Assisted suicide bill

However - this is perhaps a good illustration of why it is important to be careful about these things. What was meant as a compassionate change to the law is , a generation or so down the line, now being interpreted as some kind of right, or a thing which is acceptable and should be accepted as a normal choice.

There are quite a lot of things people are legally allowed to do which the state has no obligation to do for them if they can't manage on their own.

Thans to both @Walterohwalter for their posts @SylvanMoon

I think the quite honestly terrible way the HoCset up the "discussion" around the right to die private members bill was a complete disgrace.

Not helped by the media focusing onheart rending stories, when what is needed is an informed and well represented evidence to have a discusion.

Such as what has or is happening in other countries as it is far more informatiave and provided evidence based decisons.

I think it would help if NHS and care home start were able to provide evidence annonymously. It used to be said, or at least inferred that in the past many a GP helped someone at the end of live reach there sooner. In many instances I am sure this was done and supported by the person concerned. But how many weren't?

And of course Hospice staff.

This doesn't mean individuals with personal experience of a family member or loved one shouldn't be listened to. But that as individual experiences, even if they provide evidence about how end of live care just didn't work, or was cruel, but that it needs to be assessed as that. Just as an individual story, instead of being highlighted because it makes good tv.

Those two cases are appalling. Those poor girls. It being what it is though i hope the men who abused them could at least be charged with manslaughter.

There are a million and one ways to commit suicide if someone is desperate enough, and in the age of the internet it is very easy to research the most peaceful suicide methods.
When I read stories like the ones below I feel absolutely horrified. There is no way these young women could have known where they would have been mentally in 10 or 20 years time. Yet they were deemed incurable and put down. I have little doubt, considering what has happened in other countries, that if assisted dying was legalised for the terminally ill, that this is where we would soon end up. I really don't want to live in a society that devalues life in such a way. Anyone who has ever recovered from long term depression, or had a loved one who suffers from depression should be against this. Anyone who has ever suffered a life changing injury/disability and initially felt like they couldn't go on but after a time found that, actually they COULD adjust, should be against this. I know that sometimes it doesn't feel like it but almost all hardships can be overcome. I went over a decade feeling that way. Now I'm in my forties I feel relief that there were no such laws when I was younger.

https://archive.ph/VzQNJ

archive.ph/g6am1

Sorry I know that people feel strongly about this on both sides. But this push to legalise assisted suicide really worries me. It's much harder to go through with it on your own, which is a good thing. I worry that if I end up in back similar place to what I was in when I was younger and I had this option open to me, I would take it. I wouldn't be in the right state of mind to consider that I might get better in the long term.

So despite all the evidence from other countries (have you even looked into it?) you choose either to refuse to believe that the legislation is likely to result in people being pressurised into dying - for some reason you assume that the UK will do better than other countries - or you don't care, or maybe you care a bit but you have been so affected by the death of someone you know that you think that avoiding painful deaths is worth the pressurised deaths of other people. Looking at the evidence of what is happening in other countries and learning lessons from that is not "projecting your own fears". Looking at the evidence and using that evidence to inform your decision is exactly what our MPs are employed to do.

You are just projecting your own fears to prove your point, all these figures are unknown. I have made my points, you have made yours, we will have to agree to differ.

I agree with @Walterohwalter in that passing this law is not like anything else: it will fundamentally change the way we relate to the state, the NHS and to one another. And I'm just not convinced, looking at Canada's MAID project and other Scandinavian assisted suicide bills, that there is a way to ensure whatever safety provisions are being promised in the bill will not be changed by those who want absolutely no provisions. I fear that in the name of "bodily autonomy" we are forgetting those in our society who are being or can easily be pushed into things that are not in their best interests. Having assessments done via zoom, for instance, or short (or no) cooling off periods, or a whole plethora of other situations that have happened where it is legal makes me think twice. I may not be that sort of situation as I near my death, but if even one person dies who did not really want to, I feel that would be more than tragic.

I certainly feel for people who do not get sufficient pain relief as they are dying. And I would like palliative care to be available to everyone all across the UK on an equal footing. The hospice in my area is having to reduce beds because of lack of funding. It's obscene that we are even considering funding assisted death from public coffers (and even from diverted NHS funds!) but there is no talk of publicly funding hospices and research into pain management.

Personally I would like for something similar to what was on offer for my mother as she died. I was able to be with her in the States and saw the ease with which she was able to be placed under their hospice-at-home programme, which I think was funded by her Social Security payments (although I'm not sure how it worked tbh). As soon as her GP agreed that she was dying (and there was no need to specify a time limit to this), she was assigned a nurse who checked in daily, and a doctor on call. They set up a hospital bed, oxygen, wheelchair, whatever she needed to make her comfortable. They gave us what they called a "comfort pack" to store in the fridge, with directions how to use each thing should she be in pain. That included morphine, which thankfully, my mother never asked for. There was even something that we were told to put under her tongue as she was actually dying to make that process somewhat more comfortable. All this enabled her to die at home, surrounded by her children in relative peace.

We used to have something like this in the UK, as my MIL was living with us when she died. We had a visiting nurse come and set up a morphine injection device and a hospital bed and the doctor visited. But, sadly, I suspect none of this will be available when it's my turn to die.

We understand your feelings and arguments. But you are completely ignoring our concerns. To put it simply, and obviously the figures are just a guess, I think that 100 vulnerable people being pushed into dying in the selfish interests of others is too high a price to pay for the sake of 5 people who are suffering being able to die in the way that they wish. I really feel for those 5 people and I'm aware that one day I may be one of those 5 people, but I can't disregard the 100 people.

Where do you think it is coming from? Genuine question.

I think a large number of people will want to end their lives and the State should not prevent them from doing so. This is about allowing individuals to have choice.

I think that we have become used to aggressive yes / no debates. One side is right and the other is wrong. People who are in pain have the right to die / no-one has the right to die. But that's not what this is. I think that many of us in the UK are sympathetic to the idea of assisted suicide and would be comforted by knowing that it's available for our loved ones and for ourselves. That's certainly how I feel. If it became available and I found myself with an incurable and painful disease, I might well choose to avail myself of it. But I am balancing that against the fact that I'm quite sure that the legislation, however carefully drafted, would soon be relaxed and extended. Many vulnerable people would die in the interests of their relatives or just of the state saving money. And we would never be able to put the genie back in the bottle. It would fundamentally affect our society - how we see and treat the old, ill and disabled. There's no perfect solution here. Personally, if I develop a terrible condition with the way things stand at the moment I will consider Dignitas. I don't believe that to be hypocritical, for the reasons I've stated here. Dignitas is expensive, but the people who use it will never need any of their money or possessions again. It's not a great solution, I know. Nor is suicide, even for those who are physically capable of it. At the end of life, some people are not able to avail themselves of either of these options, and palliative care may not work for them. But again, I balance this fact against the large number of people I feel would be pushed into an early death if legislation was passed.

If they didn't would they have told you?

Key reasons for the decriminalization of suicide include:

• Medicalization of Mental Health: There was a growing recognition that suicide attempts are usually a symptom of severe distress or mental illness requiring treatment, not punitive action.
• Encouraging Help-Seeking Behavior: Criminalization created fear and stigma, deterring people from seeking help from professionals or loved ones.
• Reduced Stigma and Shame: Decriminalization helped alleviate the shame and trauma faced by survivors and their families, aligning with more compassionate societal attitudes.
• Improved Prevention Efforts: By removing legal threats, it became easier to collect accurate data, which allowed for better suicide prevention policies and community mental health services.
• Moral and Social Change: The move reflected a decrease in the religious influence that viewed suicide as a sin/crime and a rise in secular, humanitarian approaches

It is if that’s what they want.

Suicide was decriminalised in the sixties out of compassion for people with mental health problems - not wanting to criminalise/stigmatise them, rather then help/treat them. Suicide wasn't decriminalised because it was suddenly deemed a reasonable thing to do. At the same time as decriminalising suicide, The Suicide Act introduced a new offence of assisting, aiding or abetting suicide. That's to protect the vulnerable.

Its not suicide if someone else does the killing.

At the moment, the state does not allow someone who wants to die but is not able to physically commit suicide, to get help, but it is legal for anyone to commit suicide at any time in their life beforehand. This is inconsistent. If you are legally allowed to commit suicide during your life you should continue to have that choice when you are no longer able to do it yourself. There are plenty of doctors who support AS because they believe it is morally the right and compassionate thing to do.

Yes, but the decision isn’t being given to someone else, it is with the individual themselves so that is a false comparison. You clearly don’t want to accept that some people want to commit suicide, and that is a perfectly valid and legal choice.

Something else people need to remember with this is that the assisted death lobby is very well funded. These are the people who get the laws pushed back by bringing court cases. Here in Canada, they launched the first challenge about the safeguards very soon after the law was passed,they had clearly planned out the kinds of test cases they needed.

People should be looking at these groups and where the money is really coming from.

Not being able to exercise a right isn't actually the same as taking the right away.

And just because a person is unable to do something they are allowed to do does not mean that anyone else, or the state, has to provide that things for them. Or that it would be a good idea to have a policy like that.

I have a right to marry, there is no requirement I be provided with a spouse or even a wedding.

In Canada everyone talks about the autonomy of the patient, as is happening here. The result is that doctors are very lax and just wave deaths through. As for dogs - that's a useful comparison I think. I recently took my cat to the vet. The cat is elderly and has a medical problem which the vet would not run tests for, because of the cat's age. The vet told me that I should decide when to have the cat put down, and shouldn't hesitate to make the decision based on my own convenience. The message was very clearly that if the cat was becoming an inconvenience to me, that was a good enough reason to ask the vet to put the cat down, regardless of the quality of the cat's life.

The doctors helping people who want to die are the good guys here, similar to the vet putting a dog out of its misery because it is the right thing to do.

Section 18 has been amended

Sadly not.