„Ich beschuldige meine Frau nicht, ihr Leben beendet zu haben.“

Case by case, I’m always in favour. But any time some rule gets momentum its exploited.

Here are my broad rules:

**As long** as a person can say in front of a court that they wish to, and are judged **not to be coerced**, **impaired** and of **sound mind and mental wellness outside of the cause**, I’m for it.

Those are strict rules that sadly will trap some people in hell. If you’re unable to say it, you can’t, if you were previously mentally unwell with ideation, you cant. If you’re in agony but insane, you can’t.

Horrors I’ve just described. But if there’s any wiggle room, UK is a big population, over the years, thousands of people will coerce or speak for someone into doing it maliciously to their own end.

You can find thousands of examples on any kind of protective or decision personal laws. Those laws need to be broad and vague, I think end of life while terminally ill needs to be narrow enough to push for court a lot of the time.

I haven’t seen a single good argument against a well-thought out implementation of assisted suicide, where it is known that the individual has not been coerced in any way, has what is considered to be a legitimate reason to want it (last resort, terminal illness, etc.) and is of sound enough mind to want it. I can’t think of any reason why it should be illegal in such cases.

‘I don’t blame m/y wife for ending her life either’! It’s been over five years now since she passed away, and whilst the death certificate gave the cause of death as pneumonia my wife knew she had reached her end and wanted to stop fighting the unbearable pain her illness and disability caused her 24/7. The issue of having to watch her take over four months to make it happen however, is something that I still struggle with at times, and some form of legal assisted dying would have saved her a lot of unnecessary pain and anguish once she had determined her course of action. I was against it on principle but having listened to her state her intentions and the reasoning behind her decision came around to accepting what was, rightfully, her choice. She had to refuse food and treatment and constant pressure from well meaning family, friends and staff both in hospital and the Nursing Home and, whilst she could have ‘recovered’ from any one of the long list of ailments and come home there was no prospect of her having much in the way of ‘quality of life’ so she chose to stop fighting the inevitable.

The issue I still struggle over with any implementation of assisted suicide/dying is with the capacity of the individual to choose versus the dangers of coercion and it becoming a form of l state legalised euthanasia. The terminology is also problematic as assisting someone to kill themselves is wrong in law whereas helping someone perform their final act of self determination is altogether a different story, or should be to save others from being prosecuted. My brother chose to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff many years ago, the balance of his mind may have been ‘disturbed’ but nobody else was involved, was my wife choosing to end her suffering also a suicide in the same manner? Should anyone be guilty of a crime for not persuading her to continue the struggle or for not treating her medically, against her wishes? I ‘blame’ my brother for his choice as I’ve seen the damage caused by his action whereas I respect the decision my wife made, is that not somewhat hypocritical?

I cannot see there being any foolproof way of allowing for assisted dying and even with rigorous checks and balances, on a case by case basis, there will inevitably be errors made so there has to be accountability.