To think voting for assisted dying legalisation could be a huge mistake???

[MyLimeGuide]

In Scotland they are voting to legalise assisted dying. Looking likely to pass. I am worried this will come to England now. Kier is already proving he doesn't care about old and disabled people so this scares me.
Obviously there are 2 sides but how can people be so ignorant? If passed this could be one of the biggest opportunity for corrupt evil behaviour of saving money on the NHS, care, people literally getting away murder, playing god! No not good. It's so scary.

So you’d rather see people suffer?

Again, people need to read some case law relating to mental capacity. It will not be encouraged by healthcare professionals. It will be an option people may have, but the paperwork will take so long people will likely die before it reaches court.

No, I wouldnt. Personally I believe we had it right before. When pallitive care sometimes meant giving pain relief that could kill a person but that was ok. I believe that actually this campaign has made health care professionals too scared of repercussions, meaning more people suffer.

Whether for or against, people will suffer in the current format. But I believe in the current state of our country, with mental health services collapsing to non existent, we will quickly fall into a Canada model and many will suffer.

That is anecdotal biased opinion. Please provide the evidence of your assertions which is what I asked for.

Exactly.
If or when there is universal good quality care for elderly and those facing mental health and disability challenges and proper funded end of life care, it might be a reasonable debate to have. But if you lack all those as a society then people are not making informed decisions, they are making desperate decision. Choices are made in context, not in isolation, so it's disingenuous to say you are facilitating a free choice. You are facilitating a choice with poor alternatives and potential guilt of being seen as a burden. Of course the extreme cases of terminal illness and death weeks away with pain are used to justify the argument and maybe it does. But if people think the tough criteria proposed will not become less tough over time then they have no knowledge of all previous social policy changes that have 'evolved'
And saying family involvement will ensure the best interests of people is just delusional. We all know how families can behave to each other when it comes to inheritance and entitlement.

It is incurable, his disease.
Would be lovely if it was, but it was not.
And no the trauma would definitely not be the same if the family could sit by his bed while planned euthanasia is done.
Ofcourse that would be better.
Ofcourse it would. But it is not allowed.
Yet.

Evidence of what? That people will undergo counselling and psychological assessments? That's drugs, doctors and courts cost money? That the NHS and courts are overstretched?

Could you provide evidence of how this is going to be implemented in a way that safeguards everyone?

Why is it any different to kill someone with morphine? It's the same outcome, but you're not asking and there's no oversight.

I dont care for how you call people ignorant if they have a different view of this tk yourself @MyLimeGuide

I understand the bigger picture I am concerned about how certain aspects have cone through in Canada and the Netherlanda but ultimately I still support ADL. As I believe this is a matter we should be able to decide on ourselves.

I dont want coercion obviously not but I dont see the bill as the issue there. The issue with coercion is wider and frankly is a much bigger picture than the ADL. I feel we need to I vest a lot of money into this to avoid this in ALL areas of the NHS (and frankly many other areas too)

It does not make me ignorant to view this different to you. It makes me someone with a different view of the bigger picture to you. Please consider how you worded yourself that type of emotiove language is in my opinion not conductive to viewing wider pictures.

My uncle Patrick died exactly as you say - over 50 years ago - at the hands of the family doctor. Even as a child, I knew that - it was an open secret. But did you actually hear what you just said. Hand the decision to individual healthcare professsionals without any safeguards. Harold Shipman comes to mind. The reason why healthcare professionals are not going to do this any more is because it should never have been their right to decide without any safeguards, and not all of their number are to be trusted with that decision, even if it were right and proper that they should make it (which is wouldn't be). Instead of giving the individual the right to decide you just handed it to a complete stranger (and NHS managers????).

Harold Shipman is in prison. The old model meant that it should only happen to people at the very end of their life. I believe this safeguards more people than your model.

If you check the quote history - you will see exactly what you claimed, and the questions I asked about providing evidence for those claims. You continue to pursue a spurious avoidance because we both know that you cannot evidence those claims.

It is not your job to safeguard everyone. Thank goodness. Nobody is being safeguarded now - they are simply suffering (and not in silence if you have any experience of this subject at all - in agony). You are consigning other people to this because it is not what you want for yourself. The ultimate safeguard is that people say they do not want it for themselves. But there will never be a foolproof safeguard - against anything. You think there is no assisted dying now? There is. Being under the radar doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and it is far less "safe" now because society is turning a blind eye to it.

There was no "old model". It was illegal.

But I am now utterly confused. You are arguing on the one hand that there should not be assisted dying, and now you are saying that there should be assisted dying but that decision should be unregulated, unsupervised and handed to individuals to make the choice for people??? You are licensing murder by healthcare professionals deliberately taking someones life without any legal power to do so, but opposed to people making that choice for themselves in advance?

This is absolutely heartbreaking, I'm so sorry your family went through this. It's desperately sad. I hope there's some comfort in knowing that your brother's suffering is over now.

I've read several times on this thread now that it's "too liberal" and that it's "gone too far" in the Netherlands. That is not how I feel it is like over here at all.

My sister's FIL died of ALS last year, she has spoken a lot with me about his final months, and at no point did I get the impression that his death was being rushed or that her FIL was being pressured into anything.

When he deteriorated he moved to a hospice, where they took brilliant care of him in his last months. At one point he got the flu and decided that he could not go on anymore. By the time everything was arranged he had died. So even for a terminally ill patient it's not as easy as just asking for a lethal dose of medicine and immediately getting it.

There have been some controversial cases that have been picked up by media abroad that have not been reported correctly. Noa Pothoven for instance did not die through euthanasia, she decided to stop eating and drinking.

Wouldn't you like the same thing? The only difference being that you believe it should be open to everyone rather than just those in their final moments of life? What I said was that giving someone pain killers that could have a side effect of death, under palliative care should be legal IMO.

In an ideal world everyone would have a peaceful death. The reality is that that isn't always the case anywhere. I have said that I do not think assisted dying should be legalised under our current government and legal format as it is a dangerous path.

Giving someone painkillers that lead to death is currently legal but Drs are very careful and often there is quite a bit of suffering before they will agree to install a syringe driver etc

Actually this has changed over the years, twenty years ago it was much more if you can’t take the pain from the patient then if dying anyway you take the patient away from the pain.

Its much more circumspect nowadays and often families have to really push for effective pain medication as first do no harm and not quite there yet.

YABU
That’s like saying legal abortions shouldn’t exist at all, because it could be expanded beyond the current gestational limits to full-term for any reason at all. That could theoretically happen, but despite being in place for many years, it hasn’t- because there is not wider acceptance that it is necessary or right. Of course it is possible that if medically assisted dying was brought in for those with terminal illness that it could be expanded to include other groups- but it is far from inevitable. Not every country with assisted dying includes under 18’s, those with mental health problems (and you can be suicidal and still have capacity, incidentally), or those with disabilities. If you never changed any laws or practices because doing so had not gone the way you would hope somewhere else, nothing would ever change or progress. We need to look at what has gone well and what has gone awry in other places, and use that to inform how we do things to mitigate or avoid those problems.

Assisted dying does not have to expand beyond terminal illness, it hasn’t in every country where it exists. I’m not exactly sure that disability should always be excluded- lots of safeguards needed, obviously, and I could see the argument for not allowing it but I have personal experience of someone who became disabled and who did not wish to continue as they were and ended their life by assisted dying- I can see it was the right decision for them, having had that conversation. They were not depressed or mentally ill- and actually very well supported through rehab, had all the adaptations and equipment etc. All the physical support needed, close family and friends, very loving and supportive partner and absolutely no financial worries- yet they did not want to live this life with the restrictions they had. Not done on a whim, long time spent trying to come to terms with it, therapy, all sorts- to no avail. I’m glad they had the option they took, though sad they had to leave family in order to do it.

It’s not being suggested in order to finish off all the frail elderly patients or anyone with a disability - and no single Dr is going to be able to decide “right, I think it’s time you were dead” and kill them- so the fears the NHS will start killing off the elderly right, left and centre on a single Dr’s whim is just nonsense.

That is not what I said, and it isn't what you said. You have actually BOTH argued for and against assisted dying. So I must assume that you either don't understand your own logic or that you are arguing to be argumentative.

So I'll next respond to you when you provide that evidence that I asked you for previously. And could you add the legal basis upon which you would allow healthcare professionals to commit murder if they want to?

If there was enough money and staff for decent palliative care for all the dying then this wouldn't be needed but in truth there are massive gaps in the system, not enough Hospice beds or nurses to provide pain relief at home. If someone has the clarity of mind during their last months to ask for assisted dying why shouldn't they have it?

It's awful legislation that leaves the vulnerable even more vulnerable.

Usually people who support "assisted dying" assume I either don't know how awful some conditions are, or don't care.

But I nursed one parent through Motor Neurone Disease (often cited as one of the worst illnesses to die from), another parent through PSP/CBD (like MND but with dementia), and have spent time with loved ones dying from cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

We have such good palliative care in this country, even though it is underfunded. Please let's pour money into palliative care, rather than introducing this.

In every other country it's ended up spreading beyond its original intention. My beloved relative who is now having palliative care would pass every test for this legislation, but the truth is that the only reason he would choose to hasten death is because he's worried he's a burden for his loved ones, and hates that he's using up some of the money he wanted to leave them. I dread this legislation passing (although thankfully it will be too late for him to make use of it).

So right now I ca decide to take my.own life if my quality of life is awful if I have a terminal illness and suffering in pain. However taking your own life is often hard to do and can be painful or end up not working. Not going to mention examples as it may be triggering for some.

But God forbid we have assisted dying Bill with safeguards in place to allow people to make that same decision but being able to go peacefully instead.

As others have said not every country has expanded their bill. I think people.having a choice is rather better than the current status quo.

Be careful what you wish for. I am against it.

I’m thinking about myself. I have a disability that is not handled well by the medical system. If I ever become unable to care for and advocate for myself, my daily life will be incredibly painful. I will end things rather than endure the uncontrolled version of my illness indefinitely.

If it comes to that, I would much prefer to have a planned exit that does not in any way risk liability to the people I love.

This makes me think of my response to people who say "I'm against gay marriage!". Fine, don't marry someone of the same sex then, no one is going to force you to have a gay marriage.

I may want to have a gay marriage, and I may want medical assistance to die if life becomes intolerable. Let me make my own decisions about my life. I'll leave you to make decisions about your own.