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.

People in early stages of dementia are encouraged during lucid moments to put together a power of attorney and a living will.

Having watched my grandfather die from it, if I knew I was on the same path, I would be making my feelings on it clear when I was lucid. DH knows my feelings on it. I know my parents feelings on it.

It would offer an option before they got to the point of being unable to consent, if the legislation allowed the timeframe, and if everything was done properly.

As an ex staff nurse I can confirm that the NHS does indeed kill people on purpose, except it's called 'helping them on their way' and it's usually done to older patients who are on end of life care.

See also the 'Liverpool pathway' where food, water etc was purposely withdrawn to speed up death at the same time as large amounts of drugs being given. The LP was still in action until not that long ago.

Of course, there’s a fine line with this. I watched my dad wither away to a skeleton on a oxygen tank for 6 months, fed through a tube in his stomach, on forced high pressure oxygen as his lungs were so scarred he couldn’t breathe on his own. He had already been in decline for 5 years prior. The palliative team were amazing, such kind and wonderful people. But no higher level of care could have been given, he wanted to die every day he was there. Not be kept alive by force until his weak body gave up. Everyday asking me or my mum to turn off the machines, if I didn’t have a young child I would have done it. It was agony to watch him and so painful to witness my mum’s despair. I don’t wish that type of death on anyone or their loved ones. He was following this story closely and hoped that a law would be passed. Everything is open to abuse in this life, if people want to die they will find a way - helped by a health service or not. If a family member wants to kill a vulnerable relative off, they I’ll also find a way eventually. If you’re in palliative care, it’s already too late.

A family member dying because of mental illness is always going to be traumatic, whether it's in the awful way that it happened to your brother, or because the state effectively agreed with what their mental illness was telling them and provided them with the drugs they needed to kill themselves.

The way to prevent the trauma is to try and treat the illness and alleviate the symptoms, not by allowing people who suffer from the illness to die in a more comfortable or sanitised way.

Yes, this has happened in my family too (as in my other post although I've changed some details, and that's sadly not the only instance).

It's none of your business what other people want. I want to take my own life with dignity if I reach a stage of ill health where I feel mentally or physically unable to go on. This is my wish, my decision, my life. It is disgusting that I am not allowed to take this decision.

If people don't want to take this decision for themselves, that's their prerogative but nobody should take the right to decide away from others.

I think it needs to be administered incredibly carefully to prevent abuse. But overall, I'm in favour of the right to assisted dying.

No one should be forced to live miserable and in pain, it's inhumane. At the minute we are far too obsessed with preserving life at all costs, and this is made easier by our tendency to equate suffering with strength ("she fought bravely for as long as possible" etc).

I’d welcome it and would also advocate for people to be able make provision, whilst sound of mind, for it to be done should they be diagnosed with dementia later in their lives.
Have you ever experienced watching someone literally disappear before your eyes? Every time I visit my dad there is less and less of him there. Physically he is fine but mentally there is hardly anything left and we just have to wait until his brain can no longer control his ability to swallow. Basically he will probably either die of aspirated pneumonia or starve to death.
The way the law is now, I have to think very seriously that if I also get diagnosed with dementia, whether to end my life whilst I still have quality or have a very long slow undignified death.
I have absolutely no intention of letting my children go through the pain of watching me turn into a shell of a person and have told them, should I time it wrong and miss the point at which I am still able to commit suicide then, they are to put me in a care home and get on with their lives without looking back and to feel absolutely no guilt.

I don't want palliative care EVER and I should have the right to choose for ME what quality of life I want to have.

I think people should be able to make declarations when they are mentally competent that they want to end their life if in XYZ circumstances. Quality of life is a personal choice and I want to make decisions for myself about my quality of life and what I will have to endure.

I'd far rather run the risk of it being used inappropriately on me than have to linger on, in pain and immobile, for years or decades. There is genuinely nothing scarier to me, and I'm so glad that the world seems to be trending towards allowing assisted dying.

They don't have six months to live.

Agreed. Having seen what happened to my mother I want that choice.

I'm against it. Slippery slope. Look at Canada

We should be investing in better treatments and palliative care. But we can't afford / choose not to fund that. So, I expect voluntary euthanasia will be introduced for economic reasons, not truly due to welfare concerns (and now rebranded as "assisted dying" as that sounds more palatable and implies autonomy)

It terrifies me. In future, an elderly, vulnerable person makes one comment their life isn't worth living? Off you pop

Totally agree with this. It's about time.

I'll never forget when my mum was dying and the nurse who came daily said to her I'll see you tomorrow. My mum looked at me, raised her eyes and said yes tomorrow as she really didn't want a tomorrow. It was so bloody sad and I wish there had been a way to release her from the pain and suffering rather than watch her die slowly in front of my eyes.

And on your loved ones? Depressed young adult DC?

Are you saying that animals deserve more compassion than people?

This about dignity, not money.

Ever watched someone you love die of bone cancer? It's horrific, my Grandfather was literally screaming in pain, quite literally begging to die, should we allow that? He was such a proud man, to die the way he did, in absolute fucking agony, soiling himself, lying in his own mess because he had lost complete control of his bowels. Day after day, each one more humiliating and painful than the last.

He would have gladly spent every penny he had if he could have paid someone to end it. He would have do it himself if he were able.

We need this law to pass.

No they don’t have 6 months to live! I could manage if I thought I only had to survive 6 months with dementia. In reality, you could live in an almost vegetative state for a decade or more. How the hell is that not unimaginably cruel? I take it you’ve never had the experience of the hell that is dementia. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy

You seem very confused.

In order to apply for assisted dying,you need to have capacity to consent and six months to live.

Why are you talking about dementia?

I think the risk of being kept alive is worse than the risk of being made to die, for anyone.

For a government that is trying to remove support from some of the most vulnerable members of our society to legislate for assisted dying is frankly terrifying!

No, you’re thinking of your own individual imaginative situation.

In countries with assisted dying have old and/or disabled people ceased to exist?

I'm torn on this

My grandad brought me up

He lived through ww1 and fought in ww2

He was the most intelligent man I've ever met

He was also the only person to show me love in my childhood

He mopped up my tears,he taught me to read,write and draw,he taught me right from wrong,he showed me how to cook,clean,gave me my love of art and english literature and im the person i am today because of him-he was my whole world

When I was just shy of 13,he developed dementia

He went into a home and I had to watch him die (it wasnt explained to me that he would die-i thought he'd get better and was only there as a temporary fix)

He literally rotted-the man I loved wasn't there anymore,he was a stranger sat in that bloody chair

I last saw him laid on a bed,wired up to machines that where keeping him alive-he was just skin and bones

(I'm 100% that he hung on for me,to let me say our goodbyes before he went-if I'd known that was going to be the last time I ever saw him,I would have never let go)

Watching him decline was horrendous-if I'd known he wasn't going to get better,I would have pulled that plug myself-not because I don't love him,but because I do

I lost him at 13 and he died when I was 14-i lost him that tiny bit more every single day

In principle,I agree with allowing the terminally Ill to slip away with dignity,but I don't think it will happen in practice

There will be too many loopholes,rules not followed,corners cut and greedy relatives wanting their inheritances now and not eaten away in care home fees

My friend works in a care home and so many family members never bother with the person until there's money involved

It's a hard one and there is no perfect one-size-fits-all

But I hope that if he's up there watching over me,he understands that I would have pulled that damn plug out of sheer love and not because I wanted him to die

It's a very nuanced subject. You're not wrong for being concerned about possible abuses of the elderly or vulnerable, but equally nobody else is wrong for thinking that people should be entitled to end their lives painlessly and with dignity if they consider it best for themselves. There has to be a balance of rights, responsibilities and dangers but in this case I think having that balance in favour of letting people choose for themselves is right.

This.

If you don’t want assisted dying, don’t have it. You have no right to prevent others.

Even at the cost of other's lives? It's one of the reasons we don't have the death penalty, because killing one innocent person is too many.

There are issues with this being used as an alternative to more expensive palliative care, coercion and a slippery slope where the criteria keeps expanding. As you can see from this thread, people are already talking about dementia and mental illness.

I actually think it’s too restrictive. I have a 90 year old relative who tried to kill himself in his car in the middle of nowhere as he cannot cope with the decline in his cognitive and physical abilities. This was a proud, educated, intelligent gentleman who is now a husk of himself. He has no terminal illness, is desperate to kill himself and is essentially being imprisoned between a psych ward and a care home with no autonomy. It is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen, and I am truly devastated there isn’t a place he can walk into to die with dignity. There is no benefit to anyone of keeping him alive - he is probably depressed, but it’s not truly treatable as the underlying reason for his depression is just going to keep getting worse.

Yes, there needs to be protections to stop people being forced into it, but I would happily choose to peacefully end my life at 90 - even if the only reason was not to be a burden on my family - because once my quality of life has declined to the point I might become burdensome, I don’t want to be here any more anyway.