To say that if the assisted dying bill isn't passed....

Outside of the UK, my parent was euthanised without their agreement or mine as next of kin.
At the time, around 1,200 people in that country were killed in the same way, the proportion has seemingly halved since - a level that a UK doctor on another forum suggested was about the rate in the UK already.
The bill is full of holes and should have been the subject of unemotional, public debate for months.
When the bill passes - as I'm sure it will, since MPs are keen on control - doctors and healthcare workers become a potential threat to life.
Proxy signing: not an inheritor or someone who is directly involved in your care - like Mavis who spoke to you 30 months ago about diabetes screening, a practice GP who notices that you're low after an incurable diagnosis - who may suggest assisted dying.
We are not ready for this bill - and for anyone who makes it this far, the mercy-killing of my parent was a kindness to someone who was comletely immobile, had parkinson's and advanced dementia and couldn't speak.

Right if you were to read the parliament bill page right now about this particular bill you will see that it says words like assisted suicide or assisted dying are interchangeable in this bill because nobody says that one word is what it is or another word.
So because you’re saying that I use assisted dying doesn’t mean to say I don’t know what it’s about
Secondly when I have just read this bill, I think it perfectly has got a lot of safeguarding for instance you can’t just rock up and get injected on that day. You have to talk to one doctor then you have to talk to another doctor but in between that there is so many days of cooling off.
Then I believe they have to go to High Court and then again there’s another 14 days of cooling off after that decision and then even after all these days of cooling off between seeing the doctors and seeing the High Court you are going to be asked a question again I think that’s pretty safe proof because there’s a lot of different doctors a lot of different questions a lot of time I think if anything it’s very strict, but this is why I don’t get all these people giving strawmen arguments

Thats a ridiculous premise. Why would a doctor need to be more than reasonably sure there is no coercion? Doctor, same as everyone else are never sure and that's a ridiculous thing to aim for. There could have been coercion involved in a termination, or a tissue donation or an amputation, or the switching off of life support. That is no reason to stop everyone else from having the procedure. I don't think you understand risk assessment.

Exactly

So I itially a bill has a premise then you can ammend and make the rules more detailed after by the gov . So if in principle you are fine with assisted death then that's fine and the other stuff gets put in either with ammendments or added bh the gov

We live in a representative, not a direct democracy. I doubt a single person polled had actually read the proposed legislation. The keenness of those supporting the measures that they be known as “assisted dying” rather than “assisted suicide” should give some indication of the superficiality of public engagement on the issue.

That isn’t a criticism of “the public.” It’s a recognition that in our lives as doctors, solicitors, retail worker… (whatever), we are not legislators. We have chosen someone else to fulfil that role for us.

Could you explain why you believe it has the strongest safeguards? For example, how can a Dr be sure if there is coercion?

Many thanks

Are you really encouraging someone to purchase an illegal drug for the purpose of killing themself off, on an open forum?

Yes same. I think there shouldn't be a referendum. As with brexit, people vote on emotion, not on understanding the consequences. I am not an expert on end of life so it wouldn't be right for me to have a say. They should have advice from experts on end of life care, disability advocacy groups and similar organisations. They should be advised based on case studies from the other countries which have already brought it in and the benefits and risks and so on.

Obtain it before it's too late.

It seems from some posters that they are certain that an assisted death is somehow painless and dignified which is not true or guaranteed. You are choosing only when to die, it does not mean you are going to have a painless death and given the establishments set up to provide this in other countries you are not guaranteed dignity either.

This feels to me like my mum saying eat your vegetables there’s children starving in Africa.Wether or not I ate my vegetables is of no consequence really. I don’t think my personal decision to want not to suffer a painful drawn out death is going to shorten the life of a vulnerable person.

Practically speaking this is probably the least well thought out bill on this subject that i have read, it is light on detail and makes a lot of assumption

I couldn't agree more, @everybodystalking; in particular Section 15 "Signing by proxy" signals some very obvious issues and Section 26 on "Dishonesty coercion or pressure" receives just three tiny paragraphs, mostly consisting of "commits an offence" with almost no further detail at all

I also strongly suspect that many won't have read it and are discussing this on a purely emotional basis - understandable of course, but maybe not the best foundation for something quite so serious

The link's here: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/59-01/0012/240012.pdf

In most cases, spouses that help their terminally ill partner to die aren't prosecuted.

By disagreeing, it’s obvious you haven’t read the other laws and are relying on marketing drivel.

Sadly, all the countries we copied from, you did not learn from. It’s not gone to plan in a single country that has legalised it.

@RhaenysRocks

I like to look at reality. It would be nice if everyone had a choice about how they die. In fact, most do. Suicide is not illegal.

We have a strong indication of how this could go because of COVID. Our Prime Minister said "Let the bodies pile high." Unauthorised DNR notices were put in people's notes and COVID was allowed to run rampant through care homes. Alongside this was a chorus of "They're going to die anyway." About the elderly and vulnerable.

Elderly care is very expensive, the NHS is barely functioning and Drs have to make judgement calls about budgets and beds. We have a large number of people with dementia who lack capacity and are eating into their children's inheritance.

We can see evidence of how this could go in other countries where laws have been expanded to include disabilities and mental health issues. There was a recent case of a young autistic woman who was euthanised because she was depressed. In some countries children are euthanised.

State sanctioned suicide shifts the way we view human life. I understand that some people value human life in the same way they do a dog's, however I don't.

I think this law is ill thought out, the safeguards are flabby and we don't have the resources to properly monitor it.

IMO we would be better off investing in better palliative care and the NHS. This has the potential to very quickly turn into a cost cutting exercise.

If I spend 15 months of my life in utter misery not being able to move because I have MND, how am I supposed to do it without some assistance from someone else? If I’d be quite happy to swallow something that was provided to me, thus making the decision for myself. Unfortunately the person who would provide it to me to swallow would be prosecuted

The other thing is our healthcare is already not set up in a way where clinicians are able to adequately discuss with patients their best interests and what they would like. Part of the suffering at end of life comes from unnecessary treatments and medications because people are too busy / too scared to be sued/ haven't had time to build a relationship with the patient to discuss if they really want to go through all that and what other pathways they can go down. Throwing assisted dying into the mix before we fix the NHS and patient care experience would be disastrous..it's an ideal in principal but we aren't there yet as a society.

You have the right to end your life whenever you want. It's different expecting the state and other individuals to facilitate that.

I’m wholeheartedly in favour of assisted dying in specific well defined circumstances. That we allow people to suffer in the run up to death in a way we wouldn’t allow any other kind of animal to suffer is cruel and unnecessary. However I totally understand the fears of disabled anti-assisted dying campaigners which is the most persuasive argument against the proposal.

When we as a society cannot value and nurture sick or disabled lives then we are in danger of stretching any legislation to allow for the deaths of people who are medically inconvenient or expensive. In a society where social and medical care was both appropriate and easily available (in practice not just theory) it may be less of a worry but in a society hell bend on demonising sick and disabled people and making them pay for failures of neoliberalism or business in politics, assisted dying could easily be turned into a form of eugenics or cost cutting.

I’d love to believe this was just me and my tinfoil hat speaking but I’ve spent a long time bearing the brunt of people’s discriminations towards disabled people and I can see in the most recent rapid changes to society (particularly the huge swing to the far right) that it could easily become general practice to euthanise inconvenient sick or disabled.

I am someone who would benefit from the right to assisted dying. In the future. I do not want a long painful drawn out death… nor do I want a legislation unable to protect the most vulnerable from the negative cultural associations with or costs of chronic sickness or disability.

I hope it happens one day but it needs to be good and proper legislation with appropriate safeguards and a much stricter regime for being able to alter it than our current concepts of parliamentary sovereignty allow
for.