Euthanasia

I really do not understand the NHS argument. Surely the fact it's in such a bad way means that more people will be suffering due to increased likelihood that cancer particularly isn't picked up and leads to more terminal diagnosis', the fact that the NHS cannot provide a certain level of healthcare therefore makes it more of an imperative to offer this "choice" of assisted dying to patients.

I emphasise the word choice here because all the time in this debate, people are ignoring this key part of the bill, it being a choice.

I think many people are assuming that anyone given a 6 month or less diagnosis is going to choose assisted dying to bring forward their date they wish to die. However that isn't what this is about, it's an option because at present it isn't. Also being ignored is the fact that this, I assume drug, that will be administered to the patient, will be self administered (their choice). At any point they can choose against this, the idea that the NHS or govt or anyone else is part of some state killing is simply talking nonsense here.

This really needs to be pointed out because we hear a lot of what if's and other scenarios here, but the key parts of this bill have been given almost zero mention, pretty much deliberately because people are trying to frame it in a way to try and force this bill into being defeated.
 
Wibble said:
He had a sick baby die and is highly religious. So nothing to do with euthanasia and clearly motivated by his religious beliefs to try to delay legislation for a decade.

His experience was with one dying adult, who was grateful for human contact and help, is also irrelevant. Most dying people would be grateful for any such help, irrespective of their will to be euthanized or otherwise. The idea that there is no such thing as a good assisted death is utterly ludicrous. I'm sure my old man would have agreed if he wasn't too busy quite literally drowning in his own fluids for a week, after we were told there was zero hope, no medical intervention would be made and he would only last a few hours. Best case scenario he was so far gone that he didn't really know anything about it. This best case scenario still involved his entire family having to unnecessarily experience him in such a distressing and humiliating state for so long. The medical decision had been taken for him to die but the moral and legislative cowardice removed the logical option of hurrying that along for his own good. I've recounted it before but it is probably worth repeating it. I'd have happily smothered him with a pillow days before he finally died if we could have got him into a private room, but I couldn't afford to go to prison for my families sake. A much better option would have been simply to up his morphine dose even higher and let him slip away peacefully. That he was denied a much better death for the sake of someone else's belief in a fictional god is outrageous, and still angers me.
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This is a fantastic post, my vote for post of the year. I'm so sorry for what your family had to go through, especially your father, you and your family done the best you could, and it's stories like yours that should be shown to the masses.
 
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The first half of this podcast is about the bill coming up in Parliament and the MP introducing it, very interesting and well worth watching/listening to:

 
Well this is insane and stupid

Transcript of the exchange between Kim Leadbeater and Lewis Goodall on The News Agents:

GOODALL: Are you concerned that in a survey of Canadians who ended their lives under their system, which I accept is a different system, but none the less, although the vast majority did say that they wanted to die because they had lost their ability to engage in meaningful life activities, but more than one third did say their desire to do so was in part informed by a feeling that they were perceived burdens on their family friends or caregivers … I mean that’s a fact.

LEADBEATER: Yeah, I mean you’re absolutely right, Canada, clearly a much broader set of criteria, nothing like we are proposing at the moment. Yea and I think that is the conversation which would take place so if someone is sitting there, saying, “I might as well just go, I’m being a burden to everyone,” the doctor will clearly pick up on that and say, “Hang on, this is about you and it’s about your choice.”

GOODALL: But if they say “I want to do that anyway,” would under your system still happen?

LEADBEATER: Well, there is an argument that having personal choice and autonomy is part of the whole process. However, they would have to be assessed as having the capacity and making sure that no-one else has coerced them into doing that. So I appreciate that is a very delicate issue. I mean, there are people who have said to me — I think my mum would probably say this to me — surely being concerned about being a burden is a legitimate reason as well, in terms of… I know I wouldn’t want to be a burden to people, I can say that to you now in the clear light of day. But that’s very different to people saying, “I’m doing this because I feel like I’m being a burden.”

https://catholicherald.co.uk/fearin...son-to-seek-assisted-suicide-says-leadbeater/
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Wibble said:
And this is totally ignored. If I were in my parent's situation (advanced Alzheimers) I'd have wanted to be euthanised years before they died. Dribbling and shitting your last days away in a home that confuses and distresses you (at best) with little or no memory, dignity or autonomy and virtually no enjoyment of life. Compound that with the huge emotional and financial cost to the family that can traumatise multiple people for years or decades, just to satisfy someone else's need for religious nonsense, is unconscionable.

Euthanasia and abortion - if you have an objection to them, then don't do it. Your choice, but don't fecking dare try to restrict mine.
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Last paragraph is it
 
This is genuinely a momentous day in British politics. I didn’t trust them to get it done, but they have.

Of course there has to be strict vetting on a case by case basis but this is a good first step.

Working close to patients with terminal solid and haematological cancers makes this even more satisfying. I know at least 3 or 4 patients who will be looking to utilise this ASAP. And quite right too.
 
Sweet Square said:
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I disagree entirely with some of this statement.

The passing of this doesn’t mean the government ‘prioritise the right to die over the right to live’, it gives terminally ill people the right to choose.

I agree that disabled people often aren’t met with the basic needs in many circumstances, but isn’t it a right to choose how to die if you no longer want to suffer?

Stringent vetting processes should be in place for every case.

‘Disabled’ also covers a huge scope of people. This bill is solely directed towards terminally ill patients.
 
Sweet Square said:
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And this is part of the problem, this is complete disinformation

The bill is very specific in that it applies only to people with a terminal illness, people with disabilities that do not have a terminal illness therefore do not qualify and as such cannot be pressured in to taking this course of action
 
Camy89 said:
I disagree entirely with some of this statement.

The passing of this doesn’t mean the government ‘prioritise the right to die over the right to live’, it gives terminally ill people the right to choose.

I agree that disabled people often aren’t met with the basic needs in many circumstances, but isn’t it a right to choose how to die if you no longer want to suffer?

Stringent vetting processes should be in place for every case.

‘Disabled’ also covers a huge scope of people. This bill is solely directed towards terminally ill patients.
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If we look at how disable people have been treated over the last decade then I’m not sure how anyone can have any confidence in this bill.

I can see this getting expanded in the future(Leadbitter has been vague in interviews)
and turning into something like the Canadian model. I think pro assistant dying people are well meaning but don’t realise how the capitalist state works.
 
Sweet Square said:
If we look at how disable people have been treated over the last decade then I’m not sure how anyone can have any confidence in this bill.

I can see this getting expanded in the future(Leadbitter has been vague in interviews)
and turning into something like the Canadian model. I think pro assistant dying people are well meaning but don’t realise how the capitalist state works.
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How many disabled people have a terminal diagnosis? If they don’t, then this bill doesn’t apply to them.

Terminally ill disabled people of course it does apply to but this is why stringent POA, Welfare guardianship etc plus case by case assessments should and are in place. The Swiss model makes it quite clear that police inquiries are made for every case given the possibility of financial gain.

Quite frankly, I find it hard to believe that somewhere like the UK doesn’t even have some legislation on assisted dying in 2024. It’s long overdue and, policed correctly, can offer a lot to a minority of people.
 
Sweet Square said:
If we look at how disable people have been treated over the last decade then I’m not sure how anyone can have any confidence in this bill.

I can see this getting expanded in the future(Leadbitter has been vague in interviews)
and turning into something like the Canadian model. I think pro assistant dying people are well meaning but don’t realise how the capitalist state works.
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100% this.
People who keep saying it's only a very specific situation are missing the point that it will only expand from here on.
 
I'm relieved to see it pass these first stages. I hope it will be available when and if I decide I want to make the choice to use it.
 
Sandikan said:
100% this.
People who keep saying it's only a very specific situation are missing the point that it will only expand from here on.
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Yep the Canadian system didn’t start off like the one they have today. It’s a gradual process.

I always thought legalizing euthanasia was a no-brainer.

It seemed to me like an individual choice people ought to have, akin to legalizing abortion or same-sex marriage. If someone is in such pain that they decide to end their life, I thought, who are we as a society to tell them that they can’t?

There’s also a harm reduction component. If someone is dead set on ending their lives, shouldn’t we give them a relatively safe, effective option under medical supervision? It would be cruel not to.

This was the rationale behind the 2015 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Carter v. Canada, which determined that prohibition of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) was unconstitutional.

But the legalization of MAiD has brought to the fore some disturbing moral calculations, particularly with its expansion in 2019 to include individuals whose deaths aren’t “reasonably foreseeable.” This change opened the floodgates for people with disabilities to apply to die rather than survive on meager benefits.

https://jacobin.com/2024/05/canada-euthanasia-poor-disabled-health-care
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Also already a green MP has talked about expanding the bill


Camy89 said:
Quite frankly, I find it hard to believe that somewhere like the UK doesn’t even have some legislation on assisted dying in 2024. It’s long overdue and, policed correctly, can offer a lot to a minority of people.
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Hopefully I’m wrong but there’s nothing to suggest the British state can do this. The last health secretary Matt Hancock(Who today voted for assisted dying)admitted that during covid do not resuscitate orders were wrongly applied.
 
Allowing someone with a terminal illness to end their life with dignity before they are no longer capable seems to me something that should exist in a modern society.



I feel like statements like this are unhelpful and putting words into people's mouths. It doesn't have to be an either/or choice. We should be able to do both.
 
Sweet Square said:
Yep the Canadian system didn’t start off like the one they have today. It’s a gradual process.


Also already a green MP has talked about expanding the bill



Hopefully I’m wrong but there’s nothing to suggest the British state can do this. The last health secretary Matt Hancock(Who today voted for assisted dying)admitted that during covid do not resuscitate orders were wrongly applied.
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The DNACPR debacle - these have, and always will be a medical decision ideally agreed with families. But quite frankly during the midst of the covid pandemic, space was so short, and people were so unwell in such numbers that these decisions had to be made immediately.

I don’t think many people realise just how fecking shit it was. Me and my wife came home from work and just sobbed some nights from how grim it was and the fact of the matter is there were only a certain number of ventilators for too many patients. You need to draw the line somewhere and I don’t think the general public will ever bloody realise how tough it was. I’m absolutely sick to the back teeth thinking and having to deal with the fallout of the pandemic. I’m not defending Hancock, he’s a bellend, but I’m defending the need for DNACPR’s being used with little notice.

With regards the assisted dying, I don’t think we’ll agree with each other, I’m for it. But I do fear our palliative and social services won’t be able cope with the potential influx of patients. Not only that but the legal system too - will cases be heard in enough time to allow the patient to have a dignified death? These are issues I’m concerned about and it could be messy.

The premise of assisted dying appeals to me, the practicalities of it I don’t think our system is adequately set up yet.
 
Camy89 said:
The DNACPR debacle - these have, and always will be a medical decision ideally agreed with families. But quite frankly during the midst of the covid pandemic, space was so short, and people were so unwell in such numbers that these decisions had to be made immediately.

I don’t think many people realise just how fecking shit it was. Me and my wife came home from work and just sobbed some nights from how grim it was and the fact of the matter is there were only a certain number of ventilators for too many patients. You need to draw the line somewhere and I don’t think the general public will ever bloody realise how tough it was. I’m absolutely sick to the back teeth thinking and having to deal with the fallout of the pandemic. I’m not defending Hancock, he’s a bellend, but I’m defending the need for DNACPR’s being used with little notice.

With regards the assisted dying, I don’t think we’ll agree with each other, I’m for it. But I do fear our palliative and social services won’t be able cope with the potential influx of patients. Not only that but the legal system too - will cases be heard in enough time to allow the patient to have a dignified death? These are issues I’m concerned about and it could be messy.

The premise of assisted dying appeals to me, the practicalities of it I don’t think our system is adequately set up yet.
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Re the Covid part; Same here. I remember the first day I walked into ITU from theatres (all our elective surgery was cancelled- no ventilators, and airway specialists were obviously needed elsewhere), and I could not believe what I was seeing. I sometimes wish I could show that morning to the cynics and deniers on demand. It was far and away the most extreme situation I’ve witnessed.
 
Sweet Square said:
If we look at how disable people have been treated over the last decade then I’m not sure how anyone can have any confidence in this bill.

I can see this getting expanded in the future(Leadbitter has been vague in interviews)
and turning into something like the Canadian model. I think pro assistant dying people are well meaning but don’t realise how the capitalist state works.
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There are systemic incentives to widen the scope of this, I agree.

This decision means there are people who in future will die, aided by the state, who did not need to.
 
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Anyone who is against this has never seen what it actually looks like when someone with something incurable and terminal is in the process of dying. The amount of suffering these people go through, just for the “reward” of death at the end of it, never mind the emotional toll it takes on their loved ones, is not nice at all.

Giving someone the option to choose is the right thing to do. Going with some dignity before you end up suffering and hoping for it to end is preferable.
 
nickm said:
There are systemic incentives to widen the scope of this, I agree.

This decision means there are people who in future will die, aided by the state, who did not need to.
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Yep the scope always gets widen.

From 2019(The numbers have gone up and there was 9,000 euthanasia deaths in 2023)

One of the reasons why euthanasia became more common after 2007 is that the range of conditions considered eligible expanded, while the definition of “unbearable suffering” that is central to the law was also loosened. At the same time, murmurs of apprehension began to be heard, which, even in the marvellously decorous chamber of Dutch public debate, have risen in volume. Concerns centre on two issues with strong relevance to euthanasia: dementia and autonomy.

Many Dutch people write advance directives that stipulate that if their mental state later deteriorates beyond a certain point – if, say, they are unable to recognise family members – they are to be euthanised regardless of whether they dissent from their original wishes. But Last January a medical ethicist called Berna Van Baarsen caused a stir when she resigned from one of the review boards in protest at the growing frequency with which dementia sufferers are being euthanised on the basis of a written directive that they are unable to confirm after losing their faculties. “It is fundamentally impossible,” she told the newspaper Trouw, “to establish that the patient is suffering unbearably, because he can no longer explain it.”

Van Baarsen’s scruples have crystallised in the country’s first euthanasia malpractice case, which prosecutors are now preparing. (Three further cases are currently under investigation.) It involves a dementia sufferer who had asked to be killed when the “time” was “right”, but when her doctor judged this to be the case, she resisted. The patient had to be drugged and restrained by her family before she finally submitted to the doctor’s fatal injection. The doctor who administered the dose – who has not been identified – has defended her actions by saying that she was fulfilling her patient’s request and that, since the patient was incompetent, her protests before her death were irrelevant. Whatever the legal merits of her argument, it hardly changes what must have been a scene of unutterable grimness.

The underlying problem with the advance directives is that they imply the subordination of an irrational human being to their rational former self, essentially splitting a single person into two mutually opposed ones. Many doctors, having watched patients adapt to circumstances they had once expected to find intolerable, doubt whether anyone can accurately predict what they will want after their condition worsens.

The second conflict that has crept in as euthanasia has been normalised is a societal one. It comes up when there is an opposition between the right of the individual and society’s obligation to protect lives. “The euthanasia requests that are the most problematic,” explains Agnes van der Heide, professor of medical care and end-of-life decision-making at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, “are those that are based on the patient’s autonomy, which leads them to tell the doctor: ‘You aren’t the one to judge whether I am to die.’” She doesn’t expect this impulse, already strong among baby boomers, to diminish among coming generations. “For our young people, the autonomy principle is at the forefront of their thinking.”

The growing divisions over euthanasia are being reflected in the deliberations of the review boards. Consensus is rarer than it was when the only cases that came before them involved patients with late-stage terminal illnesses, who were of sound mind. Since her resignation, Berna Van Baarsen has complained that “legal arguments weigh more and more heavily” on the committees, “while the moral question of whether in certain cases good is done by killing, threatens to get snowed under”.

https://theguardian.com/news/2019/j...nasia-gone-too-far-netherlands-assisted-dying
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Cloud7 said:
Anyone who is against this has never seen what it actually looks like when someone with something incurable and terminal is in the process of dying. The amount of suffering these people go through, just for the “reward” of death at the end of it, never mind the emotional toll it takes on their loved ones, is not nice at all.

Giving someone the option to choose is the right thing to do. Going with some dignity before you end up suffering and hoping for it to end is preferable.
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Well this is quite obviously miles off the mark and quite a repulsive thing to suggest.

People shouldn’t be occupying the moral high ground on such an issue.
 
Steven Seagull said:
Well this is quite obviously miles off the mark and quite a repulsive thing to suggest.

People shouldn’t be occupying the moral high ground on such an issue.
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I’m not occupying any moral high ground. I have seen these people suffer until they die. I have seen them say they just want it to end. There isn’t really anything you can say to these people when they are in these situations.

They should be offered the chance to end things on their own terms if they choose to. Anyone who would deny them this is wrong.
 
Hopefully this will bring suicide rate down. A guy committed suicide the other day at work and I can't stop thinking about it, especially after learning of the details. Didn't even know the guy but it's really sad.
 
Wibble said:
Euthanasia and abortion - if you have an objection to them, then don't do it. Your choice, but don't fecking dare try to restrict mine.
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Because of your shiny new rights, avoidable deaths will occur, because no system is perfect. I hope your moral certainty will leave a small gap that allows you to spare a thought for them.
 
NicolaSacco said:
Re the Covid part; Same here. I remember the first day I walked into ITU from theatres (all our elective surgery was cancelled- no ventilators, and airway specialists were obviously needed elsewhere), and I could not believe what I was seeing. I sometimes wish I could show that morning to the cynics and deniers on demand. It was far and away the most extreme situation I’ve witnessed.
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It was bleak. Not just in ITU but on general and acute medicine wards. ITU was at capacity so everyone else were on these wards - essentially level 2/3 patients which, would never have been cared for outside of an ITU environment pre or post COVID. One very early morning, it was myself with a junior FY1 and Med reg and between the three of us we had to decide between two patients who got the only available ventilator on ITU. It still sits very heavily with me until this day.

My only hope is that the new bill will come with all the safeguards and appropriate competencies that it needs to be implemented correctly. Having worked in an ED leading up to Christmas eve in the past has taught me how little compassion some families and carers give their loved ones and how much of a burden they feel that they are that they need to chuck them into hospital for fabricated reasons. I just hope this isn't exploited somehow with terminally ill patients. The amount of safeguards raised on a daily basis leaves me a bit sceptical.
 
nickm said:
Because of your shiny new rights, avoidable deaths will occur, because no system is perfect. I hope your moral certainty will leave a small gap that allows you to spare a thought for them.
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Shiny new rights :rolleyes:

And what has avoidable deaths got to do with anything? Without euthanasia lots of avoidable deaths won't occur. Despite these people's desire to die with dignity rather than die slowly in distress, indignity and often agony. But at least other people's supernatural being will be happy.

Indeed no system is perfect but given how hard it is to get permission in most jurisdictions I'm not sure there is much to worry about. If there is the procedure can be improved.

But most concerns are merely disguised anti-euthanasia, trying to stop and delay it on any grounds. A bit like intelligent design enthusiasts pretending they aren't creationists.
 
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pacifictheme said:
Hope it gets expanded to cover incurable degenerative diseases.
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I hope it gets expanded to anyone who wants to die. For any reason whatsoever, as long as they are able to make a rational decision and the approval procedure includes suitable checks to ensure this and that there is no coersion.
 
Wibble said:
I hope it gets expanded to anyone who wants to die. For any reason whatsoever, as long as they are able to make a rational decision and the approval procedure includes suitable checks to ensure this and that there is no coersion.
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do you think being homeless is a suitable condition for this? what about, say, a missing limb?
 
berbatrick said:
do you think being homeless is a suitable condition for this? what about, say, a missing limb?
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Homeless isn't a condition and I'm not seeing anyone espousing euthanasia for non-medical conditions.

The level of psychiatric and medical safeguarding required around assisted dying must surely in itself limit the conditions to which it is allowed for, given NHS resources.
 
berbatrick said:
do you think being homeless is a suitable condition for this? what about, say, a missing limb?
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It isn't up to me to say what makes someone else's life unbearable. As long as the person is rational and isn't just undergoing a temporary crisis I don't think you should judge or invalidate their motivations.

And in this hypothetical homelessness wouldn't be the grounds even if it compounded the grounds.
 
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Wibble said:
I hope it gets expanded to anyone who wants to die. For any reason whatsoever, as long as they are able to make a rational decision and the approval procedure includes suitable checks to ensure this and that there is no coersion.
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