Assisted dying

[LovelyBath77]

Please don't read if this upset you, but I think that it should be up to us when we choose to die, especially with an illness which isn;t going to get better. I don't want to have long term care and give all that money to it which could be left to my children, and definitely don't want to be in a position where you have no choice and considered incapable of making decisions.

I think there needs to be some change on this. AIBU?

Two posters have said they would feel a duty to die if it was made legal for other people to be assisted but that isn't evidence that they would be able to get assistance in practice if adequate safeguards were in place. I don't even know if the posters who said this are actually terminally ill or suffering from degenerative disabling conditions with a very low quality of life.

For those who think we should all have a right to end our own lives, where do you draw the line?

When I was suicidally depressed and thought the world was hell, should I have been allowed to die? If not, why not, when depression is so comorbid with terminal illness anyway? Isn't that trapping the mentally ill in a hellish life with no way out?

A while ago I watched 'How to Die in Oregon' and my heart ached through most of it.
I think everyone should watch some or all of it.
It showed the situations from all points of view, but personally, I don't know what I'd do in their situation.
I know that I have a low pain threshold, and the prospect of no end to pain fills me with dread.
I take very strong painkillers every day already, and I know that my condition will get worse.
I just don't know what I'd do.

For those who think we should all have a right to end our own lives, where do you draw the line?

You do have the right to end your own life though. Suicide has been legal since 1961.
If you are talking about assisting suicide I would draw the line at those who were terminally ill with less than a few months to live and/or at the later stages of a degenerative disabling condition with very low quality of life.

Suicide e.g. by hanging is very different to suicide by barbiturates in a controlled environment. Why should I have to hang myself and be in pain where others can be injected and slip away with dignity?

If some people feel its their 'duty' to die, why would they only do it if assisted dying was legal? They have that option now.

I would draw the line at people being able to prove to a degree of certainty that it is their choice and no coercion has been involved.

Suicide e.g. by hanging is very different to suicide by barbiturates in a controlled environment. Why should I have to hang myself and be in pain where others can be injected and slip away with dignity?

So you are saying those who are terminally ill should be denied assistance to die with dignity because it's not fair if you can't too? Apart from the fact that there are other less painful ways than hanging for an abled bodied person to commit suicide your argument is ridiculous.

I'm asking where you draw the line. If you make a statement about people having the right to die with dignity and to take their own life, shouldn't that apply to everyone?

All other methods of suicide by able-bodied people involve pain and leave a distressing corpse. Or carry an environmental risk (CO poisoning).

When someone is in the last days/weeks left to die it seems hugely cruel to deny them drinks because physically they can't process it anymore and it would cause more pain you could end it by giving someone a painless overdose. If we let animals die naturally it's abuse to not put them to sleep

All other methods of suicide by able-bodied people involve pain and leave a distressing corpse. Or carry an environmental risk (CO poisoning).

I'm not going into less painful methods for obvious reasons but that isn't correct.

I'm asking where you draw the line. If you make a statement about people having the right to die with dignity and to take their own life, shouldn't that apply to everyone?

Of course it shouldn't. Assisting someone with a terminal illness and a very low quality of life to die is very different to assisting a health abled bodied person.

So someone with a treatment resistant mental health condition doesn't meet the criteria?

We manage to carry out nearly two hundred thousand abortions every year without forcing any doctors to against their personal moral code.

The problem is that the thing for which most people say they would want assisted dying is dementia, and that's the one thing for which you couldn't have it - that would be euthanasia which is a whole other can of worms.

So someone with a treatment resistant mental health condition doesn't meet the criteria? If it can be proved its their is no coercion, and there is no treatment then they should have the right to pain free self determination.

So someone with a treatment resistant mental health condition doesn't meet the criteria?

Nobody with a treatment resistant condition would meet the criteria unless it meant that they had a few weeks/months to live.

I had this conversation with my Mum yesterday. I unfortunately have an illness that is going to most likely eventually end in an undignified and painful way if left to run it's full course.

I am very clear that I don't want to waste away to a shell of myself such that my loved ones will be relieved when I go just for it to be over. Hopefully it's some time away for me and I hope the law will change by then, because I believe I should be allowed to make that choice for myself when I'm ready and before it gets too awful. We don't make animals suffer when there's no hope, why do we force it on people? We might only be talking about hastening things by a few weeks, or even days, but if they are weeks/days of misery and suffering for me and those who love me I don't want them.

well talking about lines I think we should all be able to agree someone at at least age 80 who has been told they cant do anything more for their cancer/heart/other terminal condition but that they cant say how much longer they will linger for -

eg a week or 6 weeks - I think if that person says " I want to go"

we should bloody well let them.

Thats a very clear and obvious line so the person doesnt have to endure a day more of pain and discomfort and un certainty and nor do their poor relatives.

I wonder if the government are holding off because they know that modern technology will take the decision away soon. I have a progressive and painful condition, I am hoping that if and when I reach the stage of wanting to end my own life I will be able to use an internet chemist to help me.

I believe I should be allowed to make that choice for myself when I'm ready and before it gets too awful. We don't make animals suffer when there's no hope, why do we force it on people?

Its your body of course you should have that choice. Its a no brainer.

Its barbaric that people with conditions and illness that could end in awful ways are even having to worry about this.

Go and sit with dying ill relatives then tell me its a good thing.

Assisted dying absolutely needs to be legalised. I work in care of the elderly and the states of pain and indignity that people end up in are heartbreaking and terrible. I would not want to face this as I get older. I'd sooner die with all my faculties at 70 than head into my 80s facing god knows what horrors.

The problem for me is that I work on a dementia ward and although it is very distressing for families and friends seeing the change and loss of dignity in people when they are very confused, often the actual person with dementia isn't aware and is actually quite happy or oblivious to what's going on even when they've said in the past they'd wouldn't want to live if they got dementia.

I see a lot of people saying that they'd like an advanced directive that if they get dementia they'd like to be euthanased however I have people with dementia who's condition has been fairly stable for years or just gradually deteriorates and at what point and who decides that now is the time to end their life based on their advanced directive?

The people that I care for who have dementia aren't happy. They end up bedbound with all the accompanying complications that that involves. They also have to cope with their physical illnesses and disabilities and can't tell us if they're in pain or feeling unwell.

I'll keep saying it: assisted dying is not about euthanising people with dementia or disability. That is a whole different discussion.
Legalising assisted dying or assisted suicide just means if someone who is terminally ill, with a very short time to live, who is likely to die in a painful or distressing way, chooses to commit suicide they can be helped to do so without the 'helper' being prosecuted.

But experiences from countries which do have assisted dying would indicate that is not always how it works in practice onemore

SOME are youngish people who are for example paralysed or 'locked in' and are not imminently likely to die and whose death is no more likely to be painful or distressing than the next person. They are not choosing to die to avoid a painful death, they are choosing to die because they perceive their life to be 'not worth living'