Wow, unexpected. Finally some boldness to be humane about end-of-life situations.
I just hope it comes with sensible checks and balances.
this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2024
87 points (98.9% liked)
United Kingdom
4133 readers
137 users here now
General community for news/discussion in the UK.
Less serious posts should go in [email protected] or [email protected]
More serious politics should go in [email protected].
Try not to spam the same link to multiple feddit.uk communities.
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.
Posts should be related to UK-centric news, and should be either a link to a reputable source, or a text post on this community.
Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.
If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread.
Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.
Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
The proposed law is only available to people with a terminal illness judged to have 6 months or less to live, needs to be signed off on by two doctors and a judge, and the patient needs to take the drugs themselves. If anything it's potentially too restrictive, but a step in the right direction.
It usually does. The entire idea is to avoid suffering, not to add to it
The main concern is turning into Canada
Explain?
Canada has gone too far in terms of who is eligible for assisted suicide in many people’s opinions. For example people who are mentally ill are able to request assisted suicide from the state.
I mean mental illness can cause plenty of suffering so I don't see why it should be excluded. As long as that person can give fully informed consent the same as other conditions.
So why do we have suicide hotlines, then?
Suicide is not assisted, leaves a mess for those that discover a corpse, EMT's and others to clean up. Someone's suffering might end when they jump in front of a train but the train driver's suffering only just begins at that point.
Suicide is often an unmanaged, chaotic process which causes trauma. It also often fails whilst leaving those that attempt it in bad physical shape. A law like this reduces the necessity of discussing, normalizing or enabling suicide because there is a safe and properly counseled path out of a no-win situation for those that truly need it. A policy on containment when there are probably household cleaners that could do the job effectively with a small amount of chemistry knowledge is absolutely insane - and if someone truly is in that much pain, they'll find a way. Families and loved ones also have time to work through grief and loss rather than getting the wind knocked out of them when they hear the news.
The fact that we've hit a point where we can even have a discussion about this is probably something that should be celebrated, rather than being so totalitarian and controlling that we effectively force people to live even when they're in enormous pain.
So the problem with suicide isn't people taking their own life, but the mess they leave behind? How heartless is this attitude?
I'd hoped nobody would come to the conclusion that was the core argument, but it is a consideration.
And I would like to draw attention to the totalitarian nature of our attitudes towards suicide. It's been enforced heartlessly for a very long time - if you commit suicide, you'll go someplace worse. It's this, it's that. All ultimately to remove the last escape for people who are in some form of extreme physical, mental, emotional or existential pain to the point where they don't believe there's another solution.
I'd sooner discuss why we have those attitudes - maybe it's so we get a free pass to be extractive and shitty whilst simultaneously denying the people we abuse even the dignity of leaving on their own terms.
So we're better letting people kill themselves than help them?
I don't think anyone could look at the evidence and come to a different conclusion, honestly.
There was a case like that somewhere in Europe earlier this year. I think it was in the Netherlands, but it was a young woman who had numerous mental health issues that were causing her real suffering and she would probably have done the deed herself at some point.
It was only about the second time it had been approved, and required a lot of time and numerous doctors to sign off on their being nothing they could do to help her professionally.
It made me feel quite uncomfortable, but then thinking about it logically she met all of the criteria, the only real question was about confirming she knew what she was doing.
Well that seems like a bad idea
Person,: "I'm suffering paranoid delusions that the state is out to get me and want to end my life!"
The state: "well, we'll be happy to help.."
Yeah it's the so-called slippery slope argument people are making that countries which have legalised assisted dying so far have tended towards making increasingly more people eligible over time.
Conflicted on that tbh. Slippery slope is one of the classic logical fallacies but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't happen.
Except this is nothing like the procedure Canada has in place.
People seeking this out need to be terminally ill with less than 6 months to live, it needs to be approved by two doctors and a judge, I believe it has to be brought up by the patient, etc.
As an American, it is truly appalling to see MAGA Republicans on social media try to dig their nose into UK politics now. Many British were in favor of this bill, and MAGA Republicans are now calling the country satanic. I applaud the bill and hope it helps those who need it.
Helping other people is a really difficult concept for the Make America Gilead Again cultists. I’m glad there’s still some of you with your heads on the right way.
Meanwhile women are bleeding to death and dying slow and painful deaths from sepsis because of maga laws, butt dying with dignity without suffering is satanic
I couldn't care less what they think of us to be honest.
This is an amazing change. I've seen way too many people suffering in a way that before my previous job, I couldn't have even begun to imagine. People in agony begging to die but being forced to live.
People that would get a few hours of interrupted sleep a day, and then spend 20 hours of the day awake living in excruciating pain, begging us to covertly put them out of their misery.
Setting the moral discussion aside. I think Starmer will be worried that this will define his first term and absorb his ministers’ bandwidth as it is being implemented. He would have wanted to focus on the economy and his plans for “rebuilding” but that will get less oxygen in the media now.
Wait, you can get assisted death after losing an emotional debate? Or can the winner also partake?
Welcomed but let's see how this progresses over the next two years before it becomes law.