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.

As a mum to an only child I’ve thought about this. I wouldn’t want to be a burden to DD, I know she may not see it that way but I wouldn’t want her to spend years of her precious life being a carer to me.

I know you will feel that you don’t mind and it’s more important to have your dad around and maybe DD would feel the same. But, as a mother who loves her DD dearly I think if I felt that her life was taken over by my needs then yeah I would think I would want to release her from the obligation. I want her to have a full life and if I ever felt I was preventing her from doing that, even if it was no fault of my own, it would weigh extremely heavily on me.

I’m sorry if I sound insensitive, as I say this I’m speaking as a mum and not a daughter here. I am very worried about a slippery slope but at the same time I do think it’s reasonable for people to want to call it a day for a multitude of reasons, as long as it’s a decision they are making by themselves and with absolute free will, not because they don’t have access to support.

I dont want my child to be caring for me when I can no longer recognise them and my life has become a painful burden to me. It's selfish of the child to want to keep their parent around in that situation.

As for those saying the state will want to kill off the elderly - the young will too when climate change means food and water are scarce and wars are being waged over them. Allowing those who wish to do so to choose the time of their dying will help put off the time at which we get there.

Yet another excellent post, RedToothBrush, especially the part about reasons not to collect data - only too potentially relevant in this case

I think about the mind sets of politics in this country compared to others.

Some posters have suggested that Switzerland never has gone down the slippery slope of this like the Dutch or the Canadians.

Lets be honest here in terms of the attitudes here in the uk. We are closer culturally to the Dutch and the Canadians and we already have conversations that very much step into the realms of 'burden on society' and focus on 'drain on public services'.

It is inconcievable that there wouldn't be that pull in the uk, perhaps more so than a lot of other countries because thats culturally where we sit in terms of taxation and political view point. We ARE to the right of a lot of other countries. We also have a young population with some rather worrying attitudes to agism even if they profess to be progressive.

Look at the posts on this thread. Theres plenty who would turn a blind eye so long as they and their family got what they want - they don't want to even engage with the idea of the possibility of abuse of euthansia. And there are others who want a cap on care provision. It really doesn't bode well if we do go down this route.

There's none so blind as he who will not see

Theres plenty who would turn a blind eye so long as they and their family got what they want - they don't want to even engage with the idea of the possibility of abuse of euthansia.

That simply isn’t the case. I want safeguards put in place to prevent abuse. There’s absolutely no reason why we can’t have the Swiss model.

What if your child was in an accident tomorrow that disabled them. Would you be happy to support them dying? Or would you selfishly want to keep them around a bit longer?

What if they weren't in pain but society made them feel that they were a burden and they therefore thought that assisted suicide was the right thing to do, even though they could have a decent quality of life with the right treatment?

As for those saying the state will want to kill off the elderly - the young will too when climate change means food and water are scarce and wars are being waged over them. Allowing those who wish to do so to choose the time of their dying will help put off the time at which we get there.

The same will be true for disabled people. I was injured and made disabled in an accident in my early 20s. Would you still think it's fine for your child, if they were in an accident, to go for assisted suicide to put off able bodied people killing off disabled people?

@RedToothBrush the journalism on the debate in the Guardian and the Independent was also in effect campaigning and not reporting. The Guardian spouted without citation that 75% of people support assisted dying.

Very little given over to those who are against and speaking out against it. Prominence given to well known and very privileged media voices, rich people used to control and unable/unwilling to subordinate their desires to the greater needs of others.

I heard Ester Rantzen on Sky News yesterday. She wants "a good death" and casually dismissed the concerns of disabled people and others who are against as unimportant to her desire. She said, And I quote, "some disabled people seem to think it will affect their rights". She knows what those disability rights activists are saying, she just isn't bothered about it, and the devaluation that their lives will incur.

It has lessened my opinion of her TBH.

The reality is though that there will be significant turnover of MPs this year and no one really knows what the next parliament will be like on the issue. Here's hoping it's not stacked full of idiots who jump on to the death train.

The culturally closest country to the UK is probably the Isle of Man who will be ready to bring in assisted dying WITH SAFEGUARDS in 2025, having now passed all the necessary legislation and amendments.

Yet no-one on this thread has once acknowledged this, notwithstanding a brief reference within the OP's post reporting on the UK parliamentary debate yesterday to 'proposals progressing in Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man'.

The Isle of Man is actually way ahead of Scotland and Jersey, and its SAFEGUARDS are transparent.

There's absoluetely no reason why we can't have the Swiss Model?

Apart from the fact we aren't Switzerland of course.

I find this post misses my point entirely. Particularly in terms of our cultural differences.

Maybe we should reflect on how we could have the Norway Model. Or the Swiss Model. Like we were told for Brexit. Only to remember that we aren't Norway or Switzerland and this kinda matters.

Culturally the UK is a somewhat harsher country in terms of how it treats the vulnerable compared to some of our European neighbours. The gap between the highest and lowest earners is very relevant here. Its about attitudes to the poor and I do think we tend to live in our own bubble world of how wonderful the UK is, in this respect. We may be more accepting in some ways but when it manifests with regards to money and power the outcome isn't always as nice as we'd like to believe.

Safeguards that haven't yet been tested.

Righty O. I feel reassured then.

Is there a problem with us raising these questions now, at the right time, ahead of a debate? Or is there a desire to tell people to shut up with the difficult questions?

Hmm.

There's absoluetely no reason why we can't have the Swiss Model?

No there isn’t. We can have whatever model we want. We can’t reject a concept just because it might be abused, it’s up to us as a society to make it as safe and impervious to abuse as possible.

The more the questions are raised the better, provided they’re genuine questions and the legislation, when it eventually is passed, uses them as a mechanism for ensuring the safeguarding is robust.

I love the fact that this thread is full of people paying lip service to 'safeguards' while simultaneously giving plenty of insights into exactly how far they'd be willing to take it once that line is crossed. The 'burdens', the unhappy, the depressed, the disabled, people without capacity should all have the 'right' to end their lives, acknowledging that yes this will fundamentally change society and attitudes towards people in those categories but actually that matters less than what's best for me. What a caring society we are. What could possibly go wrong!

If my breast cancer comes back as Stage 4 (as its type is prone to do), I want assisted dying on the table.

There was a woman in her 30s with the same type as me in Stage 4 who posted her journey right up to the end on Twitter. She tried everything. It got in her bones so badly that her femur snapped from moving around on her bed.

Oh, but because the government might in the future possibly extend coverage maybe, cancer patients should all have to either die in that sort of state or do a sloppy DIY job themselves.

The 400 number can only be for one year? And a few years ago at that?

436 people euthanised in Canada in 2022 (one year) were not terminally ill. This is equivalent to 55yrs of US prisoner executions so it seems excessive to me. Canada ends the lives of more people who are not terminally ill every year than the US executes in over half a century. Executions are often by the same sort of ‘medicines’ as euthanasia.

“In a survey of those 13,102 Canadians who ended their lives under Maid, the vast majority cited the “loss of ability to engage in meaningful life activities” as the reason for wanting to die. But other responses have troubled healthcare experts. More than one-third of respondents said their decision was, in part, informed by a feeling they were a perceived burden on family, friends or caregivers.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/25/canada-assisted-dying-laws-in-spotlight-as-expansion-paused-again

So you’re an advocate for the sneaky cup of sedative poisoned tea, followed by seeing a syringe coming for you. Saying “no, no, no”, being held down, kicking the syringe out of the doctor’s hand and then finally being restrained by your own relatives until the doctor of death got the needle into you and pumped you full of a lethal drug?

This is a true story. How was that ‘assisted’ death of a woman with dementia who had left an earlier directive even remotely peaceful or dignified?

There is no move to allow assisted dying to people with a decent quality of life. It is for people who have decided, themselves, that their quality of life is so far from decent as to be unlivable.

I'd be devastated if it was my child, who wouldn't be? But I don't own him, and it's not me who has to live what he's going through.

No. It is based on the “lessons learnt” you asked for from where
“Other countries have examples from which we can learn.”

What is conjecture is insisting that the U.K. will be unique and the lessons learnt and examples set by other countries cannot also happen here simply because it’s an inconvenient truth. In addition, I don’t think we have any laws on our books that do not eventually get amended and expanded? The laws regarding the most emotive issues are the ones most often amended and expanded- and this is a very emotive issue.

@LaurelBanks the Isle of Man homes 84k people (it's basically a small town). Whatever they do there isn't laying a practical precedent capable of roll out in the UK.

I fully support assisted dying, it's what I would want for myself & my family. Changing the law doesn't mean everyone has to use it, it is just there for anyone who chooses to. One of the MP's in my city went through his own father hanging himself because he was terminally ill, nobody should have to go through that. All these people want is to die at a place & time of their own choosing without suffering, what is wrong with that?

But the point is that if the narrative is pushed, as some have on this thread already, that if a disabled child cannot financially support their own medical bills in adulthood, or their parents cannot support them in childhood, that assisted suicide is the answer

I cannot imagine that if you had a three year old child who got leukemia and you couldn't afford their treatment once it passed a certain amount that you would be so sanguine about them going through assisted suicide

This county, the current government and the media, are hostile to disabled people. Therefore there is a high risk of any laws around this and any narrative and social feeling around this to be hostile to disabled people.

Assisted suicide cannot exist without legal euthanasia also co-existing. The IPSOS survey suggests both methods will be part of the debate and up for legalisation- both self administered (assisted suicide) or physician administered (euthanasia)

https://www.britannica.com/topic/euthanasia

”euthanasia, act or practice of painlessly putting to death persons suffering from painful and incurable disease or incapacitating physical disorder or allowing them to die by withholding treatment or withdrawing artificial life-support measures. Because there is no specific provision for it in most legal systems, it is usually regarded as either suicide (if performed by the patient himself) or murder (if performed by another). Physicians may, however, lawfully decide not to prolong life in cases of extreme suffering, and they may administer drugs to relieve pain even if this shortens the patient’s life. In the late 20th century, several European countries had special provisions in their criminal codes for lenient sentencing and the consideration of extenuating circumstances in prosecutions for euthanasia.”

“The first countries to legalize euthanasia were the Netherlands in 2001 and Belgium in 2002. In 1997 Oregon became the first state in the United States to decriminalize physician-assisted suicide; opponents of the controversial law, however, attempted to have it overturned. In 2009 the Supreme Court of South Korea recognized a “right to die with dignity” in its decision to approve a request by the family of a brain-dead woman that she be removed from life-support systems.”

Yes, but both are up to be discussed for legalisation in the U.K. Both have been legalised in the comparator countries. Assisted suicide cannot be discussed without discussing euthanasia.

Exactly

Not always, euthanasia is simply you not self-administering the lethal dose of whatever but the physician doing it. The difference isn’t in decision.

I’m an advocate for myself. I want the right to choose the manner of my own death. And some unevidenced hyperbolic horror story isn’t going to change my mind.