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.

I've been in care homes full of the elderly in the waiting room for the next life. They howl, are hoisted and lifted, fed pureed food and sat in a circle playing "games and songs"

I can wholly assure you that I will not ne joining that gang. It is a totally pointless life.

And they are the lucky ones. Have you been in a care home as a visitor or an inmate? I have been a resident for nearly 18 months and what you describe is a good day. On the whole, the staff do as good a job as they can but there just isn't enough of them. They do 12 hour shifts and double up doing care and serving food, sometimes working in the kitchen or laundry. There isn't the time to give people one to one care and spend enough time on those who need it.

If you are here at other times you will hear people crying out in pain and desperation but there is nothing anyone can (legally) do for them.

Tracy Hickman, a British woman living in New Zealand, died on Wednesday under their AD laws. She had said that since making the decision to die on her own terms "it has given me much comfort and peacefulness" and when discussing the right to die that "people should have the right to a peaceful, gentle death".

Mercifully, the old lady who was here at this care home and who would have benefitted enormously from AD has now died. Not for her a peaceful and gentle death but at least her struggles and suffering are now over.

On the whole, the staff do as good a job as they can but there just isn't enough of them. They do 12 hour shifts and double up doing care and serving food, sometimes working in the kitchen or laundry. There isn't the time to give people one to one care and spend enough time on those who need it.
As an individual, you might decide the solution to this is to end your life before you reach this stage. As a government, would you not hope the solution was to invest more in a decent care system?

As a government, would you not hope the solution was to invest more in a decent care system?

It depends on the government. Assisted dying has the potential to solve a lot of problems. A staffing shortage in care crisis, a waiting list crisis, a pension's crisis, an old age dependency ratio crisis. Look at all the things you can fix when you can employ a sense of duty to call it a day when you are a burden on the state.

As a government, would you not hope the solution was to invest more in a decent care system?

The solution is a combination. No amount of high quality care could have prevented my mum’s last days being torturous. The care was gold standard and she still had to endure an experience you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. I really, really don’t want that for me or my helpless, onlooking family.

That's a very scary comment @MagnetCarHair

More than 1 in 25 deaths in Canada are the deaths induced by assisted dying. That That must be saving a fortune.

A Canadian veteran was offered assisted dying as an alternative to having a wheelchair lift installed in her home.

Think of the money it could potentially save right, what's not for governments to like?

We could fix homelessness too.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/15/canada-has-revealed-the-horror-of-assisted-dying/

"It didn’t take long for people to start applying for MAID for reasons that had little to do with poor health. One of the most infamous cases was that of Amir Farsoud, a 54-year-old disabled man who applied for MAID in 2022 because he was about to be made homeless. Farsoud was quite open about the fact that he didn’t actually want to die. He simply didn’t know what else to do. He felt that he was being abandoned by the authorities. He decided that he would rather be dead than homeless"

Two independent doctors (that's the gold standard we've been reading about on this thread) signed the papers for him to die but a public outpouring saved him.

The article goes on:

"In February 2022, a 51-year-old woman called Sophia (not her real name) was euthanised by doctors. She suffered from an extreme sensitivity to household chemicals and cigarette smoke, which made life unbearable for her. Because of her complex needs, the local authorities found it difficult to house her. After two years of asking for help with her living situation, all to no avail, Sophia decided that MAID was the only solution left. Four doctors wrote to federal-government officials on Sophia’s behalf, begging them to help her find alternative accommodation. But their pleas fell on deaf ears. She was killed instead"

I guess that's a saving on housing costs and healthcare costs. Job done there.

It's one thing to kill people off because they are a nuisance, that is almost universally frowned upon. But what if you employed a Trojan horse of caring? (You'll have to forgive me another metaphor, I like them 🤷🏼‍♀️) What if you called that horse, Empowerment?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/medically-assisted-death-could-save-millions-1.3947481

No, because I like being a nuisance and I plan on sticking around for as long as possible! But seriously, I am not in a situation that would require AD and hopefully I never will be, but to know that if the worst ever came to the worst, it is there as an option would be a comfort.

With regard to the care system, as far as I can make out , most (if not all) care homes are privately owned and run and the owner's main priority is the bottom line. As long as they are making money they are happy.

In my opinion all care and nursing homes should be in the public domain and run as non-profit making. Unfortunately with the Government hell bent on privatising as much of the NHS as they can get away with, this will never happen.

Yes but they can't go against a DNR that someone has put in place themselves right? So my point was someone could've been coerced into that. If someone wants to live but they've been convinced to sign a DNR even though they might not be at end of life, surely that's problematic and a moral dilemma too?

There was a case where two patients notes got mixed up in hospital and a lady lost her life because they refused to perform CPR on her. They actually had the notes of a 90-something man who had a DNR in place by mistake. They couldn't legally save her (or so they thought based on the notes they had) so they had to let her die. Ok so it's not causing the death which is obviously a very important distinction but someone died who probably would've wanted to live, she was only in her early 70s. This is a huge error that cost someone their life!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1d4n734jn3o#:~:text=The%20family%20of%20a%20woman,September%20following%20two%20cardiac%20arrests.

If someone wants to die that's up to them and nobody else.

I accept that there's nuance in countries with socialised medicine, but if I got Alzheimer's I wouldn't want to be artificially kept alive, slowly forgetting everyone and everything around me while everyone close to me gets put through the wringer.

Your main fears/complaints are of poor care. I don’t see AD (the patient being made to die) as an appropriate solution to carers that dehumanise and sexually assault patients or carers that don’t speak English. 🤨

I have been in this situation, was paralysed after a car accident. After months of surgeries and physio, graduated to a wheel chair. After two years in a wheelchair I was walking & fairly mobile. I am still & always will be incontinent.

At my lowest point, when doctors told me I had only a 50/50 chance of even being well enough to be in a wheelchair and I’d never walk again, I did feel suicidal. I almost decided not to agree to the excruciating pain of neck, spinal and leg surgeries and physio - because what would be the point? Having those bolts screwed into your leg..it feels like medieval torture.

If they had suggested AD with the confidence of the odds they gave me of being bed bound for life, I might have taken them up on it. I didn’t know at the time that deep depression and feeling suicidal is normal after life changing injuries. So I had to tackle not just the physical damage, but also the psychological.

I look at countries where AD is legalised and not one has avoided the slippery slope. It is never purely for the terminally ill. It always gets expanded and then the abuse creeps in. The doctors start suggesting it and subtly pushing it because it is an easier path for them to manage. The politicians and society start pulling back on care by funding AD and defunding mental health, palliative care, disability benefits and so on.

You can’t discuss AD without discussing all the predictable consequences of it that have happened when it is legalised that cause harm and death to people who don’t want to die.

Very compelling argument there, a real debate winner.

There is nothing natural about a lethal injection or lethal oral dose of drugs.

Otherwise everyone who dies of a drugs overdose has died a natural death?

Have you been in a care home as a visitor or an inmate? I have been a resident for nearly 18 months and what you describe is a good day. On the whole, the staff do as good a job as they can but there just isn't enough of them. They do 12 hour shifts and double up doing care and serving food, sometimes working in the kitchen or laundry. There isn't the time to give people one to one care and spend enough time on those who need it.

So the solution to the problem of low staffing ratios causing poor care is to bump off care home patients? This is getting almost like Logan’s Run.

Yes, sorry, not my finest hour.

Piece in today's Observer, from Oregon.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/26/oregon-right-to-die-law

That's a good article. Particularly the perspective of Jackson. From voting against AD to being a huge proponent of it.

“I really thought that if everyone had hospice care, they wouldn’t need this, which was very arrogant of me because hospice is something where others decide.

One of the things that really bothers me is the idea that doctors should decide when to allow you to die. That is just awful. I came to realise this is about choice. Someone should be able to decide for themselves when to die.”

Now Jackson, who has the autoimmune diseases multiple sclerosis and scleroderma, wonders if some day she may use the law herself.

“I get times when I’m not able to see. That’s an MS thing. I have been in a position where I wasn’t able to walk. My fingers don’t work,” she said.
“It’s comforting to know the law is there.”

As SummerFeverVenice points out this isn't a much better argument than that though.

You want the wrong solution to an important question. It's closer to eugenics than far too many people are willing to admit.

Imagine reading that as someone with a disability or a long term chronic health condition and consider whether assisted dying seems a 'relief' or terrifying.

Liz Carr states the point that for most people it may seem a 'safety net' incase someone joins the small group of people who are dependent on others in someway but if you perhaps permanently belong to that group due to your health issues the prospect is more of a 'sword of damocles' permanently hanging over you.

The whole debate is a minefield. You have got the Yes, No and the unsure or undecided voters. I don't think anyone is trying to make AD compulsory, but equally it shouldn't be denied to those who want it.

You don't need to be terminally ill to want it, and equally some terminally ill people don't want it. Everyone's situation is different and there is no solution that covers them all, but people should be given different options and allowed to make their choice - for or against.

‘But those requirements did not stop the 1994 referendum evolving into an often bitter campaign.

The state’s largest newspaper, the Oregonian, was strongly opposed to the Death with Dignity Act. So was the US senator for Oregon, Ron Wyden, who said he feared the law could be used to push people who could not afford medical expenses into taking their own lives.

The Roman Catholic church, alarmed at the precedent the law would set, poured millions of dollars into campaigning against it by claiming that assisted dying would encourage a rash of suicides. The archbishop of Portland, William Levada, called proponents of the law “murderers in the name of mercy”.

Other opponents claimed that the disabled and sick would take their own lives so as not to become a burden on their families. Some even claimed that Oregon’s beaches would be littered with the bodies of people who chose to die next to the sea.

Voters approved the law by a slim margin with 51% in favour. But the anti-abortion group National Right to Life almost immediately persuaded a federal judge to block its implementation for another three years. Then Oregon’s legislature decided to put the issue to voters again.

Support for the law increased to 60% on a second ballot in 1997, in part because even some Oregonians who had voted against it the first time resented outside-pressure groups failing to respect the original result.
The legislation finally took effect, but two years later Congress tried to legislate against it.

By then, Wyden thought differently about the Death with Dignity Act after seeing it in action.

“Not only did I change my views, but I filibustered in the Senate to protect it. I consider it one of the most important things I’ve done in my time in public service,” he told Willamette Week.’

Wyden.