Assisted dying and coercion

[ArabellaScott]

This is live right now, so I'm not sure how well linking to it will work. Copy-pasting below, aswell.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cy5k0qyled2t

'Rachel Clarke, a palliative care doctor, opts to answer a question about coercion and whether some MPs are right to feel concerned about this when considering the bill. (Earlier, MPs heard how medical and clinic staff are trained in safeguarding, though a retired GP acknowledged coercion was hard to spot.)
Clarke says she'd "strongly push back" on the suggestion coercion is something all medical staff are trained in spotting.
"I'm the kind of doctor who believes there is nothing to be gained by sugar-coating reality...about shortcomings, failings, areas where my profession the rest of the NHS are getting things wrong", she tells MPs.
"It is my clinical experience that not only are the majority of doctors not necessarily trained in spotting coercion explicitly, they're often not trained explicitly in having so-called advanced care planning conversations with patients around the topic of death and dying."'

There won’t be one because it’s far, far too costly.

Hear hear. I would have been pleased to see a considered, well thought out bill. One that considered the real situations that people with end of life and palliative care needs find themselves in and provides effective palliative care that alleviates symptoms, supports distress and provides dignity and comfort.

Instead, I am alarmed that the bill risks funnelling people towards assisted suicide.

(Edit, meant to quote MrsSkylerWhite)

Yes, that's the bottom line here. It presents the opportunity of attractive cost savings, and I feel that's what's driving it more than the intention to alleviate suffering.

And for yours.

Unfortunately, some pain is too great to be managed, however good the care. And loss of dignity is a very important factor for many people.

MrsSkyler, nobody here is arguing that assisted death is a bad thing in itself. The problems are with this shit bill, and how it's being put through parliament. We all deserve better.

At least, sorry, some people might be opposed to assisted dying in principle, but I've not seen anyone on this thread making that argument.

Is it possible to make 'good law' where the objective is to kill someone?

I'd argue it's possibly not.

Interesting to see a number of MPs who previously supported the idea are getting cold feet.

I’d argue yes it is, for the people who fervently want that law passed.

We don’t allow other animals to suffer unnecessary pain. We are prosecuted if we do. That’s good law.

That's not what I said and that argument has been done to death upthread.

No-one need live in intolerable pain. And doctors know already that pain relief, given properly, will alleviate distress, but also shorten life. Families take this decision every day with doctors. The problem with this bill is that its sponsors have taken no notice of problems which have emerged in e.g. Canada, with MAID. There are real concerns of coercion, but also of assisted dying being pushed at people who do not wish to die, but to live a better life e.g. with assisted living or palliative care - both of which are expensive.

In a way, or in fact totally, I blame the Labour Government.

This is a really serious issue and the fact that they let a relatvie newbie MP lead it had meant the whole process has been a disaster.

The haste in pushing it through, procedures not being followed and letting someone who has a very personal belief unduly influence what does or does not get included.

And her recent quote shows that saying it is about those at the end of life is clearly a shame.

Labour should have appointed a neutral chair and set a proper timetable.

Just because Leadbeater came top in the private members bill lottery or whatever it is, doesn't mean she is competent to oversee the process.

Just more Labour incompetence, or just a complete inability to deal with anything properly.

A cynic might wonder if they'd deliberately made a hash of it.

That would imply they thought things through!

I just get this feeling they swing from one opinion poll to another.

Its quite likely they are doing some good things, but instead are so caught up in getting media headline, like stupid speeches about a country of strangers.

Yes, and relying too heavily on zoomed in focus groups and data, completely and utterly failing to have an overarching cohesive approach.

“As experienced medical professionals who regularly work with dying patients and who have reviewed the worldwide evidence on assisted dying, it is our opinion that this Bill poses a real threat to both patients and the medical workforce, and we urge you to vote against it.

“We are concerned that the private member’s Bill process has not facilitated a balanced approach to the collection of evidence and input from key stakeholders including doctors, people with disabilities and other marginalised groups.

“This Bill will widen inequalities, it provides inadequate safeguards and, in our collective view, is simply not safe.

“This is the most important piece of healthcare legislation for 60 years and we urge you to listen to the doctors who would have to deliver the consequences of this deeply flawed Bill.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mps-bill-ed-davey-nhs-royal-college-of-psychiatrists-b2766353.html

Agree.

I'm particularly worried about the way they have sidelined disability rights campaigners and suggested that everyone who has raised concerns is hiding a religious motive.

It suggests that they aren't confident in their reasoning.

Where scrutiny has been required, we have instead had campaigning.

https://www.rcp.ac.uk/news-and-media/news-and-opinion/deficiencies-in-protecting-patients-and-professionals-rcp-publishes-its-position-on-the-terminally-ill-adults-end-of-life-bill

'The RCP's clinical vice president, Dr John Dean, said: 'The ultimate decision on assisted dying rests with society through parliament, but professional and clinical issues are integral to legislation, regulation, guidance and safe and effective implementation.
'Our members and fellows who we represent have a wide range of views on assisted dying. While the RCP neither supports or opposes a change in the law on this matter, the bill in its current form has concerning deficiencies. Notably the proposed mechanisms of decision making are not in line with good clinical and professional practice. Further statutory guidance is also required to ensure effective regulation of drugs, providers, and the involvement of clinicians. Parliament must address these critical issues in the legislation or risk failing to protect vulnerable patients and uphold the integrity of clinical practice.''

Yes. It's the same tactics we've seen with gender legislation and ideological capture. Smear, swerve, obfuscate, DARVO.

Look at this extraordinary waffle from Christine Jardine:

Opposition is growing, anyway. And that's before it gets to the Lords.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/06/09/are-mps-waking-up-to-the-perils-of-the-assisted-dying-bill/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2lk21x800yo

This is the logic that leads to "people without capacity cannot make the rational decision to end their suffering, so we must take on that burden for them."

People don't lose their dignity because they need care, and we really shouldn't encourage the idea that they do.

That guardian article glorifying killing yourselves together as a last chapter of a relationship is horrific. Is this the road we are going down where you end things once your economic value is done but before you start costing? Horrific.

This is a really important point and I don’t think I have heard it articulated clearly before. And yet, the whole name of one of the lobby groups (Dignity in Dying) basically suggests that it is more dignified to die than be in pain and/or needing care while dying.

It fundamentally changes the social contract if this is also the governments view (which passing a law would make it).

It’s actually scary if you look at it like that. Once you get beyond a certain point of illness (and the criteria will expand), then it would be more dignified if you were dead than required care and resources and weren’t able to look after yourself. It’s dressed up as a choice but you just need to look at the societal and economic pressures on women to have abortions if they don’t have the ‘right’ circumstances to bring up a child in (and then people wonder why the birth rate is falling). It’s eugenics in another guise.

I have just picked up an item on the news this morning about lonely old people and a befriending group - a branch of Age UK, I think. It occurs to me that these old people, some in their nineties and many of whom don't want to tell their families they are lonely, are among those in danger from this assisted dying bill. Feeling a burden, dragging out lonely days when they speak to no-one, not even a cat or dog (because trip hazard) such old people are liable to opt for assisted dying, using some excuse (loss of mobility etc) to cover that they cannot bear another day going by when they speak to no-one, see no-one.
It's an indictment of our society that the old and lonely would be so at risk - along with disabled people, the mentally unstable - who a decent society would support.

I take your point about abortion, too. There is societal pressure to abort 'unwanted' pregnancies. When the Abortion Act was passed in the 60s there was still unimaginable (now) poverty and women with perhaps 8 children and a husband who would not use condoms who desperately needed to not have their ninth child. That is hopefully no longer a common thing and divorce is much easier - and the pill in this sense (though not in others) a liberator.

Abortion is a feminist issue, but not in the way it is frequently put, 'allowing' women to have abortions on demand. It's a feminist issue in that pregnancy and children are treated as life-style choices/commodities when they are not, and women are treated as being irresponsible if they don't have an abortion, and society punishes them with the difficulties it puts in the way of being a lone parent.
The Assisted Dying Bill is, as you say, the other end of the modern eugenics movement, removing those whom society doesn't want and doesn't want to pay for.