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.

@ThisAquaCrow the act of allowing people to be able to die mercifully is 100 percent right. This law is only for 6 months to die people.
Now if in the future your words not mine as I don't think this will happen but if it did and a couple of folks might be encouraged but the vast majority die how they want with dignity and peaceful then yes I still stand by my choice of agreeing with this way

I don't think you get to try and control what other people say on a thread about assisted suicide and euthanasia just because it doesn't fit with your own agenda.

Who said I did? I was reminding you what the thread is about.

No, I haven’t mentioned advance directives. I think you are having too many conversations at once.

I think Sgt Pepper has us mixed up.

I apologise if I mis-directed that comment.

Well, I like the Beatles as much as anyone else born in the 60s. Maybe I should change to Sgt Pepper (I mean this as a light and genuine reply)

I like the Beatles too. :)

Exactly this, it's beyond cruel.

https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-024-01063-7

Another interesting article for anybody who wants to read more widely-includes reference to people requesting euthanasia for psychiatric illness.

This video is super interesting and worth while. It is a discussion with a dutch ethics professor on New Zealand TV

New Zealand passed a similar law to the one we are proposing a couple of years ago. Already they are looking to amend it so that doctors won't be able to opt out of providing the service and to also include psychiatric conditions.

I really do resent people on this thread saying trying to say that we shouldn't be talking about other countries that have done this as it isn't relevant. Of course it is relevant.

There is a pattern in every country that euthanasia has been enacted in of the rules becoming more and more permissive and the numbers increasing over time.

Unfortunately despite good palliative care there are too many people who still suffer hideously cruel deaths regardless of the strength of drugs they’re given. There are still bowel cancer sufferers who spend hours vomiting poo in their final days, there are still oesophageal cancer patients who cannot sip a drop of water without sheer agony in their final weeks before death finally takes them.

The end is still hideous even if you’re drugged up to the eyeballs- avoiding that and dying with dignity intact is so important to those with terminal illness and it’s an insult to deny them that.

Yes, all those things kill people but the difference with AD is that it's the deliberate ending of life by the state. This means that Article 2 rights are engaged:

ARTICLE 2
Right to life

1. Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.

2. Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this Article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary:

(a) in defence of any person from unlawful violence;

(b) in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained;

(c) in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection.

https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/convention_ENG

If we could guarantee that every person was making a fully informed free decision, free of coercion and free of the fear that the only alternative was substandard care, then fair enough, nobody would complain about their/their loved one's right to life.

But we can't guarantee that because safeguarding is never perfect and is frequently a very long way from perfect. And so much care is substandard that that would be a reasonable fear for a lot of people.

Some number of people will have their lives intentionally ended by the state when they did not want to die and every time that happens it will be a major human rights breach. That's why it's different from your examples.

Aside from the exceptions in paragraph 2, Article 2 is an 'absolute' right which means there should be no argument about proportionality, i.e. 'It's acceptable for a few people to be deprived of their lives intentionally, when they did not want to die, in order to relieve the suffering of a much larger number of people.'

But we're beyond that now, aren't we? People are making exactly that argument. I'd like them to put some numbers to their argument so we all know where we stand.

How many is 'a couple of folks'? How many is 'the vast majority'? Can you give some rough figures that you think would be proportionate and acceptable?

Slippery slope. Because when you are at that point, you are essentially asking others to objectively decide what is quality of life. I don't know what that would be defined as, but it's not assisted dying.

I accept your points. Honestly I feel like the problem is that this bill is completely back to front.

It should have started by talking to pallative care doctors about specifically what is needed (most of them are against this bill) and what the problems are. If there are diseases, such as the ones you mention, where even state of the art end of life care can't relieve symptoms then I wouldn't be against some kind of regulated protocol to relieve suffering at the end even if the outcome is to hasten or perhaps even cause death.

The problem is this bill hasn't been put together in this way. It has started from the premise that assisted suicide is the answer. Honestly looking at what is happening around the world I feel like a lot of these activists are quite fanatical. They believe in individual choice above any social concerns and believe that the state/doctors should be compelled to deliver what they choose. They get their foot in the door by drawing attention to the plight of people with horrible terminal diseases (whilst not wanting to consider other options) and then constantly push for the boundaries to be extended.

The slippery slope argument is generally used by those who have no objective grounds for disagreeing with something, or are unable to articulate why they object, but think that they are in a better position than others to have a view. Let’s just remember around 2/3rds of the population are in favour of assisted dying.

I am unclear why why you think I am asking others to objectively decide - if I had the opportunity, and I realise this legislation does not provide that, then I would be very clear what criteria I would want to be met before I was assisted to die. Meet the criteria, enact my wishes. Perhaps you could explain why that would not be assisted dying? The very definition of which can only be a third party or system / equipment that allows one to chose when they have had enough.

@Tryingtokeepgoing they have actually done what you suggest in the Netherlands. If you look at my posts there is a video and prior to that a Guardian article where this is discussed extensively.

Basically in the Netherlands you can have an advance directive and then be killed once it is deemed you meet the criteria. There aren't many cases of this happening at the moment mainly because doctors don't want to carry it out. I was pleased to discover that medical ethics are holding up so well given the legal climate in the Netherlands but they may well start to corrode over time as the practice gains more traction.

The problem is that at the moment you think you want to die if you have dementia and meet certain criteria and you are absolutely sure about that. However when that moment comes you may no longer wish to die and then have it forced upon you.

In the most documented Dutch case the lady in question didn't want to die, she wanted to go out to dinner. However she was sedated and then held down by relatives to be killed. It was deemed to be perfectly legal because the conditions of her advanced directive had been met.

This thread is nearly full so I will start a new one Assisted Dying (Continued).

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5222078-assisted-dying-continued?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

There was a lady in my father's nursing home - I noticed her because she was always sitting near reception, not because she was the only one with these feelings. She was treated with utmost kindness by all the staff. She wanted to die. Every day, every time someone came past, she made this clear, The staff knew she wanted to die, that she hated every minute of her life. Three years this carried on that I know about, until she finally died in her sleep.

Yeah I would want to die if I was in a nursing home as well. They are horrible places.

I was at work (elderly care home) when the debate was on TV. One of our residents had died about an hour before, and in the lounge people had the TV on, though weren't particularly watching it. I wondered what was going through their minds.

Breaking news tonight....there is apparently a proposed change to the bill to say a judge won't have to sign it off.

There you go....the drip drip effect is starting already...

Thought we were all just being paranoid....

Absolutely. This is really beginning to frighten me.