Right to die, how does CUK vote?

[Gibbon]

I understand the concern, the thing is, you could also argue that if the job is done by doctors in conjunction with psychologists and the family, as it is here in NL, the patient actually has more protection against predatory relatives than without the 'right to die'; people expressing the wish to die don't just turn up at a suicide shop, pay their bill and then get a lethal injection; they go through a number of interviews and receive counseling from various professionals to minimise the chance of abuse. One thing that doctors concentrate on is this aspect of people being influenced by their families, and especially where there's a big inheritance involved you can expect the doctors to ask very critical questions. Doctors here are not forced to cooperate in euthanasia (I don't think it's strictly legal, but tolerated in some cases) and neither are nurses. There is plenty of room for the conscience of the individual in these cases.

All this is a plausible argument, but the actual framing of a law and the safeguards would be nigh on impossible, you just can't have watertight legislation for immoral behaviour.

[bobspud]

I have commented on this subject here before but in a nutshell:

The spectre of fictional greedy relatives aside.

Today: Dying involves the withdrawal of food and liquids. Then a wait for whatever it is that your relative has to kill them while sedating them so hard they can neither communicate or even scratch their own nose. However what they don't explain is once they have withdrawn sustenance. Your relative will effectively have their brian poisoned as salt contents and blood toxins rise and liver function deteriorates. That means that someone who you love and who cared for you will end their days in a fug of drugs and sometimes violent hallucinations.

Or if the patient happens to be your dog they get quietly and sedately put to sleep while you stroke them in your lap...

[VectraMan]

Or if the patient happens to be your dog they get quietly and sedately put to sleep while you stroke them in your lap...

WHS. It strikes me as bizarre, or even abhorrent that we're far more humane to animals in death than we are to people.

All this talk of abuse and people offing their relatives to get the inheritance early is a ridiculous scare story.

[Mich the Tester]

All this is a plausible argument, but the actual framing of a law and the safeguards would be nigh on impossible, you just can't have watertight legislation for immoral behaviour.

That's absolutely true, and I wish this were explained to some politicians. However, you can actually deliberately create grey areas or tolerance policies to reflect that, perhaps involving sentencing guidelines or agreements among the legal profession to only sentence if certain conditions are met, such as evidence of coercion or abuse. It IS a big moral grey area, as are most moral questions, but there's a practical side to it that needs to be considered; I can´t stand the idea of back-street suicide clinics.

[amcdonald]

BBC News - Man takes up Tony Nicklinson right-to-die legal fight

Wondered what esteemed (and less esteemed) CUKkers think about this issue? I imagine the majority would support his desire but let's have a poll.

Personally, I am on the fence on this one though I don't take the stereotypical Christian view that "suicide is a mortal sin" or any guff like that.

In theory it's ok, in practice it will be abused to some degree in the end especially knowing how badly we treat our elderly in this country

[Mich the Tester]

In theory it's ok, in practice it will be abused to some degree in the end especially knowing how badly we treat our elderly in this country

Yep, but as I said before, if people are prepared to abuse the 'right to die', they'll be prepared to abuse the lack of 'right to die'; does anyone know how many vulnerable people are 'persuaded' to top themselves now, or not persuaded to not top themselves when people know they're very depressed? How many people are never visited by their families, who are either disinterested or unable to visit?

[d000hg]

WHS. It strikes me as bizarre, or even abhorrent that we're far more humane to animals in death than we are to people.

Although many animal rights people would say we should treat animals more like people in this regard... and many people have animals put down when they could be treated to save on expense.

Either way, animals aren't people so I don't see why any comparison is particularly valuable.

[Mich the Tester]

Although many animal rights people would say we should treat animals more like people in this regard... and many people have animals put down when they could be treated to save on expense.

Worse than that, especially now with the economic crisissy thingy, many animals are just being dumped and left to die a miserable death. Not just old, sick animals, but especially young ones. The farmers around here often find a cardboard box at the end of the drive, filled up with kittens or puppies; most of them will try and find a home for them, but otherwise they just drown them in a bucket of water.

Seems to happen a lot around holiday time.

[bobspud]

Although many animal rights people would say we should treat animals more like people in this regard... and many people have animals put down when they could be treated to save on expense.

Either way, animals aren't people so I don't see why any comparison is particularly valuable.

Because I lost both my Mother and my first Greyhound to cancer. One went to sleep relatively painlessly and the other drowned in her own blood after one of the legions in her lungs burst while she was sedated... I spent that day and most of the night listening to her slowly drown in a hospice... Of course she had been sedated for several days previous because she was hallucinating and had gone blind had spent a night crying and screaming out for he long dead parents...

Does that make the choices available a little more clear to you?

Lets not get into the hypothetical debates about heaven and hell and having to stand in front of your parents knowing you sat and let them suffer...

For crying out loud even countries that still have a death penalty kill mass murderers with more care than the current pathway death bollocks...

[Gibbon]

All this talk of abuse and people offing their relatives to get the inheritance early is a ridiculous scare story.

I sincerely wish it were so. Mrs Gibbon used to be a manager of a council run old peoples home, the pensioners were left with about £15.00 a week after the council deducted payment off their pension, this was for incidentals etc. A significant minority of relatives would come in and take this money (having power of attorney).

Money can be a powerful force, when you see someone dribbling away your inheritance.

Also who would decide, could you really condemn someone to a painful end if you had suspicion of coercion? Is it fair to expect people to make these decisions? There is a lot more to consider than the seemingly simple premise of someones right to die. In a lot of cases the person has time to make and carry out that choice themselves without burdening the state with a moral dilemma. In other cases as I've said earlier the law views with quite some compassion those who have done this for a relative once the truth is revealed.