I mentioned abortion laws early on in this site. It has been legal in the U.K. for fifty years in which time it has gone from being very strictly controlled to no control at all. That is my worry about legalising ‘assisted dying’. (I shall call it that as it seems people do not like the word ‘euthanasia’ which is, according to the dictionary ‘The painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma’.).
I think it is entirely irrelevant whether abortions were illegally performed before legalisation or not. I, and others, are concerned that the slackening of the controls over abortion could be mirrored by assisted dying.
Sukie, I feel exactly as you do. There is a place for the help to ease someone into a peaceful passing and, in my nursing experience, I have seen it done.I have also seen and heard of frail, vulnerable patients being pressured into changing wills, bullied into giving large sums of money to relatives and other horrors. Imagine if those relatives were able to influence people to sign away their lives!
Cast iron, irreversible controls would have to be put in place. I am not convinced those controls would stay.