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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 4, 2025

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Canada's MAID is the usual poster child for assisted suicide abuse, having been accused of suggesting it for people who are unhappy with the conventional medical care provided, or for political reasons, or for people who cost the system too much.

(and just because you filtered out the em-dashes doesn't mean I don't see what you did there)

You should provide evidence for your claims. I'll start.

In 2023, 15,343 people received MAID in Canada, with 95.9% (14,721) falling under Track 1 (those whose natural death was reasonably foreseeable) and 4.1% (622) under Track 2 (those whose death was not reasonably foreseeable).

Average age track 1: 77.7

Average age track 2: 75.0

Does this seem like a lot to you? Because to me it kind of does...

I don't even know how to respond to that

Define "a lot"

I guess you could contrast it with other causes of death in Canada?

But like how much is too much MAID, is 10% too much? Is 50% too much? Define what your limit is.

Does the amount of death attributed to MAID even matter? If 96% of MAID recipients have a terminal illness, why do you care?

600 people per year being deliberately killed in a population the size of Canada seems significant to me, regardless of how many other terminally ill people are killed. (which I'm also uneasy about, although if they want to DIY it that seems fine, and certainly there are some cases where it seems like a mercy)

Typically there are 6-700 murders per year in Canada; these are normally considered undesirable and kind of a big deal. So you need to do some work to convince me that this new category of homicide is totally cool and no problem.

Why is homicide specifically worse when it's another person doing it?

The definition of "homicide" is a person killing somebody else -- it's not normally controversial that this is worse than "suicide", although both are typically considered kinda bad.