Assisted Dying Vote

I appreciate this is a political matter and if it's felt that it'd be better in the Politics section, then feel free to move it. However I believe it is more of a general social matter and it would be interesting to hear the opinions of those who don't visit the politics board.

All of the MPs I've heard speak so far seem to be against it, so I'm expecting the motion to fail.

As for me, I started off from being against, but have moved a little to the point where I think I may actually abstain or vote in favour.

I was against as a result of having worked as a carer. It's a sad fact unfortunately that many families do not care one little bit about their elders. Not at all. Some are very avaricious. That Hilary Spapool-Graspalot, the daughter of Lord Capt Tom being one example. We've all seen or heard the dreadful vultures arguing and squabbling over a deceased person's money and possessions. "She promised ME that clock!" etc. There is nothing worse I think. Some elderly people are very suggestible and do not want to be a burden.

It would be very easy for family and in-laws to subtly put on pressure. "Well it's your decision of course, absolutely. We don't want to pressure you in the least. But it WOULD be easier for Marmaduke and I and there's no real prospect of you getting better, is there? No, you're not a burden in the least. No, no. Never. It's just that things would be a little easier IF you were to make that decision...."

It's not just greed either. You have to see the terrible pressure on someone who has to look after a person with advanced dementia, incontinence or mobility problems. Their life is nothing but looking after the sufferer. There is no free time for themselves. It is a 24 hour job and very unpleasant. A way out must look attractive, however much you loved the person concerned.

I moved more in favour however after hearing about public polls and most especially hearing that those who had lost a parent in such circumstances were even more in favour. Nobody wants to see a loved one in absolute agony and just waiting their final hours. I wouldn't want to be in such circumstances myself. Also, why should rich people be able to fly over to Switzerland or wherever to do the deed, whilst those who don't have the ability to have that option and left without the choice. Although it never happened to me, I do know of several carers who were asked to 'help' seeing someone off. I have been asked by clients whether I think they should do a 'do not resuscitate' notice*.

They say the rules would be the absolute strictest in the world and as long as that is the case, I think at the last minute I'm moved by the arguments and now tend slightly in favour.




* I respond always that if they're asking me, a stranger they barely know, about such things then they can't be 100% sure and so the answer is absolutely NO!

 

I'm in favour in principle. It can't be right that cats and dogs get their suffering ended but we won't afford human beings the same choice.

But I think I've been persuaded now isn't the time. I don't think the NHS, adult social care providers or anyone else in the chain are set up to deliver this properly. Corners will be cut, mistakes will happen, lessons will be learned etc. You can see it a mile off. Plus the Parliamentary debate is being rushed and I'm uneasy with this coming from a private member's bill rather than a government initiative. Sadly we have a long history in this country of dodging proper informed public debate on the big questions. This should be a Royal Commission brought together to hear expert evidence across the board, the government then convening a cross-party forum to propose a legal framework for it and then, probably, a referendum on whether we go ahead with it or not. I'd even write into it that another referendum takes place 10 years later too to confirm it should continue.

 

You raise some good points @Clive_ofthe_Kremlin , but two things, you suggest from your mention of Captain Tom and later Marmaduke, that it's a class thing too. Well you should know that it isn't, no-one likes to see their loved ones in constant pain, and in most cases I reckon it's things like stage 4 cancer or loss of mobility like MND; these conditions know no boundaries to wealth.

The other thing you mention is those with with dementia, it's extremely unlikely those people would be included because they would have to be of sound mind to make the decision for themselves.

Personally I'm on the fence, and like a lot of MPs, it's not a party or class issue, it's going to be an experience issue. Some MPs would have seen loved ones in extreme agony or prolonged loss of dignity and others may not have.

 

Yeah, it's not a class thing I agree. But often large sums of money are involved. I can't say too much about individual cases I cared for, but money and big houses were involved and it was very, very clear that the family did not care in the least about the old person's wellbeing. Sometimes that was why they had a carer in to wipe Mum's bottom - because they couldn't be bothered to do it themselves.

@SkylaRose makes a very valid point about people suffering for no real reason. There's no quality of life whatsoever. I've seen people absolutely abandoned and left lying in bed all day in the big house, with only carers visiting - no family come, even though they live nearby. In interactions with them, it's clear that really they'd very much like the old person to pass on and move into the big house themselves or sell it on.

 

If the right protections are in place then this absolutely needs to be put in place. Watching my mother slowly die from cortico basal disease, which is like parkinsons without the shakes, is horrible for her and for all around her. She has just wanted to die for the last year or so now. Unable to move, unable to speak now, barely able to even move her eyeballs, it's crazy that someone is forced to carry on living like this. In great pain and lying in her own wee and poo for much of the day. We have all known this was coming for 5 or 6 years now. Sure we need the right protections in place, but to continue to ban it is inhumane and will force people to travel to Switzerland while they are still able, and die maybe months before they would otherwise have been able to if a process was legalised in this country.

 

True. A friend of ours lives in a nice road off of Hempstead Road. They had an elderly widower neighbour whose house was run down and had a rusty V reg car on the driveway, our friend said that no-one from the man's family ever visited, not even at Christmas. Carers came and some of the neighbours helped him from time to time even if to just mow the lawn. Eventually the man died, suddenly all of the family descended on the house and were like vultures.

 

90% of the MPs against have a religious angle. They should recuse themselves. You may believe your god has told you to vote against, but don't impose your myths and fairy tales on the rest of us.

 

Agonising read and it's heartbreaking.
Both my parents were taken by forms of cancer. Admittedly the care facilities they went to in their final days were nothing short of magnificent in the care given.
But to see loved ones fade away in pain is unbearable. Even weeks before they left they were wishing they wouldn't wake up. What right has anyone got, not to honour a dying person's wishes. But yes it needs the strictest of guidelines.

 

Yup. I know almost identical cases. As I said previously, it's a bit of a shock to discover that close blood family really couldn't give a shiny sh*t about their mother or father.

And many old people are proud and with strong principles. They can see clearly that they're a burden on their family sometimes. They can see the effect looking after them has on the whole family.

One bloke I looked after, very educated and nice fella. Ex-RAF but a comrade in the political sphere. He had MS and Parkinson's together. His lower half was not working and his upper not much better. He lived with his family - elderly wife, daughters and grandkids sometimes too. He had a special ceiling hoist and every visit (double handed) we had to roll him over manually, tuck the sling in, roll him back the other way, pull the sling through underneath him and them roll him back onto his back. Straps up round the shoulders and the bottom one up between the legs and the 'Bayo' region, attach the clips and away we go into the wheelchair. Then through to the shower or whatever. Had to shave him, get him dressed, make his grub, brush his hair and teeth, give him his grub and some tea, put his watch on - every little thing. He was healthy in the brain, but double farked and progressing worse.

Everything of the family's life was affected by it. It all had to revolve around looking after him. I heard recently he passed, but he still had 4 years maybe, after I stopped looking after him. He of course got depressed and I said before that half the time, the carers are helping psychologically just as much and why 15 mins visits are thus a scandal. He knew very well how much of a burden he was. The care doesn't come cheap either.

He was one of the ones who asked me about a do not resuscitate and I said no. But if that availability of another option were there, a way out, a last gift to the family he loves etc etc, then I could see him and many more like him feeling duty bound to do it. And for me, that is not the right motivation. He still had 4 years left.

But how do you stop those sort of cases, if you want to stop them, and weed them out from those for whom death is a release of a few days or hours only? Where is the line drawn? 3 weeks left? 6 months? 2 years? And how accurately can any doctor say with certainty?

It's those sort of grey areas that make me think it's questionable at least.

 

I think this needs more thought than the proposal placed. The requirements for layers of legal decisions and self termination seem overly complex and in cases impractical.

If a record of wishes can be recorded in a living will with defined thresholds for the decision then a medical practioner trained in the field should be able to determine if the situation meets the thresholds decided upon by the person and with agreement of the registeded LPoA attorneys then the medical practioner should be able to act.
Also the burdon argument would be somewhat negated if we can a coherent joined up social care system.

So for me it's a no as presented, however it's a useful tool to get a proper conversation started and something a little more polished proposed.

 

There was a Select Committee report earlier this year.

It would be unprecedented to have a referendum on an issue of morality like this and I would suggest it would be open to all sorts of misinformation and unpleasant special pleading. No thanks.

 

Absolutely.

 

I agree the issue is how you protect against those feeling morally bound to remove their burden on those around them. It isn't easy. It must involve level of pain/medical diagnosis/mentally able to make the decision/short life expectancy etc but there will always be grey areas and subjectivity over whether death will be 6 months, 18 months etc. When you look at a case like my mother where there was always a clear painful and very unpleasant route to death and a lady whose mental awareness was 100% (still is now, but is unable to communicate her thoughts at all) there has to be a way. She knew what was coming and desperately wanted to avoid it. She begged my sister and I to help her to Switzerland but we selfishly pointed out it was too late for her to get there on her own steam (she was unable to walk by that stage) and we would risk being locked up if we knew/helped.

 

Pretty sure this bill will be voted down, despite the fact that the majority of the public are in favour. Politicians claiming they are acting on behalf of the public, and not is the main reason I don’t vote anymore

 

I'd be happy if I could get a couple of hundred people to put on the list as the first test cases

 

The public might be in favour of the principle but it doesn't follow that this particular way of going about it is necessarily the right one.

 

Unprecedented in the UK but not elsewhere. And I'd argue there's already unpleasant special pleading already from both sides even in this relatively short debate.

I don't see the issue with asking the public to endorse the big questions like this. In fact, I'm suggest referendums lend themselves more to issues of morality than complex legal and economic issues like Brexit.

 

A friend of my wife's got a rare form of leukaemia a number of years ago. She was in her early 30s.

Despite efforts to treat it, there was eventually nothing to be done. She ended her days hospitalized, screaming in agony all day, every say, because the drugs wouldn't touch the pain.

You can't be exposed to something like that and think blocking people from being able to end things on their own terms is morally right. It is cruel torture, nothing more, both on the sick, suffering individual and their family/loved ones.

Hearing someone you care about screaming in agony for days, weeks before they succumb to the inevitable is the kind of insidious horror that haunts you for the rest of your life.

 

But that unpleasant special pleading would be magnified 1000+ x if the public was directly involved. I can’t begin to imagine some of the distressing material which would be circulated on social media, much of it possibly invented.

I would welcome public involvement in some form but I’m really not convinced a referendum is the right mechanism. Fortunately, I suspect governments have been weaned off these for the time being.

 

Of course, all of these things would obviously be in place - essentially this is what the law already requires in making treatment decisions towards end of life.

 

The majority of the public have shown on numerous occasions that can’t be trusted to understand what they are being asked to decide upon or the implications, and can be relied upon to always arrive at the wrong decision. The reason ? Most people are thick.

 

John Redwood. Stanley Johnson. Anne Widdecombe.

 

This should absolutely not be a “government initiative”. That would automatically make it a political issue instead of a moral one. It’s right that MPs will have a free vote but they should be mindful of public opinion. Their job should be to debate whether a policy of assisted dying is workable and that the appropriate safeguards will be in place and effective. If they come to the conclusion that the policy cannot be implemented, they need to make the case and explain to the public why not.

 

For me the vote should be, "Should we propose an assisted dying law?"
If passed a cross bench committee with input from legal & Medical professions should then draft a bill.

 

But that bill would still need to be passed by Parliament, that's how lawmaking works.

I'm sure the existing bill wasn't written on the back of a fag packet. If it passes its Second Reading, it will go to a Public Bill Committee, which can call outside witnesses. Experts in the Lords will also get to comment too.

 

Agreed, but government could set aside some of the time that it is allocated in the parliamentary timetable to allow for more comprehensive debate. That happened with the Abortion Act in 1967, which also started life as a PMB.

 

Out of time to edit my post. The Public Bills Committee is cross-bench.

 

But it is political. No question is solely a moral question. Otherwise where do the resources come from to deliver it once the moral issue is decided upon?

What I really mean though is I'm unsure where Kim Leadbeater's statutory text came from. Presumably an interested party (maybe a charity or pressure group) provided the basis for it? Much better in my opinion if the government set the ball rolling, by identifying this as an issue that needs a solution, and then put in place various cross-party forums for the question to be resolved and the legislation drafted. Government involvement would also mean the various levers the state has available can be used.

@Keighley's comparison with 1967 is interesting but PMBs that pass these days tend to be on far simpler, single-issue topics.

 

The difficulty is that, like Wilson in 1967, I don't think Starmer, right at the start of his term and supposedly highly unpopular with the electorate, will want to risk giving any sort of overt government stamp of approval to the legislation. That said, I don't think it's impossible that another Bill could come forward in a couple of years which was effectively 'planted' by government on a backbencher; at least if this one gets somewhere close to passing tomorrow.

 

It's very difficult and my sister put it to me yesterday. People who have witnessed loved ones in agony and begging for help will always look at this differently from ones who haven't.

 

I said this yesterday with regards to the MPs, those MPs who've experienced this will most likely vote for it.

 

Seems Leadbeater gets to pick the committee members if it passes and the Government maintains its position of not adopting the bill:

https://www.theguardian.com/society...-adopted-as-government-bill-if-it-passes-vote