A most flawed process indeed

[MrGongGong]

Why is this so called "report"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16410118

being given credibility by the BBC and others when it was set up to exclude those who might hold different views at the outset ?
If the terms of the question dictate the answer then whats the point in asking in the first place ?

I could easily find a group of people (they have a society !!) who would insist on the works of Stockhausen being made compulsory listening for all 5 year olds in schools and then present their conclusions as "evidence" !

(actually I spent some of today teaching primary school children about Xenakis so its not a bad idea !)

[scottycelt]

Well, quite ... but both BBC and SKY used the term 'experts' which was the thing that really struck me ...

I've always been suspicious of 'experts' as they invariably seem to turn out to be hopelessly wrong in the end.

I'm so glad and mightily relieved that there are no 'experts' who appear to speak on behalf of the BMA ...

[Lateralthinking1]

Many who have heard the reporting of it will believe it started from a neutral position. As you suggest, Mr GG, it was no more likely to oppose assisted suicide than the Forestry Commission would be expected to advocate the end of trees.

This is the sort of subject which leads to very emotional responses on both sides. The respective arguments are largely predictable. However, a question I would raise is how it might affect the relationship throughout life between GP and patient. I feel that I would want a GP who had opted out of it, if opting out were to be permitted, and if that is entirely irrational so be it.

[MrGongGong]

The problem IMV is that we are completely unable to protect the vulnerable in our society as it is
and we are simply not grown up enough to allow this to happen in the UK
most of us (with the apparent exception of the prime minister ???) who have experience of having disabled children are more than aware of how badly the "system" treats those who are vulnerable so would YOU trust this system ?????

aside from any moral questions which will elicit the well worn arguments

[Lateralthinking1]

No.

I can understand the arguments in favour. I hate the idea of people being in unbearable pain and don't have an answer.

But one of the things I have noticed in areas of social acceptability is how things can shift so very rapidly. Bear in mind that when I worked briefly as a student in a hospital for the mentally ill, many were there for having been unmarried mothers. They were elderly and institutionalized. The year was as recent as 1984. Personally, I could see that kind of thing returning to the US in a bleak year. We believe it could never happen here but what if our politics ever got big time religion?

If someone had said to me then that we would again witness in London the killing of people for allegedly being possessed by the devil, I would have laughed. Now it happens. Dwarf throwing as a sport within a couple of decades of The Elephant Man being made? Never in a million years or so I would have thought. Wrestling on barbed wire and broken glass? Ditto. Children wrestling in a cage in a bar full of drunks? Ditto again. You could add many things to this unfortunate list.

I just feel that any legislation that is introduced needs to take account of the fact that things change for better and worse. We move forwards and we move backwards, often in previously unimaginable ways. The law needs to be safe both for the current times and unknown futures. This wouldn't be. As you say, our society isn't sufficiently firm footed.

[Budapest]

I've always found the fact that it's illegal to commit suicide (the 1961 Suicide Act) rather bizaare. It's effectively saying that the state owns the citizens.

BBC news reporting has been in 'another place' for some time now. The World Service appears to be the only place left in the Beeb where there is still some kind of objectivity.

Assisted suicide, or whatever you want to call it, is a tricky one. Whilst I agree with it in principle it's so hard to codify.

[teamsaint]

Have a night out in a pub somewhere near a medical school.

Then think about the fact that in ten years time just two of these people will have the power to effectively kill you.

Not really good.

[aeolium]

I've always found the fact that it's illegal to commit suicide (the 1961 Suicide Act) rather bizaare. It's effectively saying that the state owns the citizens.

Actually the 1961 Suicide Act decriminalised suicide but created the new offence of assisting someone to commit suicide. Though the idea that the Suicide Act forms part of a trend towards increasing government control over citizens is echoed in this article, which also points out the incoherence of the government's position on assisted suicide.

We now have the strange situation that although it is legal to commit suicide - and around 5700 people did in the UK in various unpleasant and distressing ways - it is not legal to assist someone to commit suicide, even where those who want assistance do so in full knowledge of their condition and understanding (based on medical evidence) of its inevitable degeneration towards a lingering, dependent and humiliating death, and even where those who know and love them support their intention to end their life. The former face difficulty (the cost and probable physical challenges in going to Switzerland), the latter face the possibility of criminal prosecution even following the clarification of the DPP about the legal position of those accompanying people overseas and assisting them to die. You know the law has become something of an ass when the CPS does not initiate prosecutions because it knows that no jury will return a guilty verdict. As the Simon Jenkins article mentions, polls regularly show between 70 and 80% of people are in favour of some change in the law on assisted suicide - almost certainly because they know that they are likely to get old and disabled and may face the same kinds of questions that many people are already currently having to deal with.

Any such legislative change should incorporate the strongest of safeguards. There is surely no supporter of assisted dying who does not want strong protection for the vulnerable, the mentally ill, the disabled, the elderly, and who does not want improved long-term end-of-life care (itself a massive subject) as well as improved research into ameliorating or even curing disabling conditions. But it remains the case that there will be a significant number of people who do not wish to prolong their life if they are suffering a painful, disabling and probably terminal illness which leaves them helpless and in constant dependence. For them there should be a better option than a costly visit to a Swiss clinic (if they can afford it) with the threat of prosecution hanging over their loved ones.

Yes, there is risk to any legislative change. But that in itself is not a reason for ducking the issue. There is risk in driving a car and many people die from car accidents every year yet we do not legislate to outlaw driving - we legislate to regulate it, which is why it is becoming progressively safer in terms of numbers of deaths and accidents. Assisted dying is of course a much more serious matter, and the safeguards must be extremely strict, with the burden of proving a free and mentally competent intention to end life being firmly on the petitioner. That the process would be formal, legal and public would in itself be a strong safeguard. That to me is the 'grown-up' way to proceed, not to treat people as incapable of determining their own destiny.

There will still be some who think, for a variety of different reasons, that 'men must endure their going hence, as their coming hither'. And they should be afforded every protection in following through that principle for themselves. But there are others who think that there really are fates worse than death (and some of them are living them as we are discussing this). For them it is more important to die with dignity at a time of their choosing. I like Mozart's words about death in a letter to his father: "As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relations with this best and truest friend of mankind, that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling!" And that from someone who had so much to live for.

[MrGongGong]

Any such legislative change should incorporate the strongest of safeguards.

I guess these are the same "safeguards" that protected baby P, the residents of Winterbourne View and Victoria Climbie ??

The Terry Pratchets of this world toss out the "of course there will be safeguards" statement in the belief that that deals with protection of vulnerable people but put simply we are not a society able to do this. We are crap at protecting the vulnerable , even more so with this government than before and we weren't any good before !

It's probably fine for the Terry Pratchet's , educated, articulate , well off etc etc but not for the rest of society


(oh and having watched his film last year I would hardly describe the Swiss place as a "clinic" more like a lego house on an industrial estate !!)

[aeolium]

I guess these are the same "safeguards" that protected baby P, the residents of Winterbourne View and Victoria Climbie ??

It's not really comparable - this whole process would take place with formal legal proceedings in the full glare of the public eye, with journalists keen to pick up on any shortcoming.

The Terry Pratchets of this world toss out the "of course there will be safeguards" statement in the belief that that deals with protection of vulnerable people but put simply we are not a society able to do this. We are crap at protecting the vulnerable , even more so with this government than before and we weren't any good before !

I disagree. We are far better at protecting the vulnerable than we were 50 years ago, and that was far better than 50 years earlier. Short of having a kind of Stasi-type police state there is no way that all children can be protected all the time in their own home. But the last century's legislation protecting children, the disabled and the elderly have gone a long way towards improving the situation. It is a counsel of despair to say we cannot legislate because we are hopeless at it.

This issue is not going to go away because there will be increasing numbers of people who simply reject the option (almost the only legal one available at present) of living out their whole life term whatever their condition. I for one will continue to press for a change in the law.

(oh and having watched his film last year I would hardly describe the Swiss place as a "clinic" more like a lego house on an industrial estate !!)

Precisely. All the more reason for not requiring UK citizens to go to those lengths.

[MrGongGong]

It's not really comparable - this whole process would take place with formal legal proceedings in the full glare of the public eye, with journalists keen to pick up on any shortcoming.

That's ok then ?

And there are NEVER mistakes made in formal legal proceedings then ?

you would trust JOURNALISTS ???????????

I don't have the faith in the system that you seem to have

[aeolium]

And there are NEVER mistakes made in formal legal proceedings then ?

Of course there are. But would you abandon existing law or not make any new laws because there may be errors in their enforcement? And public scrutiny would be intense as there are plenty of people who would like to see any new system fail.

I don't have the faith in the system that you seem to have

I don't have faith in the current system, which requires people who wish to end their lives in a humane and dignified way to prolong them for sometimes many years in great distress and against their will. Still, that seems to be OK with you.

[MrGongGong]

I don't have faith in the current system, which requires people who wish to end their lives in a humane and dignified way to prolong them for sometimes many years in great distress and against their will. Still, that seems to be OK with you.

That's where you are completely wrong
It's not OK at all

but that's not the real choice at all

nothing to do with god (or God if that's what you believe )
but more to do with whether it's right for a society to "normalise" killing in this way

I have spent enough time with people who have severe disabilities to know that making this possible would an attack on their rights to life and feel that for once maybe we should consider the most vulnerable FIRST rather than last !
Like I said, for the articulate and well off it seems simple BUT for those who have a completely different experience (or even cognition) its something else.

[aeolium]

but that's not the real choice at all

Then what is the choice for those people - or is it just no choice, to put up with things?

nothing to do with god (or God if that's what you believe )
but more to do with whether it's right for a society to "normalise" killing in this way

I didn't mention god/God. It's nothing to do with normalising killing but extending the legalisation of suicide in the 1961 Act to enable it to happen in a humane way for people with long-term illness or severe physical disability who freely choose it. Killing implies something done to another person - this would be suicide.

making this possible would an attack on their rights to life and feel that for once maybe we should consider the most vulnerable FIRST rather than last !

It would not be an attack on their right to life, and any change in the law would indeed have to consider the vulnerable first. But have you considered that there are people with severe physical disability and/or degenerative disease who do really wish to choose to end their life rather than prolong it? Are these not also vulnerable?

[MrGongGong]

It would not be an attack on their right to life, and any change in the law would indeed have to consider the vulnerable first. But have you considered that there are people with severe physical disability and/or degenerative disease who do really wish to choose to end their life rather than prolong it? Are these not also vulnerable?

yes they are
BUT
we NEVER consider the vulnerable first

"choice" is a minefield

It's quite "normal" at some point in ones life to want to commit suicide , thankfully most people don't go through with it

we have all make conscious and free choices to do things that we later regret (well I have anyway !!) usually they don't involve dying !