearly half the time. This unpredictability, coupled with the dynamic nature of mental health, makes it impossible to accurately identify individuals who won’t experience improvement over time. The very essence of MAID eligibility, requiring a grievous and irremediable medical condition, clashes with the inherently uncertain trajectory of mental disorders.

News: Decision to proceed with expansion of medically assisted dying law looms

February 25, 2015

Moreover, the push for psychiatric euthanasia overlooks the complexity of differentiating between genuine suffering and suicidal tendencies. The Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention explicitly states that seeking death due to a non-terminal condition, such as mental illness alone, is inherently suicidal. This is a critical distinction that cannot be ignored. Proponents argue that this is a matter of discrimination, but ensuring equal access to proper mental health care should be the priority, not resorting to MAID as a questionable remedy.

A recent parliamentary committee report has rightly emphasized the importance of improving access to palliative care, enhancing financial support for people with disabilities, and addressing the concerns of Indigenous communities and persons with disabilities. The link between the lack of financial and social support and the potential for viewing MAID as an escape from suffering is a glaring issue. It is essential to recognize that prolonging wait times for mental health therapy, general healthcare, and social housing is inadvertently creating an environment where MAID becomes a convenient, albeit misguided, solution.

March 1, 2023

The current state of mental health care in Canada is dire, with extensive waiting periods for counselling and more intensive treatments. The expansion of MAID becomes particularly problematic when individuals facing prolonged waits for mental health support are presented with an expedited option for assisted death. This perverse incentive not only contradicts the principles of compassionate care but also raises serious ethical concerns.

Advocates of MAID for mental illness often point to legislative safeguards, but history has shown us the inadequacy of such measures. The risk of incentivizing death over proper care, as highlighted by mental health professionals, is a clear indication that the state should not be complicit in presenting a morally and ethically questionable choice to its citizens.

The rush to expand MAID to mental health patients is a misguided attempt to address systemic failures in mental health care, general healthcare, and social support. Rather than offering a respectful and compassionate response to suffering, it threatens to normalize a distressing choice between prolonged suffering and premature death. The federal government must reconsider its priorities, focusing on comprehensive mental health reforms and ensuring timely access to quality care before entertaining the expansion of MAID to mental health patients. (AI)

Tuesday October 25, 2016

October 24, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday October 25, 2016

Steven Blaney kicks off Conservative leadership campaign with proposed niqab ban

October 8, 2016

Quebec MP Steven Blaney is running for leadership of the Conservative Party, and his first major policy position is a ban on the niqab and a promise to invoke the notwithstanding clause if courts strike down his new measures.

The former minister in the cabinet of Stephen Harper said he will introduce legislation that would forbid the Islamic face-covering while voting and taking the oath of citizenship. He also said that the prohibition would extend to people working in the federal public service.

October 10, 2014

“We are a country that is built on immigration, but we have to be sure that those new Canadians we welcome are understanding of how we live. We don’t want our country to become like the country they left,” Blaney told reporters Monday. “We fully welcome you, but we want you to respect who we are.”

The measures are necessary, Blaney said, to “ensure the sustainability of our integration model” and to protect women’s rights.

The proposal revives a controversial debate from the last campaign, when Harper himself suggested the niqab should be banned from the public service.

Friday December 8, 2006

Zunera Ishaq, a Muslim woman, went to court to challenge the government’s ban, and, in the middle of the campaign, the Federal Court of Appeal cleared the way for her to wear the head covering. (Source: CBC News)

Reversed order of pages so my cartoon appears in colour today! pic.twitter.com/yzPv6gcGhJ

— Graeme MacKay (@mackaycartoons) October 25, 2016

Tuesday June 7, 2016

June 6, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 7, 2016

Missed deadline on medically assisted dying leaves doctors divided

June 6 was the last day for Parliament to pass legislation governing medically assisted dying before a deadline imposed by the Supreme Court. It won’t happen.

On Friday, the Senate sent the bill to its legal affairs committee for study. The committee meets today but won’t be able to report on the bill until the full Senate resumes Tuesday. And it still could be weeks before any federal law is in place.

That means on Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s original ruling becomes the law, which means doctors can’t be prosecuted under the Criminal Code if they help a patient suffering from a “grievous and irremediable” illness to die.

So, what does that mean?

The medical community is divided.

Dr. Gus Grant, with the Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada, believes doctors are better off without a new law.

“Many voices have created June 6 to be a deadline. It’s not a deadline. It’s simply the day (the Supreme Court’s Carter decision) becomes the law of the land,” Dr. Grant said on CBC News Network’s Power & Politics last week.

April 18, 2002

“And the language that said it’s a deadline creates the brinksmanship type mentality, a false sense of urgency, which is what is motivating people to pass legislation that is flawed,” he added.

Grant argued the condition in the government’s legislation that requires a patient’s death to be “reasonably foreseeable” is meaningless to physicians.

But Dr. Jeff Blackmer, Canadian Medical Association’s vice-president of medical professionalism, argues the exact opposite, saying the federal government’s language needs to be more precise than simply a “grievous and irremediable illness.”

“I have spoken to hundreds and hundreds of physicians. We have done the work on this. We have gone out to our membership and said, ‘Does this make sense to you? Can you incorporate this at the bedside?’ And they have unequivocally told us ‘No.’

“So they are looking to the federal law for guidance on this.” (CBC News)

Published in the Regina Leader Post, June 8, 2016

Friday February 6, 2015

February 6, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – February 6, 2015

Supreme Court strikes down assisted suicide ban

In a stunning reversal of its ruling 21 years ago, Canada’s highest court has struck down the law against assisted suicide and ordered Parliament to give desperately suffering patients greater control over how they die.
In a 9-0 ruling Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada declared the Criminal Code’s absolute ban goes too far in its attempt to protect the lives of “vulnerable people” by preventing competent, consenting adults suffering “grievous and irremediable medical conditions” from making core decisions about how they live and die.
The judges said the law is therefore an unconstitutional breach of three of the most basic rights: to life, liberty and security of the person, all enshrined in section 7 of the Charter, and cannot be justified in a free democratic society.
The court read those basic rights broadly and, agreeing with a B.C. trial judge, said the right to life is not limited to a “right not to die.”
“This would create a duty to live,” rather than a “right to life and would call into question the legality of any consent to the withdrawal or refusal of life-saving or life-sustaining treatment,” the court said.
It said that an individual’s response to a grievous and irremediable medical condition “is a matter critical to their dignity and autonomy” and the absolute ban on seeking a doctor’s help to die removes their ability “to make decisions concerning their bodily integrity and medical care and thus trenches on liberty.” It said that by leaving patients to “endure intolerable suffering, it impinges on their security of the person.”
Because the law did not set out a scheme that would minimally impair those rights, it cannot stand, the court ruled. (Source: Toronto Star)

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

February 24, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Trudeau skips out as Liberal conventioneers vote to legalize assisted suicide

Federal Liberals have voted in favour of legalizing assisted suicide but whether Leader Justin Trudeau will run with the idea is a mystery.

Trudeau was not in the room Sunday when delegates to the party’s national convention passed a resolution urging that voluntary, medically assisted death be decriminalized — although moments earlier he had been just outside the convention hall, cheering as the Canadian men’s hockey team won Olympic gold.

He was in the room later when delegates gave him an overwhelming, after-the-fact endorsement of his decision to kick senators out of the Liberal caucus.

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Delegates also passed a raft of potentially costly resolutions that included supporting many big-ticket items:

— An $18-billion-a-year investment in infrastructure.
— Creation of a basic annual income.
— A national transportation strategy.
— Funding for aboriginal education on reserves equal to that spent on provincially operated schools.
— Increased funding for mental health services.
— Expansion and enhancement of the Canada Pension Plan.

[caption id=”” align=”alignleft” width=”298″] Layoffs hit everyone[/caption]

None of the resolutions are binding on the leader and, since he gave no closing remarks and did not hold the traditional wrap-up news conference at the convention’s end, it was unclear which resolutions Trudeau believes should make their way into a 2015 election platform or how a Liberal government would pay for them.

He did give a number of one-on-one television interviews — which were taped before the resolutions were voted upon.

In an interview with Global’s Tom Clark, Trudeau, who has promised not to hike corporate or income taxes or the GST, said the debate to come will be over where to spend the surplus the Harper government has forecast for next year. (Source: Yahoo News Canada)