Assisted suicide bill

I think people should be treated, helped to feel better and offered appropriate support so they are no longer suicidal.

That should be extended to 12 months.

I think people should be made aware of their options. Do you think suicide should be illegal?

I’d absolutely prefer it for me yes, however, I appreciate the reason for it.

So I presume you also disagreed with the six months time to expected death of this bill and would look to see that extended asap?

I know what palliative care means, I don’t need an explanation! And yes, if I chose to, at that time, I absolutely should be able to choose assisted suicide over being pumped full of drugs to keep me going when I don’t want to. Isn’t that choice? Or is choice only allowed if someone else chooses for you?

Yes some people need better palliative care.

So you don’t think we should even treat people who feel suicidal but may recover?

Presumably then when we are told trans people may commit suicide if not affirmed we should just say ‘ok, bye’?

some patients spend their last weeks in agony, pain meds don’t help everyone.

If it is legal for anyone in the UK to commit suicide, as it is today, regardless of the reason, it is not fair to take that right away when they cannot do it themselves. People in Canada quite rightly have the right to commit suicide, regardless of the reason, with help when they can’t do it themselves. We should have that same right here.

Thanks for posting this.

It sounds like you have been really strong to have come to this point in your life.

And hope you go on finding small things that give you pleasure.

In response to a couple of posts about my saying we need to sort out palliative care.

This isn't because i underestimate that for some palliative care isn't relivant or what they want.

But it was clear that when the issue was discussed in the HoC last year, a lot of arguement were about people at the end of life who ended up feeling they were a burden, or couldn't afford care that would allow them a better quality of their remaining days.

Yes we should be able to do both at the same time, but we never do.

The HoC debate came about because of the chance of the lottery of a private members bill, not because anyone sat down and thought it all through.

Maybe there is a campaign group that has done a lot of research, and look at the different situations that might lead to someone wanting assisted dying.

And maybe the media is also responsible for not covering it as a serious issue. All too often in terms of the public it comes down to which more heartrending story can the media use.

Whereas what is needed is compiling the different situations this might become something that is wanted ie from an older person feeling they are asking too much of their family to help them continue to live to someone who has a terminal illness and the quality of life has deteriorated to a point that is unacceptable to them.

I dont know if anyone (the NHS?) keeps statistics, or because apart from those who are known to have gone to Dignitas, maybe it isn't known how many have ended their life.

So I am not in anyway dismissing individual stories, but they dont help form an understanding of the reality across the country.

We can’t trust the government and those in authority to follow the laws we currently have and apply them consistently without fear or favour.

If you empower the state to kill that opens up Pandora’s box. We can see how badly things are starting to go in Canada why would we want to follow them?

Palliative care just means a cure is not possible, so the symptoms are treated instead. Would you really turn down palliative care when it could mean you could live a happy pain-free life for years?

I’m very glad that it hasn’t been successful. Last year I read an article on what has happened in Canada and it’s terrifying. Apart from the fact I wouldn’t trust any government to monitor anything properly. What we need is much better palliative care.

People in Canada choose MAiD because they because they are lacking housing, because it is winter and they are impacted by seasonable affective disorder, because they fear being a burden…

If someone is suicidal here we offer mental health support. Are you saying we should push them all off a cliff instead?

But I don’t want palliative care when it comes to my time. I want the right to choose.

The popularity of assisted suicide in practice in Canada demonstrates why we should support it here. It is not illegal to commit suicide in the UK regardless of the reason, so why should it be illegal getting some help. In Canada many people have chosen to end their lives and exercised their right to choose. The sooner people have that right in the UK, the better.

You vote for individuals, not parties in WM. But the lack of understanding of the position of parties comes from the attempt to push this through as private members bills - a process that means this hugely difficult issue was subject to far less interrogation and no public consultation. It has resulted in two terrible bills being proposed. No party had this in their manifesto so no one voted for it - why do you think that was?

You want to force all doctors to be required to kill their patients if the patient requests it? Regardless of that doctor’s beliefs, conscience, or understanding about how many hours it takes the drugs to cause death and even their unreliability in doing so? And you will require all doctors to stand by as you take hours to die from those drugs? Something that has led to them suffering PTSD in other countries (and a death row image in the US choosing firing squad over the drugs)?

And yet there have been two referendums about governance.

This issue has been a free vote (and the same in Westminster), so if you voted for a particular party, you would have no idea what their position was on the matter.

Assisted suicide is there for people who can no longer physically kill themselves. If you're against assisted suicide I suppose we should make all suicide illegal again?

I don't agree that the MP's got to cast the vote. It should have been put to the public. Under 150 bias people do not get to decide for over 6 million of us.

We elect politicians to be our representatives, not to represent us. That is an important distinction that an awful lot of people seem confused by.

Why just this issue go to referendum? Why not GRR Act? Greyhound racing? The Notbuyable bill? Should men have had a say via a referendum over whether women should be denied a same sex forensic examiner following gang rape? How would you ensure a fair public debate when the pro-Assisted suicide lobby have multimillion dollar backing and insisted on the use of the euphemism ‘assisted dying’ which many confuse with palliative care? When we have seen lobbyists repeatedly lie eg about safeguards or say it is about suffering when suffering is not even mentioned?

I agree with what you're saying but why does it have to be one or the other?

Why can't we have both better palliative care for those that don't agree with assisted suicide AND the option of assisted suicide for those that do agree with it.

As someone that suffers with a chronic, life limiting disease, I am utterly distraught that it didn't pass.

I don't agree that the MP's got to cast the vote. It should have been put to the public. Under 150 bias people do not get to decide for over 6 million of us.

"Mature minors" in BC are allowed to make medical decisions without parental consent because of the Infants Act. As a parent living in Canada, this scares me so much. I already have to be hypervigilant because the act includes medical gender transition treatments. Now Canada is well on its way to helping kids with onlymental heath issues end their lives without their parents being involved! Dystopian indeed.

The UNCRC (Scotland) Act could do the same here. I remember in committee there was talk of under 16s being able to end their own life without parents knowing. I think they increased to to 16 and over but I am not sure, but I can certainly see UNCRC being used that way.