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 interesting to me that a comparison between coerced assisted dying and coerced abortion has come up a few times in this thread.
By the time I'd finished uni I knew two women who had been forced to have abortions. It was remarkable to me that this never got a mention in the public feminist conversation, when "my body my choice" must also mean my choice to carry a pregnancy to term.
Possibly my anecdotal experience is really unusual and so forced abortion is too rare to warrant public awareness raising, but I wonder if there isn't a longstanding problem, that trying to secure a particular political outcome (in this thread's case, a legal framework for people being helped to end their own lives) means activists make the terms of argument as simple and straightforward as possible. And brush anything difficult to deal with under the carpet.

It's a big feature of the argument by Dignity in Dying - choice at the beginning and end of life.

Kim Leadbeater yesterday:

Leadbeater told the Guardian that the fight for assisted dying was akin to the women’s rights movement’s push to allow a woman the right to choose an abortion – and that terminally ill people should be given similar rights over their bodies.

Welcome intervention by Karon Monaghan - big deal equalities KC

But what persuades me in particular that this Bill should not be passed is the increased risk that would arise for vulnerable women. It is already the case that women kill themselves because of DV and coercive control.

It isn’t difficult to see, then, how a woman might be coerced into state sanctioned suicide. What is particularly worrying in this respect, and frankly inexplicable, is Cl 29 of the Bill.

Goes on to say that the state must investigate deaths it's implicated in and not doing so likely to breach ECHR.

The current assisted dying bill removes the coroner's duty to investigate 'assisted' deaths - so no chance of finding coercion after the fact.

I’m getting so pissed off with the number of MPs and lobbyists who are treating today’s vote like it’s some kind of a virtue signalling Brexit-style public referendum on whether assisted dying is ethically OK or not. As if they will get infinite time to then work out the massive omitted details later on.

Actually it’s a vote on a specific Bill that proposes specific provision. A Bill that is so flawed in its proposals that it has lawyers who do agree with assisted dying arguing against it being passed at all, because of its lack of safeguarding. A bill that will simply become law after 2 years even if the problems with it have not been worked out by then. These lawyers know that these are not minor details of the kind that can be worked out in committee.

Time for everyone to take the opposite view than arrogant Michael Gove and to urgently not be ‘sick of listening to experts’.
The quality of the discussion is really showing who the careful detail thoughtful MPs of the new Parliament are, vs the showboaters. It’s very worrying.

I hadnt realised this was devolved. Parallel legislation going through Scottish Parliament:

https://www.parliament.scot/bills-and-laws/bills/s6/assisted-dying-for-terminally-ill-adults-scotland-bill

My worst fear is being old and dying in pain, suffering with an illness for months and months and just being left to fade away. It’s an horrendous thought.

Like others have said, we wouldn’t allow a hamster to have that end in life and they would be humanely put to sleep, so I don’t see how humans can just be left to suffer. It’s abhorrent and undignified.

I’m only in my 40s and I really hope that within my lifetime assisted dying becomes lawful so I will be able to have some control over how and when I want to die.

I also don’t understand why there isn’t more concern about the fact there is no conscientious opt out for doctors written in to this Bill. Excluding a personal opt-out on such an obviously divisive issue for the staff of the NHS , implies that in reality, those drafting the content of the Bill must be expecting that the UK’s assisted dying service will in fact turn out to not be an NHS service at all.

They must think it is OK for it be set up as a private paid-for service, where doctors will opt in to provide it. Some of these doctors will be incentivised by earning higher than NHS fees, which is really concerning given the types of very serious issues they will need to be comfortable with in providing patients with the choice of death.

Obviously the majority of patients won’t be able to access the service at all if they will have to pay for it privately. Private provision is absolutely the opposite of the humane ‘every person’s autonomy must be respected’ approach that campaigners for this Bill say that they want.

Totally agree. How did we get to a point in this country where complicated and nuanced issues are reduced to a goodie/baddie binary. It’s absolutely crazy

as said, im not against assisted dying per se, I am against poorly drafted rushed legislation especially as someone who will be part of working groups charged with implementing said poorly drafted legislation

and the narrative by so much of the media of “so you want people to die in horrible agony do you?????” really isn’t helping

The abortion parallel is wrong, though, because as others have said, abortion is about whether a woman carries a foetus or not. The concept of legal personhood does not extend to a foetus until a certain point, which is usually defined as viability. In fact, once the foetus becomes viable, abortion law protects the foetus over the woman’s right to choose.

However, I do agree with the point made upthread that the existence of abortion shows the ways in which pressures can be exerted on women to make certain ‘choices’ as a result of coercion, financial pressures or quite simply social norms. Just look at the threads where judgements are made about posters who have children in less than ideal social and economic circumstances (why did you continue the pregnancy, then?) or who are looking for advice on whether to have a termination because their circumstances are not great. That is before you consider the medical pressures which arise from anomaly screening in the absence of proper welfare and disability support. It is possible to see that these types of discourses could easily develop around assisted dying - complaining about the pain you are in? Well, you do know you could drink the barbiturates and just be done with it? Not enough beds at the hospice? Well, what about the barbiturates? No idea how the bills will be paid because you are dying? Did I mention the barbiturates?

@ArabellaScott the fact that Scotgov are potentially legislating on this is disastrous in my opinion. I said to DS that whatever England do, they would decide to go further to be more progressive. And he was like, yes, no doctors required, just get the drugs…

I mean, that seems humane and reasonable, but then you also have to note the points made by disabled rights campaigners like Liz Carr who say most ppl in wheelchairs can recount times ppl have said to them "if that were me I'd kill myself".

She points out that they are essentially wondering why they are still alive and not actively suicidal. She points out that they are telling ppl with disabilities that they should kill themselves Definitions of unbearable indignity vary. No one likes needing help on the loo.

It's different if your airways are shutting down and the death process is underway , but by then wouldn't it be too late for the provisions in this bill? Normally there is a syringe driver at this point for most end stage patients?

I’m quite concerned that once this gets through, and I believe it will - this will be a massive cultural change and I don’t trust where it will lead.

I know I personally would feel under huge pressure to end my life if I was terminally ill, - i wouldn’t want to - because I am against it ethically, but the idea of being a burden or eating away into my children’s inheritance if I had to sell the house, would make me feel almost selfish just choosing to be alive- it’s a choice I don’t want to have, and I don’t want to be asked. It’s taking away the assumption that a person has the right to live.

Also some people are not good at advocating for themselves, some people , especially where there is perceived authority ie a doctor would be too easily influenced- I fear those people would be easily persuaded to end their lives.

Goodness knows, saying no to a smear test is hard enough, it feels like being pressured to have that done with emotive nhs posters about “my mums dead because she refused her smear” etc , emotional blackmail

I am hoping for assisted dying to come in. I’ve had two different types of cancer and I know what it is to suffer.

Coercion happens with or without legislation.

I know how the seriously ill are treated and it’s horrendous unless you are lucky.

I know someone will be along to say auntie Flo was treated extremely well etc. Auntie Flo was lucky!

Beautifully managed pain free deaths are not the norm… they’re the exception that people use to deny others the right to die peacefully.

I have no wish to hang on long enough to become doubly incontinent, helpless and suffering and left to the mercy of whatever is left of the health service.

I think people should have the right to end their lives. I even can't rationalise an argument for stopping people whose lives are a burden to them but who otherwise are not terminally ill or even if they're not ill at all. However queasy that might make me feel. I don't think this legislation, this way, is the way to go about it though.

The silence when they announced the result. So committee stage presumably starts next year, very concerning that continuing with this bill and it becoming law crosses such an awful boundary against safeguarding

Not looking forward to having to work out the detail of how we actually implement this on the ground

Apparently it goes through as law, issues resolved or not, in two years. Professions should be really worried.

It has been voted through. Esther Rantzen was on TV (on phone) ecstatic and said Starmer had promised her this vote. She said she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer last year, which had already spread, and that she told her doctor she would be going to Zurich. She then said that a 'miracle' drug meant she was still here to see this historic vote - thus presenting the one of the best arguments against the bill: that we cannot know when someone will die of what ails them, and assisted dying may deprive many of extra months - or even years - when they might have lived and enjoyed living and been in the company of those who love them.
I am against assisted dying: it's a way out of caring for the old and the sick. Look, you have a choice: live in pain because we won't pay for effective palliative care, or die now, even though with pain relief you might have lived longer.
We none of us can choose our death.

I understand you. Not that I think what I have is my children's inheritance. It's mine to do with as I wish, not theirs. But I fear the power of coercion - and also the guilt of living, but also of having persuaded someone dear to you to end their life. The vote was received in silence. I wonder how many MPs realise that opinion polls on this issue as on any other are a very poor guide to action.

This is worrying from Karon Monaghan (apols if already shared)

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1862262832407924844.html?utm_campaign=topunroll

I just would want this in my back pocket, might not use it, but it is a relief to know it is an option, if in terrible pain. It is everyone’s right to choose, it is their life after all. I do not think being alive but in misery is better than death. The person might be thinking of others as part of their decision, but they may not enjoy being dependent, in pain and undignified- that should not be dismissed. I get that sentiment.

Chilling. Why do they write laws like this?!

This is why it’s a slippery slope. Why should people in pain with less than 6 months to live be eligible for something that those in pain but with a longer life expectancy are not? If the whole point is to put people out of their misery why is the 6 months limit even relevant. If anything those who are in pain who are not dying will be suffering for longer. I think there will be legal challenges to extend the scope of this almost immediately if passed.

Normally they are dying of the thing that causes the pain.

Some pain does not cause imminent death.

I see what you mean about people in pain. I think not taking their life away just because of pain is a good measure, whereas because they are confirmed as dying anyway, you are not taking their life away because it is going to end soon. Yes, it is being shortened but they were not going to survive the condition.

I am gutted though not surprised. I will, as a GP, opt out of it if I can - my concern is that it will be more insidious than this: having to respond to whatever 'death service' is set up when they ask for an opinion on longevity or possible coercion given my 'long view' of my patients. Estimating longevity is only ever a ballpark guess. And often extremely wrong. I feel we will also face a great deal of pressure to acquiesce to a script so patients can'have the option' (in their back pocket as per pp). The slope looks slipperier and slipperier from where I'm standing.

A sad day for medicine and for society.

And I'm concerned that more thoughtful and cautious medics will opt out, leaving the field to the more ... enthusiastic.