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?

Yes, soon as I become a burden to anyone I am off.

In pre Christian times it was of course considered the most basic of rights....

My mother and two of her sisters have/had Alzheimers.

I have told my children that if I get it, I will be off, after watching what Mum ( and Dad) are going through, there is no way I will put anyone through the same.

I honestly don't know. I would like to think I would make that choice for myself at a time when I still had capacity but it just seems so remote now? Iccan imagine burying my head in the sand until it was too late.

I am also a natural "rule follower" and I certainly would not do it If it was illegal. Silly really as there'd be no repercussions - clearly, I'd be dead
.

It bothers me toothat there is no easy way to research the best suicide options if you are simply thinking practically

Yes. I watch my Dad suffering with Parkinson's disease and he he has no quality of life he can't speak, walk, toilet or even feed himself some days. He is unhappy and frustrated. Unfortunately illness can often overtake us before we can act .

No, but I would ensure I had a living will so that life extending treatments (including antibiotics and flu immunisations and statins) aren't given to me if I have severe dementia or am totally dependant. For me it's the life extending treatments that are wrong. Let me just die of a chest infection. Pneumonia and influenza used to be called "the old man's friend" before antibiotics and antivirals. I don't want well meaning relatives saying "something must be done doctor". Give me sips of fluids and keep me comfortable and let me slip away

Definitely. There is a conspiracy of silence around how unnecessarily horrible many deaths are. I watched my father, riddled with multiple cancers, bright orange from liver failure, vomit faeces for over a week before he died. The doctor would not even give him enough morphine to dull the pain because of the Harold Shipman case (he wanted to die at home). He tried to kill himself but failed.

I watched my proud independent mother lose her continence and all her faculties to dementia. She had lucid intervals during which she begged to die.

How is it wrong to hasten their ends medically? There is something very wrong with the life at all costs brigade. There should also be compassion.

I work with vunerable adults. Oap's. Ms sufferes ect. If my partner was dead. My child burdened with my care I would so do it. I see the pain daily. I get asked daily to end suffering. if i have had a good life then fuck it. Death is just another adventure.

'Does no one look at how governments treat the disabled or vulnerable, and have at least one wee shiver about what some planner somewhere could try to implement to save on medical costs?'

No. I don't think that's an excuse for people not having a choice over wanting to end their own lives with assistance and family/friends around.

The risks that people will say they wish to die because they feel a burden rather than because it's what's right for them; and that people could be killed by relatives or doctors/the state, would need to be managed. These risks are managed by countries with legal euthenasia.

I respect people's disagreement with euthenasia for themself, but not to oppose this for others: we should all be able to take our own decisions!

"For me it's the life extending treatments that are wrong. Let me just die of a chest infection. Pneumonia and influenza used to be called "the old man's friend" before antibiotics and antivirals. I don't want well meaning relatives saying "something must be done doctor". Give me sips of fluids and keep me comfortable and let me slip away"

That conjures such a gentle image of pneumonia and chest infections as the end of life events. I wish it were so. The reality is far from it. I was going to type the reality, then I had to delete it because I didn't think it was fair to make other people read that.

The truth is, that there are very few disease processes that result in a gentle death. There are very few disease processes that result in a death where someone just slips away. There are some. But they are few and far between.

Already, we have safeguards in place to ensure that end of life decisions are made in the patient's best interests. Legally, the medical Consultant responsible for the patient's care is allowed to decide whether an attempt should be made to resuscitate them in the event of cardiac arrest, for example (not the patient's relatives), and can decide on the limits of intervention that are in the patient's best interests.

I do think that there is a danger that vulnerable people would be at risk if euthanasia were made legal. I'm not sure that any legal frameworks would be able to counter that.

No system is perfect, but at the moment many suffer because ( as you rightly say) mother nature doesn't kill gently.

No but can I sign my MIL up? She doesn't need to know details, just that we've booked her a nice holiday to Switzerland......

It would be my idea of hell to suffer my mother's slow decline. To paraphrase what some pp's have said, the human race is a victim of its own success. We're all living longer, but not necessarily staying healthier.

The trouble is, by the time I get into a condition where I would want out, I won't be able to do anything about it. I don't believe there would be much point in including a wish to be euthanised (?) in a will, as no-one would have the legal means of fulfilling it.

I'm torn. I can absolutely see why anyone would, and have also said that if I were ever diagnosed with dementia I would book my one-way ticket to Switzerland.

But I think that to legalise assisted suicide would be to normalise it, and what is now "I wouldn't want to end my life like that," would become "you shouldn't have to end your life like that." and dying by assisted suicide would become the expected norm rather than something which people chose to do. And there are many who choose not to, as much as there are those who choose to....

And I don't think that the idea of people being made to feel they were burdens etc doesn't happen as crassly as that, it's IMO far more subtle, along the lines of "you shouldn't have to suffer like this, why not let the doctors give you something .." And people would be talked into it iyswim.

Also once a law like this is passed it becomes a lot easier to broaden it, because the

Oops hit post.... Once a law is passed which is controversial, it becomes much easier to extend that law without the public having too much of an input.

E.g. It's IIRC already legal to euthanise disabled babies in the Netherlands but people pay little attention to that extent ion because euthanasia is already legal, for instance....

I certainly don't judge anyone who chooses to end their own life, but I think that any case should happen on an individual basis rather than the law being spread wide open for euthanasia.

And I also don't judge anyone who couldn't help someone to die. I know. Couldn't, and I know my DP wouldn't do it for me. There's no right or wrong IMO.

Regarding religious beliefs, surely chemotherapy, blood transfusions etc. all go against nature? Why is it acceptable to go against nature to prolong your life but not to end it? I mean that's fine if that's your belief but it's the same principle so I think everyone should have the choice. I hope I do if/when that time comes.

I can see the potential issues, maybe it just needs to stop being illegal iyswim.

"Already, we have safeguards in place to ensure that end of life decisions are made in the patient's best interests".

In theory maybe.

What my poor mother went through in a hospital ward wouldn't be acceptable if she had been a dog.

There is a huge gulf between theory and practice in the NHS. There was a MP whose husband had a neurological condition and suffered a slow, painful death.
I can't remember the MP's name just at the moment, but she stood up in parliament and tearfully described the horrendous final days her husband endured in hospital. I wrote to her at the time and received a lovely letter back in which she said she had received many, many similar letters.

Until we improve care of the dying and those with debilitating, incurable conditions, we should allow people the choice.

I have joked on more than one occasion to DS that he has permission to shoot me "when I get like that" - in reference to my DM (now deceased). I would like to think that I had a choice if I got to a situation where I no longer had a quality of life. I say that as a mother and carer to a young adult with multiple physical and learning disabilities and health issues whose life I have spent the last 21 years fighting for and will continue to do so. The difference is that my DD has never known any different and is not suffering (most of the time) whereas if I became ill it would have taken away many things that I had been capable of previously.

I have often thought about the way we care for our pets so much that we 'put them out of their misery' when there is no hope for them but we continue to keep humans alive when they would want to be dead.

I don't know anything about how the system works in other countries where euthanasia is legal but assume there are strict safeguards in place to stop the system being used to 'bump off' relatives who have become a burden on the family or the state.

My DM is in her 80s physically healthy but is showing signs of forgetfulness. Her greatest fear is ending up senile and in a home - she has told me she has researched Dignitas and that she would prefer this option than to carry on living but with dementia

I would.

I also advocate the restrictions being revised as well. If somebody truly wants to end their lives then they shouldn't have to suffer on, putting their loved ones at risk, or imposing their decision on other people (trains, etc.). If I felt that sad that I really couldn't countenance life any more, I would like the option for final disposal of myself.

I started a thread about this recently. The right to choose when you end your life is something I feel very strongly about indeed.

Specifically with regards to Dignitas etc, though, I'm not sure, as it is currently very expensive to go down that route. I doubt I'd ever be able to afford it and even if we could afford it as a family, I wouldn't want to squander that much money.

I've got my DIY plan, and have had for many years. The hard part is picking the moment - cogniscant and physically able enough to do it, but not exiting life before you've truly had enough of it.