To be very anxious about the assisted dying bill?

That's a really good point... the issue is about balancing what might be best on an individual basis versus the implications for society at large. There's no easy solution

My mother hated every day of the six years she spent in residential care and bitterly missed her home and former life. Despite her dementia she knew who I was until almost the end and she kept asking to go home. I'm pretty sure she'd have rather been allowed to die given the choice.

In theory, I whole-heartedly support the idea of assisted dying. In reality I am extremely concerned about the parameters being increasingly widened to include things like psychological suffering, pressure being felt by those who don't want an AD, and the further decline of already stretched palliative care services.

I support assisted dying in principle but I am unconvinced on this bill. I definitely see it being watered down and it used as an excuse not to improve palliative care

I hope they are. For me it doesn't go far enough and I look forward to amendments.

Not all people with dementia are unhappy. I'm thinking of my late MIL , although difficult for those around her in latter years - she did still enjoy music/ dancing and seeing and chatting to different people for many years.

I do wonder how many of those who are against it, have witnessed someone close to them suffer terrible pain, because medics are no longer allowed to give them sufficient morphine to keep them comfortable.

I’m majorly pissed off with our MP at the moment, for voting against. Not that I was ever very keen on her anyway.
On the BBC website BTW you can enter your postcode to see how your MP voted.

People who have witnessed just that do not support this bill.
A painful death is not guaranteed
Assisted dying leading to a painless death is also not guaranteed.

I support it. If you have ever watched a loved one die a slow, horrible, undignified death of cancer, I think you would too. I am personally pleased for myself and my family that I will have the choice for myself (assuming I have capacity) and don't have to put them through the hideousness of what is often not a 'gentle decline' as a PP called it.

By whom? shamed, mocked and belittled.
Really?
I think you're giving yourself a higher place of importance in others minds than you have.
Why do you think people would card enough to mock?

One in twenty seems very reasonable. 5% of people with terminal illnesses choosing to end their suffering a few months earlier? Im surprised it's so low.

By the time my grandparents passed, they didn't know who they were. Their identities were essentially gone. Visits from their families meant nothing - they didn't know who anyone was. There were constant falls and injuries. They were incontinent. Their food had to pureed so they wouldn't choke on it. My grandmother was in and out of the hospital as she slowly drowned in the fluid filling up her lungs and my grandfather had cancerous tumors growing out of his face.

Would ending that slightly sooner have been tragic for either of them? Would it have been more cruel than making them suffer every last minute of it? I think the answer to both is no.

It's going to be a hell of a lot worse for me when my time comes - I have a chronic illness and I do NOT have their resources. I'm going to need to find a way out before it gets to that point. I'd like it to be a painless, legal and foolproof way. I believe that's my human right.

Very well put. I completely agree with this.

My dad committed suicide at home and it was beyond traumatic for us all. I wonder if it would have been different if he had a choice to end his life.

Yes of course...I've seen many family members at the end of their lives...by a certain age, most people will have. It's sad and scary...of course it is, but I think the thought of someone being coerced into this is equally if not more scary.

I would think mental illness preceded the trans identification, and then wasn’t relieved, or was compounded by transitioning.

I'll be interested to see if OP comes back and explains if anything in particular about the bill is making her anxious.

I know there's been a lot of amendments, etc.

I'm thinking that those who don't choose assisted dying will be at risk of being shamed, mocked and belittled.

I'm now getting confused. Are you thinking it's to be a Logans Run scenario where EVERYONE is to have an assisted death?

I would say as pp have already stated, I'd find my life to be pretty doomed if I was bed bound, doubly incontinent, and experiencing unbearable suffering that no amount of analgesia could touch.

We discussed this over lunch with friends. Out of the 8 of us, we were all in support.

I think our life stage is an influencing factor. We’re all in our 50s and seeing friends start to suffer with illness - we know people with cancer, some have arthritis. Several of us have parents with dementia, one with Parkinson’s, my husband’s uncle in law died of MND.

One friend whose father has dementia and is in a home with zero quality of life, said she sometimes wants to smother him.

Obviously assisted dying would not help here, but I really think the law needs to change and people have the right to autonomy over ending their lives.

Doctors already don’t carry out certain procedures because they cause more harm. What if the best way to ‘do no harm’ is to help someone to die?

I don’t know the law, but I think that doctors cannot prescribe a dose of painkillers that would be lethal, so where does that leave people who are still in pain with the maximum allowable dose? What about those who don’t have a terminal illness but can’t get enough pain killers to alleviate their pain?

I would think that doctors would have the choice of whether to be involved in assisted suicide, just as they do with abortion.

I do wonder if many people who oppose this bill have had the experience of watching a loved one die in a slow and painful way?

I watched my dad die, he really should have been allowed to die about a week before he did. The last week was not nice for anyone, especially him and I had nightmares about it for many years afterwards. I fully support this bill and cheered when I heard that MPs had voted for it.

I'm quite anxious that it won't get through, because I think we desperately need it. I want to be able to end my life at a time of MY choosing, so I actually think it doesn't go far enough.
But this is why we have a parliamentary democracy, because MPs make these decisions for us. We can't and won't agree with every piece of legislation, so stressing about it is ultimately pointless.

I understand where you are coming from OP. In principle I am in favour of assisted dying and would like to have that choice. But it chills my blood that it's being brought in at a time the government are demonising disabled/long-term sick people and when there is a crisis in health care and social care. Also, these days it's quite common for people seeking help for suicidal feelings to be told that it's their choice if they want to kill themselves as they have capacity - which is a misuse/misunderstanding of capacity law - so the idea that only people with capacity will be able to choose this option doesn't reassure me that much.

Wasn't one of them a young woman who had identified as trans and then suffered mental illness? That was very concerning.