Assisted dying debate next week… To think this is a relief. So glad they’re finally debating this important issue.

[Mavenss]

We will be able to see which MPs are for or against assisted dying.

This Monday 29th April, assisted dying will be debated in Westminster for the first time in two years. An absolutely incredible 203,000 people added their name to the government petitionspearheaded by Dame Esther Rantzen to make this happen, creating the largest ever parliamentary petition on assisted dying.

There will not be a vote on Monday, but this debate will be the last time before the General Election that MPs have an opportunity to show you that they are listening to our calls for safe and compassionate choice at the end of life. A majority of voters in every constituency support an assisted dying law.

The debate starts at 4:30pmand you can watch it live online through the UK parliament website.

YABU- it’s a silly idea, why are government even debating it? Assisted dying is a terrible idea.

YANBU - I support the debate and assisted dying (under the agreed circumstances)

I’m interested in the MN feedback here.

In my opinion thinking of the poor people who are suffering is a very human thing to do.

Would you be inclined to support the proposals if they didn't come from a Conservative government?

I don't think the temptation to balance the books is a party political issue. I think it's a temptation that occurs in all parties and also on the ground in hospital departments.

@Mavenss you are kidding yourself if you think it possible to implement effective safeguards to prevent abuse, or that this would not creep beyond an option made available only to the terminally ill. It is not what happens in reality.

Nothing wrong with balancing the books.

My granny died after years of suffering. My other granny kept crying out for God to take her. Why should I have to go through this, and spend all the money I have on someone wiping my arse instead of leaving on my terms when the time is right ifI wanted to?

No one is invisible in this debate. Some of the loudest voices on this thread are the ones against.

@ChardonnaysBeastlyCat it's a perfectly legitimate personal opinion but not a basis for a policy affecting the lives of millions. Sorry, but that's it. This debate will never end, but it is one in which the legal door must be held firmly shut.

Why?

There are hundreds of thousands out there who share my opinion.

And how is "Sorry, but that's it" a fair contribution to a debate?

The debate will end when the laws are passed, and they will be.

What happens on the predetermined day when you no longer have capacity and don't want or understand why the doctors are giving you the drugs? Should they stop or should they carry on?

I think this is an excellent point. Anybody in a position of privilege can look at somebody who will never get to enjoy that same privilege and so declare their life unbearable; but when it's your life - the best life that is available to you - you're often a lot less blase about it.

People who live in mansions in posh towns would probably see living in a high-rise flat on a sink estate in South Yorkshire as thoroughly intolerable and 'not a life worth living'; yet if you asked all the residents of said flats if they wanted to go on living or otherwise just opt for death straightaway, the vest majority would of course choose the former (albeit still buying a lottery ticket and crossing their fingers each week).

It's a tiny mental step from saying "I consider this kind of life not worth living" to reconciling it as "People who are living this life have nothing worth living for".

Would anybody be willing to suggest that we should bomb entire countries where extreme poverty is all the vast majority of the people there will ever know, and just 'put them all out of their misery'? I would certainly hope not; but in principle, it's not that different on a mass scale from how so many people already see the less privileged members of our own society now.

This will mean those who are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse will be invisible in these debates because they are an inconvenience and a barrier to assisted dying.

Not the first time I've agreed with @RedToothBrush I doubt it will be the last.

So many on this thread either with a deceased relative who died in pain or with a life-limiting condition. That is meaningful and important lived experience.

However, I wonder how many people on the thread have severe cognitive impairment, an IQ under 50, Down's syndrome, or another impairment that means you can't always effectively lobby and present for yourself. Before I worked with people with severe impairments, I would have said that life wasn't worth living, that I would rather die than live with a brain injury or serious cognitive impairment. But then I met lots of people who are funny, happy, loved, having a great life, with those challenges. They are expensive and caring for them takes skill and love.

Someone said you can't legislate for bastards being in power. I think you should only legislate for bastards being in power. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

I'm really sorry you went through that. This is why I wonder, do we need to go directly from - well, this - to euthanasia? After my nan died, the doctor told the family "You did the right thing". What, so....you, the consultant, knew you were doing the wrong thing ordering all those antibiotics, but never broached the conversation that you shouldn't?

Maybe the first legal conversation should be about extreme measures and actually letting people die a bit more. We are all going to die. Everyone and everything that is, was, and ever shall be. It seems like on one hand we (as a society, not me personally) are in denial of this, and on the other, are ready to dispose of 'Other' people arbitrarily. Also, I think there's an ethical difference in terms of what we are asking doctors to do in terms of supplying the agent of death (assisted suicide) and ceasing to prevent it. You might say that's splitting hairs, but I do think it makes a difference to a person's psyche (and having seen the Stanford Prison Experiment, and also heard some stories from an inpatient psych ward) I think we need to be very careful about the powers we imbue people working in total institutions with.

We were discussing this rationally and my husband said "it's no one's business except the person and their families" and therein lies the problem.

It's absolutely nothing to do with the family but, of course, if an elderly person starts to feel a burden they may well do it for their family, non pressurised or pressurised.

It will be so hard to scale to a population. Presumably Dignitas manage it simply because the £££ involved restricts numbers to make it a manageable scale?

Why would I need to be told I was being given the drugs?

Iggi999 carry on of course.

To those who post that we treat our animals better than people, I have to disagree. We put animals down if the medical remedies are expensive and we don't always want/or are able to afford them.

Fractured hips in the elderly signify relatively little life left in a significant proportion of sufferers. How long will it take for MAID to be an alternative to other treatments for the frail and elderly. I believe that this law will be abused.

The people who say that we shouldn't allow this because it might be abused have a great point.

Therefore, we should ban abortion.

Given the level of funding for hospices and access to good quality care, and following on from that a lack of social care and people entering that sector, I'm really quite worried about this. I really do see it as the thin end of the wedge.

Give it a couple of decades and the poorer end of society will feel pressured into agreeing to end their lives.

Do you think they’re equivalent? I don’t think your glib comment adds anything to the thread at all. And it minimizes abuse.

And back in 4 or eight years later with powers to amend any legislation.

In Canada, lobbying brought changes very quickly indeed.

Here is some empirical evidence from the Netherlands. One might suggest we use - look at? - their tried and tested approach.

Two decades of research on euthanasia in the Netherlands have resulted in clear insights into the frequency and characteristics of euthanasia and other medical end-of-life decisions in the Netherlands.

These empirical studies have contributed to the quality of the public debate, and to the regulating and public control of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

No slippery slope seems to have occurred.
Physicians seem to adhere to the criteria for due care in the large majority of cases. Further, it has been shown that the majority of physicians think that the euthanasia Act has improved their legal certainty and contributes to the carefulness of life-terminating acts.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2733179/

Just out of interest can anyone who is against assisted dying tell me how much in pounds is a life worth? NICE has guidelines but what do you think it the maximum amount society should spend on just one life?

"Wasting"...

As the originator of the notion - you go first.

Fine, £500,000

The principles are almost identical.
Consider your reasons for being pro abortion (and what you would hear in return) and apply that to this debate.

For instance:

Why should killing babies be legal? What about abuse?
Does "my body my choice" apply more to the one being killed or the people alive who would have to deal with it?
What is a person?
At what point should abortion not be legal?
Is there a reason for having an abortion that you don't think is valid?

This. Who decides when the process of ageing and death becomes a waste of money. Those cultural and individual pressures will be there on people; older people are already given a message that they are irrelevant.