Assisted dying bill (TW assisted suicide discussion)

[Onand]

I appreciate this is a divisive subject and a sensitive topic for many. Please avoid this thread if you find any discussion of suicide, death, trauma, terminal illness, cancer and faith triggering.

I’m curious to know how others are feeling about this subject, from what I can see there isn’t a lot of discussion, is this a MNHQ decision or an indifference from posters?

My opinion and views on this potential landmark decision are based on my horrifying experience of watching and waiting for my mum to pass from end stage cancer several years ago.

For over four years she fought advanced cancer, she took every treatment and trial offered to her. She endured major abdominal surgery, many blood transfusions, multiple rounds of chemo, lost her hair several times, her bones started to crumble causing excruciating back pain, severe abdominal swelling, double nephrostomy as her kidneys failed, multiple lesions on her brain that caused debilitating headaches and personality changes, her teeth and bones were decaying due to a calcium disorder, various hospital stays for infections, the list goes on.

Truly the most hideous nightmare cancer ‘journey’ anyone could ever imagine, it always felt like one step forward and two backwards and yet she carried on without much fuss or sign of fear to protect the family and herself from the true horrors of suffering.

She never wanted to die and so she never gave up or gave in- that was until the last few weeks of her life when she had no choice. The immense damage and toll cancer had done to her physical body was too much to survive any longer so the last infection she had took her consciousness and so began the final horrifying curveball that cancer has up its evil sleeve, this one is for the loved ones though, because now you have to wait and watch for the end to come. Anyone who has endured this knows exactly what I am talking about, a horror that truly brings home the meaning of hell of earth.

If the assisted dying bill was around whilst my mum was alive I know she would have never entertained an early death whilst she was still in control and able to fight, but I do know that her love for the family would have also meant she would never have wanted us to endure that final two weeks of watching and waiting for her body to shut down if it could have been avoided and she was able to specify what was to happen at the end. There was no possibility of her ever getting better or a miraculous recovery, death was very inevitable and a certainty but we still had to sit and watch, doing oral care and leaving the room as they checked for bed sores and did secretion suction. The only thing I could do to protect and help her was the make sure she was undoubtedly unaware of what was happening as she feared death and leaving us behind- the thought of her being remotely aware meant we were constantly asking the nurses for more and more sedation.

If this bill gives patients the choice to avoid the hideously evil ending of a terminal illness and the following ptsd that impacts the loved ones left behind then it is an opportunity I strongly agree with. Watching a loved one die an agonising death is soul destroying and something I hope no one has to ever endure if said loved one could choose to avoid.

How do others feel?

Where is the line drawn?

When the patient is deemed a potential murder victim in the eyes of the medical professional who is overseeing the death if they suspect coercion or pressure or the patient doesn’t meet the criteria of having an incurable diagnosis where death isn’t reasonably expected within 6 months

Rightly or wrongly it doesn't work like that, @Onand, since medical professionals quite reasonably point out that they're not legal personnel

I suppose there could be some process for reporting back to the "judge" who'd signed off the procedure in the first place, but even if time was allowed for this it could be almost impossible to prove coercion once the person was dead

Me too. I’m going to get an advanced directive that says no care apart from pain relief if I lose capacity I think but genuinely I’d rather be euthanised.

Yeah, exactly. Sepsis is one of the most painful and agonising ways to die. Imagine having terminal cancer AND sepsis from an untreated infection?

And when we had the death penalty, we weren’t executing hordes of innocent people who were victims of a false conviction for murder. We still abolished it because of the handful, the teeny tiny minority of executions were of innocent mostly men.

Assisted dying is likely to result in mostly women being coerced into death. I suppose that’s less important though.

The stakes are much higher, if you are coerced into an abortion, your life goes on. If you are coerced into death, your life is over.

Some would say the consequence of coercion is therefore too high to legalise assisted dying.

I feel that as medical advancements have helped us live longer lives we’re of the thinking that reaching mid 80s is a good run regardless of the state you’re in.

So Logan’s Run style maximum age of 85 and then they go to a facility and are euthanised because they’ve had a “good run regardless of the state” of their health? Awareness? Wish to live?

As pp have said, your thinking reflects alot of the slippery slope concerns.

I've tried to avoid the discussion in truth, because having watched my Dad die a horrific (and I genuinely mean horrific) death from liver cancer, I think that those who haven't seen someone die this way hasn't got a fucking clue. He had a great palliative team, but the reality is that when your organs start failing especially the liver, you can be injected with all sorts but it does nothing. Palliative care is like sticking a plaster over a broken leg.

The hand wringing about safeguarding and poor little old ladies being bullied into it is frankly ignorant and insulting to those with terminal illnesses. Everyone with a vote on this needs to spend a day in a hospice and see the reality of a cancer death before making their opinion.

After 4 months they went to a hospice knowing it was time.
On day 5 of being there the doctors offered test for cancer.
Why ?
No doubt chemo would be next - the family said 'no'

I would expect the test was so they could properly determine cause of death. The discovery of cancer doesn’t automatically result in treatment.

I have watched three close relatives die, one of which was breast cancer. It was not the most painful or hardest to support or longest lingering death of the three btw.

So should I say you are “ignorant” and you need to see deaths that are worse than a cancer death before having an opinion?

Please try to understand that those of us with a different opinion from you may have also experienced observing traumatic deaths instead of presuming that anyone who disagrees “hasn’t got a fucking clue” .

Even parents who have watched their children slowly die for years are against this bill.

“The hand wringing about safeguarding and poor little old ladies being bullied into it is frankly ignorant and insulting to those with terminal illnesses.”

This comment of yours is misogynistic, ageist and utterly callous.

And yet palliative care doctors- the ones who see the most ‘deaths in a hospice’ that you suggest all should be exposed to - are the medical group most against the bill.

That’s not because they fear their jobs or they have a God complex about what palliative care can achieve. More that they see the vulnerabilities of people making choices. And the absolute grey areas of prognosis and consent.

Are the stakes higher?

These proposals are limited (from what I understand), to those who have a terminal illness, are suffering greatly and less than 6m to live.

It’s not like it is going to be a free for all, with families pressurising otherwise perfectly healthy, happy and active 60 year olds for an inheritance.

I am personally very pro choice, but I can see an argument that actually the stakes are higher for a later term say 18w abortion of a healthy foetus than an 80year old with a painful, distressing terminal illness. In the first instance there is a chance of a healthy, happy and productive future open to all sorts of possibilities. In the other there is misery, pain and the outcome is guaranteed to be the same within months anyway.

@Stillplodding
I really did not expect a response essentially saying a terminally ill pensioner is less of a person/ has less of a right to life/autonomy than an 18w fetus while simultaneously saying you are pro choice.

A fetus isn’t a person. A fetus has no human rights. By putting a fetus above an 80yr old terminally ill person you are dehumanising the aged and terminally ill.

You are not even acknowledging that the “6 months to live” is problematic as this cannot be accurately estimated. It’s not unheard of for people to be told this abd live for years more. You are not even acknowledging that terminally ill people are not always in pain and misery 24/7. You may be horrified at the QoL of the terminally ill and/or aged, but most of them make the most of the time they have left and would not want someone to dismiss it being cut short prematurely by murder as lower stakes than an abortion of a fetus.

No one needs to experience it to have an opinion on it.

Do midwives need to give birth to assist a pregnant woman?

And the way you think your life is worth more than a "little old lady" speaks volumes, it's disgusting.

Thank goodness you're not making the decision.

Dying is of course unpleasant both for the patient and the relatives. But so many things cause protracted suffering and we can't and shouldn't euthanise. I've seen people suffer horribly from dementia, MS, MND, paralysis, strokes (all not included in this bill but horrific nonetheless), and yes cancer. The answer is not to legalise suicide in a few select cases but to provide adequate end of life care nationwide.

I know and understand that the op's dm had excellent palliative care and still suffered but many people do no get good end of life care and that needs to change.

Except she didn’t say that did she…

I'm completely in favour of assisted suicide and think it should be much more accessible. It shouldn't be restricted to people with terminal illnesses who are in pain, it should be available to anyone who wants it. There are lots of us who struggle with life who wouldn't qualify for euthenasia under the terms being discussed at the moment.

I agree there should be proper checks in place and people should have to receive counselling for instance to ensure that they actually want to do it and are doing it of their own free will. But if that is the case, there should be no restrictions on eligibility.

Suicide under the present system can be deeply unpleasant - painful, drawn out and unreliable for the person killing themselves, and harrowing for people who witness the act or the aftermath.

The choice isn't between assisted suicide and no suicide, it's between suicide in a safe, controlled environment and suicide in more hazardous circumstances.

These are my opinions and I accept others are entitled to alternative views.

@Errors It's implied. Several posters picked up on it.

I saw my mother die of cancer. I am against this bill because it's badly written, because a private member's bill doesn't allow nearly enough time for debate and because I've seen what's happened in other countries - THEY had "safeguards" and limits in their original bills, but the remit has been widened now to include (for example) "elderly people who feel their lives are complete".

Lobby groups have already said they will work to have any bill passed in the UK to be widened.

This comment is why I'm against it. "Does it matter..."

Yes, it DOES.

I think the pp was being facetious. Of course it matters.

I hope you're right - but I've seen other posts on MN making clear they think elderly people are costly and expendable.

I think it's a bit terrifying reading how Leadbeater is unconcerned that people will opt to die because they are burden, in fact, supports the idea that this is a reasonable claim to request assisted dying.

Who do we think that would be? I wonder who's socialised from birth to be quiet and not be a burden? And I wonder why people are unconcerned that women account for the lion's share of assisted dying requests?

It's awful and I hope the bill doesn't pass today.

Yes it'll be women who opt for it to save their family from having to suffer seeing them suffer.

It's just awful I hate to think that if it passes people will feel under any kind of obligation to cut it all short for their family's sake.

We need to understand that dying and suffering are of course very, very difficult but it is part of life. Doing it quicker with the added stress of meetings, doctors, judges, surely will just add to stress for everyone in the last 6months.

Reason has prevailed. Thank goodness. I was so worried it wouldn't.