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.

Oh wow, I didn't realise 'working' meant 'the thing people are warning about is happening'. And this was the one example that was supposed to reassure everyone?

Once again it's useful to see the moral framework and agenda being pushed by the OP.

I used to be a supporter and still am to a certain extent but I worry reading the opinions on MN on Elderly People and an underlying feeling they should shift over so the next generation can get the money and that elderly shouldn't be taking up medical resources etc. I can see the creep to people feeling they have to agree to it.

You don't see any issue with a doctor on that day being in the position of administering life-ending drugs to a patient who was asking them to stop, or saying they wanted to live, or that that they didn't understand what's going on?
That would fundamentally change the role of the physician.

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

My issue here is that the debate here has become about assisted dying when the conversation SHOULD start with the appalling state of end of life care. Not start with the introduction of assisted dying.

The issue is that improving end of life care is very difficult and very expensive.

Which is why I go back to my point about cost.

Which solution is the most cost effective and simplistic to introduce to 'improve end of life services'? This is a nonpolitical issue as I say.

This is about how the narrative is forming and how we are focused on assisted dying over improving quality of care. Think carefully about why this is happening.

This is where people enter the debate. After a personal loss and experience of suffering/grief.

This is where people move to once they start to think more deeply about the ramifications for others.

Don't be so sure that public support for this is a as deep as suggested by posters saying 65% in favour. Not sure what it comes from but support is soft.

I've sadly lost several relatives to cancer/dementia including my dm to a particularly unpleasant form of cancer. My experience of elderly relatives makes me want better care for people as they age rather than the option to end their lives. The NHS care available was poor and not due to the behaviour of staff but waiting lists and lack of staff who could do certain procedures. Even a waiting list for the hospice.
I'm saying this to make the point that it's not necessarily a case of "once you have personal experience you'll support the change in law". Our NHS is in bits. How much money will go into care for the elderly/terminally ill/end of life care once euthanasia becomes legal?

? That is incoherent and offensive. Elderly family members are not incognisant, they’re capable of making their own decisions. And if they are not (through eg. Dementia), then no one can make the decision for them. It’s not a difficult concept.

We don’t to reinvent the wheel in the UK. Other countries have examples from which we can learn.

The link to the 2009 study saying the “slippery slope” of abuse of euthanasia wasn’t happening was a bit premature. That was back when the Netherlands only allowed it for terminal physical illness. In 2011, they expanded it to include psychiatric patients who were perfectly physically healthy saying it is sometimes more important to end suffering than it is to save lives.

It is clear now, in 2024, that abuses are happening and the Netherlands is sliding down the same slippery slope as Canada. Here is an article on a CHILD that was euthanised with the support of their parents for psychiatric illness.
https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-04-19/debate-ignites-in-the-netherlands-over-rise-in-euthanasia-for-mental-disorders.html#

The article also points out that the euthanasia of the mentally ill is increasing year on year by a significant %. It won’t be long before being suicidal isn’t viewed as a symptom of mental illness and we will be helping the most vulnerable to off themselves.

😂🙈 now you’re obviously showing your ignorance. I used the word ‘working’ in quotes as I was quoting the PP. But don’t let facts get in the way of whatever your ‘agenda’ (I know you like that word), is.

“I'm saying this to make the point that it's not necessarily a case of "once you have personal experience you'll support the change in law"

I have personal experience and I am firmly against euthanasia. It is clear that it always, always ends up being abused to get rid of the most vulnerable because they are unable to be good little tax paying wage earners either due to chronic illness or age. It is a capitalist purge.

Agreed 🥺

Since when are women responsible for other adults in law?

They aren't. Women have to proactively rescind rights if they don't wish to care for a child, plus they have the physical implications of giving birth to consider too as well as responsibilities to other children.

Women do not push their parents out their fannies / have them via invasive abdominal surgery last time I checked.

Nor do they have legal responsibilities for their parents which they actively have to rescind by process. They just say 'no' to caring. The state ultimately is responsible for the care of the elderly or disabled not next of kin.

The state are much more likely to check in on the

Again this has cost implications which pose a conflict of interest for law makers proposing assisted dying.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/aug/28/two-thirds-of-britons-support-legalising-assisted-dying-poll-shows

In the Netherlands, a woman can have her child euthanised without their consent up to age 12. Talk about a late abortion.

@BIossomtoes it's from the Guardian, right thanks! No agenda there then.

Just saying. The Guardian would have said two thirds supported Corbyn.

In a decent society we'd have good end of life care and the right to assisted dying for people who are otherwise facing a bad death, with safeguards in place.

But I don't believe we have a decent society that can stand up for its more vulnerable members.

2/3rds of a 1000 Britons polled support it under very strict conditions:
“Assisted dying refers to a patient aged 18 or over being provided with life-ending medication if at
least two doctors think that all the following conditions were met:
• The patient would need to be of sound mind,
• The patient would be terminally ill and it is believed that they have 6 months or less to live,
• The patient would have made a voluntary, clear and settled decision to end their life (and made and
signed a declaration to that effect in the presence of a witness), with time to consider all other
options,
• The patient has been resident in the country for at least a year,
• The High Court confirms it is satisfied that these conditions have been met,
• If the conditions are met, a health professional may help to prepare and assist with the medication, but the decision to self-administer the medicine and the final act of doing so must be taken by the patient themselves.”

There is less support when the doctor is administering it, or if it is used on the mentally ill, and even less on children.
https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2023-08/ipsos-assisted-dying-survey-july-2023-charts.pdf

Has anyone suggested assisted dying in this country should be made available to children or people who are mentally ill? The only exception I’d make to that is dementia sufferers who have put in place a forward directive when they had capacity.

RedToothBrush · Today 11:04
Agree with others that end of life care is awful at the moment.

My issue here is that the debate here has become about assisted dying when the conversation SHOULD start with the appalling state of end of life care. Not start with the introduction of assisted dying.

The issue is that improving end of life care is very difficult and very expensive.

Which is why I go back to my point about cost.

But cost plays a part in every facet of our lives. If the NHS is offered a drug that would give a child 5 extra years but it cost £1000000 a week then rightly so they would reject it because it's the responsible thing to do. The woman who decides to have an abortion because she wouldn't be able to give a child a good quality of life is making a responsible decision. Allowing a person to choose the manner and time of their demise because they don't want their children's inheritance whittled away on care home fees is a responsible decision for them. What gives you the right to deny them that decision?

😱 You are ignoring Holland and Canada's experience of mission creep. Once you've opened Pandora's box, it is a matter of time before lobbying from folk like you widens the parameters.

The IPSOS survey you introduced to the thread suggests it to the 1000 British they polled. Obviously someone up there is suggesting it and wanted to know a poll on it.

The larger point is that every country that legalises it, ends up adding it for children and the mentally unwell. This needs to be part of the discussion.

Are you familiar with the slippery slope theory and how euthanasia for under 18 wasn't where it started in the Netherlands?