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

I wish we could go whenever we want to, even if we’re still healthy. Life is hard and getting harder.

I think it's very unlikely that AD will come in in the UK, unfortunately. The House of Lords talked it out last time and are likely to do so again, despite it passing in the Commons. However, the poll on this thread is over 80% in favour of AD which reflects the national polls.

Most people are in favour of it, having watched the reality of someone they care about living with degenerative incurable illnesses where that person has stated their wish to end it but nobody can help them and their only option is to travel to Switzerland (which is only an option for the well off).

What do you think we are? Robots? 🤖

@AmberTigerEyes

you are wrong. Palliative care can have billions of pounds pumped into it and people will still suffer pointless pain and indignity with a long drawn out death that they don’t want. They want quicker and with more autonomy. Do you not think it’s cruel to deny those people?

That’s a false equivalence. Suicide is legal, murder is not.

I don’t agree that palliative care cannot be better funded and improved to alleviate suffering. I think that even now, the number who cannot be helped by the best palliative care today is tiny.

Overall, I think that purchasing shorter suffering of a few is not worth the cost of the deaths of any innocents. All the evidence shows assisted dying results in people, (usually poor, older disabled women), being coerced into deaths they do not want.

coerced sex is rape, therefore coerced death is murder.

How can I support any bill that privileges a few dying with a smidge of control over their death for the cost of lives of the most vulnerable?

We abolished the death penalty when we realised punishing most despicable serial killers with death was not worth the cost of executing a single innocent man ever.

This is a feminist issue too. We won’t execute anyone because 1 innocent man’s life is so important (men are the 99.99% of serial killers).

But we will happily push for assisted dying that can only shorten not prevent or lessen suffering for an unknown number of people at the cost of more than 1 (usually a woman’s) life?

Studies on assisted dying show dozens of concerning cases per year where a person has been coerced into death. Dozens.

No amount of control over my time of death is worth the life of another human being.

@ruethewhirl

well apparently according to @AmberTigerEyes if you want to kill yourself you can already just kill yourself so by that notion if you want to murder someone you can just do regardless of this bill.
so it’s most definitely not a reason to pass it.
ones own body means one’s own choices, END OF

What else would you call killing someone against their will? Because if you really think there's no chance of an assisted dying bill carrying that risk, you must be criminally naive. Glad you find it so amusing, though.

I agree. I watched my mum dies for 6 weeks. She was in pain and begging for the end. I’ve told my husband that the minute they pass the assisted dying laws I’m making a will to say I choose that. I refuse to put my children through what I went through. I’ll never get over it. I won’t do that to them if there’s another way.

@AmberTigerEyes

you do realise that their are some illnesses and ailments that cause unbearable disgusting inhumane levels of suffering to a person that no amount of palliative care…even the best possible palliative care…can assuage? Why do you think people should be made to suffer and not be able to make decisions about their OWN life and their OWN body?!

I think because the UK Assisted Dying bill most closely resembled the Canadian MAiD law when it was first passed there.

There have been the same abuses/slippery slope effects in other countries and US states that have legalised assisted dying, it’s just that their laws were not as similar to start with as the proposed UK bill (eg Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg went straight for euthanasia). Canada is the most comparable case study in terms of how the UK bill is currently written.

I think because it’s an example of how horrifyingly wrong it can go. And I don’t have any trust in our government not to fuck it up.

Why do people keep looking to Canada? Why not the other countries/states where there has not been the same controversy?

Yes. Their method is much more humane than the swallowing handfuls of pills method in the bill.

https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/117263/pdf/

Agree with the posters with concerns. In theory I am all for it, but having seen what is happening in Canada and hearing from disabled people who will no doubt be disproportionately affected by this, I can no longer support it. I’m hoping I will be able to get my hands on my own stash of something when the time comes and go out with a bang.

I had to watch my Mum for a slow and sometimes painful death from pancreatic cancer. She begged her GP to give her an injection to end it but of course she couldn't. Mum had to go on for 5 more days where she couldn't eat, drink or swallow or talk during this time she didn't even need to wee once she was so dehydrated.

That's why Pegasos exists in Basel, Switzerland. They're a not for profit AD organisation and you don't have to have a terminal illness to use their services, although they have safeguarding measures in place.

Some people may find that objectionable in which case they don't have to use their services. But for others who might choose this, I'm glad there is such an organisation.

There are thousands of disabled people living full lives while totally incapacitated and dependent on carers. Quality of life does not equate to being fully abled and in no need of carers. Keeping these people alive benefits them, not just their carers or the businesses that provide care.

Comments like yours show why most organisations and charities for disabled people are fighting this bill. Such arguments surrounding quality of life tend to describe the life of a disabled person dependent on carers as a harsh fate with the implication that hastening their death is preferable.

Many ppl put down healthy animals too in the same way that healthy ppl will be killed if we have a system without safeguards as seen with the MAiD programme. Killing healthy ppl who have nothing wrong with them but are normal is wrong but apparently that is how they do it there!

Death is inevitable how ever you die. But the run up to it is the part we can intervene with and improve.

I agree with this, but disagree that assisted dying is the safest way to do it. Good palliative care would improve the dying process without the collateral damage of people being coerced into their own deaths.

I accept that there are risks involved with AD. But the current situation is just awful, when people are kept alive long after their quality of life has gone. Who benefits from this, apart from the owners of care homes?

We're an aging society so ending your life being totally incapacitated and dependent on carers who may be caring but who may just as easily be negligent and harsh is a fate awaiting many of us. AD, with appropriate safeguards, is the humane alternative for those who choose it.

That isn’t based on reality. Where it is legal, the vast majority go through months to years of physical and mental suffering before a decision is made (not always by them) that they’ve had enough and it’s time to die.

This is even in countries that only require a terminal illness or an illness that if left untreated would become terminal (a great way to usher diabetics, asthmatics, heart disease, MS and other patients on to the much cheaper assisted death track than the expensive decades of medical treatment track).

The UK law has the six months left to live requirement which means there will be months to years of suffering before a death day is scheduled. I am sorry but the concept of being able to time death before you’re suffering isn’t realistic.

I also want the choice to choose how I die. But how should this be laid down in legislation? You must realise that some implementations of assisted dying have more problems than others.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15265161.2023.2265265

I think I have presented ample evidence of this risk, but it is unacceptable to you.
I ask again, what evidence would you accept that this bill puts people at risk?

100% agree with you having seen a couple of relatives die long, painful, hugely undignified deaths. Thank god one of them had no clue what was going on.