
The problem of human suffering is usually a central point of every one of the great religions. Mitigating it is at the basis of their regimen for human “uplifting.”
We’re not going to be discussing that, since I suspect even those of you of the same religion and I would get into a right big argument over what the best way of getting over suffering is, etc.
What we’re not going to allow as being valid is for the government to get in on the game. Why aren’t we going to allow that?
Because when governments try to mitigate the problem of “human suffering” be it suffering due to lack or suffering due to health or aging, the result is always the same.
When governments try to redistribute plenty to make sure everyone has enough, they end up killing their economy and killing thousands or millions of people with famine and the joi de vivre of the rest of the population with sheer grinding poverty. Not to mention the people who object to being despoiled or those who talk against he program must also be killed.
Then there is “killing to avoid suffering”.
What is this about? Well, X is awash in Canadians telling us all the people that MAID does away with under the auspices (hospices!) of the Canadian government “Were going to die anyway.”
Okay, so what they say mostly is that these people would have died “within the year”. Which, sure, some of them would. So what? Note not all of them. Note also that doctors can be wrong about that. I was told I was going to die anyway within the month so why not let them do the very risky procedure? Well, I didn’t, (or rather Dan forbid it, since I was half out of my mind) and that was 31 years ago. Almost half of my life at this point.
Beyond all that there is a sharp difference between “you will die in six months despite the best efforts of medicine” and “We’re not going to treat you, because there’s a wait list and it’s very expensive, so you’ll be dead in six months’ which most of the stories coming out of Canada sound like. And yes, I know that’s anecdotes but… the vibrant medical tourism to the US tells its own story.
And this is why I want government out of medicine in general, because once you become an expense on the public purse, they’re bound to find a way to not spend any more on you. Particularly if you’re one of the heretical non-believers in government. Or just unfashionable. At 33, with two small children (younger son was 1) and doing really heavy support on family and husband’s career even if I still hadn’t broken into writing so I had no income in cash, I was told that it didn’t matter if I died anyway, as I was just a housewife and a burden on my family. (Which is how they got my consent to the risky procedure, which consent Dan nullified and threatened to sue them into oblivion for, since I was very ill and they’d ganged up on me while he was away for an hour dealing with an emergency.) Fortunately they weren’t government doctors, so he could tell them to put it up their jumpers and I didn’t have the potentially lethal procedure done. Now that Colorado has an euthanasia law that made the AMA say “whoa, that’s too extreme!” they might have been more direct and be able to enforce it too, by non-treatment of the symptoms, if nothing else.
Oh, there’s other reasons for wanting government out of medicine, because everything government tries to “help” with get way more expensive. If government took over the Sahara to make sure everyone in the surrounding areas had enough sand, sand would soon become a rare and expensive commodity.
But to me the real problem is that the more medicine becomes enmeshed with the government, the more all of us become an entry in a column that says “debit” and the way to stop the debit is to kill us.
Besides, they’re being kind. There is real suffering. And they can stop it by killing you…
Except suffering is relative. Every time I consult a doctor and am near the top of one of the auto-immune outbreaks — often totally unrelated to why I went to the doctor — they look at the symptoms and panic and tell me something must be done about it. (We’re going to try another dealing with it method in two weeks or so.)
I do get this when they’re looking, say, at my entire back being raw flesh. It’s shocking to them, and it hurts and itches, so how am I living with it?
They’re always disconcerted when I say “Oh. It’s actually not one of the bad ones. I didn’t notice.” (The bad ones I have sores all over my body, and am spending substantial time awake due to that.) Because the context they like is that I’ve been dealing with this since I was one. This is life for me. I’ve had maybe a cumulative couple of years with no lesions somewhere in my body. (MUCH better when the celiac is not a factor, but still. Celiac and psoriasis run together apparently 85% of the time.) Some sores at my wrists and elbows are legit not noticed and the patches on my back have been that way for years, which means it’s annoying but it’s just life.
Suffering? Sure, but I don’t notice.
In the same way I’m sure if we exported my current level of random aches, pains and just general tiredness to myself at 20 I’d probably think I was dying, but right now I’m fine. No, seriously. I tune out pretty much all of it. Have had years of practice.
So what doctors or outsiders think is suffering isn’t necessarily so to the person experiencing it. Who are you to judge that they need to be killed to stop the misery? Particularly, who is some government official?
And don’t get me started on less physical suffering: depression, grief, lack of interest in anything. These are all things that have been used to justify MAID, even if in rare cases. One case is too many.
Look, this is not just piling on on Canadians, as much fun as that is. It’s that the same ideas are here.
I get that the current state of medical science can prolong the “dying” stage of life for months or years and look, at least from the outside, as though it is inflicting horrible suffering.
My Father in Law died by inches and it looked horrible to witness, and hurt all of us to see it. He’d done nothing to deserve that horrible ending. (And I have nightmares of Dan, who greatly resembles him, going that way.)
But that’s still not worth it giving someone external to the person the right to decide (or pressure, cajole and convince the person) it’s time to die. Or the means of that dying.
Because it always ends the same way. EVERY single time. It starts with what looks like, at least from outside, true compassionate intervention, and it always ends up with people getting killed in batch lots for the flimsiest of reasons. Ultimately to put them out of someone else’s suffering and expense.
As someone who has had bizarre “health” since I was born, and who often looks like she must be in great pain (it don’t make no nevermind.) and who is getting to a certain age, I feel personally endangered. But even if I didn’t, the results of a government being given the right to kill its people for whatever reason, including “to end their suffering.” are plain to see. It always ends in stacked corpses. And Canada and Europe are playing out the very old tragedy.
Agatha Christie said that when you’re very old and bed ridden, the young and vigorous might wish to free you of your suffering, but the old person just enjoyed being alive, breathing in and breathing out.
I’m not that old, yet. And I have trouble believing I’d be okay if I couldn’t work at all. (Fortunately my work is of a kind if all else fails I can just dictate very slowly.) But if I can work in some way, I know I’ll be enjoying that. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to the point that just being alive is enjoyment enough.
The point is that when people let the government take care of their health and well being, the answer to ending suffering seems to be always “death.” And the consent can always be manufactured.
For the record, I will never consent to being killed. No, just no. They might get my signature by brow beating me when I’m at my weakest, but it is meaningless.
I don’t know what comes after, but as long as I can be here, I’m going to be here. And working.
And I’m sorry if it inconveniences some bureaucrat.































































































































































































