Personal thoughts on assisted dying.

[Widowtobeat40]

AIBU to find the assisted dying Bill debate really hard?
My husband is 47 he's terminally ill. Best case he has close to 12 months worse case a couple of months. He's in significant pain, is currently going through the process of serious ill Health retirement which has had a huge impact on his self worth.
He has gone through some of the most brutal treatment I've seen in the last 3 1/2 years making every attempt to survive but where he is now is that he wants to be able to chose when enough is enough.
I appreciate that it's a hugely personal vote but what I see is most people against it are those that have no experience of a terminal illness or those that are disabled rather than terminally ill.
I absolutely understand the concern about the possibility of expanding the safeguards but that isn't what MPs are voting on. The Mental health act has changed minimally over the years despite huge suggested changes.
My husband could get the best palliative care in the world but truth is he is likely to die a pretty awful, painful death. Should he not be allowed to decide when enough is enough???
Whatever the vote it will be too late for him but I would like to think that others will get that choice.

Like you say, only people who have seen someone suffer a horrible death can relate. I absolutely think people should be able to chose when to end their suffering. We make the decision to put pets “out of their misery” so the same should be afforded to people.
Sending you and your DH strength and hoping he suffers as little as possible.

🩷 I am so very sorry for your husband and for you. That's heartbreaking.

Yes, we absolutely should be able to decide that for ourselves. The slippery slope arguments about where it could lead are silly. It's been around for quite some time in many areas and has not lead to any of the dire outcomes opponents are predicting.

I am a chronic pain sufferer, so naturally I want to be able to decide for myself how much suffering I can bear. Nobody should get to decide that for other people. That's authoritarian and cruel.
I have come to tte conclusion that anyone who can't empathize with suffering people wanting the right to end their misery just isn't a good person.

I’d agree with you but I’ve seen people slowly wither and have awful ends. I think we should allow people an informed choice.I have Dutch relatives and my great Aunt was religious and believed that life was a gift from god anc shouldn’t be wasted and lived with quite a lot of pain for years. Her sister in law was prescribed life ending drugs after a terminal diagnosis of cancer. Both choices are equally valid because the people involved had the freedom to choose the best path forward for themselves in consultation with their doctors.

I agree, imho bodily autonomy is a human right and should include the ability to chose death with peace and dignity

It's an ethical question that has no straightforward answer. What's right for one person isn't necessarily right for the next one down the line.

And quite frankly, unless you find yourself in this kind of situation, you really luck a deep understanding of what it's all about.

Should we be allowed to make a call either way? Absolutely!

This is it. It should be about personal choice.
There are always risks but having worked in mental health for almost 20 years I am relatively confident we are pretty good on safeguards around this kind of thing. The safeguards on mental health act and mental capacity act are strong

We have assisted dying in most of Australia now (state laws) and people are now agitating to expand the criteria.

I think your husbands criteria should be allowed.

But, it’s proving to be the thin edge of the wedge. The stories coming out of Canada are of a law that has just gone too far. MAID is now offered as a first option rather than treatment for serious but now routine conditions. A twelve year old child admitted to hospital for mental health problems and left alone after admission for an hour while her parents run an errand, is approached, signs the forms and is dead within two days and parents are powerless (anecdotal). I am now very scared about where our world is coming to.

To a certain extent, your husbands and others deeply distressing situations aside, I wonder if it is now a “be careful what you wish for” scenario.

I am no help, I am sure.

I'm really sorry about the very difficult situation that you and your family find yourself in.

In principle, I'm absolutely in favour of enabling terminally ill people to have some control over how and when they die. It's what I would want for myself or for a loved one in that situation, and it seems the most humane approach.

Having said that, I went to a really interesting lecture on the subject by a doctor that was a specialist in medical ethics and it gave me serious pause for thought by flagging up a whole range of issues that I hadn't properly considered previously. It isn't quite the no brainer that I thought it was.

On balance, I am still in favour of the principle but I don't know if this particular bill has got the detail right - I have neither the time nor the expertise to scrutinise it properly. I can only hope that, if it does go through, there are enough people with the right expertise taking the time to get it right.

Polly Billington, the MP for East Thanet and former special adviser to Ed Miliband, said her concerns were “the risks around internalised pressure and the problems of capacity combined with some of the considerations for our healthcare professionals and medical teams”.
“None of that has been articulated and it needs to be,” she said. “Far too many people are saying: ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, let’s agree the principle and we can sort out the practicalities later,’ and that’s just not good enough,” she said

This is from the Guardian today, reporting on the joint statement from Diane Abbott & Edward Leigh.

I absolutely agree we need to discuss this but I don’t think MPs should be making a decision imminently.

I am totally in favour after watching my beloved mother die from terminal cancer and at the end feeling so terrible beg me to let her die.
Seven years later I am still haunted by her needless suffering.
We need to let people die with dignity.

I am so sorry you had to go through this. We are not even at the end yet but aware ot is coming and the thought of it is breaking both of us.
There is absolutely nothing worse than watching the ones you love break down in front of you and not being able to do anything to help them..
I hope you have been able to find some peace in all the happy memories you have. Xx

We have it here in Canada and it was a blessing for someone close to me.
They were elderly, in terrible pain with no chance of remission, and even still they had to jump through many hoops to have it allowed.

I don’t like this trope that unless you’ve had a parent/spouse die, your opinion is invalid. I’ve had a parent and other loved ones die and I can still see both sides.

Both are against the bill. I've worked in healthcare for almost 20 years, my husband over 25 years. As professionals we have always had to and always will have to make really difficult, at times life or death decisions. This shouldn't be a reason to delay the vote. In this case those against are using the point to support their argument.

I never said anyone's opinion is invalid.

Yeah, it's too restrictive. I have a relative trying to get it and it's been years. You have to exhaust every single possibility no matter how long it takes and how much you suffer in the meantime. The system needs an overhaul.

Seeing both sides is fine. Otoh, trying to impose one's own point of view on suffering people so that they can get no relief from their suffering is not okay. By any reasonable standard that would be an ethically bankrupt position.

This is completely inaccurate.

Not a single statement related to MAID is factually correct.

Someones been giving you mistaken information or outright lies.

😞 I feel you on that. My mom, dying of liver cancer, asked me if I had any pills I could give her that would kill her. I couldn't help her. That haunts me too.

I would certainly want to choose to die if faced with, say, a terminal diagnosis with unbearable pain meanwhile, or a long term diagnosis of paralysis/inability to speak.

I'm fairly sure that doctors already assist when the patient's wishes are obvious. Just a little bit more morphine than is strictly required to relieve pain in a person with a terminal diagnosis.

P.S. In the event I had a diagnosis of terminal cancer, I'd really like to try heroin.

And I would find someone to get it for me, if a doctor wouldn't give me morphine.

Seeing both sides is fine. Otoh, trying to impose one’s own point of view on marginalised people at risk of being coerced into being executed with lethal drugs as proven by real life, actual abuses that have been happening in all other countries who have legalised this already is not okay. By any reasonable standard that would be an ethically bankrupt position.

Those stories are nonsense, just propaganda being spread by opponents of assisted death. The law in Canada is actually too restrictive if anything. You can read the criteria for yourself.

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-services-benefits/medical-assistance-dying.html

After meeting the criteria, you must then try every single thing on a long list of interventions before you can be approved.

The story about the 12 year old is so insane that it's laughable. No such thing has ever happened.
Where have you been reading this stuff?

I trust doctors to behave ethically.

Proven, you say? Okay, prove it. Prove such abuses are happening. Then prove such abuses are inevitable if there is assisted death, that they are inherent to the process itself.
You can't, because they're not. Your argument is therefore devoid of logic and invalid.