Person decides they’ve had enough. Calls doctor and if they feel the same a month later, a jab to take all the pain away.
It beggars belief that a person can’t do this. It needs to change.
Human life is not sacred.

Very emotive subject, the main problem is that ppl are nasty malicious pieces of shit, who will turn anything to their own advantage.

As z1ppy said – emotive and difficult subject, which would/could be open to abuse if not regulated.

I think there is some room for agreement – especially for those poor people trapped in lifeless bodies who can’t move a muscle.

I don’t see why a process over a period of 3 months, where various Drs/others sign it off, then re-visit the case after everyone has been allowed some time to reflect couldn’t be made to work.

I hope myself, or any of my nearest and dearest are never in this position.

On what grounds has the person ‘had enough’? Debilitating disease? Mental issues? CBA?

Far, far, too many variables to have a standard policy IMO.

I think the bottom line is the technological development has outstripped the ethical development… The question of “should we” is just as important as “can we” though it’s obviously understandable that we’ve focused more on the how than the why.

Calls doctor

Rising to the bait, why does the medical profession need to be involved in this, beyond establishing whether the person has capacity?

Been following this storey on and off over the last year or so as Tony Nicklinson lived near me and his dreadful storey made the local quite often. Whilst I can see both sides; for those wishing this route there is a chance it maybe lawful for a doctor or nurse to help people travel abroad to die in places like Switzerland without the fear of prosecution.

Either way it must be absolutely awful for al involved

Have you ever been in a house where a person is dieing or near death and the doctor comes over? If all family members are in silent agreement, that persons life can be ended very easily without much fuss or any comeback to the doctor or the family. This already happens, probably many times a day and I am speaking from experience here. 🙂 🙁

It’s well worth writing and formalising a living will so that at least some of the decisions on your treatment in an emergency have already been made by you. I’m all for Euthanasia and in my experience hospitals are happy to help someone along with a bit of morphine if the prognosis is terminal and likely to be painful in fact both of my parents shuffled off like that and it was dignified and necessary..

which would/could be open to abuse if not regulated

Anything can be open to abuse so we could use this argument for anything
I dont hink anyone is not suggesting we dont have checks an balances and the scenario of “bumping” someone off for the money is highly unlikely IMHO

TBH a few issues
1. We put down animals to stop them suffering but let humans suffer. Why?
2. the vast majority of the objections are religious in nature- there are others to be fair but the majority come from the religious
3. Medical technology allows us to prolong death rather than life

Personally there is a threshold or quality of life that if I fall below this I assume i would not wish to continue

I cannot think of a good reason why, if a person chooses, that they cannot be allowed to do this

It is their life and their choice and none of my business

well put Junkyard

prolonging very low quality of life seems very questionable to me

We have a really **** up approach to death and terminal illness in this country. When my mum was dying of cancer she was on paracetamol and other things for the pain, with the Paracetamol being every 4 hours, 8 a day. Which is the same for you and me. And they would not give it early even if she was in severe pain. Reason? To protect the liver. This is insane in someone with cancer in their liver and a week left absolute tops.

I worry this will get worse in the future now the liverpool pathway is being done away with.

Jekkyl, not sure if you’re talking about morphine on a worm drive (almost an induced coma from our experience), something a bit more drastic. If the latter, then its pot luck for the patient, and because its not formal it is open to abuse.

Calls doctor and if they feel the same a month later,

depends. if you have an incurable/terminal condition then yeah, mental issues are a big grey area tho. And a month isn’t long enough in any case I think

An additional complication is that the very reason someone might want to end their life often means that they’re incapable of making that decision. So then you have to defer to next of kin, who might not always have the patient’s best interests at heart. “Oh, I can’t be arsed with granny any more, let’s just switch her off.”

Also, how do you handle someone who, whilst of sound mind, has always expressed a preference for euthanasia, yet when the criteria is satisfied their dementia-addled mind refuses consent?

I’m very much in favour of euthanasia and the “right to die.” We put people through all manner of suffering, prolonging the agony for both patient and family for as long as possible, out of some misguided duty to keep some paralysed, severely demented 100-year old breathing. For what, if they’re never going to get better? It’s sick, we treat our animals better than that. But. The actual practice is a bloody minefield, protecting the vulnerable from dishonest family and from themselves is non-trivial.

Horrible situation, and so sad.

It is sometimes legal to withdraw care and starve someone to death in the UK, but taking positive action to relieve suffering is illegal.

For those who say its complicated;

We allow the law to decide if contracts (or wills) are legal and truthful, and we allow courts and doctors to decide if people who commit crimes are/were in their right minds at the time.

If its possible go do that in the administration of legal contracts, and sending people to jail, then surely its not beyond us to work out a way of allowing someone to verify if they want to live or die?

For those who say its a “slippery slope” from legal to compulsory… I hope you are enjoying your gender reassignment, abortion, gay marriage (and all those other things that people claimed were part of a slippery slope when they were made legal).

eat_the_pudding – Member

It is sometimes legal to withdraw care and starve someone to death in the UK, but taking positive action to relieve suffering is illegal.

Good point. My gran had a living will, and refused care after she had her big stroke (it was sad but also kind of inspiring, when they found her she could really only move her head and twitch her hand but the entire time the paramedics were in she was pointing them to the advance statement paperwork- she knew exactly what was going on and threw everything she still had at it)

So, she was taken into hospital and “made comfortable” til she died, but if the law allows someone to die slowly and unpleasantly, why should it not allow them to die quickly and pleasantly?

Sure, these things are done, blind eyes are turned but that’s no answer- it leads to unequal treatment, doctors having to make calls unsupported that they shouldn’t have to, etc. A law that people run around is not working.

Consent/capability is such a difficult issue too. She was lucky, her first stroke left her disabled but still mentally capable, and able to get the advance statement in place. If it’d been a little worse, she couldn’t have.

My other grandma had alzheimers and would have hated what happened to her- but you keep on living as well as you can, as long as you can and you hope it never gets worse, then on the day it does, it’s too late.