Assisted Dying is Sexist

[lcakethereforeIam]

This is a facet that I hadn't thought of, now I'm thinking how could I have been so blind

https://archive.ph/uhGgX

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/25/assisted-dying-is-sexist-report-finds/

I'm not entirely against people being killed by their Doctors, if that is their wish, they're going to die soon anyway and the alternative is unrelievable pain. My misgivings were from watching how it had played out in countries where it is legal, particularly Canada. I was also worried about coercion but somehow I hadn't thought how gendered that is. How it's usually the male sex that does the coercion.

That's a good article. Thanks for posting the link.

Funny how people will lie with statistics. Oregon has more people opting for assisted suicide partly because they had to permit it for people from outside the state.

Not everyone prescribed the drugs takes them. Sometimes knowing that they have autonomy (the main reason given for requesting the drugs with the second main reason being they can no longer enjoy their life) is the reason people can struggle on longer. That never gets a mention from the opponents of assisted dying.

I wrote my MP encouraging them to vote yes.

Same.

I've become so cynical during the gender wars
.
Pick an MP with a tragic and sympathetic backstory
Pick a dying celebratory famous for campaigning
Flood the media with campaigning material and obfuscatory language
Mix in a load of activist journalists and new MPs
And pull the strings behind the scenes

There are already campaigns to extend the right to assisted suicide to groups outside of people with 6 months to live. I think one of the frustrating things about the campaign is it’s dishonesty. We all know that within a decade they will be arguing that anyone against extending the right to die to depressed children and those with disabilities lacks compassion. I wish those campaigning would at least be honest about where we are heading.

Yeah, I am curious about this.

Do all those offering the reassurance that there is a "six months to live" limit really think that will remain? Do they think that activists are happy with that, that it is their endgame?

Do they think it will stand up in court once the right to die as a facet of bodily autonomy is part of the equation?

Where these laws are passed, things now move along very quickly, I don't think it will be 10 years before you see this expanded. More likely in 10 years you will be talking about extending to under 18s or infants like other places already are.

So, looking through some of the information he posted, I came across this - something that I strongly suspected, in general terms, must be the case - it's around where is the money coming from to fund what are clearly extremely expensive campaigns? I already was aware that these groups often recieve a fair bit of funding from the government.

But it looks like there is significant private money too, from some "interesting" sources.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1861406642174075032.html

And that applies to both sides in this story.

Falls down massively the minute he starts on about George Soros

How on earth can "6 months to live" be assessed? I can't imagine many doctors willing to give such a specific prognosis.

I dunno but my uncle is three years into a '6 months to live' diagnosis.

Yes, exactly, it's hardly reliable. Sorry about your uncle. x

And some more on the general rise in suicide in Oregon compared to the US generally. States with easy access to guns tend to have higher suicide rates. https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-people-die-by-suicide/state/oregon/

And Calum Miller picks out one funding organsation he doesnt like from a list that includes "These funders include the Robert Bosch Foundation, the European Climate Foundation, the Fondation du Credit Mutuel, Open Society Foundations, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Batory Foundation. " Nothing about how much comes from each source or how much went to fund a campaign on assisted dying.

Reminds me of the TRA smear by association tactic - no real facts, just innuendo.

Brief but interesting thread on correlations between the type of constituency an MP has and their vote in the debate:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1863248585904500967.html

Unsurprisingly my MP (Lisa Nandy) bucked that trend. 🙁although Angela Rayner voted against.

those Labour MPs who voted for assisted suicide tended to represent more affluent constituencies with less deprivation in terms of health outcomes and disability. Put another way, those MPs whose constituents could be more vulnerable to assisted suicide voted against it.

UtopiaPlanitia thanks for that post. It’s very very telling about the ‘No’ notes corresponding to the more vulnerable constituencies. That makes sense.
This Bill with the massive lack of public discussion as it has been rushed into Parliament so quickly has felt very high handed. That makes pushing this Bill seem like the issue of campaigners who value having choice for themselves (and there’s nothing wrong with that) but who also seem really unconcerned with what allowing their choices can mean for other more vulnerable people than them who have less social and economic capital. Which there is a lot wrong with. Not ethical, not progressive.

To be so unconcerned with safeguarding the campaigners must be privileged enough that they can’t imagine what distrust of doctors or authority after multiple bad experiences feels like. They can’t imagine they themselves or anyone they know could ever be coerced. They can’t imagine feeling like a burden to their family because they have social capital and economic security.

That is what I thought, as a single parent of limited means - that one must be very privileged to not imagine scarcity of financial and emotional resources pressuring one to ‘choose’ assisted death and only see it has a matter of personal autonomy. It is interesting and useful to see that demonstrated statistically.
I wonder if anyone who voted for this bill cares, though.

This Bill with the massive lack of public discussion as it has been rushed into Parliament so quickly has felt very high handed.

I reckon Joe and Josephine Public might well say, hang on, WTF just happened? We didn't even know anything about it.

Brendan O’Neill and Josh Howie had an interesting discussion about the Assisted Dying Bill on Free Speech Nation (25 mins from the end of the show).

There was a very good piece from Jonathan Sumption in The Times today, sorry I haven't got a share token, he was in favour of the change but recognises the trade off that it will inevitably harm the most vulnerable. Refreshing to see someone in favour being honest about the trade off.
Remember 'rights aren't a pie', well yes they are.
Thread from Sonia Sodha here
https://x.com/soniasodha/status/1863327877111906449

Leaping,

https://archive.ph/VyF6h

Here’s an archived version of the article:

https://archive.is/VyF6h

Thank you for the Jonathan Sumption article shares. He articulates the pressure that some people will feel very well. Sonia Sodha is so great I really appreciate her speaking up on this.

I still feel really disturbed about what has been voted through on Friday. It was like a political stealth move. Shouid never have been allowed to be a private members bill and not a government bill. But cynically I can see how it suited both the pro assisted dying campaigners and the government to have sprung it on Parliament over a matter of a couple of weeks in this way. A government bill would need to have had evidence to back it up before it got to a vote.

The campaigners must have known that there are information gaps about even basic questions about how assisted dying is being done where its already legal, due to lack of research and record keeping. So they campaigned on the understandable wish that we all have to avoid painful dying instead, keeping it out of detailed specifics of how it will work.

For example, this journal article about the efficacy and safety of drugs used for ‘assisted dying is a horrible read, AlanThe Cat posted it on the AIBU thread about this issue.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9270985/

It sounds like there are voids in knowledge about even basic aspects in the current practice of assisted dying in other countries. Even down to the different drugs being used. it doesn’t sound like our GPs or hospital doctors or private specialists or whoever it’s going to be, have a solid basic evidence base to base their practice on.

Do you think his organization doesn't give money to these kinds of initiatives? It pretty much seems like exactly the sort of thing they like to fund.

It may not only be that either.

One of the things I have noticed, in particular about WC men, but it may be true of WC women as well, I just haven't really had much exposure to that - is that they really have a different relationship to doctors and medical advice than more middle class, and specifically university educated people.

My partner gave a very good example recently. his doctor said when he was finished the treatment he is getting now, they would talk about the choices he has for a next step. He said something along the lines of "why did she say that, she should just tell me what the best thing to do is!"

It's not really part of his way of thinking to question the recommendation of the doctor, who in this kind of patient relationship has really immense authority.

But if you are talking about recommending assisted death potentially - well, maybe if you see doctors that way, you don't really think that is something doctors should have the authority to recommend.

“I still feel really disturbed about what has been voted through on Friday. It was like a political stealth move. Shouid never have been allowed to be a private members bill and not a government bill. But cynically I can see how it suited both the pro assisted dying campaigners and the government to have sprung it on Parliament over a matter of a couple of weeks in this way. A government bill would need to have had evidence to back it up before it got to a vote.“

Completely agree.