So, she is worried about scope creep. But how can anyone argue against giving someone the ability not to suffer a slow lingering death and it should be easy to legislate for terminal cases and nothing else.
WannaLawya on
The problem with the assisted dying debate is that there are far too many people who are able-bodied who have no first-hand or close-up experience of disability or terminal illness who are calling for assisted dying to be legalised so that they can justify their belief that disabled people are worth less than able-bodied people and can justify wanting them dead.
The entire debate is swayed and swung by these people under the guise of “personal choice”. It’s just not that simple a debate to have. I truly believe that anyone who has an absolute opinion on this debate without having lived it themselves (i.e. they’re severely disabled/terminal or someone they’re very, very close to is/was) then they’re simply ignorant to the ridiculous number of conflicting issues on each side.
HauntedFurniture on
Euthanasia should, in theory, be an ethically and legally simple issue. But over the past few years it seems like Canada has been on a mission to take all worst slippery slope arguments of anti-euthanasia advocates and make them a reality.
Carr’s concerns are completely valid given that our own government shows an even greater propensity than the Canadian government to treat disabled people as disposable.
bareted on
Until I heard her speak, I hadn’t thought of the financial side of this. People facing huge medical/ caring bills could become a deciding factor, especially as health care becomes more and more privatised. That is indeed something to consider.
Mindless_Pride8976 on
I get the actress’s point and I think the concerns about people feeling like a burden and scope creep are valid ones (even though I do support it ultimately, as long as it’s done properly), but:
*”Apart from the fact I don’t have the desire, I think probably I would be eligible [for assisted dying] under Canadian law,” Carr suggests to Dr Wiebe.*
*Dr Wiebe doesn’t disagree – though she does tell Carr she would have to convince her she was “suffering unbearably” in order to be given a cocktail of drugs to end her life.*
Surely Dr Wiebe is disagreeing, because Carr would have to convince her that she’s suffering unbearably. As she clearly is not, she is not eligible for assisted dying.
I wish the article had included the actual discussion between Carr and Melanie Reid (a tetraplegic journalist who is in support of it), instead of just saying that they talked about it. It would be interesting to see how both responded to the other’s perspective.
[deleted] on
[deleted]
Trudi1201 on
My brother had MS, he was completely dependent on others for everything. About 6 years before he died he started refusing food and water.
The home he lived in called in a psychiatrist to assess him and he said my brother didn’t want to live anymore, he knew that he would only get worse and wanted to end his suffering.
Because of the legality he ended up with a feeding tube and suffered for another 6 years.
I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
There has to be a way to allow freedom of choice along with protecting the vulnerable.
jim_jones_87 on
There are a cohort of people whether assisted dying is the kindest thing to do. There does, however, need to be strong controls in place to prevent the criteria becoming too broad, i.e. like in Canada where being poor / homeless is considered a valid reason.
aFoxyFoxtrot on
People so squeamish about death they’d rather people suffer at end of life, and also stay out of sight. IMO it should be a human right to a dignified peaceful death.
fantasy53 on
I completely agree with her, in an ideal world. People would be allowed to make that choice, but I think there should be a lot of therapy and additional support given to people before they make that choice because it’s a very permanent solution and we need to ensure that it is what the person wants, and that they’re not being coerced by family, who see them as a burden.
Given the rising cost of medical treatment and the increased waiting lists, I can easily imagine someone might consider this to be an option when previously they would not have.
Since I don’t think this additional therapy is going to appear, health services are already over burden as it is, and I can’t see there being any major appetite for funding this, it’s far too dangerous to allow these proposals to go ahead.
Kenzie-Oh08 on
Read or watch “Johnny Got his Gun” if you don’t support assisted dying
Worried-Might-6355 on
Assisted dying isn’t just for disabilities, it’s for terminal illness too which is completely different. She’s entitled to an opinion but her situation is different than it is for someone who has MND and a few years max to live with awful symptoms.
al3442 on
I certainly wouldn’t brush off her concerns, but I think people who are suffering intolerably do need this option. I can only hope that enough safeguards are put in place when this law inevitably comes in.
Moiukal on
Why is it even a fucking debate, it’s so fucking daft that there needs to be a debate over this
Antique_Loss_1168 on
I mean debating this while also trying to push loads of people off pip ain’t exactly fucking subtle.
Top_Sweet34 on
So, we’re factory farming humans now, huh? I think more men will choose death. Women have inherent value whilst men don’t. As a result, men without much value will default to this. In this increasingly difficult world, it’s getting harder for a man to generate value.
My “hypothesis” is based on what happens to chicks in factory farming. The male chicks are macerated whilst the female ones are kept.
Sorry to be so bleak and dark.
(Please give me some hope)
Efficient-Daikon495 on
>The not too distant future
Citizen: Your social media post critical of the government has flagged you as mentally ill. You have automatically been prescribed appropriate treatment. Please stand by while a euthanasia drone does the needful.
dyinginsect on
I am terrified of dying like my nana did
I am terrified of watching anyone else die like that
There has to be a way that we can give people their dignity and alleviate the horrible suffering of some of the deaths that happen now without making reality of the very understandable and genuine fears Liz has
Enigma1984 on
>”Patients will say to me: ‘I don’t want to go to a care home really, but I know my family want me to do it and I know it will be easier for them so I think I’m going to say yes’,” Dr Sleeman explains.
>”Substitute the words ‘go to a care home’ with ‘have an assisted death’ and I think it’s a completely different picture.”
This is the worrying part for me. How many people will not want to make a fuss and do what they think will be easier for their loved ones. Or worse, be pressured by those same loved ones to go earlier than they needed to because it will save on costs or hassle.
AxiosXiphos on
If we don’t even have the right to decide if we should stay **alive** or not – then we are all prisoners.
WoodyTSE on
Is this an issue in any country where it is legalised? It’s not like we’d be leading the way in any capacity with this.
Ticklishchap on
I have seen the effects of dementia first on my father, who died aged 91, and now on my mother, who is 89 and reduced to a caricature or distorted version of herself, often confused and frightened. She has no short term memory and, for some reason, constantly repeats the tragi-comic question: “When is there going to be an election?” Worse still, she has moments of lucidity when she says “I want to be dead”. My partner and I look after her as best we can; we are also able to employ a carer and she seems to like him a lot. I shudder to think what it is like for people with dementia who do not have a support network and/or savings.
People who talk breezily about “living with dementia” are cruel and sentimental “do-gooders”. Having seen what it does, I would like to have the chance to plan a dignified exit if I develop these symptoms. I would detest losing my memory, detest even more depending on carers and detest most of all being a cause of pain and grief to my partner and my friends.
I hope that the law will change so that we can plan ahead to avoid this most horrible of all fates.
Kijamon on
This is terrifying for me. Every time we come up with a reasonable debate in this country we have people who take it to the wildest extremes possible to shut it down like we’re not capable of having laws or decisions that protect people. Do you have a terminal illness? Yes? Will it lead to a painful death? Yes? Would you like to pick a time to end your own life? Yes? Okay then we can do that for you. Anything else is hand wringing, objective blocking, torture.
I watched my mum writhe in agony while she died as cancer choked her throat and lungs. She looked like a wild animal at times, terrified of what was happening to her that she couldn’t understand. She was kept going because that’s what we do to people but if she’d been a cat we’d have seen her off weeks before. Anyone who has seen their loved one die like that wouldn’t wish it on their worst enemy.
To just have a flat “we can’t do it because some people might abuse it” guts me to my core. I wish I’d asked my mum if she wanted me to help her pass on, I just wasn’t brave enough to do it on that night because what if she had fought me over it. Would I even have been brave enough to have done it if she had asked? Someone was very kind last time I posted this and said perhaps I wouldn’t have done it so I’d have the what if’s no matter what.
I’ve become something I normally don’t like in a person, my vote is decided by the candidate that backs this to become a thing in this country.
bananablegh on
> “Apart from the fact I don’t have the desire, I think probably I would be eligible [for assisted dying] under Canadian law,” Carr suggests to Dr Wiebe.
Dr Wiebe doesn’t disagree – though she does tell Carr she would have to convince her she was “suffering unbearably” in order to be given a cocktail of drugs to end her life.
Is she suffering unbearably? No? Then I don’t see the problem.
Tired of people derailing this discussion. The absence of assisted dying is impossibly cruel and I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
We are more than capable of creating a system in which assisted dying is only available for those who truly need it. For goodness sake.
Papiluff on
It’s eugenics, plain and simple. I shudder to think what would have happened to me just 3 years ago if I had access to this shite. I’d rather resources were spent on helping us live rather than making our lives as miserable as possible and then offering this way out.
smalltownbore on
There are lots of people saying they should have the right to die, after seeing loved ones dying perhaps. However, as a nurse I have worked with many families where the needs or dignity of the patient are considered far less than the potential inheritance. In some jobs I’ve done, the vast majority of relatives were just waiting for their payout. Sometimes they would be upfront about it, but often the agenda was unspoken but obvious in the decision making. Elderly parents need several care visits a day but they’ll have to self fund? They can cope with two visits a week then. Older relative in hospital needs a care home but will have to self fund? No care home is quite right, so the patient stays in hospital becoming frailer and catching hospital acquired infections.
Even the kindest person could be tempted by changes in the law. Relatives often have unrealistic expectations of just how much care frail older people require, and how difficult they can become.
I think the old system, which certainly helped see one of my relatives off when he was dying of cancer, of giving hefty doses of morphine etc as the end drew near was the kindest. Unfortunately thanks to Shipman, those days are gone.
I do have strong concerns about introducing euthanasia when health and social care systems are struggling staff wise and financially, even without the issue of grasping or exhausted relatives. I’m seeing care needs ignored or downgraded by inexperienced staff daily now. We saw the Liverpool care pathway, which could be a kind of passive euthanasia, being really misused by healthcare services.
existentialgoof on
None of us consented to being born, and life is full of harms and burdens. Therefore, the right to die should be among the most fundamental rights that we have. Unfortunately, the nanny state that we live under won’t just allow people to have access to effective and humane suicide methods through other channels such as private companies or charities; and therefore the only way of accessing such methods is by appealing to the NHS for them.
Withholding the means of dying by a combination of making these unavailable privately and refusing to provide them through the health service simply shouldn’t be an acceptable option in a supposedly secular country that claims to value individual rights. It isn’t a positive privilege that we’re not being afforded; but an ongoing violation of our negative liberty rights, as without a risk-free and humane way of dying (for whatever reason one sees fit), the suffering of life is being enforced on us. We therefore have a de facto obligation to live and suffer. We are therefore slaves, to all intents and purposes.
Because the current status quo is not simply a refusal to provide a positive right, but an infringement upon our negative liberty rights; the arguments for ‘protecting the vulnerable’ don’t cut any ice here, because you can’t justify actively inflicting suffering on peaceful individuals by the need to make others feel more protected or more valued (or at least, we shouldn’t be trying to justify this).
ReV_VAdAUL on
The thought of living with dementia or other painful terminal illnesses is very scary and a compelling argument in favour of euthanasia.
But for disabled people who’ve seen the misery and death inflicted by austerity and know of the DNRs given to disabled people without their consent during COVID it is also very scary what a euthanasia law could be used for. Especially when saving money on welfare is a cross party consensus.
It seems that quite a lot of people can envision getting dementia etc but can’t envision becoming disabled so they disregard arguments about the risks or even get angry that potential future suffering is being imposed upon them by disabled people. But anyone can become disabled and the only way we will get the robust protections that proponents of euthanasia take for granted is if potential victims of abuse of it speak up and secure those protections for all of us.
idontlikepeas_ on
We let people legally drive knowing that some people will die.
Same same paraglide.
…. Fly
… drink wine
… take baths
Some people will slip through the safety nets. That does not mean we let thousands or millions suffer to avoid it,
Hack_Shuck on
As a learning-disabled man who is very trusting and naiive, I too am terrified that many people like me will be coerced into assisted dying. I have been conned out of my life savings twice (the second time by a friend), I need help managing my life, I follow bad people down the street simply because they say “come with me” and I end up in dangerous situations.
I am not saying that assisted dying should never be an option, I am saying that it will be abused in order to kill “inconvenient” people, and inherit their assets.
Several people are shutting down debate on this by simply saying “safeguards need to be in place” without stating what those safeguards would be or how they would practically operate.
I could definitely see myseld being talked into assisted suicide, against my will. Please do not brush this aside.
Nicktrains22 on
Honestly I know many people fear dementia and the like, but the history of euthanasia? It sickens me. I would only tolerate it under the tightest of scrutiny. People decrying the pro- life people as putting forth a slippery slope fallacy ignore that the abuses that they warn against have already happened in history, and it’s sheer complacency to assume that in the modern world those abuses won’t happen again. I’m specifically thinking of aktion T4, and the euthanasia society of America (eugenics). Even in our own country, just a few years ago you had people being put on the Liverpool Care Pathway without their or their families consent or knowledge. Someone else mentioned that in the past doctors would overdose their patients with morphine, such as in the case of George V, also done without consent or knowledge by the way, but that practice ended following shipman, which isn’t the greatest endorsement.
NeverendingStory3339 on
The thing about the argument that people might be coerced or pressured into euthanasia is that it’s not a problem with euthanasia. It’s a problem of abusive families, lack of resources, issues in society, greed, isolation… I could go on. Our survival instinct is pretty much the strongest instinct we have.
Mijkojan on
Denying others the right to AD should be seen as ableism in itself. Being disabled doesn’t automatically provide insight into the lives of all other disabled people. Not everybody is fortunate enough to have a life worth living. Sad but unfortunately true.
33 Comments
So, she is worried about scope creep. But how can anyone argue against giving someone the ability not to suffer a slow lingering death and it should be easy to legislate for terminal cases and nothing else.
The problem with the assisted dying debate is that there are far too many people who are able-bodied who have no first-hand or close-up experience of disability or terminal illness who are calling for assisted dying to be legalised so that they can justify their belief that disabled people are worth less than able-bodied people and can justify wanting them dead.
The entire debate is swayed and swung by these people under the guise of “personal choice”. It’s just not that simple a debate to have. I truly believe that anyone who has an absolute opinion on this debate without having lived it themselves (i.e. they’re severely disabled/terminal or someone they’re very, very close to is/was) then they’re simply ignorant to the ridiculous number of conflicting issues on each side.
Euthanasia should, in theory, be an ethically and legally simple issue. But over the past few years it seems like Canada has been on a mission to take all worst slippery slope arguments of anti-euthanasia advocates and make them a reality.
Carr’s concerns are completely valid given that our own government shows an even greater propensity than the Canadian government to treat disabled people as disposable.
Until I heard her speak, I hadn’t thought of the financial side of this. People facing huge medical/ caring bills could become a deciding factor, especially as health care becomes more and more privatised. That is indeed something to consider.
I get the actress’s point and I think the concerns about people feeling like a burden and scope creep are valid ones (even though I do support it ultimately, as long as it’s done properly), but:
*”Apart from the fact I don’t have the desire, I think probably I would be eligible [for assisted dying] under Canadian law,” Carr suggests to Dr Wiebe.*
*Dr Wiebe doesn’t disagree – though she does tell Carr she would have to convince her she was “suffering unbearably” in order to be given a cocktail of drugs to end her life.*
Surely Dr Wiebe is disagreeing, because Carr would have to convince her that she’s suffering unbearably. As she clearly is not, she is not eligible for assisted dying.
I wish the article had included the actual discussion between Carr and Melanie Reid (a tetraplegic journalist who is in support of it), instead of just saying that they talked about it. It would be interesting to see how both responded to the other’s perspective.
[deleted]
My brother had MS, he was completely dependent on others for everything. About 6 years before he died he started refusing food and water.
The home he lived in called in a psychiatrist to assess him and he said my brother didn’t want to live anymore, he knew that he would only get worse and wanted to end his suffering.
Because of the legality he ended up with a feeding tube and suffered for another 6 years.
I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
There has to be a way to allow freedom of choice along with protecting the vulnerable.
There are a cohort of people whether assisted dying is the kindest thing to do. There does, however, need to be strong controls in place to prevent the criteria becoming too broad, i.e. like in Canada where being poor / homeless is considered a valid reason.
People so squeamish about death they’d rather people suffer at end of life, and also stay out of sight. IMO it should be a human right to a dignified peaceful death.
I completely agree with her, in an ideal world. People would be allowed to make that choice, but I think there should be a lot of therapy and additional support given to people before they make that choice because it’s a very permanent solution and we need to ensure that it is what the person wants, and that they’re not being coerced by family, who see them as a burden.
Given the rising cost of medical treatment and the increased waiting lists, I can easily imagine someone might consider this to be an option when previously they would not have.
Since I don’t think this additional therapy is going to appear, health services are already over burden as it is, and I can’t see there being any major appetite for funding this, it’s far too dangerous to allow these proposals to go ahead.
Read or watch “Johnny Got his Gun” if you don’t support assisted dying
Assisted dying isn’t just for disabilities, it’s for terminal illness too which is completely different. She’s entitled to an opinion but her situation is different than it is for someone who has MND and a few years max to live with awful symptoms.
I certainly wouldn’t brush off her concerns, but I think people who are suffering intolerably do need this option. I can only hope that enough safeguards are put in place when this law inevitably comes in.
Why is it even a fucking debate, it’s so fucking daft that there needs to be a debate over this
I mean debating this while also trying to push loads of people off pip ain’t exactly fucking subtle.
So, we’re factory farming humans now, huh? I think more men will choose death. Women have inherent value whilst men don’t. As a result, men without much value will default to this. In this increasingly difficult world, it’s getting harder for a man to generate value.
My “hypothesis” is based on what happens to chicks in factory farming. The male chicks are macerated whilst the female ones are kept.
Sorry to be so bleak and dark.
(Please give me some hope)
>The not too distant future
Citizen: Your social media post critical of the government has flagged you as mentally ill. You have automatically been prescribed appropriate treatment. Please stand by while a euthanasia drone does the needful.
I am terrified of dying like my nana did
I am terrified of watching anyone else die like that
There has to be a way that we can give people their dignity and alleviate the horrible suffering of some of the deaths that happen now without making reality of the very understandable and genuine fears Liz has
>”Patients will say to me: ‘I don’t want to go to a care home really, but I know my family want me to do it and I know it will be easier for them so I think I’m going to say yes’,” Dr Sleeman explains.
>”Substitute the words ‘go to a care home’ with ‘have an assisted death’ and I think it’s a completely different picture.”
This is the worrying part for me. How many people will not want to make a fuss and do what they think will be easier for their loved ones. Or worse, be pressured by those same loved ones to go earlier than they needed to because it will save on costs or hassle.
If we don’t even have the right to decide if we should stay **alive** or not – then we are all prisoners.
Is this an issue in any country where it is legalised? It’s not like we’d be leading the way in any capacity with this.
I have seen the effects of dementia first on my father, who died aged 91, and now on my mother, who is 89 and reduced to a caricature or distorted version of herself, often confused and frightened. She has no short term memory and, for some reason, constantly repeats the tragi-comic question: “When is there going to be an election?” Worse still, she has moments of lucidity when she says “I want to be dead”. My partner and I look after her as best we can; we are also able to employ a carer and she seems to like him a lot. I shudder to think what it is like for people with dementia who do not have a support network and/or savings.
People who talk breezily about “living with dementia” are cruel and sentimental “do-gooders”. Having seen what it does, I would like to have the chance to plan a dignified exit if I develop these symptoms. I would detest losing my memory, detest even more depending on carers and detest most of all being a cause of pain and grief to my partner and my friends.
I hope that the law will change so that we can plan ahead to avoid this most horrible of all fates.
This is terrifying for me. Every time we come up with a reasonable debate in this country we have people who take it to the wildest extremes possible to shut it down like we’re not capable of having laws or decisions that protect people. Do you have a terminal illness? Yes? Will it lead to a painful death? Yes? Would you like to pick a time to end your own life? Yes? Okay then we can do that for you. Anything else is hand wringing, objective blocking, torture.
I watched my mum writhe in agony while she died as cancer choked her throat and lungs. She looked like a wild animal at times, terrified of what was happening to her that she couldn’t understand. She was kept going because that’s what we do to people but if she’d been a cat we’d have seen her off weeks before. Anyone who has seen their loved one die like that wouldn’t wish it on their worst enemy.
To just have a flat “we can’t do it because some people might abuse it” guts me to my core. I wish I’d asked my mum if she wanted me to help her pass on, I just wasn’t brave enough to do it on that night because what if she had fought me over it. Would I even have been brave enough to have done it if she had asked? Someone was very kind last time I posted this and said perhaps I wouldn’t have done it so I’d have the what if’s no matter what.
I’ve become something I normally don’t like in a person, my vote is decided by the candidate that backs this to become a thing in this country.
> “Apart from the fact I don’t have the desire, I think probably I would be eligible [for assisted dying] under Canadian law,” Carr suggests to Dr Wiebe.
Dr Wiebe doesn’t disagree – though she does tell Carr she would have to convince her she was “suffering unbearably” in order to be given a cocktail of drugs to end her life.
Is she suffering unbearably? No? Then I don’t see the problem.
Tired of people derailing this discussion. The absence of assisted dying is impossibly cruel and I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
We are more than capable of creating a system in which assisted dying is only available for those who truly need it. For goodness sake.
It’s eugenics, plain and simple. I shudder to think what would have happened to me just 3 years ago if I had access to this shite. I’d rather resources were spent on helping us live rather than making our lives as miserable as possible and then offering this way out.
There are lots of people saying they should have the right to die, after seeing loved ones dying perhaps. However, as a nurse I have worked with many families where the needs or dignity of the patient are considered far less than the potential inheritance. In some jobs I’ve done, the vast majority of relatives were just waiting for their payout. Sometimes they would be upfront about it, but often the agenda was unspoken but obvious in the decision making. Elderly parents need several care visits a day but they’ll have to self fund? They can cope with two visits a week then. Older relative in hospital needs a care home but will have to self fund? No care home is quite right, so the patient stays in hospital becoming frailer and catching hospital acquired infections.
Even the kindest person could be tempted by changes in the law. Relatives often have unrealistic expectations of just how much care frail older people require, and how difficult they can become.
I think the old system, which certainly helped see one of my relatives off when he was dying of cancer, of giving hefty doses of morphine etc as the end drew near was the kindest. Unfortunately thanks to Shipman, those days are gone.
I do have strong concerns about introducing euthanasia when health and social care systems are struggling staff wise and financially, even without the issue of grasping or exhausted relatives. I’m seeing care needs ignored or downgraded by inexperienced staff daily now. We saw the Liverpool care pathway, which could be a kind of passive euthanasia, being really misused by healthcare services.
None of us consented to being born, and life is full of harms and burdens. Therefore, the right to die should be among the most fundamental rights that we have. Unfortunately, the nanny state that we live under won’t just allow people to have access to effective and humane suicide methods through other channels such as private companies or charities; and therefore the only way of accessing such methods is by appealing to the NHS for them.
Withholding the means of dying by a combination of making these unavailable privately and refusing to provide them through the health service simply shouldn’t be an acceptable option in a supposedly secular country that claims to value individual rights. It isn’t a positive privilege that we’re not being afforded; but an ongoing violation of our negative liberty rights, as without a risk-free and humane way of dying (for whatever reason one sees fit), the suffering of life is being enforced on us. We therefore have a de facto obligation to live and suffer. We are therefore slaves, to all intents and purposes.
Because the current status quo is not simply a refusal to provide a positive right, but an infringement upon our negative liberty rights; the arguments for ‘protecting the vulnerable’ don’t cut any ice here, because you can’t justify actively inflicting suffering on peaceful individuals by the need to make others feel more protected or more valued (or at least, we shouldn’t be trying to justify this).
The thought of living with dementia or other painful terminal illnesses is very scary and a compelling argument in favour of euthanasia.
But for disabled people who’ve seen the misery and death inflicted by austerity and know of the DNRs given to disabled people without their consent during COVID it is also very scary what a euthanasia law could be used for. Especially when saving money on welfare is a cross party consensus.
It seems that quite a lot of people can envision getting dementia etc but can’t envision becoming disabled so they disregard arguments about the risks or even get angry that potential future suffering is being imposed upon them by disabled people. But anyone can become disabled and the only way we will get the robust protections that proponents of euthanasia take for granted is if potential victims of abuse of it speak up and secure those protections for all of us.
We let people legally drive knowing that some people will die.
Same same paraglide.
…. Fly
… drink wine
… take baths
Some people will slip through the safety nets. That does not mean we let thousands or millions suffer to avoid it,
As a learning-disabled man who is very trusting and naiive, I too am terrified that many people like me will be coerced into assisted dying. I have been conned out of my life savings twice (the second time by a friend), I need help managing my life, I follow bad people down the street simply because they say “come with me” and I end up in dangerous situations.
I am not saying that assisted dying should never be an option, I am saying that it will be abused in order to kill “inconvenient” people, and inherit their assets.
Several people are shutting down debate on this by simply saying “safeguards need to be in place” without stating what those safeguards would be or how they would practically operate.
I could definitely see myseld being talked into assisted suicide, against my will. Please do not brush this aside.
Honestly I know many people fear dementia and the like, but the history of euthanasia? It sickens me. I would only tolerate it under the tightest of scrutiny. People decrying the pro- life people as putting forth a slippery slope fallacy ignore that the abuses that they warn against have already happened in history, and it’s sheer complacency to assume that in the modern world those abuses won’t happen again. I’m specifically thinking of aktion T4, and the euthanasia society of America (eugenics). Even in our own country, just a few years ago you had people being put on the Liverpool Care Pathway without their or their families consent or knowledge. Someone else mentioned that in the past doctors would overdose their patients with morphine, such as in the case of George V, also done without consent or knowledge by the way, but that practice ended following shipman, which isn’t the greatest endorsement.
The thing about the argument that people might be coerced or pressured into euthanasia is that it’s not a problem with euthanasia. It’s a problem of abusive families, lack of resources, issues in society, greed, isolation… I could go on. Our survival instinct is pretty much the strongest instinct we have.
Denying others the right to AD should be seen as ableism in itself. Being disabled doesn’t automatically provide insight into the lives of all other disabled people. Not everybody is fortunate enough to have a life worth living. Sad but unfortunately true.