Assisted dying bill

One of the main reasons why society has rejected this movement is - apart from the religious reasons against it - the ethics.

But what is ethical about deciding to prolong the pain, agony and indignity of those who would rather die?

theworriedwell

The people saying it isn't killing don't seem to understand it or they do and are uncomfortable acknowledging it.

Not at all. I do understand it, and I, for one, would have the choice. I truly feel my UK family and friends should too, and that choice should not just be for the rich, and often far too early for fear of not being able to travel.

We, DH and I, will have the choice- and not just if we only have 6 months to live. We are both well, love life, are very active and positive- but we have both witnessed to much suffering and so many bad deaths, that it is such a relief to know the choice will be ours, if and when- and if and when we decide for ourselves, to make that choice.

We both hope to die quietly and slip away in our sleep- but few are so lucky.

theworriedwell

Galaxy

Because language as we have learnt is important. A lot of this debate is framed under the blanket of 'kindness' so using accurate language is important I feel. If you have to hide things within a discussion it makes me wary. This works for both sides, so I dont complain for example when people use accurate language to describe the siffering they have witnessed.

Exactly. I'd object if people were saying the doctor was a murderer as I don't think that is true anymore than saying you aren't killing someone is accurate. I think it makes me uncomfortable because if someone is telling me this is a good thing I have to wonder why they are refusing to admit what it actually means.

I know exactly what it means, thank you very much - and yes, I do think it is a good thing. If that makes you uncomfortable, then that's your prerogative, but I refuse to apologise for how I feel on this issue.

Galaxy

Because language as we have learnt is important. A lot of this debate is framed under the blanket of 'kindness' so using accurate language is important I feel. If you have to hide things within a discussion it makes me wary. This works for both sides, so I dont complain for example when people use accurate language to describe the siffering they have witnessed.

Exactly. I'd object if people were saying the doctor was a murderer as I don't think that is true anymore than saying you aren't killing someone is accurate. I think it makes me uncomfortable because if someone is telling me this is a good thing I have to wonder why they are refusing to admit what it actually means.

Dickens

MissInterpreted

theworriedwell

The people saying it isn't killing don't seem to understand it or they do and are uncomfortable acknowledging it.

I do understand what you are saying and have absolutely no trouble acknowledging it, but I repeat, under what is being proposed, the person would have to take the drugs themselves.

... under what is being proposed, the person would have to take the drugs themselves

Unfortunately, to theworriedwell those drugs are the loaded gun...

And frankly, I'm tired of being 'spoken' to as if I'm part of an unintelligent and emotionally-challenged cohort that doesn't understand- as if, theworriedwell, only you have a pipeline to the truth which no-one else understands.

One of the main reasons why society has rejected this movement is - apart from the religious reasons against it - the ethics. The ethical quandary for doctors and the medical profession who might be asked to kill a terminally-ill patient sooner than they would naturally die. We get it, we really do.

I don't think I only have a pipeline to the truth but I am being honest and I don't think some people are. If they are being honest then they don't understand that in handing someone the lethal dose or connecting it to an iv that they don't switch on is still killing someone.

I understand it is killing someone, you understand it but people on here have said it isn't killing someone. As I said either they aren't being honest with us or they aren't being honest with themselves.

You get it, you really do but read the thread and you will see some are denying it.

MissInterpreted

theworriedwell

The people saying it isn't killing don't seem to understand it or they do and are uncomfortable acknowledging it.

I do understand what you are saying and have absolutely no trouble acknowledging it, but I repeat, under what is being proposed, the person would have to take the drugs themselves.

... under what is being proposed, the person would have to take the drugs themselves

Unfortunately, to theworriedwell those drugs are the loaded gun...

And frankly, I'm tired of being 'spoken' to as if I'm part of an unintelligent and emotionally-challenged cohort that doesn't understand- as if, theworriedwell, only you have a pipeline to the truth which no-one else understands.

One of the main reasons why society has rejected this movement is - apart from the religious reasons against it - the ethics. The ethical quandary for doctors and the medical profession who might be asked to kill a terminally-ill patient sooner than they would naturally die. We get it, we really do.

I'm glad the discussion has actually been opened up, this time.

Because language as we have learnt is important. A lot of this debate is framed under the blanket of 'kindness' so using accurate language is important I feel. If you have to hide things within a discussion it makes me wary. This works for both sides, so I dont complain for example when people use accurate language to describe the siffering they have witnessed.

I think it muddies the waters, actually. If a doctor prescribes you the drugs after you have fulfilled all the requirements for 'assisted dying', which you then take and die - are they really responsible for your death? In the same way, if a doctor prescribes you medication for an illness, and you then suffer serious side effects from that medication, is the doctor responsible for that?

MissInterpreted

theworriedwell

Hand someone in a towering rage a loaded gun and watch them kill someone. Are you jointly responsible for the death?

That's hardly comparable with what is being proposed here.

I think the comparison works in the sense that theworriedwell intended it to be understood - if you aid someone to kill then regardless of who they kill, be it themselves or another, they are jointly responsible.

So, now we've established that if you hand someone a loaded gun or a syringe full of a life-ending drug, and they use either to kill themselves, then technically, you've been complicit in killing them.

I just wonder how that really helps with the debate, now that fact has been established.

theworriedwell

Hand someone in a towering rage a loaded gun and watch them kill someone. Are you jointly responsible for the death?

That's hardly comparable with what is being proposed here.

Hand someone in a towering rage a loaded gun and watch them kill someone. Are you jointly responsible for the death?

theworriedwell

The people saying it isn't killing don't seem to understand it or they do and are uncomfortable acknowledging it.

I do understand what you are saying and have absolutely no trouble acknowledging it, but I repeat, under what is being proposed, the person would have to take the drugs themselves.

The people saying it isn't killing don't seem to understand it or they do and are uncomfortable acknowledging it.

That's just awful.

Mollygo

So it’s basically suicide made legal?

It’s still the potential For compulsion via expectation that worries me.
My mum desperately didn’t want to die but the end of life pathway they used meant her body gradually shut down.
My lasting memories are her asking “You won’t let me die, will you?”

As I read it the "end of life pathway" is thoroughly inhumane - as it seems to mean starving the person to death and, from what I've read of starving to death = it's painful and it's also prolonged. I did make it quite plain neither of my parents were to be put on that come the end. My father was in the best nursing home I could find and my mother had the best carers coming into her home I could find and their instructions included "Check the contents of her kitchen - to make sure she is well-stocked with food". It was her choice in the end to have a battle of wills with them re eating - as she didn't want to herself - but the food was there for her to eat.

That is another reason imo that I believe in voluntary euthanasia - so there's no question of anyone being cruel enough to start that "end of life pathway" on another person.

I'm not sure whether they are still trying to do that to people - but I do know it's one of the reasons it feels problematic to do a "Living Will" - in case they misinterpret it as "Starve me to death". So I think voluntary euthanasia being legal will help to clarify things of either:
- the person has decided to live and so keep giving them pain relief, food and drink, and all possible palliative care
OR
- they've decided not to live and it's a quick/painless thing.

So it’s basically suicide made legal?

It’s still the potential For compulsion via expectation that worries me.
My mum desperately didn’t want to die but the end of life pathway they used meant her body gradually shut down.
My lasting memories are her asking “You won’t let me die, will you?”

Streeting is using his Ministerial position to try to kill the Bill. Harriet Harman has criticised him for his statements.

theworriedwell

How is it being honest to say that an act which kills people isn't killing them? It is a very false start to any discussion. If you believe in killing people why wouldn't you own it? Maybe it is uncomfortable to call it what it is.

If a person asks a doctor to administer a lethal dose of a drug that will kill them, and he agrees and does it - he has killed them.

It's academic.

Are we now any further forward in the debate?

I don't believe many people are shying away from the profound principles involved in AD, which surely is one of the reasons why it's a matter which has been roundly rejected for so many years.

The doctor, or whoever administers the fatal dose of whichever drug is used, will have to live with his or her conscience which, I assume, they will have 'questioned' prior to agreeing to such an act.

I visited for the last time my great-grandmother as a child aged around 7/8 who lay dying in the upstairs bedroom. I was tentatively ushered in by my aunt and stood watching my great grandmother writhing in pain and crying, mumbling the phrase over and over, "I wish the doctor would take me out of the road". She didn't use the word "kill" but that's what she meant.

That is the reality - I think we all understand that fact.

theworriedwell

One thing I've found interesting is some supporters of assisted dying on here claiming it is not killing someone. Is it so difficult to accept that giving someone a lethal dose of something and them dying adds up to killing them? They are dead and without the intervention they would be alive so what else can it be. I think we have to be honest if we want a real discussion.

The person has to take the drugs themselves - so how is that 'killing them'? I don't have an issue with the language used though. I've previously said that, having seen my mother and MiL suffer (and yes, it was suffering) long, slow, lingering deaths from dementia, that if I could have legally put them out of their misery - or killed them, if you prefer - then yes, I would have done it, just as I have had to have several beloved dogs put to sleep to end their suffering. That is my personal view on the subject, nothing more.

my husband had motor neurone disease. He was outraged that his life was judged to be meaningless with everyone suggesting that he should end it. The disease is pretty insufferable but painless...he did art and music although unable to speak etc...he finally died nineteen years after being diagnosed,, the second longest living after Stephen Hawkings...should he have been encouraged to take his own life?
I felt the pressure recently when my ageing dog collapsed...the pressure of friends who drove me to the vets, the vet herself that she should be euthanised. I am still haunted by the look she, my loving canine companion, gave me as I acquiesced. I greive her death far more than I did for those that nature took.
I remember a vet once told me when I mentioned that dogs didn't seem to die naturally anymore...that it was seen as neglect. He said it was the fashion. My first dog died naturally by my side..a big intake of breath and no more. I stroked his head whilst nature took its gentle course.
My last two cats died naturally at home, they stopped eating I put them on a cushion and stroked them often as I passed by them and they purred. It would have been no comfort to take them to the vets in the box which they hated. People should man up to death it is often gentle. It was with my mother, although she had often said what she wanted was to die. I'm so glad we didn't have that decision to make. I told her that wasn't in my gift. And I was glad about that. The day she died she was happy, took to her bed and without struggle died a few hours later. Fleurpepper .you should take it up with Unherd.
My friends father recently went to Oregon to have assisted suicide he in fact died en route. But I cant believe it is only they that have problems getting the lethal drugs. I remember readng a while back that the US had run out of the drugs that they use in capital punishment and what shocked me was that we supplied them with the drug used to euthanise our companion animals and they judged them too inhumane. That stuck with me. Its a very heavy subject.
I'm sure assisted suicide will always be available for the rich who wish it for a price, but on the NHS? with cut backs? I'm just glad I didn't have to refuse, or permit my mother and hand her a lethal drug ...no.
Many people have assisted dying with morphine for pain control, that is humane. That is palliative care which we should be investing more in. This is not assisted dying this is assisted suicide. There is a difference. The more rules that are put in place the more complicated and conflicting it will become.

They will get it from one of the the doctors who need to prescribe it.

What I'm not clear about is how these Drs will be appointed and where?

How many are anticipated to be using the service- will the Drs be signing off the drugs in local health care trusts?

What will be the safeguards for the pharmacists storing the drugs?

Who will fund it?

Will the Drs also be GPs? Able to treat patients and then choose to not treat them?

There is a judge involved in this too- will it be just one judge for the UK or will they be locally appointed?

Who will pay them, and will they be salaried or paid on a case by case basis. Will the patients solely represent themselves, or can they appoint advocates?

None of this is clear.

Maybe someone here knows?

theworriedwell

If they aren't given it how do they get it?

Of course they are given it- that is the whole point here. Handed it so they can then make the choice, to take it and swallow it, or to trigger the drip- in full knowledge that there is no way back if and when they do make the choice.

Assisted, so that it is the correct dose, of the correct potion- to ensure very quick and painless death. The whole point indeed.

How they get it - is a question we're probably not legally allowed to say publicly. I think that's daft - but that's how our society is and we can't say....

If they aren't given it how do they get it?