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.

It's hardly a stretch to say that men coerce women a hell of lot more than women coerce men; who could deny that? And it seems the stats from countries having this legislation bear that out.

Of the 100 UK “mercy killings” over 25 years, the report found that 88 per cent of perpetrators were male, and 78 per cent of female victims were neither terminally ill nor willing to die but were often elderly, <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/uhGgX/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/24/assisted-dying-bill-religious-leaders-letter-duty-to-die/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">disabled, or <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/uhGgX/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/25/hospices-fear-losing-donations-if-they-speak-out-on-assiste/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">infirm.

But surely those are not 'mercy killings' in anything other than an Orwellian meaning, and bundling them in with cases where spouses have assisted terminally ill people seems unreasonable and unfair.

What? My 91 year old great grandmother has a wonderful life and deserves to live just as much as you do.

This attitude is precisely why I can't get behind the legislation. Too many people simply do not value the elderly and view them as disposable. Disgraceful. They deserve the protection of the law.

It requires two doctors, and a judge to decide.

The legislation is, I think, quite robust. It also introduces checks for coercion before death - something that isn't currently formally in place. It is only required to be investigated after a death.

So on that basis I think I've come to the conclusion that, since this introduces formal legal checks for coercion, training for medical staff to detect and investigate it, and a 14 year jail term for someone found guilty of it, this is actually of benefit to women due to these new protections in place. Doctors will be trained, and obliged, to check for possible abuse and control for someone entering am end of life situation. They will very likely end up protecting some women from so called mercy killings.

It's entirely ethical to prevent assisted dying in order to protect those who may be pressured into killing themselves when they do not wish to. It's unethical to take away the protection of the law which enables people who are under pressure to resist.

The response to these horrible situations is not legalising assisted dying but providing much better palliative care and also pain relief at earlier stages.

Yes. Not the perfect response, but the best feasible one.

I think the government have revealed just what they think of the vulnerable elderly so I don’t hold out much hope that this will be voted down.

But i sincerely hope it is. Would be a refreshing outbreak of decency.

I'd like to think that the vulnerable elderly will be given the same rights as younger people to choose assisted dying if that's what they want.

It seems wrong to decide on behalf of older people that they shouldn't have the same rights to assisted dying as younger people. A person could be older, vulnerable, and absolutely clear that they do not want to continue to suffer and want to avail of legal assisted dying.

Just as they shouldn't be coerced into assisted dying, they shouldn't be denied it either, just because other people think they are too old or vulnerable to know their own minds.

I'm going to send this to my Kindle for later perusal. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1737888

This must have been so hard to watch.
But I really think these are examples of very poor care standards. In fact, failure of care, if patients are enduring weeks of untreated pain.
It actually highlights to me that it can't be a free choice, if the options are: choose to die now, or choose to receive care from a service that won't effectively manage your pain.
It's not down to individual clinicians. Western health systems prolong life at any cost, and the only way to stop doing that is to actively inflict death?
Why can't we administer as much morphine as needed in order to manage the pain, as soon as it's needed? Even if that will speed death.
It feels schizophrenic, to only be either prolonging life or actively ending it. And inhumane.

Sonia Sodha wrote an excellent column about this: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/07/conflicted-legalising-assisted-dying-sonia-sodha

She is/ has been one of the few voices of sanity about this and so many other things.

But it wouldn't be ethical to deny women a right to enter into a relationship with a man, so where is your logic here?

And Shipman got away with murder within our system. If there was a more rigorous codified system of pain relief at end of life, connected to a Right To Die legislation, he might have had more barriers to his behaviour.

I’m very much undecided about assisted dying, but do understand some people have hideous deaths like your relative. However, I have a relative having end of life palliative care who has been able to access morphine based pain relief for weeks now due to responsive and careful palliative care. I just wish I was assured everyone could have that. Sorry for your situation.

As a progressive lefty, I was always in favour of assisted dying. And I would love to be able to choose the time and place if my own death.

As a GP, I now see how impossibly utopian that is. It is not just overt coercion, but the internalised belief that one is a burden. When does that start? When any kind of care is needed? When your family really need the cash that you need to spend on residential care for yourself? And of course this will he disproportionately women - due to longevity, due to culture.

One poster has said that having two doctors will make it safe. Which Dr's? The GPSM who has a 10 min slot for a home visit at lunchtime? And has hardly met the patient, and never their family because they moved to a retirement town on the south coast? Or a palliative care Dr (hens teeth)? Or perhaps a private Dr... paid by family....?

And I was just listening to a judge on the today programme saying that the legal side of things was not practical either - there are no mechanisms for it to work here.

I have a distant family member who chose assisted dying in NL after years of poor mental health. She was not elderly and not physically unwell. The slippers slope argument is real and I do not believe as a country that we will be able to do thus any better than anywhere else. Having gone from slightly pro, ambivalent- I am now desperately against this bill. And let's face it, Labour have form for poorly thought through socially progressive bills, one of which is frequently discussed here and has proven to be immensely damaging to women.

When I first read this, I wondered how many made this argument about the GRA.

*GPs above (not GPSM)

You only need to looks at the appalling ads plastered on the tube to see just how this coercion will work. If not by family then by society at large. It’s absolutely chilling. A duty to die indeed.

This is what I mean

https://x.com/fleurmeston/status/1861052031437291822

I am in favour of assisted dying, mainly because of the experiences of people like @Copernicus321 relatives. I think there is a strong culture of “all life is sacred” in our medical system which presumes to treat and keep people alive as long as possible in situations where it is no longer humane to do so.

Elderly and vulnerable people I think are related but separate issues. I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting euthanasia but the reality is that for many elderly people, they are being kept alive, eg with antibiotics for infections, when their quality of life is zero thanks to Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s or severe stroke etc. The sprightly elderly who are still having active lives into their 90s with no support are very much a fortunate minority.

I’m supporting my DM who has Parkinson’s and dementia and it’s heartbreaking to see the living ghost of the once strong woman that was my mother just lying in bed all day staring at the telly. She agreed to a DNAR but has since lost her mental capacity so would not be able to request assisted dying - but at this point if she got a UTI or chest infection I would be refusing antibiotics and requesting palliative care only. Letting nature take her course would be a preferable end than waiting for mum to forget how to swallow or breaking her hip when she forgets to use her walker.

It is all part of the same discussion on the quality of life and who has the right to decide whether an individual should live or die. If you visit the elderly parents board you will read the heartbreaking stories of middle aged women on the verge of breakdown trying to juggle careers and family responsibilities and children while supporting elderly relatives. The vast majority of family carers of the elderly being the daughters, daughters in law and the granddaughters. There’s another feminist issue for you.

I think it should be an option for those who want it. I don't think many people would actually use it, but the comfort of knowing it was an option would be invaluable.

Having said that, palative care needs to step up considerably. My parents died in the 1990’s from cancer, both doped to the eyeballs on morphine and other stuff, peacefully and calm.
Then Harold Shipman happened…
My Granny a couple of yers ago was screaming in pain, absolutely out of her mind with distress and they wouldnt give her anything until the last two days. I’m haunted by her suffering. Really couldn’t understand the reluctance to give a nearly 100yr old sufficient pain relief. What are they worried about? Addiction probably not much of a concern at that stage…

I am really sorry for your and your DMs struggles - and I completely agree that there is a case to be made about inappropriate over-treatment of older people and the needless extension of life. We need much stronger conversations about advance care planning and expectations around our older years.

This is, however, a totally different issue. Those without capacity who are at the end of life would not be able to choose assisted dying, and would not be able to choose it 'in advance'. So the Bill would do nothing for people in your DM's situation. Talking about overtreatment in the same breath as assisted dying is precisely why I am so worried about this Bill - it opens up the potential of this slippery slope to those who are incapacitous, or mentally ill, or a burden on their family/society.

Yes, caring for elderly relatives is a feminist issue. But it is not an argument for assisted dying.

The existence of the slippery slope is exactly why I think the debate needs to be had publicly and widely on the value of life and where we draw the line.

I see one extreme being the idea that all life is sacred and to be preserved at all costs and in all cases. I don’t agree with this position but it does have a consistency.

In UK law we are already on the slippery slope as it is permitted to take active steps to end a pregnancy, within strictly defined boundaries. Those who regard all life as sacred see that as ending a life.

In the U.K. it is also permitted that active medical treatment can be withdrawn or denied where there is no hope of recovery for the patient. Again, we see from cases such as Charlie Gard that some people disagree and view that as actively ending a life.

So, if the assisted dying bill is about re-drawing the line on the circumstances in which active steps can be taken to end the life of someone, we need that debate on the role of medicine in the terminally ill and the elderly in poor health and with dementia. I think across the UK there is a general support for the principle of assistance for terminally ill patients to die if that is their wish. However, imho there needs to be a wider discussion on where the public draws the line, because I suspect many are thinking of circumstances like the PP’s Gran being under-medicated while dying of cancer and not some of the greyer areas.

The opponents of assisted dying have made such a fuss that it is now far more difficult for doctors to ease the suffering of the dying. Of course a healthy 91 year old is not going to choose assisted dying. If they were dying in extreme pain that could be not be relieved by drugs then they might be begging their relatives to put a pillow over their heads or starving themselves to death.

I have experience of relatives who have died a good death - in the days when doctors were not afraid of prescribing high doses of pain relief with the full knowledge and consent of relatives. I have also experienced more recently painful and difficult deaths, including one that did opt not to eat or drink. Of course sometimes that is not an option - you'll be tube fed unless you are deemed able to refuse consent.

Opponents of any form of assisted dying ignore the large numbers of people who could choose to benefit in favour of the fear that some might be coerced. Yes it's a feminist issue because women's pain and women's wishes are more often ignored. Women are fighting for the right to choose.

Give people a choice.

What about people without capacity to choose but who can still feel pain and suffer?

So, what are you proposing?