Assisted dying - so angry

[specialsubject]

No-one is saying it will be compulsory. But it looks like it is going nowhere. And this kind of comment is why:

Archbishop of York says: "Dying well is a positive achievement of a task which belongs to our humanity"

tell that to Tony Nicklinson's family, and many others.

I am no more terminally ill than any other healthy person. But if I become so, I would like the choice. I have seen the suffering of someone who didn't have it.

It was ok for George V. It is ok for suffering animals. Why isn't it ok for terminally ill humans who want to make that choice? Why is this choice not allowed?

[iliketea]

I am 100% against this. I know there would be "safeguards",but I don't believe for one minute that the elderly and disabled wouldn't feel under pressure to make a decision about choosing to end their life.

And what if you're diagnosed with e.g dementia - in the early stage, you may have capacity to make a decision about end-of-life, but your prognosis is likely to be considerably longer than 6 months. So, do those patients not get a choice, or is a 'best interest' decision made by family or doctors about when they should be assisted to die.

I don't believe safeguards will ever be enough, so I oppose assisted dying completely.

[PenelopePitstops]

I agree with the bill entirely. Having seen grandparents decline and eventually die from cancer and alzhiemers, assisted death would have been much more dignified.

I thought most people would be able to self administer.

As for people wanting granny to pop off, granny would have to agree! It's not a 'kill whoever you like' bill.

[ecuse]

I have massive sympathy for those who are in a bad position and want to end their lives through free choice. But it's just too dangerous, for all the reasons outlined in this post, IMO: www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2014/07/assistance_to_live_2014

[ICanHearYou]

I would far rather money and resources spent keeping me alive when I don't know my own name and try and eat my own shit every day was spent on finding ways to stop little children dying of cancer.

[iliketea]

The thing is IcanHearYou is that when you are at that point, you probably wouldn't have the capacity to make that decision, so the option wouldn't be available anyway.

[Baddderz]

Surely the people who oppose this bill on moral grounds would therefore never use it's provision anyway?
As someone else said, the rich have been "helped in their way" for years because they can pay private drs to do it.
George V?

[HercShipwright]

I am also angry. I have no problem with cases like Tony Nickleson's, where the person involved has made it clear for some time that they wish to be helped to die when the time comes. That, to me, seems the right thing to do. However. My elderly father was left to die by supposed geriatric medicine experts in hospital. He had pneumonia but other than that he was incredibly fit and healthy for a man his age. They refused to put him the the special care ward because 'he has little quality of life' - bollocks. He had a great life. He didn't want to die, there was no need for him to die, he was left to die because some idiot thought a 90 year old man who contract pneumonia IN hospital after lack of proper treatment for basic food poisoning had had his lot and didn't deserve any more time. This already goes on. How much worse would it be for people deemed to be 'surplus' if the new law was passed? I think three should be a law to deal with the Nickleson sort of situation but I also think this proposal is not it.

[Deverethemuzzler]

I watched my little girl die over the course of two years.
My Oh has a degenerative disorder.

So I can absolutely see the 'positives' in passing such a law.

But I can see another side too. Not the religious one. That is utterly irrelevant.

I can see the view of disabled people who are terrified what this may lead to. Not that they will be bumped off by relatives.

There has been a pretty effective propaganda campaign over the last few years, demonizing disabled people. We have taken massive steps backwards in the cause of integration and acceptance of disability.

Disabled people are already having to justify their existence, how much they cost, what they contribute, what is the point of them being allowed to live?

If we bring this in who is to say they will not be further marginalised and they need to argue why they are NOT taking a choice to die?

It is a very real fear for people and I can see why.

[ICanHearYou]

If the law was passed I would be able to make that clear NOW though that is the thing, I could put down legal contracts that make it clear when I wish to die.

Herc that is a terrible story but I believe if less people are kept alive simply because that is 'what we do' then less people would be in the position your grandfather would be in.

[ClashCityRocker]

I'm somewhat on the fence about the whole thing.

in the cases where you are not able to judge your quality of life through lack of mental capacity presuming you have made a decision in earlier years, what if you change your mind? I know a lot of people say 'I wouldn't want to live if I was like that' but to be honest, unless they are in that position, how can they make an informed decision?

I also worry about the financial side of things, and people feeling they have a moral duty to die. Already points have been made along the lines of money being better spent elsewhere, which whilst probably true, it's an angle I'm uncomfortable with - I really do think that is a slippery slope and assigning certain conditions as more 'deserving' than others is dangerous.

But on the other hand, am I in a position to decide? I don't have, or know personally, anyone to who this at the minute applies to, so what gives me the right to say no, it's wrong when I don't have any direct experience.

[sleepyhead]

I think a lot of people underestimate the human instinct to live. It takes a huge amount of suffering to override this, and for most people it will not be overridden even in the face of extreme pain.

Using the example of elderly people going into care. Do we currently have an epidemic of elderly people killing themselves to save their family 's inheritance? If not why do we think that assisted dying would change this?

I suspect very few people would opt to hasten their death, however it might bring enormous comfort to the terminally ill suffering from relentlessly progressive disease to know that there would be a humane way out if things got too much to bear.

I hope that if the bill fails, those who oppose it will acknowledge that their own peace of mind will be at the expense of others.

What do Dutch disability activists say about this issue? Is there evidence of disabled or people being pressured to end their lives in countries where assisted dying is legal?

[edamsavestheday]

If people don't value the lives of the sick and disabled, we need to change that. We need an awareness campaign. We need to educate doctors and nurses - I know it is true that some assume elderly people should not be treated, when they do want to recover and were living an active and full life before getting whatever it is that has made them end up in hospital.

I think we can do all this - and must do all this - while having a right to die with assistance for those who want it.

I don't think the price of treating elderly, sick or disabled people with dignity and as people with autonomy and the same rights as the rest of us should be imposing terrible suffering on people who do want to end it all.

We shouldn't officiously strive to keep people alive at all costs. We shouldn't stand in the way of someone who has made a decision about the value of their own life.

Suicide is legal so as a society we have already accepted, for decades, that people have every right to decide they want to die. This would just extend that to allowing them to die safely with dignity.

[MrsMaturin]

I don't agree with legalising assisted dying. I believe passionately in the concept of a 'good' death and in excellent palliative care.

I think though that in circumstances when a person wishes to die, has made that clearly known to multiple people on multiple occasions and then is helped to do so by a friend or relative there is no public interest whatsoever in prosecuting that surviving person. I know that some people think that needs to be stated in law but I disagree with that too. It has to be enough for people to know that if you help somebody you love who has made clear their wishes to multiple witnesses inside and outside the family then you will not face prosecution. As soon as you legalise something you put people under pressure and you put people at risk.

We should be protecting the terminally ill and dying. Allowing assisted dying does not protect them. Excellent palliative care and compassion protects them.

[GnomeDePlume]

I am concerned that assisted dying would reduce the work being done to improve pain management. So many people live with chronic pain and receive little help for it. How many people would decide against assisted dying for themselves if they were confident that their pain would be managed?

I dont see that it is an either/or situation just that if assisted dying is to be legalised then we should also be investing more in pain management. This means educating community HCP more in the prescribing and administering of powerful pain relief.

Also we should be improving end of life care. Again this isnt either/or just that people may delay the point at which they chose to die if they could be confident that it wasnt a case of take the tablets now or have to wait in pain/discomfort/fear for the next time it is convenient for the third parties involved.

[hiddenhome]

Due to personal reasons, I just wouldn't be able to cope if I was ever dependant on anybody else for personal care etc. it would be too much for me to bear.

I live in hope that people are given the choice sooner rather than later. I'm also a nurse and have had over 20 years of witnessing the terrible distress that people suffer when being forced to remain alive, often by selfish relatives who can't face their loved one dying. I don't say that lightly as I lost my first husband to cancer when I was 26.

[ICanHearYou]

I think we should be improving start of life care, but clearly telling someone who wants to die, say they want to die, has previously written when they want to die that they can't die is far more important.

[GnomeDePlume]

This is such a complex issue. In only 40 odd posts so many facets of the issue have been raised.

We all approach this from our own experience. What makes a good death? What makes a good end of life? What frightens us?

This makes me wonder whether legislation can cover all the different perspectives.

[hiddenhome]

Are Switzerland or Netherlands experiencing any problems I wonder?

All these people heading off for Dignitas, it's very sad, expensive and should be unnecessary. I wonder if other Europeans go there. We're in Europe, we should have these rights.

[TheHoneyBadger]

i sort of feel that in order for this law to be passed and be meaningfully about choice a lot of other stuff has to be in place first.

like decent, really decent, hospices with enough beds and excellent staff and pain management. like support in place for people who want to stay in their own homes to die.

if things like that were in place then i would be ok wth assisted dying because it could be a meaningful choice. in a situation where care for the elderly, the sick and disabled and the dying is shockingly poor and inhumane and underfunded then it isn't a meaningful choice. the decision should be the decision to want to die, not the decision to get away from the alternative of lack of care, support and decent palliative care.

[TheHoneyBadger]

so say someone was in a hospice, receiving excellent care and the best pain relief and comfort that could be given and they then chose that it was time for them to go and the doctors and nurses around them knew them, had seen the progress of the disease and had relationships with the patient and family etc then that decision could be a reliable one.

if someone has been shunted in and out of general care nhs wards and dumped back home repeatedly without any decent care where they're left in pain, without dignity, unable to eat or care for themselves effectively and they 'want to die' that's a really different thing isn't it? whilst that is the quality of care for the sick, elderly and dying then the choice would be tainted by the reality of the degradation and misery of continuing to live inherent in our care system as much as in death or pain itself. does that make sense?

[niminypiminy]

If I was suicidal I hope that people would try to argue me out of it however much pain and anguish I was feeling, however much I wished to end my life then and there, I hope that people would be talking me out of it, letting me know how much they loved me, that my presence on this earth meant something to them. When people who are suicidal post on mn, that's normally the response and quite rightly so.

Imagine now that I am ill and in pain, and say that I want to commit suicide. Does the situation change? How would it be, then, if the people around me, my family, those I love most on earth, say "oh ok then, that's fine"? Are they suddenly to abandon me, to give up the last time we have together on this earth? Should they stop fighting for me to have pain relief and good care from those around me? Should they just abandon me to death? (Giles Fraser used this example in an article in the Guardian this morning)

What this bill proposes isn't a slippery slope, exactly, so much as a quantum leap -- a very small change which nevertheless changes everything. Once you have accepted the principle that killing another person can be right, even in very circumscribed circumstances, you can't argue in principle against it. You have accepted the principle that killing can be right, and then it is almost inevitable that extensions to the law will follow.

So you get to the situation in Belgium where it is now legal for doctors to kill terminally ill children. Although children can't legally consent to sex, they can consent to being killed. That's not just absurd, it's abhorrent.

Many people are in favour of assisted death (or getting a doctor to kill you let's not use a euphemism) because of having watched people in pain. But how much pain is too much? Once we have accepted the principle that the terminally ill could be killed to end their pain, at what point will be next say that death by request is possible? Is our only response to pain even pain that might come to an end -- to say that it must be ended, finally, by death. John Inge's powerful account of his wife's death ( here ) shows what he, and she, and their family would have lost by her having chosen death at the point where she would have been eligible for assisted death under this bill.

[specialsubject]

since when was disability the same as terminal illness? (Given that we are all terminally ill) Where is there a clause in this bill saying that the disabled have to be included? Nowhere, of course.

this bill would only be for adults (not children), who are able to administer the medicine themselves. Nobody is talking about killing kids. Two doctors would have to agree that the person concerned is capable of the decision; so there are safeguards against someone with depression who may be able to be helped. This does mean that those in late-stage Alzheimers will also not be eligible.

If the Guardian is to be believed, Lady Campbell (in the house of Lords yesterday in her wheelchair) says that 'pain, suffering and disempowerment are treatable'. If only that were true. Where is this treatment for paralysis? For ongoing chronic pain? Palliative care can only do so much. Some pain and suffering cannot be treated.

'slippery slope' - the copout for all those without a real argument.

[niminypiminy]

Specialsubject: just posting again in case you didn't read it right the first time:

"What this bill proposes isn't a slippery slope, exactly, so much as a quantum leap -- a very small change which nevertheless changes everything. Once you have accepted the principle that killing another person can be right, even in very circumscribed circumstances, you can't argue in principle against it. You have accepted the principle that killing can be right, and then it is almost inevitable that extensions to the law will follow."

That's an argument. How do you counter it?