Assisted dying bill - if the bill passes do those of strong religious conviction have a duty to oppose it?

[mids2019]

Assisted d dying may become a reality in the UK but if you have a strong two-hour conviction would you lobby for repeal of in some other way oppose it?

For instance in the NHS already many doctors are wanting to distance themselves from such a procedure as it isn't compatible with religious beliefs.

Is the UK ready for such a change of will it become a divisive element in British society?

ajd this is precisely why it should never be legalised. It’s the baby steps approach which broadens the scope and leads to situations like in Canada where the homeless, the mentally ill and the disabled are being encouraged to choose assisted dying.

I absolutely see why some people want this. I would too in certain circumstances, but it absolutely will be exploited, and as the person is dead it never comes to light. Looking at the Canadian model I see it as the gateway to eugenics.

I fully agree. It is the small steps that follow.

People always use Canada as an example but that's just one country. Switzerland has allowed assisted suicide for 80 years - has it become problematic?

I have a feeling that our health care is going to get better, and there’s a flood of new treatments in the pipeline. I feel that soon the medical landscape will have changed so much that these kind of debates will fall by the wayside. Nobody is going to pick life ending treatment if their quality of life can be sustained in some way

Yes. There are numerous accounts of couples using assisted suicide to die together because one has coerced the other. Daniel James made headlines when he travelled to Switzerland a year after an accident left him in a wheelchair.?
There are accounts in countries of patients being physically restrained to euthanise them because they agreed to it years ago.

Storm in a teacup.

The people who suffer most - dementia patients, where you go on for years in misery until you choke to death - can’t use this law.

Compassionate ending to suffering is a gift for the rest of us.

Absolutely, no one ever talks about Australia or New Zealand do they? I wonder why... 300 million people in the world have access to assisted dying.

As with abortion where if you are strongly opposed on religious grounds it's totally fine to neither have, not help procure, nor enact an abortion you just don't have the right to stop people who don't share your beliefs from doing so.

Same way with assisted dying. It doesn't need to affect you.

In the same way that there are many people who don't care that their religion isn't universal and want to impose their beliefs on everyone else when it comes to abortion, I have no doubt that there will be plenty of people who want to impose their views on people at the end of their lives too.

As a Christian I have no fear of death but I do very much fear a painful, extended and chaotic process of dying. If I am in a position where it is absolutely certain I will be dying soon I see absolutely no sin in having medical assistance to ensure that process is calm, pain free, brief and under control. Nobody else has the right to impose a different ethical framework on me.

This

Have any of you arguing for the caution or being against this bill actually read the detail? You have to have a 6 month terminal prognosis, be signed off by 2 doctors and likely a judicial investigation to check on the patient’s certainty. It’s not like you can just rock up to your GP and say “give me the pills, I wanna die now.”

and I wrote to my MP to implore them to read this bill thoroughly. I am so annoyed Ed Davey has publicly announced his vote so soon after the bill’s details were released as he has clearly not considered the alternative at all.

My MP is a vet, and I said we treat rabbits better than humans.

And I completely agree; I want assisted dying to be available now so that when I am 80 in a few decades time, it will have been amended to include a diagnosis of dementia so I don’t have to become a shell of myself, and at the right time for me, say goodbye to my family and die in peace. My grandparents both have dementia, are in nursing homes, very well cared for but their life is pitiful with no cognitive understanding. It actually disturbs me that we allow it.

This is one of the reasons I object so strongly to the presence of bishops in the HofL.....

Any religion that wants people to die in agony and without dignity when there is the means to prevent that is a pretty crap religion.

There is a different argument around pressures people feel from external sources - but again any decent spiritual practice would have probably buffeted you from bowing down to external pressures.

I mean, what is the argument here? That God wants you to suffer as you die? Why would you worship such a God?

So very well put!

I don’t want anyone who has any part in an organisation which is complicit in wide-scale child sexual and physical abuse, not to mention its historical abysmal treatment of unmarried women, to have any opinion or rights on my ability to end my own life rather than suffer in agony thanks.

Having just watched someone die of cancer, who was begging to be allowed to die for several weeks before they finally passed away in increasing pain and distress and the loss of any dignity, I absolutely support this bill. I don’t think religion should have any bearing on it whatsoever.

I think that if you are against assisted dying because of religious reasons - doctors playing god etc, then you should be against all medical interventions. You can’t pick and choose.

Religion should absolutely not be involved in any kind of debate, or eventual formulated legislation, around assisted dying. I absolutely believe that a person has a right to believe in any god they want, and of course that right must be protected. However, I categorically do not want any kind of religious influence when it comes to such a very important matter. Self appointed, religious holy men, telling us that they know what “god” wants, and therefore we should consider that point of view, in this debate, because it’s coming directly from god himself and is therefore legitimate input, is utterly laughable to me.

Religion will often put “what god wants” over humanity, and will often explain immense pain and suffering as “gods will”, “gods plan” etc. How can this possibly be ever considered as serious input into any kind of debate around assisted dying, let alone influencing any proposed legislation?. For me, it’s about humanity over religion, every single time. You have bishops right now, in the House of Lords ,having influence, and religious input, into different kinds of legislation, but legislation and laws that will affect me directly. You had
Justin Welby in there, who was so busy lecturing the nation about morality and what god wants, that in the same breath he forgot to protect some of the most vulnerable people in our society, which he could have but didn’t want to. And he sat in the House of Lords, like the other bishops, and was part of the legislature. In its self, this is so frightening to me. It’s so wrong.

Religion should absolutely not be involved in the debate. It is irrelevant.

As I understand it the patient has to have been proven by 2 doctors as being in sound mind. They have to have capacity and the ability to domit themselves under medical supervision.

I am fully supportive of this bill. I have believed for years that it should be allowed.

Let us not forget that you can be prosecuted for leaving an animal in the state we allow our human terminal friends and family in.

It is criminal that it is not allowed already.

I'm very ill with chronic pain so definitely would go with this. I love my husband and my cat! But I've had enough; I've been in bed for three days - only struggling getting out of my homebased hospital bed for 'ablutions'! Enough is enough and I can't take anymore hospital visits - I'm a veteran!

I'm sorry for your pain and grateful for your service.

Unfortunately I don't think the scope of the bill would cover chronic conditions so may not offer the solace you want.

It is designed currently to only cover terminal diagnosis I.e. cancer patients

'Personally I am from on this. Originally I was very much for the removal of unnecessary pain but there needs to be huge safeguards surrounding the process. We also have the question about severe disabilities and degenerative conditions.'
That's what they're doing though - personally I don't think it should be something religion has a say in. It's a personal choice, like religion, a personal choice, religion should not dictate laws - it's not their place

Thanks @Ihatelittlefriendsusan for clarification. That does make sense but it's been over 10 years of chronic pain plus disability and I've had enough.

As someone who has had a very ill mother in law for ten years and who has been wanting to die for two years and begging every day for the last six weeks in hospital and says nothing else, I'm all for it. I think it's absolutely cruel for a humans to be allowed to suffer day in and day out so much. Why do we allow it when we don't for animals. Seeing her in agony just wanting it to end so badly is so inhumane and upsetting for all of us. Its like torture for her.

Ooh apologies @Ihatelittlefriendsusan. 'stolen valour!' I didn't mean an army service veteran - just meant been in hospital multiple times!

This is my concern. There were be less help available to extended life treatment for terminal and a push to end life. It will probably pass purely on cost saving to the NHS.