Comment by possiblydrunk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by possiblydrunk | Hacker News Reader

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>That seems not only misleading to me, but pure lie.

Did you bother to read the article about the woman, or just the headline? From the linked article:

A 51-year-old Ontario woman with severe sensitivities to chemicals chose medically-assisted death after her desperate search for affordable housing free of cigarette smoke and chemical cleaners failed, advocates say. ... “The government sees me as expendable trash, a complainer, useless and a pain in the a*," 'Sophia' said in a video filmed on Feb. 14, eight days before her death, and shared with CTV News by one of her friends. She died after a frantic effort by friends, supporters and even her doctors to get her safe and affordable housing in Toronto. She also left behind letters showing a desperate two-year search for help, in which she begs local, provincial and federal officials for assistance in finding a home away from the smoke and chemicals wafting through her apartment.

"Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that.""

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Reprimanded by dang - another milestone achieved! I feel strangely honored and ashamed at the same time :)

This is rather off-topic but in my opinion, the government not providing affordable housing free of chemical cleaners in the second most expensive city of Canada is very different from the government forcing her to commit suicide.

The government of Canada generally doesn't provide housing with such specific requirements, and very few governments around the world do.

In her situation, almost anywhere in the world she would have had the choice between living on the street and living in a house that sometimes smells of cigarette from the neighbours. In some countries including Canada, Switzerland or Belgium, she also had the choice of euthanasia.

> In one email to friends, Sophia suggested that her death was, in a way, a show of protest against the lack of response to her and her physicians’ pleas

Doing something in a show of protest against the government is certainly not the same as being forced to do it by this very government.

The article mentions that:

“We physicians find it UNCONSCIONABLE that no other solution is proposed to this situation other than medical assistance in dying,” they wrote.

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