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.

That may be the case but if you look up thread and read my post again that has nothing to do with what I am saying. At all.

@VeryHappyBunny you ask why people should be kept alive against their will. If you passed a mentally ill person say with their legs over a bridge about to jump. Would you talk them down or validate their feelings in that moment and provided encouragement to see it through? Would you oppose that person being sectioned to prevent self harm? What if that person had a pre-existing disability that meant a doctor assisted suicide was ALWAYS available, even through your safeguards? In every country where campaigners have secured a Change in law to permit assisted suicides and euthanasia for terminally ill people, it has been widened to other categories (eg those who consider that their suffering is unbearable for reason of physical disability or poor mental health, when death is not in prospect. Also, your ideas on how you can establish legal consent on hearsay is a recipe for coercion, abuse and unlawful killing. There is a false assumption at play that people have a right to die. They do not in the UK. The right you have is a right to life and to refuse medical interventions to prolong life. Hopefully that won't change as it would be a disaster for society.

In theory I support assisted dying in limited cases. I don’t see why someone, literally on their death bed, should have to take days or weeks to die in distress.

But in practice, in the society we live in with its appalling lack of care for the vulnerable, I can’t support it. There are too many things we need to fix first before we are the kind of society that can manage the ethical complexity of assisted dying in a way that doesn’t do more harm than good.

On the contrary. Anyone who doesn’t fear that needs therapy. There’s something badly wrong with them.

Total lack of empathy? That is a scary thought.

And in the mean time those in genuine need who want this will continue to suffer.

Yep. They don’t care about Those people. Just other people.

I believe in choice.

That the problem - people are worried choice to live will be slowly taken away or chipped away or decide for them by others making value judgements about their lives.

Vague refences to safeguards which often in other countries haven't worked aren't reassuring.

In a country with good metal health care - good palliative care and where pain management was good is a very different place to where we are in UK.

You read the comments and so many are willing to kill mentally ill - even if with treatment they could live happy lives - old and disabled just kill rather than treat with dignity deciding for them what's acceptable standard of living and it's chilling.

I hope with all my heart that this becomes law in the UK as soon as possible.

Me too x

And me.

Yes. Absolutely.

The terms of this 'untenable suffering' already has a rather elastic and concerning quality at the hypothetical outset.

Whatever system there is will always have problems, nothing is fool proof, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. If nobody tried anything for fear of failure we would still be living in caves eating roots and berries.

In actual fact I did drive past someone on a bridge over the M6 who was on the wrong side and hanging out over the road. I had no idea if they were drunk or deliberately trying to kill themselves. I continued to the other side of the bridge and rang the police who came immediately. I was certainly not equipped to deal with the situation personally. Now if that person seriously wanted to kill themselves for reasons known only to themselves that is their concern, my concern was primarily for the motorists travelling under the bridge whose lives would also be endangered and the real possibility of a multiple pile-up with the potential to kill dozens of innocent people who had no desire for their lives to end that day.

A friend's late husband attempted suicide at least twice in his late teens, and whilst it was unsuccessful at the time when he tried again in his late 30s, he sadly died. If someone is hell-bent on ending their own life, and they have the means and ability to do it, the passage of time will not stop them.

There are many reasons why someone may want to end their life. No, they don't have to be terminally ill. Some people who are, end up with a peaceful death, but others who have no life limiting illness but are mentally tormented or quadriplegic following an accident which ended the life they knew may not want to "live" like that for decades. Who are we to make that decision for them when they should be able to make it for themselves. It is the people who cannot make the decision, but who have already made their wishes known who need someone to help them.

In addition to the patient concerned, it also has a massive impact on those around them. Their families, if they are at home or other residents or patients if they are in a care home or hospital. It is harrowing to hear someone in such distress crying out and shouting for help to end their suffering knowing that you cannot do a damn thing about their plight. The lasting impact on these people's mental health is unknown.

We aren't talking about millions of people every day, it is those without the mental capacity to make the decision for themselves. A decision which should be based on their known wishes. The people who can make an informed and rational choice should have that option without the fear of the consequences for anyone who helps them.

Conversely there will be people who are diagnosed with a terrifying illness who take their own lives prematurely rather than risk carrying on to the point where they cannot physically do it and knowing that they are then going to suffer an horrific death.

Oh please. I DO care about those people. If you really think it’s such a simplistic issue that someone who doesn’t agree with you must simply not care, then I don’t think you properly understand it.

I totally understand why people want this and would vote for it, I want it (in some cases) but I’ve just drawn different conclusions from you as to whether we’re capable of implementing it without dreadful harm.

Ad hominem is the last resort. She either can’t or won’t think on the excellent points you have raised and written so eloquently. Have really enjoyed your posts.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/22/jersey-approves-plans-assisted-dying-terminally-ill-adult-residents

Great news 🙌

I didn’t realise NZ enabled AD too. Good for them.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/12/woman-having-assisted-death-in-new-zealand-calls-for-uk-law-change

Yes, it was introduced in NZ, it eligible for those in six months striking distance to an expected death. Two years later and the elastic is stretching and there is pressure to expand assisted dying to those without an end of life prognosis to those who are living in pain.

Ooo! "the elastic is stretching" why can't anyone talk in plain English without resorting to stupid metaphors. So what. If someone has absolutely no pleasure in life because they are in constant, intolerable pain with no chance of it ever ending and the only respite is to be permanently drugged on painkillers to the extent that they have no quality of life, they should have the opportunity to end that life. Or do you think that people should have to put up with a pain ridden, permanently drugged existence just because it makes you feel better? What is the point of a life if you cannot live it?

If someone is able to make a rational decision to end their own life, on their own terms, based on a medical prognosis, who are you to deny them?

Taking pain killers for a short term condition is something most of us do, but having to take them everyday for the rest of your life, the dosage increasing as your body becomes tolerant of the lower dose and experiencing the many side effects associated with whichever drug you are given is just too much for some people.

So until you have personal experience of being in the position of wanting to end your own life, let those that are do so, if that is their wish.

More like the people who are against this have a profound fear of death and not being able to accept it comes to us all so want to shut down any conversation around it so they never have to think about it. I hate it too but it's reality, and it's better if it happens peacefully on someone's own terms. This debate is not an argument against anyone wanting to live so why so much anger and defensiveness? It shouldn't affect you in any way. Is it because family members might make a decision you don't like when you're not ready to let go?

You obviously have not read the whole thread if you assume that those against AD have no personal experience of disability, illness, pain, of seeing and losing loved ones in horrific circumstances, or even having tried to take their own lives.

There have been numerous personal and thoughtful honest posts on this thread, from both sides.

Ot is sad that in the last few posts it has descended into snide comments and assumptions about the motivations of those who disagree.

This is not a black and white issue, it has implications and consequences and affects everyone in society, and trying the minimise and simplify it to suit your argument does both sides a huge injustice.

@Firefly1987 you must be joking. I'm not in the least scared of death. I've died before in fact. Obviously I got CPRed, but having been cliniclly for about 2 minutes, I know for a fact its absolutely nothing to be scared of - because its absolutely nothing. When you die, you won't be there - there's no 'you' to be.

In principle, I'm still in favour of both assisted suicide and euthanasia, I just think in the current climate it has the potential to go very wrong and realize its not as simple as I once thought it was. I also realize that as I've aged, I've become less utilitarian in my ethics. I generally think that not acting is ethically safer than acting (though I've had a stimulating debate on this with a medical doctor, who asked me if I would therefore refrain from pulling the lever in the trolley problem. That gave me pause).

I met up with a friend I haven't seen in a while last weekend. She works in a hospital mainly with elderly people.

She's been working in a big city recently whilst she is training in her specialty. Her comment was that she didn't want to stay in the city because she was finding it culturally different to where she had been working previously.

She said that the city attitude was to preserve life at all costs and not think about dignity and quality of life and this was completely different to the attitude of the hospitals she'd been working at over the last few years which were provisional/rural. She felt she had seen a lot more suffering because of this.

What alarms me is that there is clearly a huge gap in practice across the country and there are such city / provisional differences.

Why?

Is this driving desire for assisted dying?

Why is no one studying this to discover whether simple practice attitudes are part of the problem?

There shouldn't be this level of difference. And if there is this level of difference that worries me in terms of what happens next in terms of next steps with assisted dying too.

There has been a growing cultural difference generally between cities and provisional areas. To the point that it is well acknowledged by politics and social commentary. We know these differences are creating a lot of major problems and political blind spots already because decision makers tend to be city based and not aware of alternative British attitudes / ways of doing things. Once again I think we are falling into some of the same traps of blinkers being on and decision makers needing to get out to see how others do things rather than arrogantly thinking that because they are in the city they are somehow superior / leading the way. It's not always the case.

There's clearly an issue here that no one is properly paying attention to.

I should add that my friend is originally from that city and previously worked at the same hospital she now works at. It's not that she is unused to the city. She feels it's changing and the gap getting bigger.

OK I just wonder why you think millions of people being denied a peaceful end and having to endure agony for days/weeks/months is less worse than what you imagine will happen to the millions of lives AD somehow impacts. There will always be things that go wrong with any system but it doesn't mean it's a reason not to do it imo.