Ok Boomers and euthenasia

[Backinthecloset123]

I'm in NZ where a bill has just been passed to have a referendum on euthinasia/assisted dying. This will take place next year.

I have always been a firm advocate....until now. As one of the last baby boomers I'm aware that our numbers are starting to peak in elder care and resources, and will continue to peak for quite a few years.

My issue is, will euthenasia be embraced by the woke in a similar way that gender/queer/trans issues have?

Will, or could, many non boomers think of us boomers the same way they think of te*fs? (non rationally). Could it get out of hand as trans ideology has?

I'm blown away how quickly queer Theory entailed rationality went out the window, and can see the same possibly happening in other areas including assisted dying.

Strange times.

End of life care in this country is for the biggest part very poor, unless you can get a bed in a hospice, palliative care in an ordinary hospital isn't good enough, there isn't any dignity dying in a hospital bed with another patient 3 feet away from you, no privacy for family & loved ones to be able to say their goodbyes & tell the person who is dying how much they love & will miss them. Dying is an incredibly difficult time both for the patient & their loved ones which is made harder by the worry that the patient is in pain & suffering, feeling that the hospital staff want them gone & the bed emptied. If the right to die is not to be legalised then all the palliative care protocol needs to be rewritten so that patients know they will get the best care available, more hospice beds need to be available, more specialised doctors & nurses with higher staff patient ratios, not death factories but places that help patients & families live with dying.

@Nat6999

That's a bloody superb post.

It's interesting that governments around the world are turning away from the expense and effort required to provide high quality palliative care for people, and towards legalised euthanasia. One could almost suspect it's cheaper for them.

We should be holding our government accountable. If people can't access good hospice care - in this, the most advanced, wealthiest century of them all - that's the true scandal.

I think also, that the gender debate has shown me how quickly and how far the Overton window can move on social issues. Sometimes that's good, sometimes it's not so good.

But I think it's dodgy that it can move relatively fast on euthanasia. Even the media coverage reminds me a lot of how we are presented with trans stories - vulnerable teens now living their best lives etc. It's sort of a mirror. Lovely people suffering terribly and it's in our hands to end their suffering. That's true - but it's also a superficial level investigation of the issue, and it's more like advertising than journalism. IMO.

@JanesKettle

Well said. Totally agree about the advertising and economic concerns.

It's not only the cost of palliative care saved. It's the general social care costs of an aging population, pensions, bus passes, disability benefits.

I am not sure where I read it, but some economists had done research which said that euthanasia was bound to become legal in the UK by 2030, as a result of the costs of an aging population.

How depressing that by making death in the UK intolerable, euthanasia is likely to be ushered in, like turkeys voting for Christmas, as people line up at clinics, to voluntarily solve the government's endemic lack of investment problem for them.

How is that situation any more dignified and palatable than dying in pain? Both things can be wrong and a third way found - fund and train in palliative care and pain control.

SirChing I lost my dad in January this year & he was stuffed in a 4 bed bay that had 6 beds in it, there was less that 3 feet between the beds, 2 patients passed away before my dad & it was awful for the other patients & their families, almost like being in a queue thinking is it my turn next? It took 7 hours for them to sort a syringe driver for my dad & would have taken longer except for my brother jumping up.& down complaining, the day before my dad died, we arrived to find him laid in a pool of blood, as his liver was failing he was itching all over & scratching even though he was barely conscious, staff had seen it before we arrived & hadn't done anything to give him any relief, it took a matron doing her rounds & us complaining for them to dress his arms & legs to stop the bleeding, get his bed changed & antihistamines prescribed to calm the itching. There were no private rooms to give grieving families privacy & the patient dignity, you were lucky if doctors did rounds once a day. It was a hell hole of a ward.

SirChing, agree with the third way.

The data on the sex imbalance of those choosing euthanasia for psychiatric reasons is really very concerning for me. To how many of those women do we say 'It's OK, it's worth you killing yourself' for greater good of those suffering immense pain at end of life ?

I absolutely believe the testimony of those who have watched loved ones die in pain; I absolutely accept that we need to do better. So much better.

I'm just not prepared to make it better by saying 'Yeah, your death is worth it' to a single one of those women dealing with psychiatric diagnoses.

Nat that's horrific and barbaric.

@Nat6999

That is dreadful. If you can bear it, would a complaint now, to PALS or even via a solicitor, help you? It can't change what happened and may well be glossed over (by them trying to avoid liability) but internally, the shit would hit the fan about it, with recommendations for future practice likely to be made as a result.

If you can't bear to relive it, I totally get that. I don't think I could.

Your relative was let down. I am so very very sorry

@JanesKettle spot on.

It would also have logical ramifications for how we currently try to keep MH patients safe. If euthanasia was allowed, that shift in attitude seems in direct conflict with the steps we currently take to prevent people killing themselves on MH wards.

Would we be allowed to still undertake arms length nursing to keep them safe? What about restraining some one who is actively trying to harm themselves? What about when the only thing that will calm that person and keep them safe is forcibly medicating them?

There are so many ramifications that aren't thought through, such is our desperately human knee-jerk reaction to save others from pain.

It is the existence of pain that needs addressing. I don't think it's acceptable to address that by questioning the existence of the person.

It's been the case for longer than I've been alive that pain relief will sometimes lead to or hasten death. That's not quite the same thing as euthanasia though and it's an important line.

It will change the whole consciousness around the value of human life and it may well become entirely acceptable that someone has no choice but to submit to 'assisted dying' if their savings have run out or if their disability stops them from working.

This is so important and it seems like some people don't quite understand that when considering this kind of social change, you can't assume that people's ideas ad beliefs about the issue will remain similar to what they are now. It's almost inevitable that such a change, in a generation or two, will shift people's sense of what is right and wrong, when a life isn't of value, how much suffering is too much.

I get the sense at times that many don't realise how far people's views can shift. I am sure any of us would be completely horrified at the idea of infanticide, and yet historically it's been very common, many people have brought themselves to do this. Not always secretly either, there have been many societies where it was customary or organised under certain circumstances. If people can feel right and justified to do something that seems so deeply horrible to us, do we really think it's such a big step to change the way we think about the elderly?

It's not only the cost of palliative care saved. It's the general social care costs of an aging population, pensions, bus passes, disability benefits.

Another thing that needs to be talked about IMO is that a significant driver in this on the level of citizens seems to be saving themselves emotional pain. It almost reminds me in an odd way of cosmetic surgery, we don't want reminders of our vulnerability, we don't want to see pain and weakness.

I don't think this is a conscious thing for many but I suspect it may have a significant impact of what people think and do.

@Goosefoot

Yes. Who would ever have dreamed that Logan's Run could end up being prescient?

This hits a nerve with me, as I had such a decision to make. My husband was ill for over a decade, it started with a Parkinson syndrome illness that didn't really fit any diagnosis, slowly drifting into dementia. I took care of him at home for many years; this included taking care of his incontinence needs, both ends, pee and poo. Basically he became a big baby. It ended when he could no longer stand on his own, and as I could not lift him I had to choose home care for him. strangely enough, once he was in a home he began walking again, but after a year or two had to go into a wheelchair.

I lived nearby and visited every day, took him for walks etc. But in the end he became bedridden. The day came when he could no longer swallow and lost interest in food; at that point he was not communicating at all. Speech had become garbled over time and after a while there was no communication. That's when the question came up as to a feeding tube.

I spoke to a palliative nurse and doctor in the hospital where I worked and both advised against it. But both his GP and the home staff wanted me to OK it. I wasn't sure; on the one hand he at this stage had no life, just lying there and being fed and cleaned, no joy in life, not recognising family members. I know for a fact that if he had been of sound mind and could have seen himself he would not have wanted this.

But not putting in a Peg would have meant letting him slowly die. I could not do it and so I decided for the feeding tube. He lived two years like that, just being turned and cleaned, no conscious life whatsoever. It was horrible.

If he had left clear instructions for such an eventuality I would have complied, and in such cases I am pro euthanasia. The reason I was in two minds was because of the responsibility. He had two adult children who hated my guts and who never visited him and had tricked him out of a lot of money, and I just know they would have accused me of wanting him gone, him being a burden on my life etc. Yes, his death did set me free in many ways, but I would have gone on as before no matter how long it took.

I think that's the problem, isn't it; that others could decide to kill old and sick people once they are a burden, both on our time and energy, and a financial burden. It's a very fine line. Everyone who knew and loved him said it was a release when he died, as his life was -- well, it wasn't really a life. But how do we know? I used to visit him, talk to him, sing to him, play music he used to love. Who knows how much of that he could hear and understand, even if he never responded?

As for the OK Boomer thing it makes me giggle, tbh. They think the word Boomer is insulting??? What a joke! I love being a boomer born 1951 and my youth was one long adventure lots of travel, hiking across continents without a damn mobile phone and internet and learning about other cultures and learning languages and sleeping rough, and also being a damn hippy and at the very forefront of the environment movement, living on farms and growing own veggies, bathing in streams, no plumbing and toilets, no electricity, cooking over an open fire for months on end, and being happy as we did so. It was Back to Nature, in a serious way, not just skipping school! Plus I've lived through history, seen cultural movements come and go, disappear without a trace, (as this TRA one certainly will) and yes, back then I also thought anyone over 30 was an idiot, and I was wrong.

So I can really just shrug this "insult" off. Luckily my own kids are wonderful Millennials, both GC, both listen to me, respect me, and take my advice: parenting advice, relationship advice, spiritual advice. They are my best friends. Some Millennials do sound like little snowflakes, though, complaining about every little thing they can't get, and with their dependency on Twitter, Instagram etc. Thank goodness we did not have social media back then.

So they want us to disappear? Frankly, I'd be happy to go off to a sane world with my kids and grandkids and similar people and leave the woke insanity behind. But I suppose that will earn me an OK Boomer!

I spoke to a palliative nurse and doctor in the hospital where I worked and both advised against it. But both his GP and the home staff wanted me to OK it.

It is very difficult to talk about this and I have no wish to upset you. But the fact that people specialised in palliative care advised against this inicates to me that this was an issue that exactly surrounds pallliatve care and not euthanasia. This is an instance where medical advances have enabled us to keep someone alive beyond the 'natural' span.Feeding tubes would not have been available only a few years ago.

My husband's aunt had bowel (and other forms of) cancer. She could not eat, but there was no question of the hospice putting her on a feeding tube. They made her comfortable and she spent a few weeks saying goodbye to her very loving family. This was the time they all valued. There was no question in anyone's mind that she was being euthanised. They were managing her death in a way that was acceptable to everyone. This is palliative care. Euthanasia, as it would be enshrined in the law, is something quite different. And lots of posters have argued that it would extend well beyond accepted end of life management into much more insidious territory. Neither is this conjecture. It is already happening in the Netherlands.

Floisme is absolutely right when she says that we need a more thorough discussion about palliative care.

Yes, I know there is a difference between euthanasia and palliative care, and I don't conflate the two. Yet in the end it was on me to make the decision. The care home staff pressured me in favour of the feeding tube, as did his GP; but in the end I do think it was, for me, the enormity of knowing I was deciding over the life or death of a loved one who could not decide for themselves.

There's a piece in the Sunday Times today which provides excellent education on the phrase 'OK, Boomer'.

I made a new thread as this one is mostly serious and didn't want to derail but if anyone wants to c&p the link into this one feel free

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3745904-ok-boomer

Having read the piece in the Times, whilst it might be recognised as satire to some of us boomers I do fear that to some of the young woke university going generation, I think they will think it is a real piece of journalism.

Can you have a sense of humour and be woke at the same time

Perceptions change - MIL was adamant when younger soon as feasible she wanted to go into a home rather than be burden older she’s got the more adamant she wants no part of old people’s homes.

I remember reading about some work, probably in New Scientist, on severely paralysed patients and happiness levels – it was assumed they’d be low but when research was done it tune out the brain is very good at self- protection and they were happy.

I've been in the uncomfortable place where a HCP was ignoring my medical history and our circumstances insisting of their plan – and feeling justified in lying about test results and producers to bully us into it. It was a shocking and unpleasant place to be and management didn’t deal with it well at all and it was shear luck we could prove it.

Such a system being alowed to decide if I live or die is horrifying.

I do think there are massive issues around palliative care and how people die – most want to do it at home yet statically most likely in a hospital bed.

I also agree trans is a modern example of being nice in effort to alleviate suffering of the few can snowball out of control.

Could there be unintended consquences - if we euthanise older people with dementia or other conditions or it becomes more and more common would drug companies and research continue to focus on these conditions, that some younger people also get, or would it be diverted to other areas.

FGS please don't imply the majority of students nowadays are 'woke' and/or incapable of detecting satire (especially when it's a piece pretty clearly labelled as such). That just reinforces the overstated generational divide.

(For an example of a student with critical faculties engaged, see the Hines/Sheffield Tab thread. )

You just need to go on social media to realize "ok boomer" is no longer what it once was. People say it randomly without it even making any sense (i.e. the person they say it to is demonstrably not even a boomer).

It is the ultimate "I don't give a fuck what you are saying, I am right, you are wrong, but I cannot argue my point". The youth of today is riddled with hypocrites and bigots and sheep that cannot formulate their own thoughts. To them if you do not tow the line, you might as well be dismissed because you hold outdated views and are trash. But they cannot actually argue this so they must use something like "ok boomer" to pretend you away.

Another thing that needs to be talked about IMO is that a significant driver in this on the level of citizens seems to be saving themselves emotional pain.

Is it? It seems to me that the primary driver is that people no longer expect to die suddenly or after a short illness, are contemplating the fact that they might end up having to live years with a degenerative condition that will rob them of any quality of life and want an exit option.

The court cases that have been brought on this so far have been people wanting to end their own life due to degenerative illness, not people wanting to knock off nan because she's an inconvenience or reminds them too much of their own morality. That's not to say that there might not be a risk of the latter happening if the law allowed it.

NotDavidTennant

How many people in conversations about this talk about the pain of watching someone die a prolonged death? Or how they look at someone and feel that their dignity has been compromised and so they find it emotionally difficult to do things that many adults are used to doing for themselves, toileting etc.

You also hear people talking sometimes about saving the younger generation from having to watch them die.

I think for many people there is a lot of emotional distress that people feel when watching such situations which gets projected onto the person actually having the experience.

It's not that they saw "Yeah, lets bump of Nan I can't stand to watch her die". But they take their emotional response and see it as inherent in the situation and belonging to the other person. Then it becomes a question of alleviating the person who is dying of their distress.

The sense of loss of dignity in caring for others, or being cared for, is largely cultural though, it's a state or stage of life we don't know how to value properly.