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.

Nobody has suggested anyone without capacity should be permitted to consent to assisted dying. I agree with that even though my own father had advanced dementia and started to refuse food. I actually think even in his disordered brain he chose not to live and starved himself to death. But I wouldn't have supported assisted dying for my father due to his lack of capacity.

I hope one day it will apply to dementia. I would sign up to it now in my mid-40s, knowing I don't want to live with that condition longer than I had to.

i think for those with dementia it is just that one step too far

I am sorry for your husband. Ofcourse he has the right to want to live. Nothing is taken away from him, it's just an option for those who WANT it. I have witnessed a relative in palliative care who suffered and prayed staff and family to end it. Sometimes the agony is so insufferable that the max doses prescribed is not enough to take away the pain and I it's really horrible having to assist and witness. I am relieved to have an option to exit if I suffer from an irrevocable illness that leaves me in constant pain.

‘Sorry but I think some of those calling for this aren’t doing so out of genuine concern for people who might end up having a so-called assisted death.’

I’m calling for it because i’ve seen people die horribly and I’m absolutely fucking terrified of me or anyone I love ending up the same way. I’d hazard a guess that 99.99% of people calling for it are doing so for similar reasons.

You seem to be implying - and correct me if i’m wrong - that we’re all clandestine eugenics fanatics? I don’t go around saying people who oppose assisted dying are religious nut jobs or control freaks or other bad-faith interpretations of possible motives etc etc - please do me the courtesy of respecting my valid opinion without implying i’m some sort of pseudo-nazi.

No.

Absolutely not.

Just said on radio on lbc this does not apply to dementia

It’s been given to people suffering from depression in some countries. Surely if you are suffering from depression, a mental illness, then you don’t have the mental capacity to make an informed decision on having an assisted death.
And I say this as someone who suffered with depression on and off over the years. When I was a teenager I was suicidal and could easily have considered having an AD. I’m now happily married with two lovely children. It could so eaily not have been if AD was available when I was a teenager.

Yet..

That's why Kim said she is calling it terminal illness act so it's not gonna apply if not terminal

DH and I , having seen the manner of our parents deaths - mine without too much prior illness and pretty much when they'd had enough, his lingering and undignified and unable to have their wish to die respected - are relieved by this decision.

I'm sick of the hyperbolic scaremongering though.

I'm utterly relieved. I'm in remission from cancer and feel glad that I will have a choice if I'm in a lot of pain.

I'm older but I would too.

I am pleased that people will have the option. It's an option I would like to have (live in another country) if I become terminally ill to avoid a horrific long-drawn out death.
I've seen too many people in agony with things like cancer and MND. MND in particular is horrendous.

Im glad.
I have a long term illness that could end very painfully and is degenerative. In the back of my mind I always thought I would end up having to step infront of a train before it got too bad, the fact that now hopefully I could choose to end things in a dignified way is a positive.
Ive watched a lot of family members suffer horrifically. Some would have wanted to see it through to the end, others not.
Its easy to say when it’s not you suffering that it shouldn’t be passed. Watching someone in fear and pain is very different to actually experiencing it yourself.
People should have the choice. Life isn’t a gift to a lot of people, it’s suffering in a humane way. We don’t get to choose to be born, but we should get to choose when we die.

I’m not saying that. If you read my post you will see I said “some”. Not “all”. But I know it’s been abused in some countries and I don’t see why some people should needlessly be put to death when it isn’t really what they want. All it takes it a Quick Look on google and you will see what I mean.

Of course you don’t have the mental capacity to decide to choose to die if you have depression. That’s why the bill doesn’t apply to people with those conditions!

I recall my grandmother crying out for Jesus to take her. Over & over. She wasn't considered on a pathway to death then and she had family caring for her 24/7 plus proper doctors & nurses. She was just miserable, increasingly immobile, life could not be enjoyed any more. Existence could only be endured. That was in 1980s in another country, btw, nothing to do with NHS care.

And I think a lot about how Debbie Purdy died. She should have gone to a Dignitas type clinic long before she was ready to die, was the only way she could get the death she wanted. Which is barbaric, but was actually her best choice, in hindsight.

I'd like the legal changes to go a lot further towards assisted death than today's vote, to support those who have unbearable suffering to have more options.

I was very much for assisted dying, until I watched the documentary by Liz Carr 'Better Off Dead'. It raised some really important things for me, and so made me re-think things. However, from what I've heard, and read about what the vote was on today, I can't really see how it is 'assisted dying' if the person who wishes to die, has to be capable of taking the drug themself. Yes, 'assisted' as in a doctor preparing the drug, but how many people with only 6 months to live, would be unable to physically lift the drug and take it, unaided, and if they can't, will a doctor be allowed to help them, if that's what they want? Happy to be educated if there's something I've missed on this. I also think that if the person is actually capable of physically taking the drug unaided, then they're likely just as able to overdose on morphine, which they're probably taking, without bothering to get the OK from 2 doctors and a judge.

State suicide.

It will start with people with 6 months left to live but expand soon onto other conditions with the end point where other countries are with chronic emotional pain and distress.

Once the line has been crossed it, philosophically it will be about justifying why you want to live.

There is a long way to go but I am so glad. Those with terminal illnesses should have the option to die with dignity and without suffering.

How does it put disabled people at risk?

And what's wrong with suicide when you know you're going to die in agonising pain? You're wording makes it sound like you think people are in the wrong for wanting that.

But we don’t know this. The bill is worded as it is (in my opinion it doesn’t go far enough) and it’s taken an exceptionally long time for this to happen. I just can’t see them widening the scope of it like everyone seems to be suggesting.

And even if they did, philosophically, why shouldn’t people of sound mind be allowed to choose to die if they want to? YOU don’t have to choose it.

I truly hope there’s a way around that whilst the person still has capacity to make that choice. As someone who’s parent developed Alzheimer’s in their 40s and spent near a decade living in a way no person (especially one who had half their working/younger life ahead of them) should live, if it’s hereditary I want to know I can have an ‘out’ option as well. I am not putting my family through that, especially if it’s missed like my parent’s was and wasted so much time believing it was a MH breakdown that by the time a diagnosis was made, they were almost completely ‘gone’.

Dementia is a disease where you die twice. First everything that was you goes, then your body takes years to expire. A slow death of your body choking itself, what kind of monstrous human race are we to not allow people to chose to not go through that? To whom are we proving a point deliberately suffering?