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

I agree the bill was poor but I think a great many of us wouldn’t support AD under any circumstances.

My mum and I were discussing it recently and she said that she could imagine herself deciding to use AD, because she didn’t want us to have to watch her suffer. She feels many of her peers, women in particular, would feel a responsibility not to burden their children, rather than any personal desire to end their life. Out of love, not out of being ‘dragged to the death chamber’ as a pp said. It’s not just ‘vulnerable people’, whatever that really means. It’s a wholesale change to the meaning of human life, in my view. It’s wrong.

If your mum said she didn’t want to be a burden and so was going to end her own life, would your reaction be

“Okay mum, I respect your choice. When’s it booked for?”

and not

“Mum you are not a burden, you are my mum and an important part of our family.. We love you and are happy to support you and would be devastated to lose you before your time”

or words to that effect?

But those who are against it don’t have to engage, let people choose , No one should be forced to suffer a lengthy and painful death. It’s barbaric.

They did though.

People dying a horrible death or having to resort to a messy suicide will be what those who voted against have achieved.

It didn’t have to be that way.

You're not making a lot of sense here.

My post that you quoted from was in response to another posters concerns regarding MAID not being available to her DH, and an explanation of the legal options availble to them in the UK currently in the continuing absense of a MAID bill.

If you deterioated suddenly without prior advanced care planning and had a loss of capacity then MAID would not have been available anyway. You also had a good functional baseline to return to, so an entirely irrelevant situation to this thread.

Sepsis can be painful but is not always, and that pain can be managed whether through life extending treatment (antibiotics) OR symptoms palliation. Most natural deaths (sepsis is a natural death) are not acutally painful. Painful death is a common fear in the UK because as a society we have become so out of touch with death and dying, with many people having never seen a normal/ natural death, in reality only about a 3rd of people will experience pain in the run up to or during death.

I am strongly in favour of a MAID bill in the UK, as I don't want you or anyone else having to try and plan your own DIY suicide and execute it at a time which would likely be earlier than you would access MAID if it was a legal option for you. Pushing people to commit suicide at a time when they are still physically/ cognitively able to in case they lose the ability to later is definetly not pro-life!

It’s not as simple as let people choose though. People can be put under pressure or manipulated. There are plenty of horrific cases from other countries.

And many proponents of assisted suicide on this thread talk as if doctors are not allowed to give life-shortening medicine if done for the purpose of relieving pain and distressing symptoms. They are. They just have to be prepared to defend the decisions they make, quite rightly.

So do you think people that suffer from depression, and even as a child suffering from depression and are wanting to end their lives should be just given the green light? Because depression is painful too. Or the mum who is suffering from anti natal depression? Let her just top herself too? Its her choice right?

Her body her choice.

What makes you qualified to doubt it?

Your rather patronising instruction to reread your OP as if other posters are a bit dim would be less hypocritical if it wasn't full of unclear punctuation and unnecessary capitalisation.

So should we shut all the crisis mental health teams and CAMHS and replace them with assisted suicide clinics?

The Samaritans could just put suicidal callers straight through to the nearest clinic maybe?

It's a bit more nuanced than that.

Often people get 'terminal agitation' and become almost 'hyper'/ manic shortly before death, if that symptom of agitation is calmed down, they will be so exhausted they will fall deeply asleep and die, but it is the exhaustion from the disease that kills them not the midazolam.

Likewise if someone has terminal breathlessness morphine will calm that, reducing there respiratory rate to near normal, and they will become even lower on oxygen but without the distress that goes with that, the Morphine doesn't kill them it is the failure of their lung tissues to exchange gas or the failure of their heart to pump effieciently that kills them, not the Morphine.

But this is very much 'end-of-life' where they are acitvely dieing anyway, it is in no way comparable to MAID.

Why?

When someone calls the Samaritans they want help,
When someone is engaging with MH services they want their help.

This is a completely different situation.

It's all very well saying suicide is not illegal, but most of us wouldn't want euthanasia until we're past the point that we can do that. It's not always the case that you get an illness that comes on slowly, and would mean you had time to choose that, so that's why most people think you should be able to put on your medical records that you want to be put to sleep, like an animal, if you were in XYZ situation. Ideally, everyone should record what they want when they're young and in the best health. As with abortion, no one has to choose that (we can't deny, that as is the case with abortion, a small number of people could be forced into it, but that shouldn't condemn a massive number to suffering).

OP, the people who voted against it are likely to be richer, and more likely to be treated decently if they end up with health problems. It's poorer people, like relatives of mine forced into care homes and hospital against the will of the family, that concern me. I'd have loved for them to have last days like our pets, loved, at home, and given a swift painless end when things got too much.

I can imagine exactly that exchange and the comeback from me if I was the mum would be 'thats very lovely of you but its not what I want and its my choice, not yours' why would anyone insist they should override their parents ' wishes?

No. I wouldn’t say the second. I’d respect her wishes. I can’t imagine being so entitled and arrogant to think I have the right to tell anyone that they should live (or die) on my terms rather than theirs. She has actually said that she would use assisted dying if it was an option and I fully support it, I’d make the same choice. She’s also said she wouldn’t want me having to look after her in old age and I said there’s no danger of that because I wouldn’t want to.

Yes, I think we all know that assisted suicide would be used disproportionately on poorer people.

I’m surprised to read someone using that as an argument for it.

So you want a suicidal mother who hasn’t had any dealings with mental health services (because you say that’s not who you are talking about) to be allowed assisted suicide?

And yes, suicidal people ringing the Samaritans are reaching out for help. Because society tells them that this is the help available to them (along with mental health services).

If we tell suicidal people that the help available to them is an assisted suicide clinic, that’s where they’ll go.

Also you seem to have no understanding that depression is not a permanent state. It can and often does improve.

Many people engage with mental health services and still attempt or carry out suicide. If you think we can straightforwardly divide people into “suicidal but seeking help” and “definitely wants to die, let’s just do it for them” then you must have little experience or knowledge of mental illness.

Many people who attempt suicide immediately regret the attempt and go on to live good lives. If we just “do it properly” for them, they won’t get that chance. Nevermind, what’s children growing up without their mother who they will believe chose to leave them because as a society we couldn’t be bothered to help their mother and just killed her instead.

What you don’t understand is that people make decisions you might not like.
it doesn’t mean they are wrong.
It’s none of your business why they decide the way they do.
You don’t know better, even thought you might think you do.

I do agree with assisted dying but it needs very good regulation to make sure vulnerable and mentally unwell people aren’t coerced into it. I don’t think this bill was ready and I would have voted against it too.
Look at other countries where there’s some very worrying things happening with assisted dying. We need to get this right if we bring it in here

I’ll leave you to it, The inhumanity on this thread from a few posters, from a health worker wishing slow and painful deaths on others to someone advocating assisted suicide for a mother with post natal depression is just too much.

I'm going to spell it out to everyone complaining the bill failed; a bill that lacked basic safeguarding was guaranteed to fail. People who support AD but understand safeguarding were forced to vote No, alongside the people who are against AD.
Write a better bill and we'll see how people really feel.

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.

You seem to think you know what’s best for everyone but you are unable to get your head round the simplest thing and resort to manipulative posts. Mothers with post natal depression and orphaned babies, ffs, do you have another example?

But lots of things are extremely hard to do. The mere fact of its difficulty isn't an argument for the state to provide it as a service. If it were, then why are we not proposing assisted death as a state service for everyone who wants to die? After all, there are lots of people for whom other life situations are more unbearable than terminal illness.

The debate around assisted dying began by focusing on the injustice of prosecuting relatives who assisted with a death. I still don't really understand how the original intention to protect those relatives from prosecution morphed into trying to institute a system in which the state provides death for us.