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?

[ICanHearYou]

jokes?

[DikTrom]

[TheHoneyBadger]

i presume the poster meant that it would enter the parlance and 'jokey/half serious' rhetoric and be a pressure in itself.

[settingsitting]

Yes HoneyBadger. Plus comedian jokes and half meant black humour jokes.

[larrygrylls]

This is akin to saying legalising abortion allows men to pressure women into having abortions. Yes, it does happen. Should abortion be legal in a civilised society? Absolutely. Every new right brings with it risks and responsibilities. However, as far as I can see, the number of controversial deaths in societies where assisted dying is legal are a tiny tiny proportion of the total.

[juliascurr]

the point I'm making is the two 'choices' (abortion or assisted dying) are not equal; it's much easier to get an abortion than adequate support and the same will happen with assisted dying

[edamsavestheday]

Quite. All those palliative care doctors are hardly going to pack up and retrain as plumbers. They are going to carry on looking after people living with incurable pain as well as the dying.

[juliascurr]

but who will pay for all this care in an era of austerity where right-wing poiticians can make themselves look progressive by voting for much cheaper assisted dying? assisted living will just be a more expensive choice
not for each specific individual, but as social policy

[prh47bridge]

The bill debated by the Lords would not help those with locked-in syndrome (which is what Tony Nicklinson had) provided the rules are followed. The bill requires two doctors to agree that the patient has a life expectancy of less than 6 months. A patient with locked-in syndrome can last far longer. But I expect that, if passed, this would rapidly become suicide on demand in much the same way that the restricted right to abortion has become abortion on demand with no change in the law. After all, doctors cannot reliably predict life expectancy. Some patients die much quicker than expected. Others hang on for years after they were supposed to die. So I suspect that, just as it is easy to find two doctors who will say that a woman will suffer injury to her physical or mental health if her child is not aborted, it will become easy to find two doctors who will declare that a patient has less than 6 months to live.

If we do get assisted dying in the UK I would imagine we will see the same as in other countries where this has been widened to include dying children and those with dementia. And, of course, it puts the elderly in the position of having to consider whether they could save their family trouble and the state money by getting a doctor to kill them.

What we have at the moment is a fudge whereby assisting someone to commit suicide is an offence but you will not be prosecuted in certain circumstances. I'm not happy with having it as a fudge but I am concerned that changing the law may be worse than continuing to fudge the issue.

[larrygrylls]

To all those people who think assisted dying is an excuse for saving money from palliative care:

What do you think palliative care looks like now? Do you think there are a lot of palliative care specialists? Or that GPs are well educated in end of life care?

From what I have seen, I don't. And, if that is the case, the choice is not between assisted dying and world class palliative care. The choice is between assisted dying and an unpleasant death. And even with good palliative care, very few people go from having a nice relaxed chat one minute to dead the next. The reality of GOOD palliative care is several days of unconsciousness, lack of lucidity and possible hallucinations before death.

I am pro assisted dying anyway, as I think how one dies should be through personal choice. But, given the resources we have, and how one is likely to die, the idea of having the choice to end things before the horrific stage seems even more compelling to me.

[pointythings]

I have enormous trouble with the arguments against assisted dying.

My grandmother had an assisted death in Holland in 2006. She too had a bedside party - she was able to speak, have a drink, have her nails done, spend time with the family. Then she chose the moment of her death. It didn't take as long in her case because she was physically able to write the request in a normal way, and she was able to speak with the panel herself.

I've read a lot of the arguments against and I heard Baroness Campbell speaking on Radio 4 - her argument seemed to be that since she would find it difficult to resist the temptation, no-one should have the choice. That argument made me

Then there was Giles Fraser in the Guardian's CiF page, stating that (I paraphrase) if he was low enough to be considering assisted suicide he would want to be 'bullied' out of it. That one made me even more because it presumes that people who are depressed are not able to make rational decisions. Informed consent legislation says something quite, quite different - even people on a section are not automatically deemed incapable of informed consent, so why the patronising attitude?

I also have to take issue with the '20% of people who had an assisted suicide were not physically ill, just tired of life and lonely'. And? So? Of course ideally we would like to have a world where people could access support networks, make new friends, bring colour back to their lives. Some people might benefit from that and discover a new zest for life. And some might not, and would still prefer not to be alive. Their choice.

Lastly there's the issue of excellent palliative care - the kind of doses of morphine needed to control the pain in some cases have massive, horrendous side effects that rob people of comfort and dignity. If someone chooses not to 'live' like that - again, their choice. By all means let's have excellent palliative care, but let's not pretend this is a zero sum game. It isn't.