To say that if the assisted dying bill isn't passed....

[OnceUponATimeInTheWest]

that, regardless of where you personally stand on the issue, it will finally be undeniable that we do not live in a truly representative democracy at all?

Given the latest poll in the Times, it is clear that the vast majority of the population support the bill (65% for and 13% against) and yet most of the media seems to be full of story after story about this person or that coming out against it (unsurprisingly, often people with a religious background). I don't remember seeing nearly as many stories about someone telling us they support the bill. The narrative feels as though it is being steered in only one direction.

I mean, it's already fairly much clear that our elected politicians prefer to tell us what to do and what we should think, rather than actually representing our wishes. Otherwise immigration and transgender issues would not still be dominating the headlines. The fact that an amendment to remove bishops from the house of lords failed recently should also tell us that religion still plays far too much of a role in what is an overwhelmingly secular society.

If this bill fails, then anyone in future trying to tell us that we live in one of the greatest democracies in the world is, at this point, just gaslighting us.

Where did you get the idea that it is better elsewhere? These are the best safeguards in the world therefore it can't be better anywhere else.

I'm against the bill, it's not for me to prove your point. In Canada people have been killed primarily because they're lonely or poor. Safeguards aren't working there.

You haven't been able to back up your claims or answer simple safeguarding questions about the bill. You just keep asking me how it's better elsewhere. It's not better elsewhere.

After going back, I finally see where the confusion is. It was someone else who said that I was wrong to say that this bill had the strictest safeguards in the world and that there were better elsewhere, to which I said 'I disagree'. You then asked 'why do you disagree?' for some reason and which made me think you were the same person, I replied as if you were, you didn't correct me (probably because you were confused!) and we have gone from there unfortunately.

Probably best if we leave it in that case - it's gone too far to disentangle if you ask me. Sorry for the error that led to all of that though.

I wanted to know why you thought the safeguards were the best in the world.

That said, my own grandmother survived 5 years of dementia in a care home before finally succumbing at age 94. It was a complete waste of time, effort, and money to keep her alive. I don't care who that offends.

This is why the bill needs to fail. This isn't hastening end of life to ease the passing, this is advocating for legalised murder to save resources as the person has been deemed to have no value.

Maybe though, as it was my mistake, I can at least do you the courtesy of addressing your point.

I don't think you can ever have a system that can always spot if a person is being coerced. It simply isn't possible to always be sure without being able to read someone's mind. What we have in this bill is as good as you can possibly get.

At the same time, and as I have said already, we cannot let perfect be the enemy of good. If hundreds or thousands are suffering and yet unable to choose, we cannot let that be somehow outweighed by the possibility that a small number may be pressured into ending their own life. We need to be looking rationally at the total sum of suffering and basing our decisions around that. That may sound harsh to some I know, but in the end it is ultimately only fair.

Also, as I have also said here before, we are talking about people who only have six months to live. I think it incredibly unlikely that any significant number will be pressured or coerced into ending their lives when the person who would be tempted to do the coercing only has to wait for a few months (and when it would have to get through all of the safeguards at the same time).

Anyway, sorry again for the confusion.

Yes - I know many people who feel very uncomfortable about it - none of us have been polled.

We stopped capital punishment because a few innocent people were wrongly killed, but to hell with the disabled and the elderly and sick, it doesn't matter if a few grannies get knocked off, it's not a perfect system.

Kinder, gentler politics indeed.

death is always going to be painful and ugly. that's the human condition.

How do we prevent coercion either by medical professionals or relatives? How can medical professionals discern coercion?

I wonder, @username8348, if some of the bill's supporters are getting irritable with you because they realise full well this could never be effectively prevented, and if the lack of answers about the safeguarding follows from that

If we accept the possibility of it happening we're then into a different discussion, where it becomes whether ending possibly viable lives is a price worth paying to save others from pain, and that's by no means as palatable

I don't agree that it's worth sacrificing people, and we have no idea where this is going to end. It's opening a gate and shifting society.

You're saying that there are no foolproof safeguards and the word of some medical professionals is enough to end someone's life.

I can guarantee that this will be underfunded and not run properly. I can also guarantee that the law will expand like it has everywhere else. How do I know this? Look at the current state of the NHS. Look at other countries who have implemented the law. Look at what happened during COVID.

I don't want to live in a society where vulnerable people are euthanised to save cash.

MillicentFaucet
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Except it's not being carried out by the individual concerned, it will be carried out by another person who has been allowed to do so by an Act of Parliament. That is why it's called 'assisted suicide' and not just 'suicide'

As I understood it from Newsnight this week, the individual concerned is responsible for self-administering the injection. The assisted element is literally passing it to them. Possibly, I misunderstood but I don’t think I did.

You can't guarantee it and you don't know it. You can assume if you want, just like I can assume it will be fine.

No-one is 'sacrificing people' - that is just massively over emotive. I am prepared to do a fair bit to make sure that we as a society protect and look after the most vulnerable members. Where that stops is when I, or someone I love, could be forced to endure months of misery and pain on their behalf - that is simply too much to ask and I believe you have no right to ask it of me.

This is what worries me about the bill. It’s perfectly possible to be in favour but also think that this bill isn’t the right one or that we need to make time and effort to get it right. Hopefully if it does pass in the commons the Lords will bat this back and forth for a long time if it isn’t right and make sure that ALL of the issues are ironed out.

I don’t think you did. If the drugs were administered to them it would be euthanasia rather than physician assisted suicide.

I've worked in palliative care and I'm on the elderly parents board. I've also lost someone to suicide. I'm cautious about this bill because I think a law as extreme as this should take several months if not years to develop. Preferably by experts, not the public but informed by proper consultation, especially with those who'd actually be giving the drugs.

Yes, when it comes down to it, I would like there to be a highly limited option that protects health professionals from prosecution if people who are in terminal suffering request assistance to die in a less distressing way than the 'natural' one that faces them. But I have huge reservations about it both in theory and practice. Also I keep hearing it referred to by people whose loved ones have dementia or lack mental capacity for the decision - that's never going to happen and it shouldn't. That's a completely separate issue. And I get involved with assessing mental capacity - it's skilled work and takes a toll. All the more if it leads to killing someone.

I don’t agree with it.

There will always be very unscrupulous people pretending to care for very vulnerable people.

Again it's all about you. You are choosing to sacrifice people and said

we cannot let that be somehow outweighed by the possibility that a small number may be pressured into ending their own life.

A small number of innocent people are executed which is one of the reasons we don't have the death penalty.

We cannot take the risk that people who don't want to die, will be coerced into doing so. Suicide is an option for anyone to end their own life, they can choose not to accept treatment and not to be resuscitated.

I was on a thread the other day about what a waste of money treating someone with dementia is. Someone spoke of a severely disabled child wasting resources when they were never going to get better.

That's the slippery slope argument, that once you open the door, it will just get wider. I've seen people with depression who want euthenasia and I mentioned earlier how a young woman with depression was euthanised recently.

In some countries children and perfectly healthy elderly people can be euthanised. I don't have your faith in the NHS that this will be implemented properly.

I read the other day about an elderly man lying on some cardboard in A&E groaning in pain. You seriously think there is appropriate funding, training and resources available to regulate this?

We don't even support people to live with dignity in this country, let alone die with dignity.

No, it's not all about me. It's certainly about me potentially suffering a horrible death but it's also all of the other people who will definitely be suffering a horrible death because of this.

And I am not choosing to 'sacrifice' anyone - you really should stop using that word. I am saying that asking hundreds or thousands to suffer to protect a handful (if even that many) is unreasonable, irrational and immoral.

And the slippery slope argument is, as it stands, just people making stuff up rather than concentrating on the actual facts of this bill as it stands.

The Liverpool Pathway was supposed to be about good practice palliative care for people near the end of their life, being applied by non specialist staff i.e. not palliative care staff. It led to patients being assessed as in the last few weeks of life, who were not in the last few weeks of life, and having nutrition and liquids withheld. It killed people who could have lived far longer.

People in support of this bill keep saying it is only for those who have less than six months to live. But this is notoriously difficult to judge. One of my relatives lived for over a year at home with support, after being placed on the six month end of life care plan. He died at home from a sudden heart attack. It is make believe to say it will only deal with people with less than six months to live. It would simply be for people that are judged to be nearing the end of their life - but the time scale is guesswork.

Hi, everybody. I've been listening to this again tonight. On the radio, now I heard some professional that was a care person who doesn't want to have the assisted dying bill pass. One of the reasons was because in oregon, apparently normal suicides this person claims I've got no way of verifying this right now. Have gone up since assisted. Dying has been legalised. He was actually trying to express that people thought it must be okay to commit suicide because of this. I don't know how you can actually justify or even understand them. Two things are linked but anyway
when questioned seemed very fine with the fact that do not resuscitate orders are legal right now
So this got my brain thinking, I am 44, if I put a do not resuscitate on myself and accidentally say, on purpose, drowned in the sea, or anything else parameducs etc came along and cant do CPR on myself etc would they, or would they not? Because they would be like, oh she may have tried to commit suicide, or maybe she hasn't But is she too young to have a dnr put on her?
Because for me, isn't that just side stepping, exactly what the people that don't want this bill is think will happen?

In amsterdam, I have just heard that basically, they speak 2 doctors then with their families, they have to speak to 2 pastoral people as well. Separately, but you don't get the injection until you are ready. You ring up your gp on the day where you feel you want to go, then they do it then they also ask before, are you still wanting to go.
So with this bill, you have to literally have cooling off days, and even when you get to the final step of seeing a high court, judge it's fourteen days after that and I guess you could say I will not ready for it now but I will be ready when I let you know I don't get the problem with that

@Littlemissgobby I was not talking about a cooling off period, but about the idea that it will only be for people in the last six months of life. In practice it will not be, as life left is so hard to judge.

I am saying that asking hundreds or thousands to suffer to protect a handful (if even that many) is unreasonable, irrational and immoral.

Whereas I think it's immoral to sacrifice (I'll use whatever language I choose) people because of something you want.

It's evident that you haven't read the bill because you haven't been able to answer questions on it. It's just something you blindly want with no further analysis or consideration.

The facts of the Bill as it stands is that it's rushed, there's no adequate safeguarding and we don't have the resources to implement it.

Looking at how similar laws have panned out in other countries isn't 'making stuff up'. You don't seem to have examined how the law has worked anywhere else.

I've given you several examples of how the law has been expanded in other countries and the current criteria which is very different to how it was instigated.

You haven't countered any arguments, just said it's something you want and that there'll have to be sacrifices. You haven't even disagreed with the assertion that the NHS doesn't have capacity to properly regulate it.

Let's hope the MPs due to vote have given it more thought.

And of course the law if passed would be expanded, because as its supporters are currently framing it, it would help hardly anyone. People in the last few weeks of life in pain with cancer would not be able to use it because there simply is not enough court time to grant this so quickly. Anyone with dementia or cognitive decline who do not have capacity will not be able to use it. It would only be used for people with progressive diseases where they can put it in place beforehand. That will not be acceptable to those who support this bill, so it will quickly be expanded.

Again that would have to be debated by the mps