Why do we put animals out of their misery but let humans suffer?

I said exactly the same thing when my dad was dying recently. It was horrific, but thankfully only a few days where he was really unwell.

We have such a weird attitude to death in the UK. If someone is suffering and is able to document their wishes for their death ahead of time then whats the issue? Why shouldnt someone be allowed to avoid a horrible death?
The trauma on patients and their families is absolutely horrific, to watch someone slowly die gasping for air and in pain. We draw the process out far too much because doctors feel they are forced to and sometimes family cant let go.

Some of the questions that you say were the lords "doing their job"

• Should men be forced to take a pregnancy test before having an assisted death?
• If you've left the country in the last year, should that affect your right to have an assisted death?
• Should everyone considering an assisted death be forced to see a geriatrician, regardless of if they're 20 or 80?

It's the legal implications- animals have no money or possessions to leave- so it's completely different. Also remember owners have their pets/ animals put down not only because they are ill or hurt beyond mending, but also because they don't want the trouble or expense of looking after them.

You're obviously living somewhere else, so no, you can't choose in Great Britain. A assisted-dying bill was recently defeated in Scotland, and a similar one failed in England and Wales. You could travel elsewhere to do it, but by the time you are bed-ridden and doubly incontinent, this is not feasible.

I'm theoretically in favour of assisted-dying for the terminally-ill, who choose it for themselves, but looking at what is happening in Canada makes me pause for thought.

Absolutely. They’re now even talking about assisted dying for babies. It’s horrifying.

They promised that a judge would have to approve it. This was a key safeguarding selling point that was replaced with multidisciplinary panels.

The House of Lords had so many questions because the bill was so poor. They were doing their job.

How much do you think it costs to keep someone alive against their will? An average mental health bed (NHS) is around £3.5-4k a week (double that if they have to go into a private ward). Then there's the medication, additional costs for any therapy. They may not be able to work due to their mental health, so the cost of benefits +++

The cost of a safe and comparably peaceful death for someone who has no quality of life - who has capacity to make their own life / death decisions (mental illness is not always the same as lacking capacity), is much less.

Or do you expect the person to use an often violent and painful method, that will likely traumatise others and could disrupt the economy (for example people who jump in front of trains). It's all very well saying you have the choice at anytime, but many people don't.

I’d prefer more focus on end of life care and sedation. I’d like to be able to sign something to say doctors can give me whatever drugs necessary to make sure I’m pain free and sedated even if it shortens my life.

Please give an example? That is not why it failed. It failed because unelected lords (including 26 bishops) made a list of questions and amendments longer than War and Peace in order to block it by running out of time.

Clinical depression is often present, but still doesn't always account for the existential wish to be out of the situation they're in.

This ^

When I first started nursing, elderly people were allowed to die from their illnesses. Palliative care involved decent doses of morphine based pain relief and sedation and they basically slept their lives away. They weren't prescribed antibiotics for a serious chest infection and their general condition and quality of life was taken into consideration when being assessed for active treatment. Relatives were more realistic about death and didn't threaten staff into treatment.

Now, thanks to Shipman, every doctor is terrified of 'signing anyone off' and prescribing large enough doses to ensure effective pain relief, even if this results in death as a side effect of the drugs. Every illness, infection and elderly disability complication is treated and the last breath is dragged out of everyone. Many relatives insist upon active treatment. The Daily Mail campaigned for the abolishment of the Liverpool Care Pathway, which was allegedly being misused in hospitals. Death management is a poison chalice and no one wants to be associated with it. Hardly anyone can get hospice care due to lack of places and the strange government lack of direct funding model.

So, we have Shipman and The Daily Mail to thank. Not to mention the inability of people to accept that people die, which comes from emotional and social immaturity and putting themselves and their own fear of grief before their loved one's care and management.

Religion still plays a big part in it.The Catholic Church in particular in Scotland.
Also the buffer zones round abortion clinics needed to be implemented to stop religious zealots to stop harassing women during stressful time in their private lives.

We really need to stop assuming elderly people can’t experience clinical depression as a result of poor care instead of interpreting these expressions as a settled wish to die right now.

Wtf?!! I’ve seen it all now.

Not to mention that Canada isn’t the exception. Every other country has gone or is following the same trajectory.

It’s not a guaranteed peaceful death. Assisted dying is being romanticised.

I completely agree.

Oh come on. All the safeguarding that they promised was being eroded before the bill even passed. The slippery slope concerns came true right from the start. That’s why it failed.

I have experienced it. But ask yourself would 5.5yrs of suffering be much different from 6yrs? And ask yourself why was her care so bad that she was suffering that much pain and even the simplest request for something as going into a garden was denied to her?

What you have described is horrible palliative care and the solution to that is not to kill people as soon as they need palliative care.

Does a living will help with this? Can we consent whilst we have capacity to be used further down the line if we lose capacity?

As a cancer nurse I have seen wonderful peaceful deaths, and awful traumatic ones. I can’t support assisted dying until public services are sorted in this country- properly funded palliative care and mental health services which are not reliant on charity funding

I do understand and it is because I have researched it extensively that I am against assisted dying.

It is pure naivety to believe that the UK won’t go the way of the other nations that have passed these laws and within a decade fall into widespread abuse with state sanctioned murder of the elderly and disabled.

editing- naivety or nationalist arrogance

Sadly, there’s a post like this on here once a week @Freshton . You’re not alone. I hoped the government (like dying people give a fuck who let them down - Parliament or House of Lords; when you’re dying or watching a loved one die horribly, it’s just governmental bullshit) wouldn’t be a bunch of political fuckwits over assisted dying but OF COURSE they were.

Because there is no way to implement safeguards that would prevent horrific abuse bring inflicted on elderly and disabled people.