Assisted dying bill (TW assisted suicide discussion)

i know you don't, you missed the point i was trying to make.

Every time assisted dying gets bought up, someone trots out 'the disabled' and the fallacy that assisted dying will lead to us being killed like cattle, and it gets used as a reasoning to shut down discussion on something a lot of people, including a lot of disabled, agree with, and think ought to be available to those who needs it.

People like Liz Carr get trotted out by the media to repeat the line, and continue to shut down conversation, while the rest of us who are disabled and agree with it get told we the turkeys voting for christmas.

I'm tired of my disabled status being used as a tool to shut down discussion on this topic, i know a lot of people are.

@WinterBones No, I don't think you are less than human. What a completely ridiculous, utterly offensive and abusive comment.

I will say one thing though.Your rights, happily do not trump everyone else's.

I appreciate this is a divisive subject and a sensitive topic for many. Please avoid this thread if you find any discussion of suicide, death, trauma, terminal illness, cancer and faith triggering.

I’m curious to know how others are feeling about this subject, from what I can see there isn’t a lot of discussion, is this a MNHQ decision or an indifference from posters?

My opinion and views on this potential landmark decision are based on my horrifying experience of watching and waiting for my mum to pass from end stage cancer several years ago.

For over four years she fought advanced cancer, she took every treatment and trial offered to her. She endured major abdominal surgery, many blood transfusions, multiple rounds of chemo, lost her hair several times, her bones started to crumble causing excruciating back pain, severe abdominal swelling, double nephrostomy as her kidneys failed, multiple lesions on her brain that caused debilitating headaches and personality changes, her teeth and bones were decaying due to a calcium disorder, various hospital stays for infections, the list goes on.

Truly the most hideous nightmare cancer ‘journey’ anyone could ever imagine, it always felt like one step forward and two backwards and yet she carried on without much fuss or sign of fear to protect the family and herself from the true horrors of suffering.

She never wanted to die and so she never gave up or gave in- that was until the last few weeks of her life when she had no choice. The immense damage and toll cancer had done to her physical body was too much to survive any longer so the last infection she had took her consciousness and so began the final horrifying curveball that cancer has up its evil sleeve, this one is for the loved ones though, because now you have to wait and watch for the end to come. Anyone who has endured this knows exactly what I am talking about, a horror that truly brings home the meaning of hell of earth.

If the assisted dying bill was around whilst my mum was alive I know she would have never entertained an early death whilst she was still in control and able to fight, but I do know that her love for the family would have also meant she would never have wanted us to endure that final two weeks of watching and waiting for her body to shut down if it could have been avoided and she was able to specify what was to happen at the end. There was no possibility of her ever getting better or a miraculous recovery, death was very inevitable and a certainty but we still had to sit and watch, doing oral care and leaving the room as they checked for bed sores and did secretion suction. The only thing I could do to protect and help her was the make sure she was undoubtedly unaware of what was happening as she feared death and leaving us behind- the thought of her being remotely aware meant we were constantly asking the nurses for more and more sedation.

If this bill gives patients the choice to avoid the hideously evil ending of a terminal illness and the following ptsd that impacts the loved ones left behind then it is an opportunity I strongly agree with. Watching a loved one die an agonising death is soul destroying and something I hope no one has to ever endure if said loved one could choose to avoid.

How do others feel?

Well, whatever you think, I am willing and able to decide my own fate should it come to it, and it’s been a glorious day.

wish you all the best for your lives in the future.

Because I don’t believe that anyone could sit and watch someone else hanging on in unimaginable fear and pain and think ‘yeah that’s fine’ when there is another way.

would you leave your pets to suffer? Or have you taken them to the vet because it’s ’the kindest thing to do’

Because I don’t believe that anyone could sit and watch someone else hanging on in unimaginable fear and pain and think ‘yeah that’s fine’ when there is another way.

would you leave your pets to suffer? Or have you taken them to the vet because it’s ’the kindest thing to do’

In fact coercion, where it exists lies entirely on the opposite side of the fence.

My aged, demented mother was repeatedly admitted to hospital for antibiotics and whatnot.

She wanted to die. She told me she did. There was a DNR in place but still the treatment persisted to and fro from the hospital, bangs to the head, chest infections- all resulting in lengthy (48 hrs want time ) delayed admission to hospital resulting in more trauma and confusion.

I spoke at length to her GP but they prevaricated.

Eventually she suffered such severe head trauma ( she looked like she had suffered a severe domestic assault beating) from an unwitnessed fall ( I suspect she was assaulted actually), that the consultant at last agreed to withdraw antibiotics and she died of pneumonia .

What a way to end.

This bill does not go far enough.

Is there a reason you believe everyone who opposes the bill hasn't experienced that?

For those disabled people who are frightened of this.Why? No one under this legislation is going to kill you, or suggest you kill yourselves.

The proposed scheme is the most heavily safeguarded anywhere.

The fact that I absolutely do not want to live my last six months in torture and agony, nor have my friends and family witness this is my own and my family's concern. Not yours.

I am hugely grateful the bill has passed this first stage.

probably because people can't talk about assisted dying without looking for excuses to wipe disabled people out.

We're seen as less than human.

All i will say is i'm sick of Liz Carr thinking she speaks for all of us with disabilities and being trotted out by the media to parrot the dehumanisation of us as thinking its a slippery slope to murder us all.

Until you've seen someone you love wearing away every day you have no idea how terrible it is to watch someone have a long, painful death. I don't care about what religion says, or anyone else for that matter, if I was going to die slowly and in terrible pain I'd take the assisted dying. All the people who think palliative care gives someone are quiet, happy death are only fooling themselves, with some illnesses there are no good deaths.
@Onand I'm sorry for your loss, it sounds like a terrible time for you