To think people should not use 'we put pets to sleep' as an argument to allow assisted dying?

This will obviously vary across care homes but when I worked in one 70% of the residents were non-verbal. There was zero knitting or puzzles or painting. There were enrichment activities but it was more music based. Lots of residents were confined to a wheelchair and spent their days being hoisted, cleaned, toiletted and fed unable to speak or move independently.

It’s not an end I’d like for myself tbh.

This will obviously vary across care homes but when I worked in one 70% of the residents were non-verbal. There was zero knitting or puzzles or painting. There were enrichment activities but it was more music based. Lots of residents were confined to a wheelchair and spent their days being hoisted, cleaned, toiletted and fed unable to speak or move independently.

It’s not an end I’d like for myself tbh.

You are exactly who we fear. Someone deciding that being 80+ and doing jigsaw puzzles or painting is ‘zero quality of life’ and the costs to keep us alive ‘artificially’ are too much (when how many of us were artificially kept alive through childbirth by c-sections and other medical interventions?).

You aren’t even pretending there is any suffering.

Ah well sadly one granny died when I was 6 of breast cancer and the other when I was 28 of COPD. I’m enroute to becoming a granny myself and many of my friends already are grandparents. My mum died suddenly when I was 28 and my dad had a long painful death over several weeks in hospital in 2021.

I want proof of life of yours! 😇

That was the first time I have repeated that phrase. 😅

Absolutely.

And just because they are alive doesn’t mean they have a quality of life.

You are really invested in bumping off granny.

I think with animals, we free ourselves of the pain of watching something that we love suffer. Is it merciful? Yes. Is it what they would want? Quite probably not, as animals don't have the ability to conceptualise the idea of death ending their suffering, and they're driven by the instinct to survive.

I don't really think it's about treating animals with more dignity, as we also sterilise animals and breed them for our own whims, and that's not dignified at all.

A person deciding to euthanise a suffering animal isn't at all comparable to someone who is terminally ill wanting to end their own suffering.

Exactly this. In this country, we seem to have this obsession with keeping people alive no matter what. Some pumped up to the eyeballs with drugs, barely existing... I know several people right now who really would be better off going to sleep and not waking up in the morning.

And as has been said on several threads recently, they keep older people (75-80+) alive in care homes, with almost zero quality of life. There's a care home near me where many people aged 80+ - pre 21st century - would have died of natural causes 7-8 years ago. OR their condition would have killed them 7-8 years ago... But they are being kept alive artificially. Gets the care home £70,000 to £100,000 in fees a year see, with all these people being here. No-one is going to give that up in a hurry!

It's a scandal. Photos regularly posted on their Facebook page of the residents doing 12 piece childens jigsaws, with the tagline 'CLEVER JUDY!' and people putting blobs of paint on a piece of paper and presenting it as 'Edna's wonderful painting' with pictures of Edna (and many other residents) all over the Facebook page. All treated like 3 year olds.

I doubt very much indeed that these people have given their permission for their images to be used. Most of them have very little (or no) capacity. Their family may have given permission, but I bet they didn't. I certainly would not! I think it's disgraceful that they put pictures of the residents all over the bloody internet!

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So you’d be eager to bump off granny before your inheritance is spent on her care home because jigsaw puzzles, art, and I suppose other retiree activities like knitting, crosswords, watching the telly and napping in the sun = zero quality of life for you. Funny you keep mentioning the money. These are little piggy banks to you and the sooner you break them the better.

I agree. Same with pets. However, I do stand by what I said in my post there ^ that some people are kept alive so that 10s of 1000s a year can be milked off the family in care home fees.

Exactly this. In this country, we seem to have this obsession with keeping people alive no matter what. Some pumped up to the eyeballs with drugs, barely existing... I know several people right now who really would be better off going to sleep and not waking up in the morning.

And as has been said on several threads recently, they keep older people (75-80+) alive in care homes, with almost zero quality of life. There's a care home near me where many people aged 80+ - pre 21st century - would have died of natural causes 7-8 years ago. OR their condition would have killed them 7-8 years ago... But they are being kept alive artificially. Gets the care home £70,000 to £100,000 in fees a year see, with all these people being here. No-one is going to give that up in a hurry!

It's a scandal. Photos regularly posted on their Facebook page of the residents doing 12 piece childens jigsaws, with the tagline 'CLEVER JUDY!' and people putting blobs of paint on a piece of paper and presenting it as 'Edna's wonderful painting' with pictures of Edna (and many other residents) all over the Facebook page. All treated like 3 year olds.

I doubt very much indeed that these people have given their permission for their images to be used. Most of them have very little (or no) capacity. Their family may have given permission, but I bet they didn't. I certainly would not! I think it's disgraceful that they put pictures of the residents all over the bloody internet!

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Keeping people alive like that is never for the person themselves it's always because others don't want to let them go

Exactly this. In this country, we seem to have this obsession with keeping people alive no matter what. Some pumped up to the eyeballs with drugs, barely existing... I know several people right now who really would be better off going to sleep and not waking up in the morning.

And as has been said on several threads recently, they keep older people (75-80+) alive in care homes, with almost zero quality of life. There's a care home near me where many people aged 80+ - pre 21st century - would have died of natural causes 7-8 years ago. OR their condition would have killed them 7-8 years ago... But they are being kept alive artificially. Gets the care home £70,000 to £100,000 in fees a year see, with all these people being here. No-one is going to give that up in a hurry!

It's a scandal. Photos regularly posted on their Facebook page of the residents doing 12 piece childens jigsaws, with the tagline 'CLEVER JUDY!' and people putting blobs of paint on a piece of paper and presenting it as 'Edna's wonderful painting' with pictures of Edna (and many other residents) all over the Facebook page. All treated like 3 year olds.

I doubt very much indeed that these people have given their permission for their images to be used. Most of them have very little (or no) capacity. Their family may have given permission, but I bet they didn't. I certainly would not! I think it's disgraceful that they put pictures of the residents all over the bloody internet!

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Sorry to hear that. We do not put pets through that. If a pet is dying, we don't leave them to it for days/weeks. It is cruel and unfair.
But it seems to be ok to let a human go through that, and that same human is asking you not to allow it to happen.

Meant to uote @RumPidgeon

Agree. To me it's an absolute no brainer that people should be able to go on their own terms. We have the option to prevent our pets suffering but not ourselves, that's bonkers to me.

When my dog was pts it was a good death - he'd been spoilt for a week, he was relaxed and happy, and just drifted off. I though that's very much how I'd want to go. In contrast I have seen someone elderly die who was begging to die during his final days - that was inhumane. I also have had close relatives who very much wished to die rather than continue with their lifes as their quality of life declined. I wluld join dignitas if I was diagnosed with certain conditions. I think that option should be available in the UK, not just those able - financially and physically - to travel.

It’s very concerning when so many people throw out lines such as “we wouldn’t let a pet suffer” and “we don’t want a loved one to suffer”

all of these are to alleviate the feelings of the speaker and the watcher of the dying person. I have watched people dying and all the medical professionals tell me they are in pain and they patient themselves deny it. It is very dangerous when we try to advocate for euthanasia based on people saying that they think their loved one is suffering and they want to put them out of their misery

so dangerous.