Very Interesting Kathleen Stock article

Yes I've had a 180 on this issue in the last couple of years. In the past I agreed with an individual's right to euthanasia but social change has made me more cautious. Quite simply I don't trust what Britain has become and is becoming. We were more compassionate but pragmatic in the past. Now it feels like the Hunger Games with everyone in a knife fight for very scarce resources.

I think heading in this direction is inevitable by the way, I just won't be celebrating it.

I'm not misrepresenting the poster, I'm wondering how someone could entertain this bill when there's such a lack of care in this country and much of the suffering could be alleviated with better management and investment.

I'm sure @GeraniumLeaves is quite capable of speaking for herself but I'm not sure how you can accuse her of that when she's specifically said this:

'None of this is to say I don’t appreciate there are risks and I agree all angles need to be explored.'

I'm currently leaning towards opposing this bill because I have so little trust in our lawmakers. But it really doesn't help when I see arguments misrepresented.

Of course it’s best if suffering at the end of life can be managed, but I have no faith in this being prioritised or implemented in reality.

Yet you have faith that assisted dying will be implemented correctly and that the rules won't stretch once it's introduced.

It’s interesting that many posters are against assisted dying because they don’t trust the government to get it right. I’m for it because the thought of me of my loved ones having to rely on pain relief and palliative care is terrifying. Of course it’s best if suffering at the end of life can be managed, but I have no faith in this being prioritised or implemented in reality. I also wonder if we need to accept that this isn’t actually achievable in all situations. It’s great saying that we should focus on improving end of life so there is no demand for assisted dying, but I’m sceptical and therefore support choice.

None of this is to say I don’t appreciate there are risks and I agree all angles need to be explored.

However, I didn’t like the article’s framing of campaigning around this as coming from privileged luvvies. Firstly, I don’t think it’s overindulgent to care about how and where we die as in the Esther Rantzen example. Secondly, people who wish to access assisted dying for themselves have always been central to campaigning for it.

Leaving aside people who are incapacitated, suicide is simply hard to do. It can easily go ‘wrong’ and leave a survivor in a far worse situation than they were before.

What happens when we can't get help for our degenerative health problems because the opinion is when we get bad enough we could just be assisted to die?

I have degenerative health problems. Getting worse much faster than it would be with actual care. I can't get any dr to list listen to me. It took 3 years of significant impact on my life for NHS to acknowledge I've got a problem and I'm not just a moaning woman. There is treatment to slow the degeneration but I'm struggling to access it. Prompt treatment likely would have saved me facing incontinence for years yet. I fall over. Struggling to dress and wash and cook/clean for myself. Can't enjoy so many parts of life. I wouldn't be this bad if I could access treatment. I wouldn't be so depressed about it if there was support to help me with the things I can no longer do. Treatment and support needs to improve before we start killing off people like me. I'm depressed and would rather be dead than live like this. Would I feel this way if public services function better? Absolutely not

Yes, non-medical methods tend to be painful, messy, unreliable, and distressing for others.

I thought it was an excellent article.

Have you cared for people at the ends of their lives?

Well, they have it. People can kill themselves, generally if someone wants to do it, they can.

But as pp have pointed out, if you’re in hospital or incapacitated then that’s not possible.
Also, suicide has consequences for others. Tube and train drivers get PTSD if someone jumps in front of a train; we know of family where one of the children found her mother when she hung herself, and whoever found someone who shot themselves would be affected for the rest of their lives especially if it was a family member or someone they knew.

A few years ago I'd have supported this without a second thought. But now, like many others, I'm very wary of laws where the primary arguments seem to be emotional rather than being about, for example, justice or alleviating poverty. Plus I've seen how activists for other causes can be extra-ordinarily careless about safeguarding.

The 'less than six months' phrase alone makes me suspicious. From what I've seen myself, doctors are generally reluctant to make such predictions until death is only days or even hours away. So how is that going to work?

I will wait and see what it actually says before I decide (not that I'll have a say in it) but I have zero confidence that our lawmakers have the wit to draw up anything sufficiently water tight.

That said, and while I think Kathleen Stock makes some great points, I'm not actually that keen on the article and think the digs at Esther Rantzen, (who I'm sure is arguing in good faith whether I agree with her or not) sound a bit crass. I think Sonia Sodha has written much more thoughtfully about it in the Observer.

'If by “people should be allowed to die with dignity” politicians really mean “people should be put out of their misery” — and where that misery is a direct function of inadequate and demeaning care standards — they should say as much, explicitly, and not hide behind sentimental language designed to make them sound like moral heroes.'

Brilliantly put, Prof. Stock.

A young woman, 29, with a history of mental illness -depression and anxiety who was euthanised in The Netherlands.

"If assisted dying is not to be passed, there needs to be serious investment in and provision for end of life care with hospices funded by the government and enough places for everyone who might need one. More funding for the NHS so they're not forcing people to be at home without any pain relief because no one can now be trusted with anything other than mediocre amounts of morphine in case of addiction in the last few days."

REGARDLESS of whether assisted dying is passed or not, end-of-life care needs serious assessment, re-working and funding. We will all die one day; it is in all our interests to get this as right as is possible. Anyone who thinks that the NHS is currently in a fit state to take on MORE complex responsibilities, particularly re something as important and sensitive as this, is delusional.

Great article. I used to be strongly in favour of assisted dying. I’m now probably still in favour of it, just, but I think the concerns being raised are valid and we need really strong legal protections in place. And even with them, it will bring about the kinds of changes Stock outlines.

I also worry that, on some level even if not consciously, assisted dying will become legal as a response to the fact that we have an aging population and cannot afford (or do not want to afford) top notch palliative care for everyone, and the availability of assisted dying will then be used to justify cutting palliative care even further.

When my MiL was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she wanted to go to dignitas. But of course by the time she was ill enough to want to die, she was far too ill to travel. There was also no way she could have killed herself. The only person I know who managed to do this in advanced illness was a friend’s mum who made a conscious decision to stop eating and drinking in order to speed things up (and this is of course rather like how these processes often shut down in advanced illness without the patient making that decision). I struggle to see much objection to assisted dying in cases like that, except of course the slippery slope argument Stock puts forward.

Most very ill and old have dementia so wouldn’t be allowed to decide to go to Switzerland.

The question is, how do you know that you will be able to keep a law like the one in Oregon?

I guess one answer is you build a really good, sturdy schelling fence (Schelling fences on slippery slopes — LessWrong) and you put it near the top of your slippery slope in exactly the place where you want it to be. And you make sure its really well fixed to the ground so no-one is inclined to start moving it for very hard, individual cases. It would require that the law is drafted by people who are both really aware of the dangers AND not inclined to sneak in extra legislation or loopholes to get what they really want further down the line. I am more suspicious of legislators since seeing the way in recent times "extra" things were tacked onto changes to abortion law in places like Ireland or have been attempted to be tacked onto things like conversion therapy bans. And wherever you stand on trans rights V women's rights, the GRA is a complete mess that doesn't make anyone happy.

So, in theory I think you could do it. I just don't know if the current government for example would be capable.

I have a family member who shot themselves - as they didn’t want to be a burden and DHs unmarried aunt who’d been a nurse all her life just didn’t eat once admitted to hospital as she couldn’t manage at home and had had another fall.Died in a few weeks.
is this a better option?

The question was, how can we not allow people the agency to end their own lives.
Well, they have it. People can kill themselves, generally if someone wants to do it, they can.
What they are asking for with assisted death is for other people to be involved, and the law. At which point there are all kinds of other issues to consider aside from their agency. It's no longer just a personal question.

That's not always the case by any means. Once someone is in hospital, weak and in pain, near the end of life, how would they kill themselves? And why should they do it without support, and with the risk of getting it wrong and injuring themselves?

From this article in the Telegraph, there are already calls to widen the criteria before the initial bill is even introduced:

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/05/widen-access-to-assisted-dying-say-labour-mps/

"Dozens of Labour MPs are pushing for more people to be eligible for assisted dying, The Telegraph understands.

Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP, will table legislation on Oct 16 to legalise assisted dying after her Private Member’s Bill was selected for debate. Her decision to propose the law change means there could be a free vote by MPs before Christmas.

The bill is expected to give terminally ill adults the right to choose to shorten their lives if they wish.

As many as 38 Labour politicians, including 13 who hold government roles, are understood to back proposals for the bill to go further and to apply not just to the terminally ill, but more broadly to those “incurably suffering”.

They are among a cross-party group of 54 MPs calling for the scope of the bill to be widened, according to Humanists UK, which has long called for a change in the law. It is likely to raise fears over introducing ambiguity into who would be eligible for state-sanctioned euthanasia."

I just can't agree. My much-loved FIL is dying right now in a country that allows assisted dying, he will go very soon, he is in terrible pain, he doesn't want to become incoherent, he wants to pick his moment with his family around him. They have travelled a long way, have commitments, can't stay indefinitely. Why the hell shouldn't he have this. It's mercy. In his case it's unambiguously mercy. We should at LEAST allow that much here.

I used to be all for assisted dying, until MAID in Canada was expanded and the expansion into mental health cases in Europe. Mental health can improve, I wanted to die for something like 20 years, with the appropriate help I’m now worried about my mortality rather than rushing towards the exit.

I’ve shifted to a position of “I simply don’t know”. People do suffer, it’s difficult to measure another persons agony, it does seem reasonable that people have some agency over their lives and deaths. But people are vulnerable, I can imagine pressure to call it a day could be applied quite subtly to encourage someone to euthanise themselves.

I don’t actually think the article was that convincing tbh, I do see her point about the drip drip of expanding what is considered suffering. Equally if someone feels they are sufferIng is it really humane to expect them to carry on, is it really humane to help them kill themselves?

It’s so difficult, I think most people engaged in the conversation are well meaning. I think eventually it will be passed anyway, the question is whether we keep qualifying conditions tightly controlled.

I do think we also have to have a conversation about extending life as well. If I had dementia or alzheimers and was confused and miserable I would hope someone would have the good sense to let me slip away at the first opportunity.