Yes, we need to respect age and the wisdom that comes with it. We should do everything we can to stamp out age discrimination and ensure our elderly loved ones feel valued and want to stay around as long as possible.
But assisted dying isn't about discarding our elderly.
If anyone you loved dearly was facing a painful, horrific death, you would be grateful for these options. Especially as they actually protect those participating. Going through formal assessments where the well-being of the individual seeking assistance ensures that they are making a fully conscious, unpressured decision.
The alternatives involve:
-forcing people to ensure unbearable pain when they want to end their lives
-leaving them at the mercy of those who might pressure them into suicide, without any third party acting in their best interests.
You've put forward some slippery slope arguments. But you can actually see what it really looks like in the many countries that have implemented similar schemes, and the procedures they have in place.
I appreciate your thoughts, and absolutely agree with you about stamping out discrimination etc., but I can't agree about being grateful for the option of assisted suicide.
I actually grew up in New Zealand where assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal, and I can say that knowing there was that 'option' only makes me fear more for my loved ones who are nearing the end of their lives. Up to 50% of people in overseas jurisdictions who get an assisted death say that feeling like a burden was a main reason for doing so. This is a predicament we should not place them in, one where they have to decide whether they are 'worthy of expensive treatment' or whether they have a duty to die.
Under the UK bill, the formal assessments are weak and will not afford the protection they claim to. External coercion is incredibly difficult to detect, and how much harder is it to decipher whether one is feeling coerced by their own sense of being a burden?
By creating a culture that supports suicide, and that fully funds it whilst only partially funding palliative care, we are creating a narrative that death is the better option for all involved. We are essentially saying that some lives are 'better off dead'.
The alternative you didn't mention is excellent palliative care and for some, palliative sedation. Death does not have to be a horrific painful experience. This is why we have palliative care. And if our palliative care is not accessible enough or excellent enough, then that is the problem we should be solving by better funding and more research rather than funding suicide.
We are also not talking about someone who has only hours or perhaps a few days at most left to live... this law is for all those with a 6-month prognosis, 1/5th of whom will outlive this prognosis by at least 3 years.
And in terms of the slippery slope, it is precisely from looking overseas and at my own country that I have seen the slipper slope in action. Only a few years after it was legalised in NZ, there are already calls to widen the eligibility criteria. And Canada is a horrific example of how, once assisted suicide is seen as healthcare and as a right for some, it inevitably becomes widened to prevent 'discrimination'.
These, and many other concerns, are some of the reasons why I cannot support this bill, or assisted suicide in general. When our NHS is in shambles, palliative care is severely underfunded and not accessible to all, by funding and promoting suicide we are essentially pushing the elderly and the vulnerable towards suicide.
I do not believe this is the kind of culture we should create, not is it compassionate to those who are struggling.
I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this. Were you aware about the statistics of people choosing assisted suicide because they felt like a burden?
A brilliantly presented set of arguments, thank you Holly. This would be the so-called thin end of the wedge. Other societies think it's bizarre that we put our parents in care homes, rather than care for them ourselves. This bill takes 'our' society's values a step further by legalising cutting short the care lifestage. Makes me feel like 😬
Thank you Adrian! Absolutely, it is a slippery slope and a very dangerous one at that! We have much to do to restore a culture that actually cares for the elderly rather than seeing them as burdens!
Yes, we need to respect age and the wisdom that comes with it. We should do everything we can to stamp out age discrimination and ensure our elderly loved ones feel valued and want to stay around as long as possible.
But assisted dying isn't about discarding our elderly.
If anyone you loved dearly was facing a painful, horrific death, you would be grateful for these options. Especially as they actually protect those participating. Going through formal assessments where the well-being of the individual seeking assistance ensures that they are making a fully conscious, unpressured decision.
The alternatives involve:
-forcing people to ensure unbearable pain when they want to end their lives
-leaving them at the mercy of those who might pressure them into suicide, without any third party acting in their best interests.
You've put forward some slippery slope arguments. But you can actually see what it really looks like in the many countries that have implemented similar schemes, and the procedures they have in place.
I appreciate your thoughts, and absolutely agree with you about stamping out discrimination etc., but I can't agree about being grateful for the option of assisted suicide.
I actually grew up in New Zealand where assisted suicide and euthanasia are legal, and I can say that knowing there was that 'option' only makes me fear more for my loved ones who are nearing the end of their lives. Up to 50% of people in overseas jurisdictions who get an assisted death say that feeling like a burden was a main reason for doing so. This is a predicament we should not place them in, one where they have to decide whether they are 'worthy of expensive treatment' or whether they have a duty to die.
Under the UK bill, the formal assessments are weak and will not afford the protection they claim to. External coercion is incredibly difficult to detect, and how much harder is it to decipher whether one is feeling coerced by their own sense of being a burden?
By creating a culture that supports suicide, and that fully funds it whilst only partially funding palliative care, we are creating a narrative that death is the better option for all involved. We are essentially saying that some lives are 'better off dead'.
The alternative you didn't mention is excellent palliative care and for some, palliative sedation. Death does not have to be a horrific painful experience. This is why we have palliative care. And if our palliative care is not accessible enough or excellent enough, then that is the problem we should be solving by better funding and more research rather than funding suicide.
We are also not talking about someone who has only hours or perhaps a few days at most left to live... this law is for all those with a 6-month prognosis, 1/5th of whom will outlive this prognosis by at least 3 years.
And in terms of the slippery slope, it is precisely from looking overseas and at my own country that I have seen the slipper slope in action. Only a few years after it was legalised in NZ, there are already calls to widen the eligibility criteria. And Canada is a horrific example of how, once assisted suicide is seen as healthcare and as a right for some, it inevitably becomes widened to prevent 'discrimination'.
These, and many other concerns, are some of the reasons why I cannot support this bill, or assisted suicide in general. When our NHS is in shambles, palliative care is severely underfunded and not accessible to all, by funding and promoting suicide we are essentially pushing the elderly and the vulnerable towards suicide.
I do not believe this is the kind of culture we should create, not is it compassionate to those who are struggling.
I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this. Were you aware about the statistics of people choosing assisted suicide because they felt like a burden?
A brilliantly presented set of arguments, thank you Holly. This would be the so-called thin end of the wedge. Other societies think it's bizarre that we put our parents in care homes, rather than care for them ourselves. This bill takes 'our' society's values a step further by legalising cutting short the care lifestage. Makes me feel like 😬
Adrian
Thank you Adrian! Absolutely, it is a slippery slope and a very dangerous one at that! We have much to do to restore a culture that actually cares for the elderly rather than seeing them as burdens!
SUIcide, being SUI the key syllabe.
How so?
The prefix speaks for itself.