Assisted dying bill

Some care is poor, but there is agony and distress that no care can alleviate. It just has to be borne till the body gives up.

I do feel aggrieved that those who are opposed to the bill suggest that better care would eliminate that.

It can’t. So again. What is gained by compelling people to die in agony that lasts every hour for days. Those who oppose the Bill don’t seem to be able to explain.

They just sidestep.

Lathyrus3

I suppose I just don’t understand why death has to be stretched out to days and days of unbearable agony.

What are the reasons for approving if that?

Would anyone explain their thinking\belief?

From what I know re this - I always thought my mother was Anglican and was surprised come the end to realise she was Anglo-Catholic actually.

In her case - she didn't want to continue with her life come the end. She had contracted pneumonia badly latterly and (with me being the other side of the country it was a phone conversation between me and the nurses). Cue for one of the nurses saying to me "She was taking the pills we gave her to start with and then she refused any more" and was obviously querying what I would think. My response was "If she wants them - then give them to her. If she doesn't want them - then don't give them to her. It's her decision either way". I think that was what the nurse wanted to know - ie whether I'd blame them for her not taking them.

I think she was a bit unclear in her thinking in some ways basically that surprised me - as she commented one time that she feels people who "make their own decisions to leave" will land up in "Hell". Hence me going "Mother - you're Anglican!" and it came out that nope she was more of a Catholic in the event. So yep...in her case - it was more Catholic type beliefs (as she interpreted them) that caused her to just "carry on".

I said nowt in any direction - except telling the people concerned at the end that every door and window in her house must be opened - as she had made that request - in the belief that she needed them to be open in order to get out through them to go "Home to Heaven". I knew she didn't need them open - but she'd asked - and so they were given that instruction by me.

So some peoples own religious beliefs cause them to "hang on" when someone who thinks primarily with logic would not do so. So the difference between my mother and I is her religious beliefs scared her into letting things "take their course". My absolute - logic first - way of thinking would be telling me "I'm outa here - put the virtual champagne in Heaven on ice. I'll be there to drink it shortly at my welcome Home party".

Please, it is not about 'whatever' you call it- euthanasia and assisted dying are NOT the same, at all.

And yes, I can understand your argument, and I agree that palliative care should be vastly improved, totally. Many of my friends have died with the best care possible in our local amazing Hospice, in the UK. One more reason then for more of us to give generously to those Hospices, so they can continue that amazing care and increase the number of places available and suitable staff. This Bill will never stop us from supporting our local Hospices, or helping fund new ones- for those who make the choice to lenghten life by a few weeks or days. We can all choose to support them in any way we can.

Personally, I would prefer to go before I need this. MY choice. But total respect and support, for those who choose palliative care.

Galaxy

No I don't think that, I think your understanding of coercion is not the same as mine, we don't trust the safeguards and why would we? We have watched over the years safeguarding failure after safeguarding failure, we are in the middle of a nationwide safeguarding failure at the moment.

I don't think anyone should feel comfortable about coercion, if they do go and have a read of the hate and bile towards the elderly on Mumsnet and the worry about getting their hands on their inheritance while their parents are still alive.

I suppose I’d ask

If Assisted Dying was already the Law in this country, how would you justify a return to lengthy and painful death?

I suppose I would ask how you would justify the risks to those vulnerable to coercion.

I'm not sure it's going to sail through the HoL think they will stall it?

GP's do help folk on their way, but it's not publicised or talked about.

By allowing doctors to increase the dose of medication to alleviate the pain, with the patient's knowledge and consent that this would iultimately result in the loss of life.

Suicide is difficult unless you know what pills to take and how to get hold of them. I thought stacks of paracetomol, but no, that doesn’t always work and people are left in terrible pain.

Other options are too violent to specify here and these leave the families brokenhearted.

Visgir1

I'm not sure it's going to sail through the HoL think they will stall it?

GP's do help folk on their way, but it's not publicised or talked about.

Yep...I think there is a degree of this that happens - it is a merciful sort of pathway that some doctors do decide, of themselves, to do.

I was answering someone way back. I clearly take too long thinking and typing.

Galaxy

I suppose I would ask how you would justify the risks to those vulnerable to coercion.

Believe it or not I’m interested to hear a reasoned justification not just to exchange digs.

I couldn’t possibly justify any kind of coerosion. I wouldn’t ever try to justify it.. Nobody could. I’m 100% that there should be no coercion, that it should be provably the dying persons wish confirmed by as many disinterested people as anyone. would wish.

Coercion is a danger. A hypothetical as you said. Lengthy dying in agony is a reality that is happening now.

So there must be a justification for it, if we want it to continue.

I heard an interesting call on Sheila Fogarty's show today from an English woman who lives in the Netherlands. Two of her friends had taken the path of assisted dying there and she was supportive of this. However, she wasn't sure that the Westminster bill was rigorous enough. I am in favour of this choice in principle but I do hope that it will be reviewed and scrutinised once it is in law. Strict safeguards can slip with practice and public acceptance.

I willingly support my local hospice - they provided excellent care to both me and to my late OH.

BUT - I really do not think I should have to do this! The NHS should be providing this!

The issue of incurable pain or agony of knowing you’ll never get better is why this law is needed.
But. . .
Coercion/obligation, even by suggestion, is a danger, and not hypothetical.

Someone in a nursing home, which is swallowing money rapidly, frightened about what will happen when the money runs out may well feel, It will be better for everyone if I go now.
In some cases that idea will be promoted by relatives.

My mum was “helped to die” by simply stopping giving her sustenance. When we were there (almost all the time) , we could give her drinks if we requested them.
We were assured it wasn’t the Liverpool Pathway, but that only meant they’d given it another name.
The hospital staff at the end were very kind and sympathetic, but the poor treatment and lack of care when she went into hospital was responsible for her death.
Would she have chosen to die?
In the early stages she used to ask “You won’t let me die, will you?”
As she grew weaker, she didn’t ask, so we don’t know how she felt.

No coercion is not hypothetical it happens in all aspects of life and failures of safeguarding happen in all areas of life ( as we have seen time and time again) I have no idea why this aspect of life would somehow be magically exempt.

Visgir1

I'm not sure it's going to sail through the HoL think they will stall it?

GP's do help folk on their way, but it's not publicised or talked about.

They won't stall it...they are already saying, if its the will of the commons then it will go through

Anyone remember the Covid pandemic? It has been admitted that during that people with disability and/or learning difficulties had DNRs slapped on them without their knowledge or consent.
A relative of mine currently has a DNR signed by two doctors who have never seen her, something she doesn't want, something that is being imposed on her against her express wishes.
Forgive me if I don't have blind faith that this law will not be misapplied. There aren't robust enough safeguards and many medical people and organisations who have much more knowledge than any of us on here have voiced great concerns. The amendment to prohibit a doctor from bringing up the possibility of assisted death to a patient who has previously not mentioned it was defeated. Encouragement to consider it is just one step away from coercion.
A previous poster said palliative care would not be increased if this bill failed, but now it's been passed it's a certainty it won't be further researched and increasingly funded. Since hospice care is almost totally from voluntary contributions already, government won't suddenly start financing it.
Contrary to the oft mentioned examples I would point out that your death does not have to be a potentially agonising or even painful one to qualify for state aided suicide under this bill.

GrandmaKT

The latest wording of the bill:

For the purposes of this Act, a person is terminally ill if—
(a) the person has an inevitably progressive illness or disease which cannot
be reversed by treatment, and
(b) the person's death in consequence of that illness or disease can 5
reasonably be expected within six months.

How does this equate to "sweeping inclusion of those not at end of life stage"? Serious question to the OP.

I was going to ask the same question.

But aren’t those who desperately want to die being coerced into living? If coercion is about forcing one persons will not another?

Fir every story of the relative who wanted to live till their last breath or a patient whose treatment was withdrawn there is another equally heart rending story of a person moaning and screaming and pleading Help me to go.

In that respect none of those heart rending story bear more weight than the other as definitive reasons for or against. All have been coerced.

So what is the definitive reasoning if coercion applies to all, whichever way. Why for some posters does the weight of the decision fall n favour of those who want to prolong their life rather than those who want to shorten it.

I am genuinely looking for a rational justification here.

Or perhaps I should have said an understanding of their decision .

I truly can’t see it myself.

I freely admit my definitive reasoning comes from the fear of agony and suffering of death. And I would gladly sign up to anything that would reassure me that I could possibly avoid it

But there must be a flip side. I just don’t know what it is.

Galaxy

I think this is the issue that everyone has a story but the stories of the risks to the vulnerable, those at risk of coercion are hypothetical so don't carry the same weight.

When I said hypothetical Galaxy I intended to use it to echo your thought in this post.

Im sorry if I misrepresented it.

I'm certainly not blind to the dangers of coercion, and yes, I do have misgivings about that, but having had to listen to a 98-year-old man pleading with me to help him die for the past three weeks, I would have given anything to be able to ease his pain. I would never have let my dog suffer like he did.

Luckygirl3

I willingly support my local hospice - they provided excellent care to both me and to my late OH.

BUT - I really do not think I should have to do this! The NHS should be providing this!

And I couldn't agree more. But do you think that local Hospices and McMillan nurses will be magically better supported by the State if this Bill does not go through. Tories certainly had no intention of doing so, and even if Labour did want to, they have been left with an NHS (and everything else) in such a dire state, that they just could not do this.

Claremont modern hospices have been around during Labour and Conservative governments for over 50 years, and neither party has seen fit to fund them fully or properly, even when the NHS wasn't in a dire state. Do you honestly think the passing of this bill won't have any affect on palliative care research and funding?
Perhaps that will be the outcome of this bill, hospices struggling ever more to survive, loss of availability of placements, so a bigger take up of the suicide assistance.