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

I am opposed to assisted dying in the form of the bill that just got voted out. I have sat with both of my parents slowly dying. It’s not easy but I felt privileged to be able to be there to support them on their final journey. I’ve been at the deaths of friends too. All were treated with dignity and compassion and also all were pain free. Nothing about death is easy but it can be a good death if the support and palliative care is there.

YANBU OP. It's absurd that we cannot choose to die with dignity.

It won't last forever though, the change will happen. I would bet money on the government in coming decades financially incentivising people to take assisted death under certain circumstances, because we simply will not have the resources to support an aging population.

The act of suicide is the ultimate act of narcissism.

These people would absolutely relish having the attention 'assisted dying' would afford them.

I seem to know more about it than you do.
Your answers seem very brief.
If you're going to say somebody is incorrect it's usually the done thing to say why.

Your pithy little answer is not as clever as you think it is.

How many more times does it need to be said that people are already able to commit suicide?

I don't judge this at all. I'm not the moral police, nor am I religious, but for goodness sake, the option is already there for people to take.

I’m baffled by this comment. I’ve read nearly all of this thread and no-one has mentioned religion at all.

Why should they resort to a messy suicide that is traumatic for their loved ones when there are other options available?

Are you intentionally cruel or just not thinking?

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.

This is a very selective part of being cared for with dementia. My Mum had constant, terrifying hallucinations for nearly two years with dementia, she screamed all day. Imagine being trapped in a nightmare world 24/7. On top of that strangers (and yes, I include myself in that) are trying to wash her or get her on the toilet and to her it feels like she is being physically attacked. Then her drinks are thickened too gloop to keep her from loosing to much weight. And doctors are reluctant to increase or try different medications that might make her symptoms easier because it might affect her heart, even though she has a terminal diagnosis already, probably the worst one. Going through this for her was intolerable, witnessing it has given me PTSD to the point where I needed therapy after she died. The fact that it cost her £8K a month was the cherry on top of the cake to be honest rather than the motivation some people think families have for avoiding care. I wish she’d spent that money when she was healthy on trips around the world.
Much as I don’t want to scare people I think some people really do not understand what dementia really entails and how desperate the last stages are. If you think you are happy and willing to ride this out then go for it, no one is stopping you and it’s practically encouraged by health care workers and carers (especially care homes managers) but some of us who don’t want that should have a choice.
I would also love to see improvements in palliative care actually happening rather than it being used as an excuse to stop the assisted dying bill. Currently dementia is the biggest killer in the UK, but the care system seems set up for more physical debilitating illnesses than mental ones and it feels like families end up teaching carers how to manage their loved ones needs rather than the other way around, despite these problems being very common. The nhs practically washes its hands after diagnosis and leaves families to wait for a crisis before proper care starts. I don’t think many people with dementia actually get any palliative care, let alone appropriate end of life. But now the bill has been voted down it can go back to being ignored.

And before anyone says Assisted Dying doesn’t apply for dementia, there could be ways of bringing it in with advanced decisions that can be updated and specific to the point at which you don’t want to continue, for example, when I don’t recognise my family or can’t eat without choking, which conversely would give people more time in the early to middle stages, rather than having to hope you are cognitive enough to understand in the early stages and able to take your own life independently then.

No. Nor have I. It is a lazy strawman argument.

No generealist doctor is going to be coerced into providing MAID this will be Specialist Palliative care consultant level clinical decision making and prescribing only

Are you sure, @Periperi2025?

Because some of us remember the assurance that each case would have to go before a judge being replaced by suggestions about a panel of social workers and the like, and the mention of "healthcare professionals" taking the place of the two doctors originally slated to be the ones signing off on the decisions

Perhaps ironically I'm one of those who'd support AD if rigorous safeguards were genuinely in place, but rigour seems to be being replaced by convenience and I wouldn't trust our current frameworks to do otherwise

I prefer that than allowing narcissistic, manipulative people coerce others into death.

Which would happen. No doubt.

@SinisterBumFacedCatYES! Honestly, for my grandmother it was the same. My dad couldn’t deal with going after a certain point - it was utterly awful for him, as she thought he was her husband or her dad and would plead and plead with him not to leave her. She got magnificent care - everyone was so kind to her, but she was basically sedated to keep her calm whilst being given drugs aimed at prolonging life. It was awful, miserable stuff and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Hopefully at some point they will develop a diagnostic test that can tell you you’ll get dementia when you still have capacity and I can go to dignitas at that point. But I’d love a situation in which I could alternatively choose that doctors do nothing to prolong the quantity of life I have past a certain point and must instead let nature take its course and give me quality pain relief.

Wow.

I've been to many suicides professionally.

One from many years ago that all ways stays with me was a man who took himself to a non 24 hour police station at night, tucked his car in the back corner out of sight, and took an overdose. He made sure the only people who found him dead would be police officers -professionals who signed up willingly to seeing these things. I remember at the time thinking how sad it was that such an considerate, empathetic person had died when there are so many aweful people living.

I'd say that was just about the least narcissitic and attention seeking behaviour possible!

I have, I think OP has.

Being a medical or non-medical prescriber is not a free ticket to prescribe any drug you want.

For example only Oncologists can professionally justify prescribing chemotherapy.
And in Wales, frustratingly, the computer system used for prescribing will not allow GPs to prescribe tesostoterone HRT to menopausal women, the drop down menu is literally greyed out.

I imagine it will be palliative care consultants prescibing, some GPs who work closely with hospices, and maybe some cardiologist with additional training providing care to straightfoward heart failure cases, Respiratory consultants - COPD, oncologists - cancer. But it certainly won't ever be every SHO on rotation or ANP independent prescriber signing off presciptions for AD drugs.

Even if it is other Health Care professionals & social worker involved at the assessment stage, ultimately it will be the responsibility of the Doctor or possibly Advanced Practitioners (in very specialist roles IF we went to way of Canada) prescriping the drugs.

Every NHS Trust has a lead pharmaciest, they are the 'Prescription police' their job is to put in place these blocks and make sure no one goes full 'Shipman', or simply makes silly & dangerous mistakes when overworked and/or tired.

Also the culture in the NHS, and much of british society, currently is over treatment favouring quality of life over quantity, that culture isn't going to change instantly the moment AD comes in, if it ever does.

You prefer actual cruelty to hypothetical coercion?

Tells me all I need to know.

I had a similar experience, which I why I find the flippant comments about suicide here particularly cruel.
They are also written by posters who think they are being kind.
Talk about cognitive dissonance.

It's not hypothetical at all.

It's obvious that this would happen.

People already have the choice of suicide.
Various methods could be deployed to ensure success. I can't list them here as it would be inappropriate but several methods combined.

I don't believe anyone who says they'd have done anything to help their loved one in pain, either.
This sounds harsh but it's the truth.

If they really were prepared to do anything to stop their loved one's agony they'd do it themselves and face the consequences, which if it truly were a mercy killing, would hopefully not be harsh.

It's hypocrisy. Let somebody else do the unpleasant task of deliberately taking somebody else's life, eh?

I imagine it will be palliative care consultants prescibing, some GPs who work closely with hospices, and maybe some cardiologist with additional training providing care to straightfoward heart failure cases, Respiratory consultants - COPD, oncologists - cancer. But it certainly won't ever be every SHO on rotation or ANP independent prescriber signing off presciptions for AD drugs

Even if it is other Health Care professionals & social worker involved at the assessment stage, ultimately it will be the responsibility of the Doctor or possibly Advanced Practitioners (in very specialist roles IF we went to way of Canada) prescriping the drugs

I'm aware of how it works, @Periperi2025 - or rather how it's supposed to - and would like to think you're right, but if AD was ever to be brought in I'd prefer to see these things baked in beforehand, rather than left to some "consultation process" which could be all too amenable to the kind of watering down we've already seen with the judicial aspect

For my taste it's far too common to see unwelcome measures justified on the basis of cost or blamed on staffing issues, and it's all too convenient that the recipients, once dead, are hardly in a position to complain

I also worry about pressures on palliative care budgets were an "easy" alternative to be introduced, and god help us all if targets were used to measure such spending against the new alternative

What a weird take. There is no one single statement about any of this that can apply to everyone. There's a fine line between narcissistic behaviour and healthy self-prioritisng. Were AS to be legal, I see nothing narcissistic or atte too seeking about choosing it if your circumstances meet the criteria.

It's hypocrisy. Let somebody else do the unpleasant task of deliberately taking somebody else's life, eh?

What are you on about?

But many drugs, treatments and surgeries already used in the NHS every day can cause great harm/ death when used inappropriately, badly or maliciously, we already have the MHRA and controlled drugs, why single this out as different. All the AD drugs are all already prescribed for other indications.

You are adding emotion to governance. If you think governance isn't good enough then address that, and there are definetly areas that need addressing and improving without even AD coming in. But AD is 'just' another treatment protocol that needs good Governance, not it's own seperate special status.