To think Gill Pharaoh had the ideal end of life

[CurdinHenry]

Article in the Times about this woman who decided to end her life through voluntary euthanasia at 75. Huge outrage on social media as a result as various people missing the point entirely express fury because they think being very elderly will be great fun. I personally don't want to get older than that. I don't ask anyone else to take the same view but it stresses me out that the naive want to reduce choices available to the prescient. Euthanasia should be available to everyone without condition.

Maybe humans are living too long? Quality of life over quantity of life.

So who gets to decide when someone’s time is up? The tax man when you’ve run out of money? Or the NHS when you reach 75?

My nan lived until she was 96. It was only the last two years of her life that she went downhill. She lived a relatively independent life for most of it.

I feel deeply uncomfortable with some of the posts on this thread. People are perfectly entitled to their opinions. But we need to be very careful with this so we don’t end up in a nightmare scenario where people have to worry about ‘euthanasia’ being forced upon them.

@Marmalademorning You never answered my questions. Who is going to look after the increasing number of people who need care in the UK?

I’m not a policy maker, and I can’t come up with all the solutions to massive issues like that first thing in a Sunday morning.

I do know that it would be wrong and inhumane to force euthanasia on people because ‘sorry but we’ve run out of money’. The irony of that being it wouldn’t actually be euthanasia anyway would it? It would be something entirely more sinister.

So what Gill Pharaoh chose to do makes sense. She died before she may have needed care, which isn’t always readily available. I think there are a lot worse things than euthanasia.

It was outsourced along with everything in the Thatcher + years and there was no choice. Tbf it is more expensive to do it in house because of sick pay, annual leave etc but thats because they treat staff properly

Congratulations, you've not only told me what I think but exactly why I think it.

Your wrong on all counts please stop doing it.

I think sometimes modern medicine ends up keeping people alive beyond when they should be – and beyond what they wish. For instance, a dementia patient shouldn't be on medications for prolonging their life, like heart medication (do they do that now?), just medications that make them comfortable in the moment.

But for the most part, I think people have good quality of life into their twilight years, and should be supported in that. I fear that the normalisation of assisted suicide will lead to people (particularly women) feeling pressured to kill themselves early on in their older years, so as not to risk burdening their children.

The problem is that you can't just say, remove someone pacemaker because they have dementia. Some, definitely not all, go to a happy place in their dementia and those that dont can still experience pleasure.