Euthanasia need to be considered in UK?

[Chuk_Chuk]

Yes, I've probably summarised the situation badly, but the point was you trying to equate suicide and assisted dying, when they aren't in the same ballpark imo. "Most/The vast majority/nearly all" suicides are linked with mental disorders like schizophrenia, depression, substance abuse with socio-economic triggers leading to a crisis that culmunates in a suicide attempt. That is nothing like assisted dying.

If you want some more detail, this article is with the head of a foundation for suicide prevention and links to other studies

What many people get wrong about suicide

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Maybe so, but the use of 'most' is because if you lazily say all then some pedantic person would highlight one case to try and prove your point wrong

Thank you for the link.

It would seem that there are long term issues that a person faces and then the straw breaks the camels back.

@Chuk_Chuk @GGizmo What gives you or anybody else the right to deny someone choosing a pain free death in a dignified manner rather than suffering in agony, possibly for months, wetting and messing themselves?

please don’t tag me when trauma dumping. Thank you.

@Chuk_Chuk As you were the person who raised the topic of suicide and as suicide has nothing to do with this thread, perhaps you should elaborate on this. The point of assisted dying (not euthanasia or assisted suicide) is to provide a very small number of people a means of ending their life in a medically supervised way.

I mentioned suicide because I was curious about his views on people taking their own lives in general.

It will not end with just terminally ill people because what give you the right to deny anyone a death they choose . but in all seriousness when you consider all the arguments people use in support of this, the logical conclusion is to put very/little and/or no restrictions on it. Therefore it will invariably end up not being a small number of people.

 

[413x]

Thank you for the link.

It would seem that there are long term issues that a person faces and then the straw breaks the camels back.


please don’t tag me when trauma dumping. Thank you.


I mentioned suicide because I was curious about his views on people taking their own lives in general.

It will not end with just terminally ill people because what give you the right to deny anyone a death they choose . but in all seriousness when you consider all the arguments people use in support of this, the logical conclusion is to put very/little and/or no restrictions on it. Therefore it will invariably end up not being a small number of people.

My personal belief is that it should be expanded to anyone suffering long term.

I totally understand why this is a line not to cross for most people though and would be happy enough just to have it in place as it stands. About 6 months and terminal.

I absolutely think it should in time be expanded to what Canada has. Those locked in illnesses or the very slow degenerative ones. They are just as cruel a fate

 

[GGizmo]

@Chuk_Chuk @GGizmo What gives you or anybody else the right to deny someone choosing a pain free death in a dignified manner rather than suffering in agony, possibly for months, wetting and messing themselves? I know which I would prefer. My father in law was found to have stage four cancer and he spent a fortnight in agony before the dosage of morphine was so high he was basically a vegetable wetting and messing himself. We visited him on his last weekend alive (although he wasn't really living) and it was his 85th birthday. He was moaning with the pain but couldn't even notice us and the smell of faeces was sickening, The nurse explained that he had just been cleaned up. It broke our hearts seeing a once proud man who would do anything to help anybody in that state. Mercifully he passed away two days later but this was not the end of it because just a year later my sister in law, his daughter, was admitted to the hospice with stage 4 brain cancer. She had been complaining of severe headaches and neck pain for months and months but her doctor refused to see her and would only do a telephone consultation. We even took her to A&E but they wouldn't do anything unless it came from her GP. The early hours of one September morning she was found collapsed in her street and a passer by called a ambulance. By the time they finally got around to doing some tests and scans they found that she had stage four brain cancer and nothing could be done. You would think the end would be quick but it wasn't as she spent the next five months in agony before passing away in February. By the end she had been unconscious for over two of those months and was little more than a skeleton, her coffin weighed practically nothing.

Preserve life at all costs? **** that, people need the right to have a painless dignified death and nobody should have the right to deny that. Anything else is as good as torture. If you did that to a animal you would be in court on animal cruelty charges for prolonging suffering. Animals have more rights than humans at the end of their lives!!

Because as members of society we have as right to give an opinion about a subject that effects us too.

I have empathy with the arguments you are putting forward. On one of the threads I argued for the exact same thing a while back.

Until I heard the counter none religious argument.

I think were my view now differs is in your opening line you said "What gives you or anybody else the right to deny someone choosing a pain free death". That isn't what is being proposed. The law is going to allow the STATE to legally kill people.

It's not like we don't have evidence of this being abused in other countries were some people are asking for help and receive euthanasia leaflets.

We have evidence in this country of DNR notices being added to people's notes without being asked, especially vulnerable people.

This is the reality. There will be people murdered by the State who were either never asked or were pressured into it.

 

[hurfdurf]

Because as members of society we have as right to give an opinion about a subject that effects us too.

I have empathy with the arguments you are putting forward. On one of the threads I argued for the exact same thing a while back.

Until I heard the counter none religious argument.

I think were my view now differs is in your opening line you said "What gives you or anybody else the right to deny someone choosing a pain free death". That isn't what is being proposed. The law is going to allow the STATE to legally kill people.

It's not like we don't have evidence of this being abused in other countries were some people are asking for help and receive euthanasia leaflets.

We have evidence in this country of DNR notices being added to people's notes without being asked, especially vulnerable people.

This is the reality. There will be people murdered by the State who were either never asked or were pressured into it.

Can you give an example of a system that is perfect? It seems like you are taking some bad examples and then throwing the baby out with the bath water, offering no alternative.

Yes there will be issues, but the issues are significantly less than the current issue of us allowing people to be tortured by their decaying bodies to death.

 

[Parsley]

Yes there will be issues, but the issues are significantly less than the current issue of us allowing people to be tortured by their decaying bodies to death.

Having watched it first hand and heard of so many similar stories, I'd say it's a classic case of the needs of the many. We don't stop prosecuting people in court because sometimes we get it wrong.

I'm certainly no authority on anything this complicated, but if someone is on deaths door or terminal, I really don't see the problem with granting what is literally mercy if that is what is wanted. I don't want someone who is 25 and depressed to able to kill themselves legally like this. Though I'd argue if someone spends years in the system and never changes their mind, has had no results from any forms of attempted treatment... then who am I to tell them what they can and can't do? If they want it that much they'll potentially try to do it themselves anyway, and maybe fail... to lead to even more misery.

To be very glum, it is one person out of the billions of people on this planet in a universe beyond comprehension. It doesn't matter anyway, not really. Why suffer for no reason?

 

[413x]

Having watched it first hand and heard of so many similar stories, I'd say it's a classic case of the needs of the many. We don't stop prosecuting people in court because sometimes we get it wrong.

I'm certainly no authority on anything this complicated, but if someone is on deaths door or terminal, I really don't see the problem with granting what is literally mercy if that is what is wanted. I don't want someone who is 25 and depressed to able to kill themselves legally like this. Though I'd argue if someone spends years in the system and never changes their mind, has had no results from any forms of attempted treatment... then who am I to tell them what they can and can't do? If they want it that much they'll potentially try to do it themselves anyway, and maybe fail... to lead to even more misery.

To be very glum, it is one person out of the billions of people on this planet in a universe beyond comprehension. It doesn't matter anyway, not really. Why suffer for no reason?

Agree. I wouldn't want someone just feeling suicidal this year to be granted it. But if they've been on it for years and adament they want an exit.. Who is anyone else to deny that.

If you aren't religious life comes to an end and you are no more. Memories, personality etc. Its all gone. So if someone really wants to get there a bit quicker? For me I am fine with that.

Mental health I accept may always be ruled out. Because there is always a chance of getting better. But diseases such as muscle wasting.. I'd support that being rolled into assisted dying. But it's much much more difficult to me than "you have 6 months to live"

 

[Koalaboy]

The law is going to allow the STATE to legally kill people.

It's not, because the person will have to administer it themselves. It's giving the state the capacity to 'authorise' the decision.

 

[GGizmo]

It's not, because the person will have to administer it themselves. It's giving the state the capacity to 'authorise' the decision.

The part I particularly don't like is doctors will be able to suggest it first.

There are things in the bill that could tightened to not allow unintended consequences. To get more approval. But it's like they either don't care or are being inflammatory on purpose.

 

[Hagar]

The part I particularly don't like is doctors will be able to suggest it first.

There are things in the bill that could tightened to not allow unintended consequences. To get more approval. But it's like they either don't care or are being inflammatory on purpose.

Or the religious being able to impose their will and scupper it for the huge majority supporting a similar measure in the country.

 

[GGizmo]

I'm not against the concept of assisted dying. But I don't think it belongs in the NHS with a doctors suggesting it to you.

If you have terminal cancer it's not right that the doctor should be able to bring the subject up.

The patient should initiate it in some form.

 

[HACO]

Should be totally optional, open to all adults of sound mine. If you're gonna do it, better do it medically so you won't screw it up.

 

[just Scott]

I think everyone should have autonomy over their own body if they have the capacity to do so. We wouldn't let an animal live in excruciating pain yet it's ok to let a human? It makes no sense to me!