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

It was a charter to kill old people, disabled people and people in abusive relationships.

I'm glad it didn't pass.

Internal pressure...in other words, their own decision making process. Someone is allowed to choose to make that 'sacrifice' . We all make choices balancing our own wishes and needs against those of others. Plenty of people, myself and my parents included, would sooner live less long than impose a crippling financial or caring role on someone else, particularly if that life was painful, limited and an endurance test.

In war, soldiers would throw themselves on grenades to shield others and they got medals. That was their free choice. Why is a rational person in a much calmer, more protracted process not deemed allowed to do the same?

Many assisted suicides are messy, painful and fail as well. There’s a significant complication rate with vomiting, re-awakening, taking many hours to die etc.

Firstly freedom and personal choice is a myth - freedom exists within boundaries and those bounds are around ensuring your freedom doesn’t affect other people adversely - or if it does affect others adversely that the balance between you and them isn’t skewed

you can’t exercise freedom of choice not to wear a seatbelt because of the impact on other people if you get killed or injured in a car accident - the other people involved, the emergency services and your family

some possible negative results over freedom to end your life include - not investing properly in looking after people who are disabled or in poor health, and in pressure being applied to those people to end their lives to avoid being a burden and free up inheritance . To me it appears that it has worked Ok in Switzerland and dreadfully in Canada so I can understand caution and making sure any law is very well written

I think we first should look at enforced saving of life - force feeding someone for example or pumping people full of drugs to extend life perhaps against their wishes.

I also think that Leadbeater was very out of her depth.

You can't expect parliament to vote through a bill "because it works in other countries" and ignore the fact that the MP who introduced the specific legislation proposed in the UK was not on top of the subject.

It was badly drafted legislation submitted at a time when we have too few resources to care for the vulnerarble, when there is active and persistant narratives that frame a life of disability as worthless. I'm glad it didnt pass. If you cannot see Canada as a cautionary tale then you are trying very hard not to look.

Nobody is stopping you from taking your own life if you decide that you are a burden to your children and the state.

The question is about the circumstances in which you should be allowed assist in the death of somebody else.

I think that the reality is that the assisted dying campaign has been badly thought through in terms of the safeguarding issues, although I am sympathetic to the arguments; I’ve seen elderly relatives die in circumstances in which the system has kept them alive and suffering in a a state no one would choose. This is not because doctors are monstrous - quite the opposite, it’s the reality of a system that does not have clarity of objective, so the only objective is keeping people alive. Not necessarily comfortable, but alive.

People who oppose assisted dying often talk about palliative care needing improvement, but it’s not clear what they actually think palliative care should do or be. Personally, I’d prefer to be given a massive opioid dose to see me on my way if I was seriously incapacitated and unambiguously dying, even if the alternative was being sponge bathed by fairies for a month until I finally croaked. More seriously, a lot of the hospice sector is in the service of dying comfortably and is not going to kick in at the inevitable long decline stage at which many might want it to.

The assisted dying bill also doesn’t really deal with everyone’s worst nightmare, which is getting dementia, because it won’t be available to those who can’t consent and dementia won’t necessarily kill you within a year (my gran lasted more than a decade from the point at which she wasn’t safe to live alone).

I would like to see reforms to the current system of decline and dying first, with an expansion of autonomy over treatment. As well as DNR and Respect forms (which are not always consistently respected), I think that it’s totally fine for people (or their relatives with POA, but ideally people themselves electing a long time in advance - note that this is only workable with a properly joined up system with proper medical records being viewable by professionals, of the type available in basically any decent European system), I would like to see people being able to refuse flu jabs, antibiotics etc in advance if they get to a predetermined state at which THEY decide that quality of life is low by reference to specific benchmarks that they determine in advance. And to request that, past a certain point, they must be given pain relief even if that has the effect of shortening life. And to request that doctors do not administer any treatment that would extend life if it does not come with immediate quality of life or pain reduction benefits. Not mandatory, just available.

Great.

Now can we talk about all the money we waste on suicide prevention.

Why do we even have it?

Doctors already have the ability to administer higher and higher doses of opioids as long as the intention is to relieve pain, even if the side effect is to shorten life. This is the doctrine of double effect.

Kathryn Mannix, a palliative care doctor has written a wonderful book called With the End in Mind that can help to ease anxiety about and demystify the natural process of dying.

I agree with the premise of AD, but only in a medical system that we don't currently have, so on that basis I wholeheartedly agree with the decision. The NHS is not equipped for this, and I spent years of looking after my disabled Dad, every single hospital admission came with a question around DNR, that was an assumption that his life was lesser, and that he would prefer to die. I was in hospital 2 weeks ago, an elderly lady referred to herself as a bed blocker, she felt she was a problem. She was not, the absolute failure of social care is the problem.
This Bill has been watered down throughout the reading, any safeguards have been removed and the opportunities for coercion have increased. So sadly, even if it is passed, its the disadvantaged, and low income that will be worse off as a result and once the door is open, there is no way of closing it again.

The thing is though thst palliative care has been presented as the answer to this issue. Except it isn’t. When you’ve seen people in agony despite the best palliative care and clinical people saying there’s nothing more they can do for someone’s pain then it seems dishonest to claim this as the solution. Those involved in palliative care will surely know that it’s not the answer for many people.

Of course palliative care should be improved. And people should also be able to die when they want when they’re terminally ill.

It’s nothing to do with bumping off disabled people. Or killing off poor people. It’s ending people’s life who will soon die anyway before it becomes unbearable. I’m not actually afraid of dying. But I am afraid of dying in agony and with no dignity. And people shouldn’t force that on others because they are making straw men cases.

You are misunderstanding what DNR means. It doesn’t mean letting someone die by withdrawing treatment. It means if someone actually has a cardiac arrest who is frail anyway not artificially resuscitating them. Medical people know the odds of someone who is already frail being able to recover from resuscitation even ina hospital setting. They know it means probably having their ribs broken, and being physically pummelled only to live for a short period of time with no quality of life.

It doesn’t mean his life was lesser. I’m sure he was treated as well as anyone else. As for the elder lady that’s nothing to do with this law. Although social care does need improvement but are you and everyone else willing to pay more taxes to facilitate it?

It’s nothing to do with bumping off disabled people. Or killing off poor people. It’s ending people’s life who will soon die anyway before it becomes unbearable.

That is the goal, but how do you establish who will soon die anyway and how do you prevent disabled people and poor people being pressured to end lives that other people don't think are worth living? How do you distinguish between somebody choosing to end their life because they feel that they are a burden and feeling that they should end their life because other people have made it clear that they are a burden?

If concerns about the legislation were genuinely just 'straw men', the bill would have passed.

I think as soon as someone loses mental or physical capacity they should be able to say I’ve had a wonderful life , love to you all and pop a pill . I don’t see any dignity at all in seeing a living corpse dying in front of us . We need to change the mindset from longevity at any price to quality . I also don’t buy that there are millions of ‘ vulnerable ‘ at risk from family .

I think as soon as someone loses mental or physical capacity

Somebody without mental capacity would not have the ability to make that choice.

I did wonder but when you listen to some of those who supported this bill its clear that they truly didn't care how many people would be harmed by it, in particular if you listen to the testimony from the Australian assisted suicide practioner and the callous way they spoke about the amount of coercion and the lack of proper recording of such things its truly scary.
As I said im for assisted suicide and think that it should have a clause that allows people to prerequest it in the case of dementia and stroke, brain damage, permanent vegitive state etc or illnesses like mnd, but that bill was just a licence to basically murder the old, sick and disabled imho

No but if you’ve been diagnosed with dementia or something you can make the choice before you completely lose your capacity or leave your wishes with your solicitor to enjoy one last roast and a pill .

I can assure you that I am not misunderstanding DNR at all, or the context of which it was assumed by staff that one would be in place due to my Dad's disability. I was there during the the conversations, I was a part of them, and I questioned Doctors at the time. The question general boils down to, if something happens that is nothing to do with the presenting issue, or even the disability- Would you like us to save your life or not. Why you then decide to assume what taxes I would or wouldn't pay, is completely irrelevant as my original post, stated just that! We do not have the infrastructure for AD.

I could also quote the dictionary definition, but I chose to share my lived experience and that is what I base MY decision on.

What sort of physical capacity do you mean? If you lose continence or mobility? You think thats the end of your life?

And someone who doesnt have mental capacity cannot make a decision, thats the point of them being deemed to lack capacity

And certainly I dont agree that anyone who lacks capacity should have a decision made by others to end their life, its just too risky.

And at what point do you say you want somebody else to kill you? It could be many years in the future.

I was so glad it was voted down.

I started from a position of supporting assisted dying. After watching with growing horror as the supporters used emotional blackmail to try to push it through and flatly ignored the glaringly obvious safeguarding flaws, I started looking up how it was working in other countries.

That was a horrifying shock.

I am now firmly against any form of state sanctioned killing.

I agree with you

It was a free vote so MPs voted with their consciences it wasn't a Government decision.
Amso I think the Bill doesn't have enough safeguards in it to ensure vulnerable, disabled and elderly people are not coerced into doing something they don't really want to do.