to ask how many of you would consider ending your lives at Dignitas or a similar clinic when you are elderly?

[signedsealeddelivered]

I've seen old age and I don't like the look of it. My family, genetically, all die of the same thing and it is not a pleasant death. It is a slow, suffering, confusing one where the mind and the body are both affected. I realise not everybody's experience is like this, but just wondered if these thoughts enter other people's heads too?

I don't see old age as pleasant (I mean 80--85+) Your partner is likely to die before you if you're a woman and you're straight, your friends die, your children have their own lives and you have very little to give them apart from financially (which you could also do via an inheritance.) You're hardly physically up for childcare of Grandchildren or extensive travel. If you have a dog or a pet, it's difficult to walk it or care for it. There are often a few chronic health problems if not a few serious health problems too. Illnesses hit you harder, falls hit you harder. You often stop driving and lose your freedom. There's also confusion, memory loss, muddling things up. Then there's the physical, emotional or financial burden you would potentially put on your family if you had to go into a home or receive care.

This is not a state I'd want to live in while the essentials of my body continued to tick over, and I'd rather take matters into my own hands and decide when I pass away.

I'm just wondering if this is a common thought amongst others too?

Wanting the choice to die because you are wheel chair bound, have cancer or are over 80 and your body is failing, isn't the same as saying 'everybody in this position should or want to die'.

That's why there should be a choice. No one is suggesting everyone should do it or feel they should do it.

Yes I would. I'm a carer in a home predominantly for dementia patients. Good palliative care can help and I feel very proud to do the job I do. However, it cannot bring the person they were before dementia back. We always find out the most we can about their lives pre dementia which helps. But we can't stop the disease progressing. Their families have to slowly lose the person they love a long time before they die.
People with other diseases do suffer. Even with the best care and the best medication. I think everyone deserves a peaceful, painless death.

I would and will if necessary

I think we should all be able to make that choice. I've taken away the suffering of pets, yet I'm not allowed to make that decision about myself. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

My late father suffered from an aggressive brain tumour and lost his personality, rationality and mobility. His plaintive childlike plea to any medic he met in his last 6 months was that he wanted help to die, and could they help him.

The problem was that by the time he realised what was happening to him and that loss of independence, sight, reasoning, ability to communicate and move were all that awaited him, he'd probably lost mental capacity to arrange a trip to Dignitas, or other means. And before that point, he wouldn't have wanted to die.

My siblings and I have agreed that if we ever receive the same diagnosis (and treatment options remain the same) we'll be on a plane to Switzerland within the month. It would be nice to think that there might be other, more local, options at some point in the future.

I absolutely would. I can see the issues with legalising it in that some people who don't really want to die yet might feel pressured into ending their lives because they feel that they're a burden on others. However I don't understand how anyone who isn't religious can oppose in principle the idea that someone with a terminal illness or degenerative condition should be able to end their lives at a time of their choosing.
My DM has never truly got over seeing her beloved father literally howling in pain like a dog for days before he died. She hates the fact that's her last memory of him and it has left her terrified of the same thing happening to her. I know palliative care is better now but it's not perfect and sometimes, the only way to control pain is to completely knock someone out with Morphine so that they're pretty much permanently unconscious.
To those of you who don't believe in euthanasia for religious reasons, do you think it's wrong to have pets put to sleep if they're suffering? Genuine question.

Yes although I really hope I wouldn't have to go abroad.

I have spoken to dh and said that I don't want to be kept alive indefinitely on a machine, and if that were anything to happen relatively soon I don't want the dc to have their lives dominated by visiting me.

I (like a pp) would take an overdose if necessary.

Having seen the toll that caring for a terminally ill parent has taken on members of my family I could never put my children through that. Dignitas or put me in a home.

I would wait until I was in a position that meant making a choice as far as ending my life was concerned.

But if I was elderly and needed care I would not be expecting my DCs to do it, I'd move into a home.

I saw the awful toll my parents had in looking after my maternal grandad, who was bloody ungrateful too. And my mum's sibs pretty much opted out of any real help. Except her eldest brother was the one "helping" grandad with his finances, even though he lived with mum and dad, so although he was meticulous in it all and not misappropriating anything, he was stingy about giving any money to mum and dad for any of the out of pocket stuff.

I've made it very clear to DH and my siblings that if I get to the point where I'm physically unable to care for myself in terms of hygiene/toilet then I don't want to be alive. Ditto if I no longer recognise my DH.

WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid Wed 06-Jul-16 07:11:28

"^I just hate the idea that
a) being a wheelchair user is so awful that you would naturally want to die (my dd was a wheelchair user at age 10). b) cancer must mean you should want to die. c) being above 80 must be so awful that you should want to^

No one has suggested any of these things."

Re the wheelchair, I was referring to what my MIL said (before she herself became disabled). Re cancer to Notsurewhyimhere's post of Wed 06-Jul-16 00:19:06 "I would 1000% consider it if I had something like cancer for example". Re being over 80 to the OP: "I don't see old age as pleasant (I mean 80--85+)".

So yes, someone has suggested all three of those things.

I absolutely think all those things could in individual cases mean such an impaired quality of life that suicide would seem a viable option. Otoh I worry that our present society, with its increasing impatience with the ill and the infirm, might lead to a situation where people feel the pressure to end their lives because it seems foolish and selfish to claim that you want to live in a dependent state which is generally considered to encompass "no quality of life". If my kind and selfless MIL had felt pressure to end her life 8 years ago, when she first became paralysed, out of consideration for us, or because she felt bound by something she had said before she had any actual experience, that would have been very wrong. But you could see how it would happen.

There is a film out now where a wealthy young man, with no severe pain problems, is applauded for driving his wheelchair off a cliff and leaving his money to his girlfriend. It worries me.

I repeat: that is no argument against wanting to help a parent who is frightened and confused and suffering. But from my experience, it is very difficult to know beforehand just what will seem as "no quality of life" in a situation you have yet to experience.

Of course I understand, Penfold and bran, that a choice does not mean everyone has to choose it. But if the choice becomes normalised, and you are a kind selfless person, how do you justify to yourself that "I know I am dependent on other people, it would be easier and cheaper for them not to have to care for me, three of my friends have already killed themselves out of consideration for others, but actually I'd prefer to live because I enjoy watching Coronation Street"? Might not that become a very hard choice to make?

I think a couple of posters have articulated the difficulty around this: by the time you lose the capacities that give you an ok quality of life, you have probably lost the capacity to make a decision about your death.

This would change a bit if a Dignitas type arrangement was introduced in the UK, which I sincerely hope it would, perhaps in a Dutch type arrangement with doctors. but it won't get round the fact that in general, drs are hugely reluctant to kill their patients who have poor mental capacity. It is also difficult to generalise, some people with Alzeimers do have moments of pleasure/quality of life, some don't, I am not sure it would be easy to judge for another when the right time way and most people would simply not have their relatives killed erring on the side of caution.

The easiest scenario is for people who know they are terminally ill but have good cognitive capacity, but sometimes life is more bearable for them.

I think the best scenario for me personally and those I love is to have a doctor kind enough and willing to adminster a large therapeutic dose of morphine towards the end, knowing the result. I have no idea if this is very common any more, as people have to be more careful.

Someone said that most people cling to life, that's true, and most relatives also cling to the lives of their relatives as well. It would require a truly different type of conversation that many people won't be ready to have to allow people to actively plan, discuss and be euthanazed. I don't think it would be nearly as popular as people think if it were legal here, and much of the suffering people think would be relieved would not, as they wouldn't qualify.

I'm not against it, but it's easy to say 'I don't want to be dependent on others' or 'just put me in a home' or 'I'll be off to Dignitas' but the type of decisions dependent on these are heartbreaking for all, I want to be brave enough to support my relative who is currently ill but I am not sure in my heart if I will be able to, whilst they are still able to have some quality of life, and if it is driven by extreme suffering, chances is it will be out of my hands.

I posted on a thread similar to this. I was tested recently for Huntington's disease, which my dad is in the latter mid stages of. It's one of the cruellest things I've ever witnessed. It turns you into a complete ruin of a human being, and it's always, always a death sentence, with almost nothing in the way of palliative treatment. It's a slow but devastating decline into dementia, tube feeding, and inability to move, walk or talk.

Luckily my test results were negative, but in the 9 months I was going through the testing process, I was getting my affairs in order. I registered with a brain bank, to leave my brain to medical science after my death. I completed the paperwork to give power of attorney to my DH and my elder sister. I began writing a will, and I stated with absolute certainty that I didn't want to be resuscitated if it came to that, and that I wished to end my own life whilst still compos mentis.

DH fully supported me in this. I see my dad losing parts of himself day by day, and the stress my mum goes through in caring for him. He's incontinent and entirely reliant on her. I didn't want that for my DH and DC. I defy anyone to tell me that that's selfish and goes against nature.

I appreciate people have religious beliefs - my dad certainly does - but whenever I look at him and the other end stage Huntington's sufferers I know, I wonder where their God is right now.

Most definitely. However my plan would be to save up a few dozen sleeping pills, mix them in with a drink and die peacefully in my own bed.

Warehoused in an oap home and having someone else wipe your bottom is not quality of life for me. Or being looked after by your children, being a drain on their finances and a burden on their lifestyle, just seems so incredibly selfish.

Die with dignity, leave your children an inheritance and fond memories. Its the circle of life.

Beauty I'm so glad your test was negative. Huntington's is indeed horribly cruel, just about the worst illness you can get. If I was diagnosed with something with an equivalent prognosis, I would feel exactly the same as you? I thought it only affected men?
for you and your parents.

Why must we wait until we are old to do this? It would save a lot of mess on railway tracks and in people's sheds, or wherever, if people who wanted to check out could do it quietly and cleanly and with some dignity.

MissHoolies, thank you for your kind words :)

No, that was a myth from way back in the 60s. Men and women are equally likely to get it, but the pattern of inheritance is affected by the parent you get the faulty gene from. If it's your mum, you'll develop symptoms around the same time she did. If it's your dad, you'll probably develop it earlier with more aggressive symptoms. I was very lucky.

I would definitely do it, but I'm Dutch and it's legal in Holland.

Bartholin I guess because many many people have suicidal thoughts and indeed try to commit suicide, but then recover at another time point and are very glad their attempt didn't succeed.

There was a case in Holland recently, however, in which a lady in her late twenties or thirties was indeed allowed assisted suicide as a result of severe mental health problems not amenable to treatment, triggered by severe abuse.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/11/netherlands-sees-sharp-increase-in-people-choosing-euthanasia-du/

This is either a victory, or a sinister trend, depending what you think.

It's also interesting that rates are really low IMO, so not as many people as you think choose to pop off rather than be elderly and sick and suffering.

There are countries where euthanasia is legal. Around 1400 people a year in Belgium are euthanised and even children are allowed it.

It is far more humane than causing people to resort to railway tracks, bridges or even death by cop.

I would like the option.

I do understand the difficulties:

• people feeling under pressure to do it because they don't want to be a burden (or feeling guilty for not doing it);

• the fact that someone might decide to do it during a down period after a diagnosis, whereas if they'd wanted longer, they might have found that life is still worth living
• capacity to make the decision and communicate it.

You could implement safeguards, as happened with the original requirement that two doctors had to sign off on an abortion, but in a similar way, it would pretty much become on demand (not saying that this is necessarily wrong for abortion, but I'd be worried about losing safeguards with regard to euthanasia).

Within the next 2-3 decades, I think euthanasia will be easier and more commonplace.

Of course I understand, Penfold and bran, that a choice does not mean everyone has to choose it. But if the choice becomes normalised, and you are a kind selfless person, how do you justify to yourself that "I know I am dependent on other people, it would be easier and cheaper for them not to have to care for me, three of my friends have already killed themselves out of consideration for others, but actually I'd prefer to live because I enjoy watching Coronation Street"? Might not that become a very hard choice to make?

I think this is an extremely good point and this is why I struggle a little with the idea of euthanasia although instinctively it is right for everyone to have that choice. How on earth you square this I have no idea.

Yes I absolutely would, and have discussed this and a wish not to be resuscitated with DH. I dearly hope that by the time I get there, euthanasia has been legalised in this country, it seems so needlessly cruel to maintain life at any cost.

Having seen two protracted cases of dementia in the family, I would like to think I'd see myself off if, God forbid, that happened to me. But the trouble is, at least from my own experience, people with dementia cannot necessarily understand or accept that there's anything wrong with them. (They can't remember that they can't remember anything). And even if they'd put a stash of pills away, in case, they would very likely forget where they had hidden them, and that they had ever planned such a thing.

But my kids know, and I have put it in a living will, that if I do ever develop dementia, there shall be absolutely NO medication or medical interventions to keep me 'healthy' just so that I can go on longer with a horrible disease with no cure.

If I just become decrepit, unable to look after myself but mentally sound, then I would hope that I would have a stash of pills ready, because the last thing I would ever want to be is a burden or a worry to my children.