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.

This is exactly how I feel, nobody needs to die in agony if they have proper palliative care...

Perhaps you just haven't had to watch your mother screaming in pain through the night while tumours break her bones apart. If she'd asked me to help her end it I wouldn't have hesitated.

We have seen in other countries this is misused bitt at a professional / society level and at personal / family levels

we should be able to keep people out of pain

we should look carefully at forcing people to stay alive

but I wouldn’t trust this at all

Dementia is being brought up because people who would have chosen assisted dying before losing capacity are kept alive even when they are essentially "gone" in terms of function and quality of life. Every time they ring me to ask if it's OK to give the Covid booster to end stage dementia MIL I agree, and the darkest part of me hopes she has a bad reaction that carries her off swiftly. And I hate myself for it, but also remember her awful fear when she did have awareness of her diagnosis of ending up precisely as she has. What the answer is, I don't know, but I live in moral hell and conflict every bloody day.

This whole subject is so much more complicated than some realise I think, and my reservations are around the blunt tool of legislation that cannot easily encompass all facets and nuance.

Would you want to continue living with dementia for example, knowing that soon you will no longer recognise your family members? Or continue to live in immense pain with an incurable progressive disease which has left you with no quality of life?

Would you want to watch a relative go through that, knowing that if you help them to end their pain, you could be prosecuted for murder?

I was so relieved that this was passed in Scotland. I hope my region follows soon.

@six666 but what is this ''proper'' palliative care that we're not doing?

I've asked on this thread and my only reply, along with other posts from professionals, have suggested there isn't always a way to stop a long agonising death. (Apart from hasten it.)

Are we just comforting ourselves with the idea that there is something that we aren't doing but we must and we will? Because we can't face the fact that actually there isn't? And that in some cases the only way we could escape dying in agony for weeks is to have someone end it for you.

@MistressoftheDarkSide

People with dementia don't all have six months to live when given the diagnosis and therefore can't access assisted dying.

Exactly

People talk about (1) dying in pain or (2) euthanasia aka assisted dying, as if these are the only two options

Why aren't people clamouring for good quality palliative care?

not just train drivers, car drivers, river services.....

Exactly, mid stage Parkinson’s, home care and nursing homes won’t ease my symptoms, I don’t want my great family ( scattered all over) giving me the fag ends of their time, which in reality it would be.
When I get to more bad days and I can’t cope overdosing will be my realistic only option, no influence from anyone else either

because even the best palliative care does not improve things for everyone unless, as I said upthread, you consider it an improvement to be heavily drugged and intubated.

I am aware of that, thank you. My argument is simply that prolonging life for years in my MILs situation feels barbaric. As I said upthread I am very conflicted about the whole subject, my reservations are about blunt tool legislation and from multiple experiences the ability of "authority" to actively manage such legislation competently and free from potential ideological mission creep.

I agree with a lot of the sentiment on this thread that we need to fix our health care system first.
My son had a condition that meant when he was born he was given no lifesaving care and was allowed to die and I now do charity and campaign work around that and how we view some lives as less than others, so this definitely does muddy my judgement. Will we get to a stage where its 'you have this disease, we could treat you or you could just sign here'. In a perfect world I'd see the benefit of assisted dying but our world isn't that.

in part I think yes you are right. people either don't know/don't believe or are scared to accept that some natural/semi natural deaths can be awful and can't be made "good" by palliative care. I get that people are genuinely scared of coercion or of people with severe disabilities being valued less. I don't know what to say to comfort or convince them. I do say that my choice, my opinion is as valid as theirs is. I do however have a real problem with people whose view is "this is wrong and no one should have it"

I'm glad you're here on this thread to be a voice of (grim) reality godmum.

It's easy to demand and 'clamour' for all sorts of things, but if what you're clamouring for doesn't exist, it just prolongs the status-quo.

And the status-quo at the moment is shit. So many people dying in agony.

That's not my experience either personally or professionally.

If you're aware of what the legislation involves, I don't understand why you're talking about subjects that are irrelevant.

The legislation hasn't even been passed and people seem to want to expand it. This is the slippery slope argument.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists don't support this bill, for the following reasons:

The RCPsych wants MPs to consider the following ahead of the debate and Third Reading:

1. Terminal illness is a risk factor for suicide: Should the Bill become law in England and Wales, it needs to set out clearly how and at what point a clinician would be deemed to have discharged their duty of care to those who are at risk of self-harm or suicide under existing legislation and codes of practice.

1. There should be a requirement for a holistic assessment of unmet need: Treatable needs such as intolerable pain, financial hardship and inadequate care or housing can make a person want to die. Yet the Bill makes no provision to assess unmet needs at any stage, nor consult others involved in the person’s care or life.
2. Assisted dying/assisted suicide (AD/AS) is not a treatment: AD/AS does not aim to improve a person’s health and its intended consequence is death. The Bill does not specify whether AD/AS is considered a treatment option and this ambiguity has major implications in law in England and Wales. Should this Bill proceed, it should be explicit that AD/AS is not a treatment option.
3. The Mental Capacity Act does not provide a framework for assessing decisions about ending one’s own life: The Mental Capacity Act was created to safeguard and support people who do not have the capacity to make decisions about their care or treatment or matters like finances. Should the Bill become law in England and Wales, implications for both the Mental Capacity Act and Mental Health Act need to be considered. How would clinicians assess the new kind of capacity to decide to end one’s life that is framed in the Bill? How would clinicians protect and empower people with terminal illness to decide whether or not to end their own life, while at the same time detain those who are at risk of suicide so that they can be urgently treated?

1. It is not clear what a psychiatrist’s role on a multidisciplinary panel would be: If this Bill proceeds in England and Wales, any role a psychiatrist plays in an AD/AS process should be consistent with the core duties of the profession, including determining whether a person’s wish to die can be remedied or treated.
2. There are not enough consultant psychiatrists to do what the Bill asks: As things currently stand, mental health services simply do not have the resource required to meet a new range of demands.
3. Professionals must be able to conscientiously object to involvement in any part of the process: We are pleased to see that the Bill no longer requires medical professionals who do not wish to be involved to refer a person to another clinician, but they are still required to signpost patients to information on AD/AS. For some psychiatrists who wish to conscientiously object, this would constitute being involved in the AD/AS process.

1. Robust professional standards and oversight would need to be in place: Any professional involved in assessments for AD/AS would need to be adequately experienced, trained, and independently overseen.
2. Physical effects of a mental disorder shouldn’t make a person eligible for assisted dying/assisted suicide: If the Bill proceeds in England and Wales, it must exclude the physical effects of mental disorder, such as anorexia or dementia, as the basis for eligibility for AD/AS.

Looking at the way that this bill was dealt with at committee stage, it is massively flawed and should not be made law.

Don't know what happened with the numbering there!

I get that people are genuinely scared of coercion or of people with severe disabilities being valued less. I don't know what to say to comfort or convince them.

The issue with that statement is that, in our current society what you really mean is 'I don't know what to say to shut them up'. Because we know our infrastructure is not set up to support anyone dying within this time frame. The only way for this to work currently is to cut corners which means some people will be coerced into this.

Thank you. I feel I would not be being true to people I have met who have had awful deaths and cannot give their views. Some for their own reasons would have stuck it out to the end and some would not.

Just last week I watched my mother in law desperate to die with dignity suffer with a painful slow death. I also watched my grandmother stop taking her meds 20 years ago so she could die and my grandfather 8 years later not able to die the way he wanted. It can’t come soon enough for me.

Woah. Dementia isn't a fucking mental disorder, it's an organic brain disease that affects physical function.

On that basis alone my fears about legislation around the subject feel valid.

I have had several close family members with prolonged deaths (dementia and cancer) and I am fully in favour of assisted dying. If you had to watch loved ones suffer in front of you for years, you might feel differently.