Assisted Dying

[Nordione1]

I dont know what section to put this in. Im more upset about the vote for it than I thought I'd be. I feel like we have crossed a rubicon somehow.

I can't find the report I was looking for but there's this position statement from RCOG and RCM:

https://www.rcog.org.uk/guidance/browse-all-guidance/other-guidelines-and-reports/supporting-women-and-their-partners-through-prenatal-screening-for-downs-syndrome-edwards-syndrome-and-pataus-syndrome/

Some parents whose babies have been identified as having a higher chance of Down’s syndrome, Edwards’ syndrome or Patau’s syndrome, and who have decided to continue with the pregnancy, have reported being asked repeatedly if they want further diagnostic tests or an abortion.

They report having their decisions challenged and being pressured into changing their minds. This should not happen.

Parents should have the scope to change their minds, but not be pressured into doing so – their decisions should be accepted and respected at all times.

I am not derailing it. I'm posting a different opinion to yours.

If that was the case there wouldn't have been a legal challenge and the law would not have been amended to include non-terminal conditions.

I found this comment from X really interesting:

One of the things that frustrated me in the Assisted Dying Bill conversation was how little each side listened to the other.

I appreciate Lords Sumption's balanced reflections, even though I did not support his backing of the Bill.Here are some of his key arguments from @thetimes

The current bill contains a number of provisions designed to ensure that patients are not “pressured by any other person” into taking their own lives. The real problem, however, is not the pressure applied by “other persons”. It is assumptions which many old and ill people spontaneously make about the attitudes of the society around them. They are afraid of being an emotional or financial burden. In a world where suicide is regarded as just another end of life choice, these unseen, unheard pressures are likely to increase. The question posed by the current bill cannot simply be whether we approve of assisted suicide. We must also ask how much risk to the genuinely vulnerable we are willing to accept in order to facilitate suicide by strong-minded, articulate individuals like Tony Nicklinson and Esther Rantzen.The promoter of the bill, Kim Leadbeater, has suggested that the sense of being a burden is a perfectly acceptable reason for wishing to kill oneself. Baroness Hale, a supporter, has said the same. I think that this is a morally inadequate answer, because the low self-esteem of the old and sick is largely our doing. It arises because of our society’s cruelly negative perception of sickness and old age and its habit of outsourcing familial care duties that would once have been accepted as a matter of course.

Dr Krish Kandiah

The significant step forward in this amazing opportunity to allow assisted dying is fantastic. A cancer death is a horror show to witness and that’s with good palliative care.

A wonderful landmark moment for this country that will bring relief and comfort to so many once it’s signed in to law.

We just have to hope that those who vote don’t let their religious beliefs cloud their judgement. Keep your gods and books out of our ability to choose.

My mothers cancer death was not a horror show. And she died in a private room in a general hospital ward.

@BumpyaDaisyevna I agree although I don't see anymore money coming anytime soon

It's a postcode lottery as to who gets good care and very often down to having someone to fight for them

Everyone should have the right to a good death

Well, I support the Bill but I don't support dementia patients asking for AD and receiving it. I was unaware of dementia patients choking to death. My father died of mixed advanced dememtia and choking was fortunately not a symptom. My DH's uncle died of MND and the inability to swallow towards the end of life unfortunately is an awful symptom that causes immense distress.

@MrsSchrute Excellent post

I think there was a legal challenge in Canada to a badly drawn law that wasn't as tightly drawn as UK bill. It's ok if you don't agree with AD for yourself. Others have a different view and I think that's ok in a democracy.

So, basically, people can’t be trusted to want AD?

How very patronising.

On September 11 2019, the Superior Court of Québec, in its Truchon v Canada (AG) decision, declared unconstitutional the “reasonable foreseeability of natural death” eligibility criterion contained in the federal MAID legislation, and the “end of life” eligibility criterion contained in Quebec’s Act Respecting End-of-Life Care.

https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/pl/ad-am/c7/p1.html

The challenge and result would have been the same no matter how tightly the law was drawn.

How do you know this without a psychiatric examination?

in your opinion. And is Canada law dictating what we do in Britain now. I absolutely support your right not to avail yourself of AD if you don't wish to. I think others who don't have the same view as you should be allowed to have a different view. It doesn't matter how many times you bring a foreign country with no jurisdiction in Britain into the argument really. Let's just agree to disagree because we are not going to agree on this.

The people voting against it clearly weren't listening, is that what you mean? Or do you mean those you disagreed with didn't bend to your opinion?

At this stage of the proceedings where the decision to be made is, "Do we want to continue with this to committee stage?" you would not expect a lot of toing and froing on a discussion based largely on ethics and conscience.

It would have been shameful if the Commons had rejected the Bill out of hand before it could get to the scrutiny stages. That's where the listening, responding, compromise, and improvements to the Bill will emerge.

I can absolutely read. I think it’s very important to ask for clarity and accuracy when something is unclear and I appreciate that you are unable, for whatever reason, to provide that clarity.

Clarity for what? It's quite clear that the bill has said six months

It’s not opinion when you make inaccurate statements about what has been written previously 😉

And what is the 6 months in the bill based on? How was that timescale reached? Based on what factors? Which prognostic indicators?

( These are all rhetotical questions BTW but hopefully will encourage a more questioning and analytical approach for others)

If those are things that you are interested in then why don't you do a bit of research ? It's not up to others to provide that for you

Dear Aqua Crow. I disagree with you and sending a message with a little wink emoji to me is a bit childish really. I'm not going to change my mind just because you don't agree with my view. I haven't made inaccurate statements but you and I are not going to agree and there's no point in engaging with you any more so I won't.

Dementia patients would obviously have to make a very clear and fixed declaration while they still have capacity. So that's not within the scope of the Bill. and offers no hope to those of us in middle age for whom dementia is the most terrifying of the possible futures.

Yes, of course it matters. We're not talking clearing society of those we find inconvenient or expensive to care for.

I’d like to hear the views of people who work in end of life care when they are caring for patients dying of heart and/or lung failure. There is very little that can be done to manage the symptoms and the associated panic. I’ve been on death’s door with my lung disease several times- ended up intubated and ventilated etc. The worst part is PTSD and experiencing the repeated horrors of what I was feeling and experiencing as my lungs filled with fluid and collapsed. My lung disease will kill me. I don’t want to be in a hospice bed. I want to be gone before I reach the stage of “deaths door”.

You can do this in Holland. Problem is what happens if you change your mind when you do have dementia and you don't want to be killed anymore but you no longer have the capacity to say no.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52367644.amp

Lots of illnesses do have linear prognosis factors. My lung function will slowly decline, my oxygen levels will plummet, I will become more blue, my fingers more clubbed, my NIV settings will increase, my O2 supplementation needs will be increase.