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

We could equally say "Are you aware of the terrible reputation the NHS has?" No system works perfectly for everyone. You can see on posts here about the NHS that people have had a range of experiences - there are those who feel the NHS saved their lives against all odds, and those who feel they or their relatives have been appallingly treated. Both are valid based on the particular individual's experiences.

I 100% support assistive death and I think its very frustrating that the law keeps being rejected.
If it is not in place when my time comes I will do it myself. We love our pets and dont want to see them suffer. We love our relatives and have to watch them suffer when noone wants that, not the patient, family or doctors.
Who in their right mind would say oh yes I would love to have the most painful drawn out death possible that will traumatise my family, noone!

The proposals for the UK bill was that the person has to self-administer.

Are you aware of terrible reputation Canada's death industry has? Strict my foot.

I'm glad your relative had a peaceful end.

Sadly, my lovely mum went through absolute hell on earth in her last days.

Yes, but not gestating a pregnancy because of outside pressures is not the same as being forced into one's own death. One can get pregnant again, once one's financial position has changed. One cannot come back to life.

I think a risk is that assisted suicide would be used instead of improving public healthcare. Why pour money into improving palliative care, or mental healthcare, when you can just let the person commit assisted suicide and take the problem off the government's hands? It's a concern.

As I've said, I'm not even against assisted suicide in the case of terminal illness, and I'm certainly not condemning anyone to terrible deaths, as you've said. But this does seem like a worrying possibility.

It depends how the process is set up. In Canada, assisted dying works through a strict legal and medical process where an eligible patient receives a lethal medication that they either take themselves or have administered by a healthcare professional.

Mhmm.. I understand but.. some things are more important than 'the letter of the law'. Can't have black and white thinking in these situations. We're not robots. Yet.

But preventing these people from accessing AD doesn't make the financial pressures or lack of effective medicine go away.

Using the abortion analogy again. Many women would proceed with a pregnancy if they were in a better financial position. You can say this is wrong and no woman should have to abort their baby because of money. Banning abortions though doesn't put them in a better position. They are simply poor and stuck with a baby they can't afford. Banning AD doesn't miraculously mean that people can suddenly afford gold standard care or can identify a medication that works for them. They are just stuck living a life they don't want to live anymore partially due to being poor.

I think you could allow AD until the point that people can all access excellent healthcare and care. Then maybe you could remove it as it wouldn't be needed so much anymore. What do you think of that idea?

Deciding to take a person off life support is generally because they're already dead; brain dead. They're also not killing a person, but rather letting their body live or die on its own. And administering extra morphine for sufficient pain relief in a terminal patient is different to deliberately overdosing them with the intent of killing them.

So, it seems you would like to legalise people deliberately euthanising (killing) other people without their permission?

Yes. I'm not sure what your point is, though? I'm more thinking of poorer people feeling forced to choose assisted suicide because of financial pressures, or people with severe depression choosing assisted suicide because they can't afford to access good mental healthcare, whereas a richer person chooses to live as they can afford the best care and their family isn't unduly affected.

Think we do that already, don't we? Deciding when to pull the plug for comas - doctors administer extra morphine to suffering patients but don't talk about it. I would prefer it be done out in the open where it has a chance of proper regulation, but I suppose I don't mind sensible people being allowed to make compassionate decisions.

I'm not actually doing anything except sharing my opinion online.

I'm certainly not condemning anyone to terrible deaths.

In fact, I'm not even opposed to assisted suicide in cases of terminal illness (although I'm not keen on it either). But I do have concerns, yes.

There are comparable risks with abortion - a woman could be coerced into it. She might regret it. She might turn out to have absolutely loved being a mother and had a healthy happy child. However, abortion is, in my opinion rightly, available in this country because we understand that in the majority of cases a woman has the right to choose whether to become a mother or not.

And yet we think it right and proper that at the end, she should have no choice about how much pain, how much indignity, and how much loss of self she must suffer until her body gives up, to the distress and possibly trauma of those who love her.

@OtterlyAstounding

Its unequal now when, if you have the money you can go to Switzerland and if you are poor you suffer. That is not equal

But some people also euthanise pets because the pet has become inconvenient.

That's the useful comparator here.

In AD, the person administers the drug themselves.

But they would also know it was what you wanted and had asked for - and in the case of family, compared to watching me die slowly and painfully and with no dignity, I think helping me out while I was still basically me and had the capacity to say goodbye would be by far the better of two very sad options.

Why isn't it ok. My animals are family and I want what they have. If they can have a lovely peaceful end that's what I want too.

It wouldn't be like an owner making a decision for a pet though. The person themselves should get to decide that. I see their point, we allow pets the relief of a peaceful or quick death but we leave a person in agony, begging to die because they're a human? What's humane about that?

Yes, but your opposition to AD doesn't make healthcare better funded or more equal. So people are stuck in the current reality of their situations and whilst you can argue that more money would improve their situation that isn't the reality in which they are living and dying in. It's all very well saying that better palliative care etc would resolve the issue but we are nowhere near providing this and are actively moving further away from this in some cases. You are condemning people to terrible deaths that they don't choose because you insist that ideologically they shouldn't have these deaths and everything should be fairer and more equal.

We don't administer the fatal dose to pets, but we do sit with them and stroke them, and tell them we love them as the fatal dose is adminstered by a trained professional (in this case a vet). The same would apply to assisted dying. No-one is forcing family members to be involved if they don't want to be.