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.

Well that quote is directly from the research paper. Not sure about the language differences / translation. They go further to define it

‘In the Netherlands, euthanasia has been defined since 1985 as the administration of drugs with the explicit intention to end life at the explicit request of a patient. Physician-assisted suicide is defined as the administration, supply or prescription of drugs with the explicit intention to enable the patient to end his or her life. Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are therefore to be distinguished from other medical decisions concerning the end-of-life; such as withdrawing or withholding potentially life-prolonging treatments; intensified measures to alleviate pain or other symptoms while taking into account the possible hastening of death or appreciating that possibility; or actively ending the patient’s life without an explicit request.’

the measure of a civilised society is how it treats its vulnerable people.

Surely a civilised society should be looking to make sick and dying people as comfortable as possible rather than considering them to be burdens?

Our population is ageing. We should be looking at investing money in end of life care, care homes, nursing, so our vulnerable friends/family members/fellow citizens know that they will be treated with respect and dignity no matter what their capacity.

This thread is horrifying.

Ok, I think if you're advocating for something, you should be comfortable enough with it conceptually that you can use correct terms. I'm fine with saying assisted suicide or euthanasia but ultimately both are obviously ending someone's life, which can accurately be described as killing them.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make in your second paragraph. Suicide is very distressing for all affected. Would the people jumping in front of trains be eligible for assisted dying then, as you envisage it? I suppose it's less uncomfortable for others. Alternatively, these people might need better psychiatric support than we are currently giving them.

Suicide is indeed distressing for all affected. But there are ways and ways. Best to the safe, sure, painless and properly supervised, with all the safeguards in place.

Nobody is killing anyone if people, with full conscience, and with the medical opinion of 2 physicians that their condition is indeed increasingly debilitating, painful and undignified, ask for help to do it themselves but 'properly'.

My 86 year old neighbour jumped of the 3rd floor window as his family were totally against him going to Dignitas. His son and children lived on the ground floor and witnessed it all. His family then wished they would have listened to him and helped him.

So you are saying everyone receiving a terminal diagnosis should be given an overdose?? It's this type of attitude that makes me feel we can't risk opening the gates.

Of course not. This is getting just ridiculous.

We are saying that they should have the choice, with all the safeguards and self administered anyhow, afte ensuring there is no outside coersion and fully compos mentis.

I fully support assisted dying.

I believe it is possible to put checks and balances into place to make it safe and to ensure informed consent from the individual at multiple stages, with 'get out' options at each stage.

Whilst I understand some families find it difficult when their loved ones want to make this choice, I don't think they have a right to overrule them.

Ah, the 'they're going to do it anyway' argument. Always a winner. What a horrific thing that man did to his family.

It is clear that it always, always ends up being abused to get rid of the most vulnerable

I don’t think there’s evidence of it being abused anywhere is there?

They did a horrific thing to him, driving him to that by denying him his autonomy.

‘the measure of a civilised society is how it treats its vulnerable people.’

That is definitely one measure, and I totally agree.

‘Surely a civilised society should be looking to make sick and dying people as comfortable as possible rather than considering them to be burdens?

Our population is ageing. We should be looking at investing money in end of life care, care homes, nursing, so our vulnerable friends/family members/fellow citizens know that they will be treated with respect and dignity no matter what their capacity.

This thread is horrifying’

Of course it should, and no one is suggesting it shouldn’t. Totally agree here too.

What people are suggesting is that there should be a choice for those that wish to choose assisted dying. For all the reasons that have been mentioned in this thread, and maybe more. This is also part of a civilised society.

What people are also saying is that there has to be strict safeguards, rules and regulations in place.

A civilised society would not watch on as people slowly, painfully die and or physically deteriorate - when that person has asked explicitly to be treated with dignity and assisted to die.

Enabling and encouraging that desperate suffering, when a person has asked for it to end, is horrifying.

YANBU

If I want to die because I have terminal cancer and death sentence, I should be allowed. Why linger on screaming in pain or not having a scooby doo who I am. No thanks.

People always mention animals being pts- well it’s the same for us. Painless.

What some people are suggesting is horrifying.

Some people don’t seem to realise how fine the line can be between interventions to relieve suffering and interventions that will cause death. Clinicians are afraid to act.

It’s not always possible to make people anything like comfortable. Only people with insufficient knowledge or experience ever argue this. Read the Dignity In Dying Report.

Civilised? Forcing someone to lie there for days or weeks surrounded by the stench of their own rotting flesh, doubly incontinent or vomiting faeces, whilst screaming in agony because opioid pain killers make them ever more psychotic and begging for help is NOT FKING CIVILISED.

PawPrintsInMyPansies · Today 17:01
the measure of a civilised society is how it treats its vulnerable people.

Surely a civilised society should be looking to make sick and dying people as comfortable as possible rather than considering them to be burdens?

This is about making people as comfortable as possible by not prolonging suffering.

Our population is ageing. We should be looking at investing money in end of life care, care homes, nursing, so our vulnerable friends/family members/fellow citizens know that they will be treated with respect and dignity no matter what their capacity.

Apart from the fact that financially pensioners account for over 2/5 of the NHS budget, 55% of welfare spending( 11.3 per cent of total public spending), average council spends about 40% of its budget on adult social care you think the government should spend more? What do you propose to cut?
Also care home staff are generally on minimum wage how would you attract more staff, nurses have been offered a 2% pay rise so again a less attractive job. Young people are priced out of home ownership due to the insane price rises and having less children because they can't afford it. Who are going to do these low paid jobs?
The aging population is not sustainable in the current framework, people will start leaving when the tax burden to pay for all this gets too high and then we'll really see some radical solutions.

But don't see that you doing exactly what you are afraid someone else will do to your dad were he to live in a different environment where assisted dying is available?

You don't agree with his wishes and you think he's making a decision for the wrong reason. But he is his own person and he's perfectly entitled to his decision.

There is also very rarely only one reason for someone to do something. Decisions are always complex.

You say your language says he's won't be a burden, but maybe he can read your body language and that's telling him something else?

In any case, it's his reasons that are valid, not yours.

Quite.

No. You just made that up.

Just one of the many arguments, and a very valid one.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

You need to be careful here.

Maternity services have long said that no one has complained officially. Bounty is a really good example of this, which has been documented well on MN in terms of how lots of women had a complaint but didn't think it worth making or that they wouldn't be taken seriously etc etc.

The key point here is in order to identify an issue of the most vulnerable being abused, those people need a voice or advocates - because they are the people least likely to have someone to put in a complaint after the fact. They are vulnerable precisely because they can effectively disappear in a system. Doctors and nurses won't necessarily report because they have a conflict of interest with their jobs.

You need to consider just how long medical scandals in this country have had to run before anyone has noticed there is an issue in far too many cases.

Even when people have noticed there is an issue and have tried to whistleblow they've been smeared, unfairly discredited, lost careers etc etc.

There are lots of ways in which data can be not recorded too. We've currently got a medical scandal where the outcomes of children using off label drugs for the best part of 30 years has not be recorded or followed up. So the data doesn't exist. Indeed, adult services in this area have actively withheld data from a public inquiry. Then there's all kinds of debate over whether evidence is high quality or not. If authorities don't want data to become public there are all sorts of ways to hide it.

So I'd be mindful that saying there isn't any evidence of the vulnerable being harmed, this doesn't mean it isn't happening.

I wish this wasn't the case, and this point didn't need to be made, but it should be made routinely in all situations where safeguarding is relevant. You have to actively hunt around and seek out this type of data - its often hard to find. And if there is ideological and political pressure NOT to find it, it makes it much harder for it to see the light of day.

As we can see from this thread, this is an area of medicine where ideology and emotion mixes with science so it is an area that is particularly vulnerable to 'missing data' issues.

One of the issues here is precisely that many of these people want assisting with dying precisely because THEY CAN'T do it anyway...

Mavenss · Today 08:51
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/ 

This article is from 2009. Have a look at this one from 2022. The rate of euthanasia for depression has increased significantly from 2011. It's a controversial topic in the Netherlands

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9251055/

And why should that Man have to overcome his survival instinct and kill himself by using a violent and painful method? Because alternatives aren’t legally available. I feel so sorry that he had to put himself through that experience.

Suicide, by its very nature is one of the most selfish things a person can do - because it is purely about them and how they’re feeling.

The argument of ‘think about those that are left behind’ is even more selfish. Do you not think the majority of non psychotic, non impulsive, suicidal people don’t consider this? It’s constantly on my mind as a someone that suffers from chronic suicidal ideation. That’s why I’d rather be able to have the conversation with my friends and family about my planned death, rather than have to do it on my own, because I don’t want to be detained against my will.

With the right controls, it can be managed for physically ill and mentally ill people with capacity (or those that decided this while they had capacity).

We all die at some point, but some people seem to not want to acknowledge this. Death is part of living.

The laws will change. Eventually.

I really hope for your sake you don’t get ill with a chronic condition.

The NHS pay over £50,000 a year for my adult son. Shall I let him know at the age of 21 he has ten years life left because he’s then hit your cap?

Assisted Dying should be talked about in families, death in general- and not at the last minute. My OH knows exactly how I feel, and fortunately he feels exactly the same. Our 3 boys all adults now and with their own families- one of whom lives in Switzerland so could legally help if and when without fear of prosecution- found it hard to understand but now are fully on board. They have seen their grandparents suffer, and so many of their friends' parents too- and they totally get it. We are fit and healthy, very positive and active people- but we've got everything in place just if and when.

The aging population is not sustainable in the current framework, people will start leaving when the tax burden to pay for all this gets too high and then we'll really see some radical solutions.

’radical solutions’ being killing off those you think are a drain on society?

Its clear from the attitudes on here that those supporting assisted suicide range from those who genuinely want to help people suffering and those that see it as a method of population control.

This is why assisted suicide is a bad idea. If it becomes law here, it will rapidly change from a very narrow set of criteria to pressuring our vulnerable to die.

what was it Scrooge said about poor people dying and decreasing the surplus population?