UK Right to die bill

[TC]

This isn't a traditional 'discrimination' topic, but its a social issue that applies to personal rights for a minority group (in this case, terminally ill patients) so i thought this would be the most appropriate place to put it

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BBC
Friday, 12 May 2006, 14:44 GMT 15:44 UK
Peers are deeply divided over a controversial bill which would allow terminally ill people to be helped to die by physicians

Lord Joffe's bill would apply to those in England and Wales set to die within six months and suffering unbearably, but still able to make decisions.

He told the Lords patients should not have to endure unbearable pain "for the good of society as a whole".

But Lord Carlile said the bill would end with doctors giving lethal drugs.

The Lib Dem peer said: "Everybody in your Lordships' house knows that those who are moving this bill have the clear intention of it leading to voluntary euthanasia.

"That has always been the aim and it remains the aim now."

The bill proposes that after signing a legal declaration that they wanted to die, patients could be prescribed a lethal dose of medication to take.

The bill is not likely to become law, but 90 peers are due to speak on it.

The debate highlights divisions between supporters of the right to die and those who want better palliative care.

Lady Finlay, a professor in palliative care told the house: "In letting this bill proceed, we give a message to the world that we will abandon the vulnerable and treat suffering by ending the sufferer's life.

"Let us get on with working for patients to live as well as possible until a naturally dignified death, not taken up with becoming complicit with suicide."
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(Full article: here)

When i first read this i thought it was a fairly simple, cut and dry issue: people should have an absolute right to do what they want with their own bodies; the people likely to oppose this are the same creepy religious rightests who like opposing all sorts of civil liberties.

However, while i think i would still support decriminalizing assisted suicide, i thought that some of the arguments presented here: http://www.carenotkilling.org.uk/?show=195 were, if not persuasive, at least very compelling:

"Requests for euthanasia and assisted suicide are extremely rare when patients’ needs, including physical, social, psychological and spiritual needs, are properly met. Therefore we believe that our key priority should be to build on the excellent tradition of palliative care that we have in this country and make palliative care more readily accessible to all who need it. We believe we need to get rid of the postcode lottery of palliative care in this country and promote care rather than killing. The vast majority of people dying in the UK, even from diseases like motor neurone disease (from which 1,000 people die every year in the UK, in the main comfortably with good palliative care) do not want euthanasia or assisted suicide. The very small numbers of high profile cases of assisted suicide, which are regularly and repeatedly highlighted in the media, are well-publicised exceptions to the rule. The real question is therefore whether we should change the law for a very small number of people who are strongly determined to end their lives. We believe that to do so would place the lives of a much larger number of vulnerable people in danger and mean that pressure, whether real or imagined, is felt by sick, disabled and elderly people to request early death."


Given that the health care industry frequently sacrifices patient interests for financial reasons, and will make treatment recomendations based on reducing costs, it could be argued that giving doctors a cost-saving option of assisted suicide that might lead to pressure on already severely compromized individuals to opt for it rather than more expensive pallative care (especially as, from an outside perspective, if the difference was a matter of months or weeks or even just days, the result from either would be the same); it might in fact be in the best interests of the larger part of terminally ill patient's and better preserve their rights to decide what they want done, to not have the option available to health care providers. (that said, realistically, it would be a generation before it was used that way since most medical professionals oppose it, but if they entered their careers in a professional environment where assisted suicide was normalized, they'd naturally feel differently about it).


Obviously, the concern has to be preserving the civil rights of the people affected (terminally ill patients), but i'm not sure if, when considering the practical consequences, its as obvious how their civil rights would best be protected at first glance.


Anyways, what are people's opinions on this?

[Vanguard1917]

Anyways, what are people's opinions on this?

I oppose the Bill for two key reasons.

1. A very ill person is often not in the right frame of mind to make a rational judgement on the value of his or her life. That is why it is very important for family, friends and doctors to support the patient through illness and keep the patient fighting the illness - regardless of the nature of the illness.

2. The ultimate aim of a medical institution should always be to save or prolong the patients life. Euthanasia, i.e. killing the patient, should never be a third option. This is not only against medical ethics, it will help hold back medical progress in the longer-term.

[Hegemonicretribution]

Legislating a euthanasia bill would be hrrible, but at all times peple should maintain the right t die. If yu no longer want t affirm your existance then so be it, if we don't have the right to force others to die then why should we have the right to force them to live?

Of course every effort should be made to preserve life, but at the end of the day it is down to individual choice. A friend of mine recently attempted suicide, and got committed. It was their decision, but the nature of the suicide implied they weren't certain themselves (compared to a previous attempt) and so I think providing help was the best solution. However once the main causes of suicide are eradicated (speaking hypothetically), and people are in a decision to choose, then they should be free. Being in serious pain resulting from a terminal illness is a better reason than most to want to die.

Preserving life for life's sake is a view that has been indoctrinated through centuries of religious dominance, and the romanticising of the concept does it no good. Of course life should be seen as special when those possessing it desire it, but when they don't the decision must lie with them.

[apathy maybe]

As an anarchist I oppose all bills ...

But to be more serious, I think that people have a 'right to life', and a 'right to death'. If someone wants to kill themselves (suicide) that is not a problem, but when someone needs someone else to help, then it becomes a problem.

Why force a person to live under agonising pain for a few more weeks for no purpose?


Needless to say I oppose non-voluntary euthanasia.

[TupacAndChe4Eva]

I approve this, as long as this is ashered to :-

There must be three doctors signatures, who agree that the person is able to make an accurate judgement for themselves

That is the most important thing.

People wouldn't leave an animal in pain. Human's are far more advanced, and yet we refuse to allow people the right to end their life with dignity?

If this bill fails to pass, people will try to end their lives anyway, with the prospect of person's helping them going to prison.

I say pass it ; be humane, for fucks sake.

[Trent Steele]

I believe Living Wills are the best course of action. The person themself can choose what action they wish to have taken, as they are able to do this while they are well (ie, not sitting in a hospital bed, in incredible pain) they would be able to make this decision rationally.

I oppose non-voluntary euthanasia though, even with the approval of doctors.