To think people with terminal illnesses should be allowed to choose assisted death?

Quality palliative care is possible, but expensive. Death is a cheaper option. As budgets get tighter, the cut off when treatment or symptom management is offered gets sooner and sooner.

Think of how many problems it would solve? Problems that are going to get so very much worse as we have fewer and fewer children. Housing crisis, NHS, pensions. Quality of life is going to tank in coming years, it will be many peooles preference to die. Life will be for the wealthy only.

They should die when they choose to die. Do you think is a good death by being provided with good palliative care in a hospice? it’s not even your true you, you don’t know what is happening to you, you’re stripped of the bit of dignity you have left . You haven’t looked after a loved one dying of cancer if you say that. Do that and then come back and speak Do you know the pain you’re going through by the time you get to palliative stage? all in vain as well, it’s heartbreaking watching it.

For me on the one hand is the legal side and safeguarding. If this is very tight so pressure from 'loved ones' to end life would be detected, then in theory I'm in favour of relieving suffering.

I currently have doubts it will be safe enough to ensure it's the patients free choice.

Yes, with animals we always say better a week too early than a day too late.
If an actual human is asking to go a week too early, then it is cruel to deny them that. Best they go when times are a bit better, then spending their very last moments in torture.

They also think that assisted dying means a doctor injecting you like a vet would an animal.

As it stands now, if someone took an overdose in front of their family, and their family members sat around and soothed them until they died... they would all be arrested and questioned.
A bill about assisted dying is as much about the family as it is the person who wants to die too.

I can see both sides. I live in NZ where it is legal (since a couple of years ago) - it was legalised following a referendum and if I recall correctly, only won by a narrow margin. However, a number of senior doctors disagreed with it and they have some convincing arguments. Now that it is legal, I understand that doctors are allowed to opt out of delivering it if they wish.

There are a huge number of restrictions around it and having all of the restrictions makes me feel better about it, like I know that it isn’t being used in inappropriate circumstances. But it also means that there hasn’t been a huge amount of people using it.

It’s downright cruel if a person is reaching the end of their life anyway.

If I were diagnosed with MND, terminal cancer or similar I’d be taking a rather large dose of heroin before it got to the stage I was dependant of anyone else. Expecting anyone to endure incapacity, pain and fear with no hope of recovery is wrong.

I was in hospital recently with a woman who had end stage cancer and her pain could no longer be managed; people need to realise that a natural death isn't always the best outcome.

I think it should be allowed for the end stage of terminal/severe/progressive illness. I'm thinking of things like MND, which tends to decline acutely and suddenly and has a truly horrific ending. And things like end stage dementia, which leaves people bed bound and unable to function at all (though most people with dementia die of other causes before this). If I had MND, I personally would not want to see out the entire illness. I also work with older adults with dementia, and whilst some people with dementia do live happy, meaningful existences, I'm too scared of living through the opposite end of the spectrum where I have frightening hallucinations/smear poo/remove my clothes, etc. It couldn't really be implemented for dementia though due to capacity. By the point of diagnosis, unfortunately a lot of people no longer have capacity.

Palliative care however needs to be improved. And it's important to remember that people on end of life care can live for years.

I think the issue is we can't implement it safely in the NHS. There is also the risk of pressure and coercion. Disabled people/people with intellectual disabilities I feel would be at high risk of this.

I'm not against it at all in principle, but I think it's very difficult to implement safely in reality.

Oh for goodness sake.

I've been with a relative at EOD.

It was traumatic. He wanted to die, I wanted him to die.

I had the JUST IN CASE meds from the district nurses in the house.

So you think I could and should have just given him then?

I'm not medical. No way could I play this hard and fast with those drugs.

District nurses wouldn't give them him because he's "wasn't at that point", ie he wasn't in huge amounts of pain, the pain he was in was manageable with the morphine which I was giving him.

But you reckon I should have ignored them and just dished out the JIC meds and hoped for the best?

Additionally, don't call it suicide. You're just getting into semantics calling it that.

If I what you are suggesting, and it was labelled as suicide, there are insurances that would not pay out for his dependents. Which would be grossly unfair.

Assisted dying, to speed up end of life deterioration, is not suicide.

And I strongly disagree with assisted dying.

This thread is pointless. Everyone is entrenched in their position, convinced they are right, and no one will change their mind.

I strongly agree with assisted dying in cases of terminal illness and would want it for myself.

Even great palliative care can be harrowing.

I think there should be a point at palliative care where an injection can be given to send them off to the big sleep.

Why wait until they are shitting themselves and choking on their own saliva and dying of starvation, all whilst getting increasingly confused and terrified?

Yes assisted dying should be available to anyone terminally ill. I went through this with a family member and was with them as it happened. It’s such a kind way to go on your own terms.

My friend had good palliative care. Really good palliative care. She spent the last three weeks dying from cancer when she didn't want to be here any more. It was inhumane. No amount of good palliative care replaces being listened to. If people want to die with dignity, they should be allowed to. My dogs have better end of life care than many humans.

In this case, in the time that it takes to get the sign off of two doctors and a judge the person in question would have died anyway.

But nobody is saying that?

They are saying they should have the choice.

I have been there at end of life.

There comes a point, be it a few days, weeks, or months when the quality of life is just gone. The person has had enough and just wants to go. Often they get to the point where they can't move, can't toilet themselves, are in pain, can't eat, often need thickened liquids as they cannot cope with water without choking.

They just have to wait for their systems to shut down. Usually once one goes, the rest follow fairly quickly afterwards, but even this final stage can still take a few days.

I don't know anybody who wouldn't have wanted to bow out of all that before it got to that stage, by just being able to drift off to sleep.

As far as I’m aware it’s an either something you drink or you press a button to administer a drug to yourself. I’m obviously taking about people with capacity to act in their own best interests.

There are no euphemisms involved in what I said.

Any living being, being forced to endure unnecessary pain is inhumane.

I’m not interested in playing semantics.

No one is telling you that you can't end your own life.

Ibelieve the proposal is for the meds to be self administered, the doctors would simply supply it.

I don't think the state has any business killing people.

Of course, YANBU. People should have choice over their own bodies.

I have been diagnosed with MS. This is an incurable degenerative disease. It gets worse. It gets worse. Nobody should have the right to tell me I can’t end my life, if I want to end my life. I detest people who have the temerity to think they know best.

They should walk a mile in my shoes; but actually I can barely walk.