This will be interesting to follow. I would hope that the discussion would be limited to the Canadian Model of MAiD. As U.S. advocates, it can be challenging to distinguish between international and U.S. law when educating lawmakers, the general public, and healthcare professionals. Thanks. I will stay tuned and share your link with my U.S. colleagues.
Hi Molly, thank you for following this discussion! Week one is up with Gordan going first as we crititiqued his parliamentary statements previously on our substack. To keep it simple(and since we & EPC are Canadian) we are only discussing MAiD in Canada. The focus of the exchange is about MAiD for mental illness as the sole underlying medical conditon. At this point, these individuals are excluded from accessing MAiD until 2027, with 2 previous delays in implementation, occuring in 2023 & 2024. We will be interested in your views from the US as your assisted dying acts/laws have some varying criteria from Canada (i.e 6 month prognosis and no IV option in any states).
Im curious to see how this endeavor plays out. My instincts are to be very skeptical of engaging with people who actively work to prolong the suffering and misery of other human beings who have done nothing to them. The anti MAID forces in Canada (and the US) are at their core religious fundamentalists who insist on forcing their views on the rest of us even on this issue, our own death, which is the most personal intimate decision one can make. When it comes to the issue of MAID for mental illness, our opponents are incredibly insulting by the way they frame this issue. If you listen to someone like Andrew Lawton, they make it seem like people walk into a hospital and want to get euthanized after having a bad week. Those of us who have mental illness, in reality, have tried for years, sometimes decades, to get better by going to counseling, taking medicine, moving to new places, starting new careers, etc etc. We do not consider MAID with any sort of glee nor is it a rash spur of the moment decision.
Ramsey, truthfully we were hesitant when Gordan first emailed us and we took a little time over the holidays to seriously contemplate this multi week discussion.
There has been a lot of verbal vitriol and name-calling towards many of us involved with MAiD and we saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate respectful discussion, even knowing EPCs fundamental beliefs are firmly against MAiD. We also see this as a way to demonstrate how you can unpack an argument, how to identify flaws and refute claims using fact-based information rather than emotions, etc. We hope seeing this unfold will give readers of both sides perspectives to contemplate and an opportunity to engage in meaningful discussions in the comments section.
This is great! We are losing this ability to engage in meaningful conversation with those who may hold opposing views. This is how we grow! This is how grown-ups used to communicate...
This is a great initiative and I find it interesting that the EPC approached you to take this on. I sincerely hope that the exchange will be civil and fact-based. Of course, there should be room for emotions, as it IS a sensitive and delicate topic. But these should not prevail nor should disinformation.
Circling back to your earlier blog post on using NotebookLM: it would be great if you can use NotebookLM to create a video summary of the exchange - pending EPC's approval as they are part of this.
The icing on the cake would be a 'final' sit-down (virtual or face-to-face) and have the last exchange as a sit-down. Or after the exchange, sit together and talk about the experiences each party had: the good and the challenging part. And hopefully this becomes a show-case example of how parties who disagree can still have a mature, civil and professional conversation about the topic they disagree about. Something that in this day and era is sometimes hard to find in our society due to the increasing polarization on some topics. Which only makes it worse.
Very much looking forward to this exchange and I wish you all the best & luck (you don't really need it as the two of you know your sh!t - but still :)).
Thank you for your ongoing support! We are interested to see how this will unfold and look forward to an exploration of the process upon completion.
At the end of the day, we really just want to demonstrate how people with vastly different views about a very personal and often emotionally charged topic can have a respectful, thoughtout debate devoid of personal attacks and name-calling.
We are glad Gordan reached out and we look forward to this discussion with him.
I am really hoping that those of us who are hoping to be eligible for M.A.i.D. for mental illness are taken seriously by this anti-euthanasia group and that religion and the magical sky daddy isn't evoked as their argument for not allowing persons suffering from long term major depression to seek relief from their condition. These people also need to understand that not everyone wants to live with long term major depression and that the sufferers of long term major depression should not be required to medicate themselves, or have their brains tweaked, or to have their behaviours altered so as to "fit into society" better.
Our comment section will be open throughout this process, however, we the authors will not be commenting until the 6 weeks process is completed. All that said, we welcome you and all of our readers to discuss, debate, share personal stories, etc in the comment section. We want this to debate to encourage thoughtful and critical responses from readers.
We, personally, are going to limit our debate and dialogue to responding to Gordans writing only. This will help keep our responses focused on his expressed views. As always we look forward to your thoughts and comments as this structured exchanged unfolds!!
This will be interesting to follow. I would hope that the discussion would be limited to the Canadian Model of MAiD. As U.S. advocates, it can be challenging to distinguish between international and U.S. law when educating lawmakers, the general public, and healthcare professionals. Thanks. I will stay tuned and share your link with my U.S. colleagues.
Hi Molly, thank you for following this discussion! Week one is up with Gordan going first as we crititiqued his parliamentary statements previously on our substack. To keep it simple(and since we & EPC are Canadian) we are only discussing MAiD in Canada. The focus of the exchange is about MAiD for mental illness as the sole underlying medical conditon. At this point, these individuals are excluded from accessing MAiD until 2027, with 2 previous delays in implementation, occuring in 2023 & 2024. We will be interested in your views from the US as your assisted dying acts/laws have some varying criteria from Canada (i.e 6 month prognosis and no IV option in any states).
Im curious to see how this endeavor plays out. My instincts are to be very skeptical of engaging with people who actively work to prolong the suffering and misery of other human beings who have done nothing to them. The anti MAID forces in Canada (and the US) are at their core religious fundamentalists who insist on forcing their views on the rest of us even on this issue, our own death, which is the most personal intimate decision one can make. When it comes to the issue of MAID for mental illness, our opponents are incredibly insulting by the way they frame this issue. If you listen to someone like Andrew Lawton, they make it seem like people walk into a hospital and want to get euthanized after having a bad week. Those of us who have mental illness, in reality, have tried for years, sometimes decades, to get better by going to counseling, taking medicine, moving to new places, starting new careers, etc etc. We do not consider MAID with any sort of glee nor is it a rash spur of the moment decision.
Ramsey, truthfully we were hesitant when Gordan first emailed us and we took a little time over the holidays to seriously contemplate this multi week discussion.
There has been a lot of verbal vitriol and name-calling towards many of us involved with MAiD and we saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate respectful discussion, even knowing EPCs fundamental beliefs are firmly against MAiD. We also see this as a way to demonstrate how you can unpack an argument, how to identify flaws and refute claims using fact-based information rather than emotions, etc. We hope seeing this unfold will give readers of both sides perspectives to contemplate and an opportunity to engage in meaningful discussions in the comments section.
Fair enough. I look forward to the discussion.
This is great! We are losing this ability to engage in meaningful conversation with those who may hold opposing views. This is how we grow! This is how grown-ups used to communicate...
I totally concur with this approach - civil, restrained, inclusive, wiht time for relfection, and consideration of a person's lived experience
This is a great initiative and I find it interesting that the EPC approached you to take this on. I sincerely hope that the exchange will be civil and fact-based. Of course, there should be room for emotions, as it IS a sensitive and delicate topic. But these should not prevail nor should disinformation.
Circling back to your earlier blog post on using NotebookLM: it would be great if you can use NotebookLM to create a video summary of the exchange - pending EPC's approval as they are part of this.
The icing on the cake would be a 'final' sit-down (virtual or face-to-face) and have the last exchange as a sit-down. Or after the exchange, sit together and talk about the experiences each party had: the good and the challenging part. And hopefully this becomes a show-case example of how parties who disagree can still have a mature, civil and professional conversation about the topic they disagree about. Something that in this day and era is sometimes hard to find in our society due to the increasing polarization on some topics. Which only makes it worse.
Very much looking forward to this exchange and I wish you all the best & luck (you don't really need it as the two of you know your sh!t - but still :)).
Thank you for your ongoing support! We are interested to see how this will unfold and look forward to an exploration of the process upon completion.
At the end of the day, we really just want to demonstrate how people with vastly different views about a very personal and often emotionally charged topic can have a respectful, thoughtout debate devoid of personal attacks and name-calling.
We are glad Gordan reached out and we look forward to this discussion with him.
I am really hoping that those of us who are hoping to be eligible for M.A.i.D. for mental illness are taken seriously by this anti-euthanasia group and that religion and the magical sky daddy isn't evoked as their argument for not allowing persons suffering from long term major depression to seek relief from their condition. These people also need to understand that not everyone wants to live with long term major depression and that the sufferers of long term major depression should not be required to medicate themselves, or have their brains tweaked, or to have their behaviours altered so as to "fit into society" better.
Our comment section will be open throughout this process, however, we the authors will not be commenting until the 6 weeks process is completed. All that said, we welcome you and all of our readers to discuss, debate, share personal stories, etc in the comment section. We want this to debate to encourage thoughtful and critical responses from readers.
This is amazing. The world could certainly use more dialogue and less talking past each other. I really look forward to reading the exchange.
We look forward to sharing this with you and hoping everyone finds this interesting and meaningful.
As wary as I am of giving any organization that uses Kelsi Sheren as a spokesperson an ounce of legitimacy, dialogue is always great to see.
I'm sure I'll have plenty to say when their submissions start coming in.
I hope you'll question them about their use of a disinformation peddler like Kelsi.
We, personally, are going to limit our debate and dialogue to responding to Gordans writing only. This will help keep our responses focused on his expressed views. As always we look forward to your thoughts and comments as this structured exchanged unfolds!!