Euthanasie, dont legalise in UK.

[MrsMarkieParkie]

I just read that 8% of deaths in Canada last year happened via euthanasia. This doesnt sit right with me. Also, as described in the article, the protocol seems mostly the same as the US death by lethal injection.
Do we want this in the UK?

As I said the British public, including a higher proportion of elderly, have made their views on immigration or financing their own care very clear. There's also very little support for shifting the finical/physical responsibility of care towards families.

Immigration is already happening and supporting these care roles. I can't see this stopping any time soon.
People already do pay for their care if they are over the financial threshold. Regardless of appetite.
Many families do already support their older people as much as they can.
Often, however, you do get families that try to reduce cafe packages, get by on minimum care, because they are protecting their inheritance.
Imagine how much worse that would start to look if euthanasia in this country became a thing.

Your views are actually terrifying.
My df is 90. He’s lonely and scared. Definitely has the beginnings of dementia. He’s also remarkably physically fit. I doubt he’ll die for a few years.
Someone like you describes not bumping him off as burying our heads in the sand.

Your ageism is frankly disturbing.

Absolutely they don't say no to this. Particularly those recieving the care. Why on earth would they.

I’m scared of euthanasia.

I watched my dad die and it was awful. But whilst we had to watched him slowly disappear from the man he was, at least at the end he was made comfortable. For him, he made that decision to stop treatment so it was only a matter of time.

However, having a severely disabled adult child has shown me too many times where the medical team feel his quality of life is not high enough. He has been refused treatment and access to ICU. We have been told by professionals it’s only us keeping him alive. Who are they to decide he should be put down.

Euthanasia will always be a topic of contention. I’ve been on both sides of the argument but at least when it’s not legal means we won’t have hundreds/thousands of people being put to sleep before their time.

@MarshaBradyo and @Jonei as an immigrant who has been on the receiving end of the post 2016 referendum British 'welcome' I think your views are heavily rose tinted.

@Thebestwaytoscareatory - I really think that your belief that euthanasia is the remedy to 13 years of Tory rule is completely abhorrent.

There are plenty of people who think like you and also think the same thing about disabled people. I did not say you mentioned disabled people, but rest assured there are plenty of people with your mindset and I think its utterly objectionable.

'Difficult conversations' - what rubbish. The answer to some of these questions is to have a government who doesn't shit on the vulnerable from a great height whilst making the rich infinity richer.

Euthanasia needs to be a legal option.

Rose tinted?
Why?
These things are already happening. People are here already working in these jobs.
People already have to pay unless they are under the threshold.
I'll add to that, that the majority are actually quite grateful for this help.
What exactly is rose tinted about these facts?

No rose tint required. Net migration is up post 2016.

I haven’t noticed any change and I am dual citizen but many would think I’ve moved here

Your experience may be different but there’s no point assuming you are the only one who knows what it’s like.

Exactly this. As a care worker of many years, I saw so many people just existing in pain and discomfort

I know immigration is up. That was always going to happen. But are worker shortages in care homes easing? From what I've seen, it's the opposite.

And as I've said, it shouldn't be about getting rid of older people and this is why I wouldn't want to see legalisation under the current government because yes, they'd do it badly.

But for people with a terminal diagnosis who want it, I completely fail to see why it can't be done. As it stands, I'm just counting myself lucky that I have the funds to do a Switzerland trip - as a Dutch person resident in the UK, I can't nip back home for it so it'll have to be that route.

And as I've said, it shouldn't be about getting rid of older people and this is why I wouldn't want to see legalisation under the current government because yes, they'd do it badly.

If you wouldn't want it under this government, then why would you want it under any government? You may have one government that would deliver this well, it doesn't mean the next one would continue to do so.

@Jonei because we know that it can be done well. Not perfectly, but well. My grandmother's experience is testament to that. Since 2002 when assisted dying was legalised in the Netherlands, there have largely been right wing governments. They have tweaked the legislation - tightening in some places, loosening in others. That's the reality of it - you bring in the law, you see some unintended consequences, you deal with them.

Sitting there going on about slippery slopes achieves nothing for the people who are suffering.

You may have one government that would deliver this well, it doesn't mean the next one would continue to do so.

Yes, this is also how I feel about it.

I'm sorry you are going through this to offer another view from HCP. ICU mechanical ventilation is very invasive and stressful for the person even if they are very fit. There's a high chance even a fit person won't come out the same let alone someone with underlying illnesses. None of the medical team I know want to deny people life we want them to go better but I do get annoyed when people do insist on treatment that isn't going to make the underlying illnesses go away. It is painful and invasive the end result will still be decline. I do sometimes wonder are relatives doing it for the person or for themselves because they cannot bare to let go.

Being asked to do treatment when it isn't in the person's best interests is also painful for the team.

This is really about moving the decision/ choice from the government to the individual. As for the argument that you can't ask a doctor to kill someone, why should we ask them to keep someone alive if they are in terrible pain and want to die, as we do now?

I think it's incredibly cruel to keep people with severe dementia (who are just shells really) alive for years, as I've seen happen.

My df is 90. He’s lonely and scared. Definitely has the beginnings of dementia. He’s also remarkably physically fit. I doubt he’ll die for a few years.

@Limetart what kind of a life do you think your father will have for those few years?
If he decided in a lucid moment that his life was no longer tolerable to him would you really deny him a peaceful ending with medical assistance?

But someone else deciding to kill someone is murder.
Or do you think someone else should kill them for you.

We were told that the sponges were seen as a choke hazard, as she had started to bite down on things!

We were also told that even a small amount of liquid would choke my Mum, at this point they had stopped all oral medication and she was put on patches.

This was in her very good care home.

It’s such a difficult subject.

It took my grandma 3 days to die from sepsis when they knew there was nothing more they could do. In that case surely the kindest thing would have been to put her out of her misery. They were still turning her up until she died and she was screaming in pain. That’s absolutely bonkers. Bedsores the least of her worries.

Having worked with severely disabled children I’d be worried about what would happen there.

@GretaGood - no, i don't think we should ask care workers to murder patients with dementia.

I do think that now we know the horrors of long-term, severe dementia (the one where you can't speak, can't move aa you have forgotten how, can't eat independently, don't recognise anyone, are basically just existing, we should be able to add that into any euthanasia bill that is introduced. So that we can give consent for euthanasia before we lose capacity, in that situation.

I already have an advanced directive, to refuse antibiotics or other treatment if I am at that stage, but the option of euthanasia (if it becomes law generally) should be open for people who in future don't want to 'live' with severe dementia.

@Charley50, since I can’t (yet) request euthanasia in certain circumstances in my Health and Welfare Power of Attorney, I have requested firmly that in certain specific circumstances, i.e. if I can no longer care for myself and speak - with full mental capacity - for myself - then I emphatically do not want any life-saving or life-prolonging treatment. Palliative care only, please.,
In other words, no ‘striving to keep alive’.

This is something that everyone can do.

Of course you need to know that whoever will have P of A will do their best to abide by your wishes - I am pretty sure mine will.

From all I’ve ever read or heard, it’s often the family, rather than the medics, who ‘can’t bear to let him/her go’, and insist that everything possible must be done to keep someone going, when the kindest thing would be to give palliative care and let Nature take its course.

There is an current UK public inquiry on assisted dying/assisted suicide:

https://committees.parliament.uk/work/6906/assisted-dyingassisted-suicide/news/174845/mps-launch-new-inquiry-on-assisted-dyingassisted-suicide/

Public submissions closed on 20 Jan but they've had one live evidence session since then. I don't know if more are planned or if we're just waiting for their report now.

The terms of reference were:

• To what extent do people in England and Wales have access to good palliative care?
• How can palliative care be improved, and would such improvements negate some of the arguments for assisted dying/assisted suicide?
• What can be learnt from the evidence in countries where assisted dying/assisted suicide is legal?
• What are the professional and ethical considerations involved in allowing physicians to assist someone to end their life?
• What, if any, are the physical and mental health criteria which would make an individual eligible to access assisted dying/assisted suicide services?
• What protections could be put in place to protect people from coercion and how effective would these be?
• What information, advice and guidance would people need in order to be able to make an informed decision about whether to access assisted dying/assisted suicide services?
• What capabilities would a person need to be able to consent to assisted dying/assisted suicide?
• What should the Government’s role be in relation to the debate?

These are the things we need to be thinking about.

Unfortunately these ToR were only really highlighted in the call for written submissions from professionals and organisations. Ordinary members of the public got sent to an anonymous survey asking simplified questions (IMO simplistic in parts) which I imagine will have mostly garnered the kind of simplistic responses that make up the bulk of this thread.

The Dignity in Dying survey that showed 84% in favour of assisted dying can be found here:

https://yonderconsulting.com/poll/dignity-in-dying/

It's worth digging down into both the question people were asked and the results.

A proposed new law would allow terminally ill adults the option of assisted dying. This would mean being provided with life-ending medication, to take themselves, if two doctors were satisfied they met all of the safeguards. They would need to be of sound mind, be terminally ill and have 6 months or less to live, and a High Court judge would have to be satisfied that they had made a voluntary, clear and settled decision to end their life, with time to consider all other options. Whether or not you would want the choice for yourself, do you support or oppose this proposal for assisted dying becoming law?

49% strongly supported this proposal and 35% somewhat supported it.

If I had been asked I would have said I 'somewhat' supported the proposal. I think the safeguards outlined in this proposal would be strong enough if health and social care, including EoL care, was not in such a dreadful mess.

I know palliative care is not a magic guarantee of a pain-free peaceful death but it's what most people still choose even in states where assisted dying is legal. It needs to be good enough so that people are not choosing AD out of fear of inadequate EoL care, or inadequate health and social care. In order to make assisted dying as safe as possible we need to make health, social and EoL care as good as possible. Some of the responses here terrify me.

A lot of people have talked about dementia. The proposal in this survey would not help them.

Advance directives are not safe because people change their minds.

In this survey, a small proportion of terminally ill patients seriously considered euthanasia or PAS for themselves. Over a few months, half the patients changed their minds.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/193281

There was a dreadful case in the NL a few years ago where a woman had signed an advance directive to be euthanased if she reached a certain stage of dementia. When the time came, the medic had to surreptitiously sedate her and then her family had to hold her down while she struggled against the lethal injection.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/26/doctor-on-trial-landmark-euthanasia-case-netherlands-dementia

It doesn't matter what anyone else would or would not want for themselves in that situation, or what they now think they would want, or what this woman thought she would want when she signed. At the time of death she did not want to die, she fought against it and she was deliberately killed by a medic.

I don't want any kind of law in the UK that would allow this. Unless someone can show a 'voluntary, clear and settled decision to end their life' at the time of their death then it's too dangerous.