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.

I didn't mean that to put pressure on you at all, Finally, fwiw!

I don't think we are anywhere near grown up enough as a society to manage this properly. Social care is an absolute state, and most people have almost no understanding of how bad it is until they need it. I think until we can say we are genuinely equipped to give people the proper care and support they need through ageing, long term ill health and disability, it cannot possibly be a real choice.

I was out all afternoon at a funeral. The lady in question, my neighbour, was still active but "signs" were there that she was deteriorating, friends said.

Her son said at the eulogy that she'd always said she didn't want to be a burden, and they'd always insisted that she absolutely wasn't. She got taken ill very suddenly and was gone within 2 days as it was an aneurysm I think they said. They put a line in and stayed with her

Another neighbour died yesterday , I learnt in the queue for the service. He'd been diagnosed with COPD which had then progressed to lung cancer. He was on oxygen, and he'd indicated that he wanted his oxygen switched off. He passed away quietly.

So it's not like doctors aren't used to coming to the conclusion that life is ending and there's no point ppl staying alive at all costs. My neighbour had said she knew it was her time to go .

Would it only be a drink solution that is administered? I understand it's a 2 stage process. What if someone changes their mind?

This time last year Esther Rantzen was saying she wasn't sure if she'd see Christmas 2023. She's now here a year later.

Ha, I have had that point made to me in person. Just holding out the hope that this law is improved and tightened into something safe enough to accept.

I’ve seen that my MP voted in favour.

I certainly won’t be voting for him in future elections.

Completely agree.

At the risk of being controversial, we've had assisted dying since 1967. The difference with this proposal is the person is capable of advocating for themselves, they've lived their lives, are terminally ill and within 6 months of death. In both cases, 2 practitioners must agree.

As I said upthread, it is not the same as there is no concept of legal personhood until viability and for the most part, after that point, the law protects the foetus, not the mother.
But also, as I said upthread, the abortion example demonstrates exactly why the concept of autonomy is flawed for as long as economic, relationship and societal pressures exist. We don’t have a proper welfare state, access to childcare is variable, the cost of living means that women cannot always bring up how many children they want to. Foetal anomaly scans can lead to pressures to terminate. And so on. My body my choice is an illusion. It’s often women making the least worst decision for them and their existing children. And even if it is not, the alternative to assisted dying is not about compelling someone to carry an another human to term, it’s about providing the resources and the support in end of life care.
So I don’t think abortion is quite the parallel you think it is.

However, a person on life support isn't viable. Why, following your argument, is there a duty to rescue such a person and not a foetus? It's held that a foetus isn't an individual yet it has individual DNA from the zygote stage. We've accepted that the 1967 act is a practical necessity for many reasons and we've accommodated this decision in our society through legislation, governance, support and practitioners so it is safely accessible. The same will be done for the terminally ill act.

This was a terrible decision for society.

Yes, it was my post.

The fact that it could potentially be seen as a sinister profession, totally different than being a healer, is the point.

Certainly if you read the boards here long enough, you will find discussions where someone's teenage daughter or someone in a vulnerable financial position is pregnant, and there will be certain posters who are really adamant that the only proper solution is abortion, and that it is immoral not to press for an abortion.

I have no idea how common it is but it certainly happens.

Women who feel financially obligated to have an abortion are a more common scenario. In fact some of the demographics who have somewhat more conservative views on abortions, and they are also people who tend to have them for mainly reasons of financial pressure. Which raises the question whether the opinion and experience are perhaps linked.

It is the case that social acceptability of abortion has created a situation where some women feel social pressure not to carry an inconvenient or difficult pregnancy to term.

It seems like so much lawmaking is like this now.

It's like the MPs don't understand what their job actually is any more.

I am trying to think back and understand where this changed? Because I don't think it's been like this for my whole life.

Her off of Silent Witness

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/28/assisted-dying-bill-vote-mps-disabled-people-liz-carr

Because those in favour of it like to discredit any opposition as anachronistic and arising from faith, I feel obliged at this point to tell you that I am not religious. Instead, I oppose the bill from a secular social-justice perspective. I should also state for the record that opposing assisted suicide does not make me cruel, evil or lacking in compassion – although I’m regularly called these things by proponents.

While I was making the documentary, a disabled friend had a serious but completely treatable condition yet was placed in a frailty ward – a place for older people (and my friend) where the support provided was more about cups of teas than CAT scans, and where, on one night, none of the staff were qualified to provide her with a cannula for pain relief as she screamed in agony. It was “lucky” that she had a life-threatening seizure that put her in intensive care, because that’s when the medical staff began to provide active care. But still she woke to find “Do not resuscitate” (DNR) written on her notes without her consent. It was a tough time.
A month later, another of my closest friends, who is also a disabled person, had a similar adventure. The district nurses who visited him day after day failed to notice the delirium that sepsis had caused until he was rushed into hospital with near-total organ failure. And there, despite his fervent opposition to a DNR, there was one on his notes, too. His partner and brother, my partner and I and a palliative care consultant I know from this campaign worked through the night to have this removed. The next day in a “the end is nigh” conference with his doctors, they were shocked to hear that this 58-year-old disabled man in a wheelchair had any kind of life – any kind of quality of life.

This article sums up my feelings From todays Spectator. I am so angry about how this has been rushed through Parliament. I'll never forgive Starmer, who was obviously the force behind the bill, along with Charlie Falconer and 'Dignity in Dying.' Worth reading.
https://archive.ph/ODQAu

Awful result. The next Harold Shipman will hide behind this law and deliver death in plain sight with the state standing behind him in solidarity.

There was a woman with terminal kidney issues that was campaigning for this, that was interviewed on Sky.

She said she was overjoyed because she knows she'll have this option now, not that she'd definitely use it. Just knowing it was there was enough. But .. this legislation will take at least 2 years to come into effect.

Btw. Mentioned on Another Talk board. The 6 months diagnosis. I'm not sure how precise a prognosis is.

If there are long waiting lists for a specialist consultant in whatever ailments you have, then it'll be no good if the wait to be seen is longer than six months. Which means they'll have to give it higher priority than many treatments for the living

I disagree.

Today we witnessed an engaged and respectful debate on Assisted Dying in parliament and now the discussion continues. I am proud of our MPs. Including those with a different view to me.

I am glad that the discussion continues.

I don’t think we disagree.

Decisions to discontinue life support can already be made, though. This is different from assisted dying. As I understand it, when someone is on life support, it is until their body is healed to take over again. If they are not going to heal, then the medical advice would be to switch it off. People can and do then contest that to the courts, I think, and judges hear the evidence. This happens already. It doesn’t need an assisted dying bill.

The substance of my argument about abortion still stands. Many foetuses with individual DNA would be born if their mothers were not subject to coercion, financial pressures, benefit sanctions and the many other things which mean that the decision to have an abortion is not a fully autonomous and free one. For example, there was a shape increase in the number of abortions after the two child benefit cap was introduced. Conversely in the early 2000s after the (now cut and turned into universal credit) working families tax credits and childcare tax credits were introduced, the birth rate went up. In this sense, abortion is deeply problematic for women’s freedoms to have children. At the same time, it is also recognised that without adequate benefits, childcare and flexible working policies, women are more likely to earn lower salaries and live in poverty because of their caring responsibilities.

Assisted dying will not be immune to these types of pressures. We know that the health service and pensions are facing a demographic time bomb. The arguments are being made now about excruciating pain and distress and choice in very emotive terms, but it will be these financial and economic pressures as well as social expectations which end up shaping the context of that what people decide to or are expected to do, if assisted dying becomes available. And it will be those with the least resources who are most subject to those pressures.

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.

A while ago Matthew Parris wrote an article on assisted dying which changed my mind on this issue. In it he agrees that AS will create societal pressure for people to end their lives early but doesn’t see this as a bad thing. His view is that the old and the dying place a financial burden on society and that we should be asking ourselves if it is selfish to keep going when we become a burden on others.

Knowing that some campaigners for assisted suicide think like Parris was a real wake up call for me. I just wish more of those campaigning would be open about their motives or at least acknowledge that the likes of Parris are campaigning alongside them with very different ideas about what AS will mean for society if passed.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/we-cant-afford-a-taboo-on-assisted-dying-n6p8bfg9k

Archive

https://archive.ph/sgyLX

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1862460539621740719.html

“So I’ll try here to follow Michael Foot’s advice. Let’s acknowledge and confront the strongest argument against assisted dying. As (objectors say) the practice spreads, social and cultural pressure will grow on the terminally ill to hasten their own deaths so as “not to be a burden” on others or themselves.
I believe this will indeed come to pass. And I would welcome it.”

Wow.

Perhaps all those with an MP who voted in favour should write to ask if their motivation was that they agree with Matthew Parris.

This is good news, and I am disappointed that my MP voted against the proposal.

I'm seeing now how the NHS is preventing people from having a natural death by prolonging life (at a very poor quality) by giving people all sorts of drugs and is now in a position that thanks to those medical interventions (where people are heavily pressurised into taking) that they now have to administer another treatment to let people die.

I grow tired of the people who say "I don't want it therefore I don't want anyone else to have it". I remember a similar argument for lifting lockdown and a lot of people with long-term medical conditions were demanding that lockdown by kept because it benefited them and no one else.

Eeek, that point about legalization of this also accompanying an increase in the general suicide rate is really ominous