Assisted Dying

Exhausted after fifteen minutes activity suggests there was something wrong with her health, so not such a healthy 75 year-old after all.

Which suggests further that the media reports were negatively biased, as they often are when it comes to assisted dying.

Indeed.

Yes very misleading.

There was no suggestion in the articles I read that she had any physical difficulties at all. Misleading indeed.

All rather confusing.

In the article I read in The Sunday Times, admittedly skim-read at a friend's house so don't have the paper to re-read, I had the impression that she gave them an interview in the days before her death and definitely said that she was active, in good health and not on medication.

So maybe it's the lady herself who did the misleading.

This link is to Gill's blog where she explains in detail why she is choosing to end her life.

I feel it is the thin end of a dangerous wedge which will lead to pressure being put on older people from various quarters to end their lives so as not to be a burden to their families or the state.
The report I read said she had no serious health problems and that her daughter 'had particularly struggled with the decision'.

I'm struggling to understand how a mother can inflict such pain on her own child. It is hard enough to accept a beloved parent's death when you know that it has been a merciful release.

I'm afraid to me it is very sad to read . By her criteria I'd better give in now. (I know she is not advocating her course of action for everyone.) I wonder what sort of conversation and reaction she had from her family.

I find it hard to understand why you think the wishes/feelings of the daughter should take precedence over the wishes and feelings of the mother in this case, janea.

Are we to be beholden to our children just because we gave birth to them and must linger and wither into decrepit old age for their sake?

She wasn't decrepit and lingering, Ana. That's my point.
It would be different if she had been terminally ill or even suffering from severe depression.

Thanks for the link, popping.
I understand her perfectly, and feel that way myself.
My children know that I would like to go that way, and having watched their father die from a terminal illness, they understand, too.
Like her, I will know when I am ready to die, and hope that I can decide for myself, but I also hope I will not have to go to Switzerland to do so.

People commit suicide. Always have done.

She did it with a bit more of a fanfare.

Thanks for the link Popping. But oh dear, I seem to have the same symptoms as she did - right down to the very intrusive tinnitus! I can manage a bit more than 15 minutes gardening - provided it's just a bit of dead heading - and, unlike her, I'm on pain killers for my dodgey knees and ankles. But otherwise all the things she missed doing I miss too.

Should I book my appointment now? Am I being selfish not doing so?

Listening to her partner at the moment. Says she had a lot of back pain, she was visiting an osteopath and exhaustion after suffering shingles. Tinitus also.

Blimey that would cut a lot of us out!

It is clear that everyone's tolerance level is very different. What would be highly inconvenient for one would be terminal for others. Very difficult to comment on another's decision.

If you want to carry on living then obviously, no, nfk.

She didn't want to carry on living. She was content to die.

As for the slippery slope arguments, Firstly, the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy and is simply an unfair device for derailing an argument. It depends on the assumption of highly unlikely hypothetical scenarios for which the probability is close to zero if not at zero. Secondly, the fact that it can be done entirely at a person's own unpressurised choice as in this woman's case, shows that if the law is properly constructed, there won't be the problem of people being pressurised because there will be safeguards against that. Another blow to hypothetical fears.

Selfish Nfk ? Again that's thinking that others in your life have some rights in this, and they do not.

It cuts both ways.

The fact that she wasn't on prescription medication tells us nothing. Perhaps she didn't want to take strong painkillers (lots of people don't). I'd probably have commited suicide by now without all the painkillers I take.

So her kids might be sad about her death a few years before they would have been anyway? So what? Sadness of that kind is part of life.

I am not trying to derail any argument Bags.
I thought we were having a discussion.
The slippery slope happens frequently in real life - the application of abortion laws, for example. They started out as abortion being allowed when the mother's mental health would be impaired and quickly turned into abortion on demand. (I'm not arguing against abortion)
You seem very confident that 'safeguards' would be put in place and that these would be workable and adequate. I am not so sure, nor as confident.

I question the role of the doctor in this. Doctors are supposed to not kill people, and intervention should be for the purpose of relieving suffering and restoring health. By all accounts, this woman was not suffering, just making a lifestyle choice.

Do you think there is a lower age limit at which people's 'right' to kill themselves should be respected? What if a 25year old went to Dignitas and said they were in reasonably good health but didn't feel like living any more? Should the Dignitas Doctor kill that young person too?

It seems to me that there's an underlying assumption that 75 is an acceptable age to die, and that seems the ultimate in ageism.

I started this discussion and I have read the blog, listened to the partner and am still no nearer to understanding her reason for taking her life. I do know as has been said so many times it was her choice, to me it was still a selfish decision.

She and her partner appeared to have been well off so she could have employed a gardener and just sat and enjoyed. So, she couldn't walk round the streets of London, my DH and I were walkers for years and now can't even get to the shops but we just accept it. I want to see my GC grow up and mature and to enjoy them. She had to be a very unhappy woman not to appreciate the simple pleasures in life. Yes, her choice, her life , just not mine.

Sorry Bags. In my previous life (before retirement) I met quite a few people who would have been very content to die. But, after professional intervention, were very pleased they hadn't. Are you saying that all suicide is ok?

And yes Anya, I do believe my family have a say in my life. I don't feel ready to die yet and hopefully won't for some time to come and it's them who'll have to cope (are coping!) with my slowly increasing disabilities. I'm lucky (I think!) that my lot would be for me whatever I decide and wouldn't try to influence me - and I am very easily swayed and have a very large guilt complex - but I fear there are some who may not be so fortunate.

I am also fortunate that I've found other fresh interests to fill the voids left by my increasingly limited physical abilities.

I am completely utterly in favour of assisted suicide for physical terminal illness and sometimes, when the only solution is medication which turns a person into a zombie, for mental illness. But .....

It's an impossible line which has now been drawn. How ill do you have to be before suicide is acceptable? How many 'cries for help' does a severely depressed person need to make? Obviously now not a lot.

I'm not saying all anything is OK. Nothin is so clearly black and white.

I don't regard assisted dying as the same thing as suicide.

Why is what this woman did regarded as selfish?

I know you aren't, janea, but it is clear from what evidence there is about assisted suicide (and there is info from quite a number of years now in several places) that it does not lead to pressures on people to die before they want to, so I do regard it, on the basis of that evidence, as a non-argument or, more formally, a specious one.

I'm not sure it is correct to say that the doctors at Dignitas kill people. I think it is correct to say that they provide people with the means to kill themselves in a non-suffering way. A doctor's real remit, as I see it, is to try to reduce suffering, not always to prevent death, which is what many people seem to think it is nowadays.

We cannot really know what the woman in the OP story was 'suffering'. Why cannot her wish not to be a burden be called suffering? It clearly was strong enough to make her do what she did.

It seems people see dying and death as suffering. I don't. Not death itself. The woman in the OP wanted to end her life and as far as we can tell, no pressure was put on her from outside her own thoughts. My reaction is quite simple: why on earth shouldn't she? It doesn't harm anyone else.

You haven't answered my question about what is an acceptable age for a medical professional to kill someone who has no serious health issues, either mental or physical,*Bags*.
I realise you are free not to answer, but I'm still interested in what you think.
I also wonder what's the difference between assisted dying and suicide?

Annsixty and Nfk I agree with you both.