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.

The person whose life it gets to decide.

Totally in favour of this. We should be allowed to have a good death and not just a good life.

Having watched a close relative die over a few months I now know it is not always possible to manage pain effectively. The complete loss of dignity is also an issue, albeit a separate one.

When people say that pain and suffering can always be managed in the last stages of life this not true. There are sometimes various reasons and complexities that mean this is not always the case.

It’s also not just pain. Some people spend their final hours vomiting blood and even faeces. Some people have no idea what the reality sometimes entails. https://features.dignityindying.org.uk/inescapable-truth/

I am terrified after what I’ve seen and really hope this becomes law - with safeguards and for those who are terminal and in their last months.

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).

And that's why the person in the posh mansion gets to decide for themselves and the person in the sink estate decides for themselves. No one takes the decision for them.

This isn't a class issue, you are muddying the waters.

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).
Yet lots of posters are saying it's the posh peoples families that will be encouraging them to shuffle off. So maybe the problem is posh people.

@ChardonnaysBeastlyCat laws won't be passed. You may want them but it won't happen. The politics of it are too toxic and it would rip any governing party apart. It is culture war in the making like Brexit, abortion and trans ideology that two party first past the post politics cannot cope with. You'd need a referendum on it so profound is the change being advocated, and after the Brexit wars and neverendum over Scottish independence, there is no appetite for that at all.

Don't be so sure.

These laws are reality in many countries. It's not about me wanting them. It's a bout hundreds of thousands of people wanting them.

I'm a bit puzzled in your inclusion of abortion in the litany of culture wars in the making. Do you think that's a toxic debate as well? Do you generally have problems with someone having body autonomy?

This.

Unfortunately.

I wish it were different.

@ChardonnaysBeastlyCat Your fear of a bad death is not a good basis on which to drive a policy change that would undermine the actual human right to life of the poor, disabled and mentally unwell. In fact, it is a profoundly ableist and selfish position to ignore this point and to myopically prioritise a misguided idea of personal choice/liberty for your own personal medically assisted suicide. It is not a matter of personal choice. The existing rights of the living take precedent. And societies should be organised to protect the vulnerable from harm and abuse.

It is not working in other countries and their example does not help your cause.

I think you’re wrong. I’d put money on the legislation being in place in the next decade. Current polling shows that 63% of the population is in favour of legalising assisted dying and that number will only grow. It would be a huge comfort to me to know that when I succumb to dementia my family wouldn’t have to watch me lose all dignity and I wouldn’t have to suffer it. I’m very fearful of it now.

@idreamoftoddlersleepytime ‘It is not working in other countries and their example does not help your cause’

Two decades of research in the Netherlands proves your statement incorrect - it is clearly ‘working’ there.

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

But you didn't answer my question.

Why is abortion a source for culture wars? Alongside Brexit and trans rights, no less?

You might not like it, but it's a matter of time for assisted dying laws to be passed.

Controversial and debatable. Not the slam dunk you seem to think.

You are also not thinking about how profoundly unhelpful to women's rights it is to channel the entire population into a polarised debate between pro choice and pro life rights. What do you think the fallout is likely to be in relation to abortion rights if you lose a referendum on assisted dying because more people file into the pro life column and are radicalised on the points?

@ChardonnaysBeastlyCat I acknowledge your zeal and fundamentalism. I can see that your belief that it's time has come is a matter of devout faith for you. Time will reveal if you are correct (spoiler, you are wrong and I forecast that there will be no changes in the law on this in the next 15 years or more).

The majority of people cannot be radicalised by definition.

And why are you going on about a referendum?

@idreamoftoddlersleepytime

I don’t think it’s a ‘slam dunk’. I was presenting evidence to you that challenges the point you made.

It is not valid to conflate women’s rights to an abortion with a debate about assisted dying. So I’m not going down that derailing rabbit hole.

That’s very interesting language. It’s easy to see where you’re coming from now. Anyway I’d bet my house you’re wrong.

Zeal, fundamentalism, devout faith?

You have a very strange vocabulary game there.

Rounding up a few points:

1. You'd need a referendum on a social issue of this magnitude. You are deluded if you think that a political party is going to spilt itself to pass an act in parliament without a mandate and this will never appear in a Labour or Conservative GE manifesto (a) because it's toxic (b) they'd lose votes in the wrong places under first past the post (c) given that we've never had a government with more than 50% of the popular vote since 1935, even if you could get past problems (a) and (b), the governing party would be imposing an unmandated death policy on a majority of voters.

1. I'm using the language and arguments you will face if you are able to gather momentum behind your movement. You have the advantage of people thinking in impulse that assisted death is kind and considerate. Expect that fallacy to be disabused in robust terms.

1. My three year old often demands things he's not going to get. Demanding it more loudly and saying "it will happen" is about your own internal fortification of belief in the face of opposition rather than something that affects reality.

1. There is also a lot of evidence out there to show how the policy moves from being a right to die to a duty to die. This is not a new debate and nothing has changed except that it has cycled up the agenda temporarily because Ester Rantzen has spoken on it at the end of her own life. That sparks emotional resonance because, of course, she is well loved and no one wants to see others suffer. But it is not a basis for a change in the law that would be detrimental to the fundamental rights of others.

You are deluded if you think that a political party is going to spilt itself to pass an act in parliament without a mandate and this will never appear in a Labour or Conservative GE manifesto

I think it’s already in the Labour one. And two thirds of the population are in favour so it would be a vote winner.

@BIossomtoes he has promised a debate. Not to introduce a bill to become an act of parliament. He is kicking it into the long grass.

Abortion is not a derail, it's a legitimate moral argument which is directly relevant to this.

If women have the right to end the life of a child because they CBA to deal with it, then why shouldn't a woman have the right to end the life of an elderly family member they CBA to deal with?

We don’t know, do we? The manifestos aren’t available yet. Starmer is currently in no position to promise a debate on anything. Anyway this is pointless, we’re not going to agree.

After two decades of 'working' in the Netherlands we now have people with mental health problems in their 30s using assisted suicide.

I think the word 'working' is doing a lot of heavy lifting and is a matter of opinion.

@blossomtoes. No we are not. But passing this legislation would not be sunshine and roses. You will have to contend with people who oppose and argue against and say you are doing harm to others. I'm posting so MNnetters hear the arguments. It's not for you per se.

I think abortion rights are a useful comparator. I support the right to abortion because no woman should be forced to continue a pregnancy if she doesn't want to.

However, we have safeguards so in theory it should always be the woman's genuine choice. Yet women regularly come under pressure to abort. Threads on here call women irresponsible if they choose to continue a pregnancy in less than ideal circumstances.

People will definitely come under pressure to end their lives and it will eventually be the expectation in all kinds of situations rather than proper care.

Agree with others that end of life care is awful at the moment.