Assisted Dying Bill tomorrow.

[TooBigForMyBoots]

I really hope this goes ahead.

I'm from a family who die from cancer. It's a genetic thing. Over the years I've watched numerous loved ones die from this cruel and ravaging disease. It has taken a massive toll on us. From PTSD to immense guilt, complicated grief and fear of the future.

Not all of my family would have accessed Assisted Dying, but I know some did want it and requested it in the weeks / days leading to their death. They should have had the option of shortening their suffering. Having witnessed what they went through, I want that option for myself.

I want it for my mother. For the past 20 years she has told me when she wants out and how I will have to help her achieve it. I don't want to. She apologises for putting it on me. She shouldn't have to.

No one will be saved if this Bill is stopped, but fear and suffering will be reduced.

Furthermore, medical advances are happening all of the time and what’s the terminal disease now, may not always be so.

I think if you've been diagnosed with an terminal illness and given six months to live, the chance of a miracle cure emerging suddenly to save you is pretty tiny. Even if some medical marvel was to emerge and be available to you, you'd know it was coming. These things don't come from nowhere. So you're not going to die and then the next day a cure materialises out of nowhere that you could have had immediately to save your life but that no one around you, including Drs, were aware was coming down the track.

It causes far more emotional and psychological harm witnessing the suffering of the patient as well as their relatives!

If it is passed I won't exactly jump for joy as I feel it will be a very long process with lots of issues and you need people willing to apply it.

I want it more than anything. My experience informs this. I've spent significant time in hospital and wow, anyone who thinks it's a lovely little drift off to sleep with morphine at present - think again. I've seen suffering beyond words. I've watched a few close ones die from cancer. One was horrific.

I have experienced pain and suffering that nothing could relieve ( vomiting feaces as part of this).

I have been saving money for a point my multiple conditions become too much. But how could I possibly do that, because I'd have to go at a point I could go and that feels so difficult to do. The comfort an option in our own country would bring so many.

People worry about exploitation. Do you think people are not being neglected and left to die in quite awful situations at the moment in the NHS? Not deliberately, but it's hideous out there. You have no clue unless you've seen it. Family members already dump people to die without this legislation. It's a weak argument to me.

Or would be within the NICE parameters and available to all on the NHS. Pigs might fly.

What I have seen is Terrifying. Watching a loved one shrink, lose the ability to eat and to speak. Dropping to 4 stone. Losing all muscle tone so they can't move and their jaw hangs open as they express their gutteral pain. That's Terrifying.

I would support it more if it were for people who had a few days left. 6 months before death people could most likely go to Switzerland but very few do, yes, I know there are barriers like cost, but my point is that most of the people who were distressed watching somebody die seem to be describing the final part, much closer to death than 6 months.

And loads of people are already upset by who is not covered, people living in terrible pain but not terminal, dementia patients who will lack capacity but face horrible deaths, etc. So there would be immediate boundary pushing.

Finally, there's been no proper legislative process for this. Something so serious should not be rushed through.

I think most of us have witnessed our loved ones dying. I have.

In theory I agree people should have a choice...but in reality I think abuse and coercion will be unavoidable in many cases. Not to mention the potential widening of the parameters.

Let me ask you...this is being brought in by more and more countries...why do you think that is? Do you believe that all these governments around the world are suddenly deeply concerned about people's suffering?

I also think the comments about Harold Shipman are interesting and think the law could look at this. How to mitigate against an over-correction in response to his crimes. He killed X number of people but also made Y number of people's deaths worse than they needed to be.

I do not support this bill; like many, I have lived experience, and I my case it makes me strongly not want this bill to succeed.

it’s a very slippery slope.

Morally I support assisted dying but I am not convinced it can be legislated for and that the most vulnerable will not be protected.

I don't support it. My mum spent her whole career in palliative care and has supported hundreds if not thousands of people to have a good death. She is scared of this bill, as someone who knows what it feels like to give medication which will shorten a patient's life. And yes I also have concerns about advanced directives also. Things change. My grandmother thought she wouldn't want to go on living when she went blind. She's just gone blind, and discovered that despite the hardship she faces with her disabilities, she still has a quality of life.
Another relative is a GP who will be expected to prescribe if the bill is passed, but has strong reservations. She cannot tell with confidence when a person has six days to live never mind six months.

Another against the bill here. Slippery slope and huge moral/ethical burden on those in the medical profession. I also have the suspicion (as a PP has said) that governments with an ageing population are looking for ways to save money.

I have sympathy with the slippery slope argument and will stand with any group opposing coercion. However I've looked at the proposals and the safeguards seem pretty tight. Tighter than countries who have had Assisted Death for decades.

What is utterly perverse is that someone can have a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) imposed on them without their own agreement and without the agreement of the family, but they cannot opt for assisted death for themselves. So the decision around death can be imposed on you already, and yet there is this outrage over choosing for yourself. People who are against this are the ones who don't realise what already happens.

@TooBigForMyBoots I agree. What I have seen; significantly more Terrifying than the fears people have about this being passed.

It's easier to convince yourself these horrors don't happen in death/dying process. Yet, when you've seen it, it changes your view quite considerably and you can't delude yourself any longer. Some people have a good death. Very many have an experience of pure horror.

This is a bad bill. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered and has not been properly scrutinised.
Our legal system is based on the principle that intentionally taking a life is always a crime. Changing that principle is a monumental thing, once you have said that this is not true in specific circumstances, it is much easier for that list to grow.
We have seen bills like this one expanded beyond the original scope - Belgium has seen children assisted to die for example.
I hope it does not pass.

How can they talk of coercion when a DNR can be imposed on you already!

With you 100% op. Of course the procedure leading up to it will have to be as watertight as possible but NOTHING is more important than minimising suffering and I'm of the opinion that those who say otherwise luckily haven't suffered.

I don't agree that this bill is being rushed through. If it receives a majority vote tomorrow it will not become law.

It will progress through the system. Consultations, drafting, scrutiny from the public and House of Lords, scrutiny and further votes from MPs. An MP who votes in favour tomorrow is free to vote against in the future once the bill is drafted for law.

That may be your opinion, but it is not true. Plenty of people who have suffered in many ways are opposed to the bill.

I find that argument so odd.

I watched a segment on the news tonight from a rugby player whose mum had to take her own life, as she had the final stages of Huntingtons Disease and as the assisted dying bill obviously isn't in place, had to take her own life. He found her body. He said she was forced to choose suicide, not the peaceful death she wanted, at the time of her own choosing. And he is going to have to make the same decision for himself down the line if the bill doesn't go through, as he also has the same condition. It was heartbreaking to hear him talk of his mums experience.
I think for anyone with a terminal illness, then they should be able to have this option.
(I've heard countless people saying that it's just an opportunity to bump elderly relatives off, with is an absolutely ludicrous statement and doesn't help the cause at all. These people make it sound like you'd ring the surgery and tell the doctor to come and put grandma out of her misery!)
There would be a lot of procedures in place before this could even happen. And if someone has no chance of recovery, then I think it should get the go ahead if that's what the person affected wants and only if they are of sound mind and have the capacity to make that decision.
There needs to be a lot more work done on this bill to make it safe for all involved.

I hope it does not progress. The bill doesn’t have safeguards that will be any better than other countries’ in practice. The group behind it, Dignity in Dying, intends to expand the bill as soon as it can so this isn’t a vote on principle, this is a vote on the bill and opening the door to more and more pushing to widen it.

The bill ls written with holes ripe for abuse and exploitation. The marketing of it, especially the posters on the Tube at Westminster, is disturbing and deceptive.

Assisted suicide by oral ingestion (the method allowed by the U.K. bill) has known complications that mean it isn’t always a dignified and peaceful death, and sometimes it fails. The bill has the clinician leave the room after giving the patient the lethal dose of drugs, leaving anyone wavering or unsure at the mercy of relatives who may not be benign. The bill has a proxy section that allows another person to sign on behalf of the patient if they cannot sign consent for any physical reason, due to not being able to read or any other reason (I can’t sign that because I don’t want to die Hal). The doctors don’t have to verify that the patient is a) actually terminally ill or b) has the mental capacity to have a settled wish to die, all they have to say is they had no doubts. The rubber stamping judge only has to ‘hear’ from one of the two doctors. The bill makes no mention of pain or suffering, it says anyone over 18 terminally ill with estimated 6 mos to live can choose assisted dying so doctors can’t even question if Aunt Sally really wants to die because she’s not suffering and not in what might be considered unendurable pain. The 6 months to live is an arbitrary window that is almost impossible for doctors to get right- they are about as good at predicting as betting on the horse racing. Its not reduced unassisted suicides in any country that has legalised it, so the predictions of advocates that assisted dying will prevent unassisted suicides by the terminally ill are the opposite of what has happened in practice. The bill doesn’t require any paper trail on death certificates as to who is delivers the fatal dose and waits for or gives a helpful shove into death- which means another Shipman could operate with impunity and undetected.

I don’t agree that assisted dying is the only way to alleviate suffering pain in the run up to death. Improving palliative care would be better and it will get worse if we divert funds into assisted dying.

This bill should not pass.

I am hoping the vote will support the bill so people have the choice to assisted dying

I understand why many MP’s are really struggling with this

but if this does pass and is implemented I have no doubt the boundaries shall be changed over time

What i want to know is if doctors who agree to do this will be solely doing this task or just doing it alongside their ordinary doctoring role? If the latter, will patients be told that the doctor they are seeing also carries out these procedures?

The highly emotive nature of this subject, which this thread illustrates, is precisely the reason why the legislative process is insufficient. The usual discussion and scrutiny by MPs and Lords is not enough. We need a broader public participation, and not just in the rushed form that media coverage of the private members bill generates.