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.

No it’s not I agree. However I was being purely factual.

Factual and accurate - Netherlands date

Factual and accurate - My view on the matter. To which I’m entitled.

Because once you withdraw the boundary I can’t see any Government being strong enough to withstand the pressure pressure groups.There will always be an edge case. It just takes time.
Chrisianity did provide robust opposition but that is gone and there is always a doctor who will push boundaries, look at the Tavistock fiasco.

I've watched this multiple times whilst myself in hospital. They also often leave people without water, with non functioning call bells, waiting hours for pain relief. It seems to me a combination of significant lack of resources, disorganisation and this apathy almost endemic across the NHS .
I know there are some good people trying their best but collectively as an organisation it is beyond terrifying. This has very much fed into my current enquiry regards assisted dying abroad.

Why do you keep disagreeing with my use of words? If you assist someone to take their own life then as things stand that is killing them. So why did you object to my original use of that word?
The person supplying the drugs - and in some countries assisting more directly with their administration - knows their actions are leading to the person's death.

No. You said "Why anyone would actively wish for another human to die a slow painful death, or live a long painful life with no quality of life, is beyond me." That's very much misrepresenting what people have said.

No one is wishing for pain.

18 months before he died one admission had near constant pestering at family to put a DNR despite Dad sating it wasn't what he wanted and family respecting that - to be told in end it would be a medical decision - which was fine but why keep raising it with us and Dad

Because they generally work hard to keep everyone involved onside in a mutual decision

Sometimes the family will be onboard with this and sometimes they won't; it might even end up in court, though often the patient passes before it gets to that, but in the end it is indeed a medical decision

MoonCircles · Today 11:55

I personally have 2 friends who currently have elderly parents in hospital. Both went in with painful but treatable acute conditions, but in both cases the hospitals are refusing to operate, because they’re old. My friend’s father’s ‘care’ involves being occasionally turned in bed. He cannot manage eating himself, they bring him his meals and then when he hasn’t eaten them, take them away again. He needs feeding, but they aren’t helping him. It seems in both cases the medics have opted to just let them die slowly, and in pain, rather than treat them. No dementia in either case, so fully aware of the situation. It seems to me that euthanasia is already here, just not in a humane way.

Refusal to operate will be due to the risk of complications and like many medications the NICE guidelines will be based on cost to outcome. If a person can no longer roll over or feed themselves then that suggests they no longer have the quality of life they once had and are merely being kept alive. I cannot see how that can be seen as compassion as it has no purpose either financially or morally.

That struck me as a fair description. Nobody who’s witnessed that would regard it as hyperbole.

Because you keep using inappropriate words. At Dignitas they supply the drugs but the patient has to take them. Even in current law nobody would be charged with murder for supplying drugs that caused someone else to overdose and die.

I think the hyperbole was was suggesting that anyone actively wishes for someone suffer a slow and painful death. People arguing against assisted dying are doing so mainly from a safeguarding perspective IMO.

Personally I think there should be more use of living wills etc making it clear what the person does and doesn't want in terms of treatment/extraordinary means to prolong life. And in cases of terminal illness doctors should be able to give more pain relief even if it's likely to make the person die more quickly, without worrying about the legal ramifications- again only with the patient's explicitly stated wishes. What I don't think would be beneficial is an assisted dying law that would open up all sorts of avenues of abuse and widening the remit, implicitly putting people in a situation where choosing to die just 'makes sense' and is seen as kinder and more responsible all round.

I don't see how pestering someone or their family to sign a DNR has anything to do with keeping everyone involved in a mutual decision.

It wasn't having the conversations it was the shear number of time they asked everyone - every family member who went near hospital despite clear no from Dad from family - kept on and on argued with the clear No don't want that.

Then having thoroughly upset everyone - being asked once would have been fine - then said it didn't matter what Dad or family said.

One one hand I get that it medical decision in end and they want consensus but it felt like bullying to my family to get them on board and scared my Dad and then left us feeling utterly dismissed and upset for no reason.

It wasn't necessary anyway when they finally gave anti biotics for the infection he rapidly improved and was home at end of the week. It was never needed and was none issue by time of his actual death and time that was coming up he was ready.

BIossomtoes · Today 20:30
That struck me as a fair description. Nobody who’s witnessed that would regard it as hyperbole.

Thank you @BIossomtoes

AderynBach · Today 20:53
I think the hyperbole was was suggesting that anyone actively wishes for someone suffer a slow and painful death. People arguing against assisted dying are doing so mainly from a safeguarding perspective IMO.

Don’t you see? If for example a person has no quality of life - double incontinence, no use of their limbs, can barely eat without choking. But still 100% mentally. Not terminal, they could ‘live’ like that for many more years. And so they want to end their life. But others stop them. They say no you have to stay alive. To that individual who wants to die, that would certainly feel like another person is actively wishing for them not to die and therefore to live in pain and misery for the rest of their life.

That’s just one example. There are many more.

No hyperbole or exaggerations at all. As I said to the pp.

Meanwhile the Netherlands factual info was ignored. They’ve had laws for assisted dying for over 20 years.

https://www.government.nl/topics/euthanasia/euthanasia-assisted-suicide-and-non-resuscitation-on-request

I like the idea of assisted dying to reduce suffering, but I'd worry that our gov would fuck up implementing it and it'd all turn into a shitshow, which is a shame for the people most affected who just want to end their suffering. I know someone considering assisted dying abroad, he is in a lot of pain, has a poor quality of life and is (perhaps unfortunately) incredibly intelligent so he knows very well what's in store for him, as he will only deteriorate from now on. I feel bad for him that there isn't a SAFE way that he can choose to die in the UK

The hyperbole was exactly as @AderynBach said, "actively wishing". It's like me saying you are "actively wishing" for the State to kill old or disabled people and the mentally unwell. I could argue it's factual. And it is if I ignore everything else you said. But it's hyperbolic and emotive.

Imagine two mountains. The peak of one is 'euthanasia whenever' and the other is 'even suicide is illegal'. Both of those peaks are silly and the people arguing them are narrow-sighted. We're all down in the foothills. We care about pain, safeguarding, care, choice, free-will, consent and all the other important stuff. Pretending anyone who doesn't agree with you is on a peak is foolish. Good law needs to acknowledge the grey, murky stuff and not be emotional. It has to try to cover the obvious issues while lawmakers know they will not cover everything and 'reasonableness' always comes into play and precedent is key.

Do I trust the current shower of shit to prioritise my wishes, care and agency over financial expediency? No I don't because they never have. If I lived in Switzerland, or the Netherlands, anywhere sensible with direct democracy or even proper representative democracy, I'd be all over it like a rash.

@MrsTerryPratchett Don’t you see? If for example a person has no quality of life - double incontinence, no use of their limbs, can barely eat without choking. But still 100% mentally. Not terminal, they could ‘live’ like that for many more years. And so they want to end their life. But others stop them. They say no you have to stay alive. To that individual who wants to die, that would certainly feel like another person is actively wishing for them not to die and therefore to live in pain and misery for the rest of their life.

That’s just one example. There are many more.

No hyperbole or exaggerations at all. No hyperbole is required, sadly.

NO-ONE BUT NO-ONE is talking about euthanasia here at all NO-ONE. Please stop scare mongering.

Sorry but this is absolute nonsense and scare mongering.

Totally agree in assisted dying 👍

I see but you don't.

I KEEP saying I'm in favour in a 'perfect' world. If I KNEW examples like yours, where the person chose it freely, with all the care available, with oversight and ethics were the ONLY thing that would EVER happen, yes.

My concern is not that your exemplar person would get what they want. My concern is that another would. A heartbroken, depressed teenager who received sub-par MH care. A cognitively disabled person who is a 'burden'. A homeless person. An older person who is being financially abused. A woman living in DV.

Do you honestly believe the TORIES have these people's best interests at heart? FFS they practically murdered old people during COVID. They didn't give a shit.

It is suicide- and the reason two clinicians are required is to ensure safety, and ensuring there is no outside pressure, and that the person is indeed suffering intolerably and do not want to go down the palliative care route, or are nearing the end of it.

Assisted suicide to ensure it is done properly and without pain, and also to ensure innocents are not faced with the results. Talk to train drivers- or doctors in A&E who have to deal with botched up chemical intake, or other means. Relatives of those who found their loved one hanging from the ceiling, or almost dead with the car running in the insulated garage, et.

That’s exactly why we never leave our adult son by himself, he’s non verbal and tube fed so would probably never come back out.

I see but you don’t.

I get those examples too, of course. Who wouldn’t.

If it’s ok in other countries it can be ok here. In a way maybe (I say maybe as I’m no expert in Canadian legislation and implications) we have the Canadians to thank for showing us what not to do. On a personal level, a friends’ mother there was offered AD as she was in severe pain in the last throes of cancer. She declined on a religious basis. And that was ok. She died a few months later.

The tories are probably going to be irrelevant pretty soon. Not that women problem Labour will be much better.

This terrifies me as I have a mentally ill 19 year old who is already saying she wants to contact Dignitas after trying to take her own life several times. She is struggling with ptsd, ND and a ED. She is still not getting the treatment she needs. The mentally unwell do not get anywhere near adequate support or treatment
and need protection from this.