AIBU to see the government vote against assisted Dying, as preventing personal choice in how we might want to die?

The problem is that religious people (of which there are many), think their god is the higher power. And He and only He can decided when we die. Lunatics. Selfish. And controlling. Which is why religion was invented after all. Opiate for the masses and all that.

Not knowing whether you coming or going, relying on someone to wipe your arse and being fed slop by a care assistant stinking of whatever perfume was on offer on Boots?

Or like granny, crying for God to come and get her?

And paying thousands for that?

You might enjoy it, but at least allow others the decency to be able to choose.

Ah I see, you know nothing about it. Don't worry, you're not alone.

@WestisBestt of course it is.

The biggest problem is I've never seen any one object to it whose actually sat and spent time with someone slowly dying.

Palliative care is not good enough even the best care still means someone is slowly dying.

Of course we should.be able to chose..

I should be able to say now in a legal document...if I become catatonic / demtina need personal care loo/feeding and don't recognise anyone please finish me off !!

You mean apart from the many books written on the topic, and multiple peer reviewed Journals that cover Euthansia as part of their remit (Palliative care, ethics, bioethics journals), other countries, including ones with MAID/AD policies in place follow Evidence based medicine too.

The problem is that religious people (of which there are many), think their god is the higher power. And He and only He can decided when we die. Lunatics. Selfish. And controlling. Which is why religion was invented after all. Opiate for the masses and all that.

Clearly you did watch any of the debates about this bill.
The bill that was blocked was so poorly written that it would have been expanded to anyone for any reason eventually as is happening currently in Switzerland and Canada.
When asked about the risk of coercion and safeguarding against it we were told there would be no safeguards.
When asked about people doing it not because they wanted to die but just not be a burden we were tied that was a good thing.
When it was pointed out that the way the bill was set up it would make drs offer suicide instead of palliative care or treatment again the response was thats a good thing.
This bill would have forced all medical staff to offer assisted suicide and had no backout clause ffor staff or patients even when it could be proved that they were coerced.
The bill had no extra safeguards for the disabled and vulnerable.
Basically this bill was a mass murder plan for the old, disabled, sick and dieing it was not a true assisted suicide bill and deserved to be voted down. I say this as someone who believes in assisted suicide for those with certain illnesses.
Oh and no medical organisations backed it, drs even campaigned against it because it was so flawed and dangerous.
If you want assisted suicide legally provided then bring a bill through proper government channels that is fully debated in both chambers instead of a private members bill that you promise all the flaws will be fixed at committee after voting for it and in the house of Lords, then reject all amendments at the 1 and only committee stage and then cry about it when it gets to the house of lords and the 2nd chamber did its job trying to fix it whilst its backers do everything in their power to block changes so it gets voted down and then claim that the house of Lords just blocked it out of spite and then try and use that lie to push through the original unchanged and unsuitable bill through the parliament act which btw is what happened with this bill. The bill was never fit for purpose and should never have seen the light of day. The people to blame for its failure are leadbetter and her murderous supporters not those who recognised the dangers of this poorly written piece of legislation.

People make the mistake of looking at my elderly dad and his multiple chronic health conditions and thinking he’s miserable. Reality is, he’s probably the most peace-filled person you could wish to meet. He’s always said that for as long as he has ‘quality of life’ which to him is measured in terms of his mental health rather than his physical health, he’s happy to keep going forward.

Two times in the last year (during hospital admissions) he’s had doctors have ‘serious conversations’ with him about the future and at what point he might consider stopping treatment. They think he’s miserable. He’s not. He’s also not stupid - if the treatment stops working he’ll accept that but he’s been surprised at the two conversations where he’s been actively encouraged to consider it.

Now if you were to add assisted dying via a bill with very poor protections and then add in a health system that is frankly ‘burdened’ by an ageing population, to me it’s a recipe for disaster.

Did you not notice how few of the deaths have any information recorded, even the basic information on how long it takes?
There can be no conclusions about how effective or complication free it may or may not be when you dont record that data, also the refusal to record any basic information about the deaths lead to questions about what is being covered up

The problem is that religious people (of which there are many), think their god is the higher power. And He and only He can decided when we die. Lunatics. Selfish. And controlling. Which is why religion was invented after all. Opiate for the masses and all that.

Except that the person with dementia doesn’t have the capacity to choose, so what you are asking for is the ability for you to choose when that person with dementia should die. Personally, having my arse wiped by a carer isn’t a fate worse than death. Eating institutional food isn’t a fate worse than death. A carer wearing perform isn’t a fate worse than death.

The inner life of the person matters not the level of pity or disgust that an abled, young person feels when looking at that life from their place of privilege.

Editing, and the paying for it, it’s not your money.

People make the mistake of looking at my elderly dad and his multiple chronic health conditions and thinking he’s miserable. Reality is, he’s probably the most peace-filled person you could wish to meet. He’s always said that for as long as he has ‘quality of life’ which to him is measured in terms of his mental health rather than his physical health, he’s happy to keep going forward.

Two times in the last year (during hospital admissions) he’s had doctors have ‘serious conversations’ with him about the future and at what point he might consider stopping treatment. They think he’s miserable. He’s not. He’s also not stupid - if the treatment stops working he’ll accept that but he’s been surprised at the two conversations where he’s been actively encouraged to consider it.

Now if you were to add assisted dying via a bill with very poor protections and then add in a health system that is frankly ‘burdened’ by an ageing population, to me it’s a recipe for disaster.

Bur how can you be sure that the person with dementia living a miserable life in the care home wants their money to go to the care home?

If that was me I’d much rather be dead than living like this and paying for the privilege.

That's really splitting hairs.

Do you honestly think the young nurse who is ordered, subtly coerced perhaps, into getting the suicide pills is going to feel any better that the patient took it themselves?

Or the doctor who is told - without actually being told, just heavily implied-that his career will not go any further if he doesn't prescribe the pills?

You'd have to be sociopathic or have a God complex to want to be the provider of pills here.

For once I'm going to utilise the dreaded passive-aggresive mn phrase: you sound very young.

You have not considered the actual reality of this situation, have you?

You've got this stupid fantasy of loving relatives gathering round the soon to be deceased watching them die peacefully.
(a pp very thoroughly pointed out with evidence that these deaths aren't peaceful at all.)

Life's not fucking like that. Very few people die peacefully and everybody dies alone.

Grow up about this, ffs.

@TotaleclipseinFrance wow, calm down. Many of these deaths are exactly as you describe, peaceful with relatives holding their hands. There's thousands of accounts of it. Some few are not, but are they as bad as the alternative? I teach this topic at a level so every year do a round of updating myself on the latest reports etc. I havent seen one documentary that includes relatives saying it was terrible. Even the anti-AS ones dont have them. The figures in tje quoted reports were not high and one of the terrible things listed was 'bad taste'. Hardly something to offset the wedding that some people are trying to avoid.

Young nurses are not going to be asked to hand out the drugs on a ward round. ADHD meds are tightly controlled, let alone these. How about instead of telling people to 'grow up ffs' you take a calm.look at the thousands of testimonials that give a totally opposite view to you.

Yes you can have an advance decision about it, but the reality is many people change their minds. The things they irrationally feared like needing help to go to the toilet or eating cafeteria food or reliving memories from the past isn’t so bad. The reason I say change their minds is because there have been a few cases. In one a woman in Canada with early dementia and physical disabilities (so still legally had capacity) changed her mind, said she didn’t want AD but palliative care when she got worse, but her husband got carer fatigue and applied for emergency euthanasia and without her knowledge or consent she was euthanised hours later.

In another case in the NL a woman with an advance directive that said she wanted AD but only when she said she and ready and she had not yet said that, however, her family decided it was time. The woman wasn’t told the decision had been made behind her back to euthanise her. On the day, she thought her family was just visiting her for a cup of coffee and was happily chatting away. The doctor drugged her coffee without her knowledge, she got drowsy, they laid her on the bed but when she saw the doctor approach with the lethal injection she began to struggle and say no. She kicked the doctor. The doctor asked her family to hold her down on the bed, they did, she was injected she died a few hours later. So the advance directives written from a place of fear of dementia don’t predict how you will feel when you actually have it, if you have it.

That person can have a an advance decision about it.

Why is not my money?

If I want to choose whether to have that miserable existence or be spared?

Do you think the council pays for everyone?

Except that the person with dementia doesn’t have the capacity to choose, so what you are asking for is the ability for you to choose when that person with dementia should die. Personally, having my arse wiped by a carer isn’t a fate worse than death. Eating institutional food isn’t a fate worse than death. A carer wearing perform isn’t a fate worse than death.

The inner life of the person matters not the level of pity or disgust that an abled, young person feels when looking at that life from their place of privilege.

Editing, and the paying for it, it’s not your money.

Not knowing whether you coming or going, relying on someone to wipe your arse and being fed slop by a care assistant stinking of whatever perfume was on offer on Boots?

Or like granny, crying for God to come and get her?

And paying thousands for that?

You might enjoy it, but at least allow others the decency to be able to choose.

You are assuming their life is miserable. Loads of projection going on here. Yes it is distressing and miserable to not be recognised and to think about losing your marbles, but often the patient with dementia is not miserable. My grandmother who passed when I was 28 confused me with her little sister. It was hard for me, but she was really enjoying talking to her little sister who had died in her 20s back during WWII during the blitz. She was able to say things and get hugs that put her at ease in her final months.