2nd reading of Assisted Dying Bill - 11 September 2026

@NotBadConsidering

It should be a choice for every person over the age of 18. Not one should stop it!!

No one is going to kill vulnerable people against their will!!

Palliative care cannot take away the fact that huge numbers of people suffer in terrible pain for far too long before death. In many cases there is nothing that can be done to prevent this. We literally don't hesitate to say that putting a terminally ill pet to sleep is 'the kindest thing' but we allow humans to suffer.

The numbers of people damaged by unnecessary suffering or seeing their loved ones suffer outweigh the small numbers of potential cases where someone is coerced into choosing euthanasia. If it's only available to those who are already life limited it's not like we are offering it to healthy people who are missing a long happy life.

Related, but people who campaigned for things that are seen as good now often would be seen as problematic by today's mores.

Marie Stopes was supposed to have supported eugenics. It was actually seen as a progressive thing for a while, that people who considered themselves on the right side of history would have favoured. It was only after ww2 that it was fully repudiated,

We test drugs on animals before people because animals are property and people aren't. That is also the legal basis for euthanising animals.

We also, as controllers of the animal's lives, have a moral obligation to decide for the animal that treatment is futile or would be unjustly cruel and it's time for lights-out.

By contrast, we are morally obliged not to decide for another human that they should die, and we are additionally strongly encouraged to prevent them from dying. The law supports this by prohibiting murder and refusing to penalise "good samaritans" acting to try to help someone.

You are comparing apples with oranges.

So why did The Samaritans put "You are not alone" signs up on bridges and viaducts? Why did I take Suicide Prevention training at work?

"Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law." There is no right to choose when and how to die.

It's the lesser of two. I don't know anyone who wants improvements in palliative care rather than access to euthanasia because who wants to still be alive if needing palliative care?

Unfortunately, you have to listen to your MPs / government officials. They are telling you that they won't ever choose to improve medical care / the system (they've had enough decades now to do it) and things are getting worse.

It's time to focus on the lesser of two and also to realise the good this can do. The worst it can do is allow some vulnerable people to die too early but is that a massive issue anyway? Everyone dies. If some slip through the cracks and die earlier but countless others don't have to live for years or decades being tortured... Again: lesser of two.

61% of people want this bill introduced, and the older you are, the more likely you are to support it. The Lords, driven primarily by the religious right, introduced wrecking amendments, and it’s a shame that Labour didn’t back it. I hope it passes this time. The most annoying thing is that most of the people who oppose it oppose it for religious reasons but instead of saying they are against it in principle, they pretend they have specific objections to this particular bill.

There is a push in Canada to have any mental health condition accepted as a reason to allow assisted death.

MAID for mental illness | Dying With Dignity Canada

The argument appears to be that you cannot discriminate on the basis of mental or physical disability and therefore denying someone with a mental health condition assisted death is discrimination.

Under Section 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination. This includes on the basis of mental or physical disability. Excluding people whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness from assisted dying legislation is a breach of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is why Dying With Dignity Canada has joined forces with legal firm Paliare Roland, Dr. Patricia Smith, and Claire Elyse-Brosseau in a legal challenge to secure equality for those whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness in Canada’s assisted dying legislation.

Currently the review is due to happen in 2027, I am not sure how likely it is to pass.

So the MPs leading the pro side of the debate decided that the easiest? / best? / simplest? option was to 'force it through and fix it later'?

Okay.. there is a risk of that but how big? I don't think it's selfish to want access to a painless exit on request and to expect sharp oversight and protections in place for the groups you describe.

We don't stop benefits because some people steal from their hardworking countryfolk.

Same idea - don't leave people suffering because a few might be coerced. But I do understand if the issue is that the government hasn't done enough to protect them. But... it's still a fair (/ crap) trade off to ensure tonnes of people don't have to suffer.. lesser of two. Same with abortion. It's terrible to murder potential humans. But it's slightly worse to force an existing / actual human to carry a parasite to term and birth it against their will.

I agree protections need to be in place. But it is definitely right to allow euthanasia.

Curious if you would have no issues as long as those groups were 100% protected.. is it really about them or is that a shield so you can prevent self-directed deaths at all costs? Autonomy is a human right. I couldn't choose to not be born so I should be able to choose to die painlessly.

And people can be coerced now though, its just harder for people to do if be ause the methods of doing so aren't as easy, who wants to risk jumping infront of train, off a building, slashing their wrists etc.

We habe had doctors killing patients with drugs already. And we don't even have an assisted dying bill in place. All those things have already happened with all the safe guards we have in place...so now what

Some people are dying when they shouldn't, so we should deliberately kill more people.

Well, hedgehogs are endangered, in part because drivers accidentally run them over and in part because of young sociopaths killing them deliberately in defiance of laws against animal cruelty. Seeing as we're struggling to preserve the species, why don't we go the whole hog and deliberately drive the entire species to extinction?

Same reasoning, after all.

"I am of the view that just one case of someone being coerced would indicate it isn’t an appropriate system."

Okay, I understand. And I am of the view that just one case of torturing someone for weeks (or longer) justifies that our current system of refusing to end their life immediately, is immoral.

We can look at numbers and volume of pain and suffering caused to figure out the balance and which side causes less pain but ultimately: it's no different to the argument for abortion.

My body, my choice. If I can kill a foetus via a doctor, I have a human right to die painlessly.

You made some excellent points about the incompetence of a lot of staff (across many industries) and failures in policy - too many 'managers' and not enough front-line staff.. all about money.. I'm digressing.. but that's fancy wrapping (no disrespect). It's hard keeping people alive, it isn't hard killing someone. It's one injection.

We also keep forgetting something. The person who wants to die will not care any more if things go / went wrong. You're thinking about this from the 'selfish' perspective again: yours. And that's understandable. But as I said right from the start: grief is selfish. The person who wanted to die is no longer suffering. That's all that matters.

It's definitely accurate to call it torture.. prolonging pain when you have the means to end it is an act of torture. And it's splitting hairs to pretend you have to be the one physically creating the pain for it to count.

We treat animals better than this.

All arguments relevant to this topic are emotive and have validity, please don't try to block valid arguments by labelling them emotional blackmail. Otherwise: why bring up 'vulnerable women' and 'disabled people'. Are they more deserving than the countless voices telling you they are suffering and want this to go ahead? And I include you. You have the right to want this too.

Ok lets tell pet owners that vets are killing thie or pet and not ending their suffering or putting them to sleep. Vets are killers so are the owners.

Vets that euthanise pets are killing them, they may also be ending their suffering or otherwise providing a service (for which they will be paid) at the request of an owner for a whole bunch of possible reasons. They are not 'putting them to sleep', they will never wake up, but that's a euphemism for killing that people understandably feel more comfortable using.

Personally I think saying someone with terminal cancer, for example, is going to be 'put to sleep' sounds weird. I'm not sure why, possibly because I relate it with euthanising pets. Saying they're going to be killed, while accurate, is far too stark. Probably why we dance around saying it.

The worst it can do is allow some vulnerable people to die too early but is that a massive issue anyway?

Yes, it is a massive issue, for the same reasons that we don't legalise murder. I'm autistic, one of those vulnerable people. You are talking about throwing people like me under the bus.

Stop saying "die" when when the reality is "be killed".

who wants to still be alive if needing palliative care?

I saw my uncle the hour before he died. He didn't want to go, even then.

This atheist opposes it.

Life isn't fair. And human attempts to make it 'fairer' often backfire.

LipglossAndLies

You are restating, again, your belief that other people's premature, coerced deaths are a price worth paying for your freedom to access assisted suicide on the NHS.

We do not accept that and we are not going to accept that. There is no amount of guilt-tripping that is going to convince me that it's acceptable to allow vulnerable people (from women in coercive relationships, the disabled and the elderly) to be manipulated into suicide in order for other people to access NHS assisted suicide.

If your goal of assisted suicide truly matters to you, it would be more productive for you if you accepted that and worked on a campaign and bill for assisted suicide with safeguards that won't risk taking other people with you.