So deeply sorry to hear this. Great article , my aunt lives in Canada and my mum just told me she has her date for the end of the year, I said but her tumour is benign!? Would they allow that and apparently she is in a lot of pain and the laws in Canada are very lax ? I need to do some research
The laws are different is Canada. Over here (if the bill passes) they will require a terminal condition with less than six months to live. They don't require that in Canada but I don't know. exactly what the requirements are.
The normal circumstance around initiating euthanasia is the individual exploring or already making the decision, and family and friends being extremely upset (and then accepting).
The incidents of family members giving a relative a nudge, or leaving helpful brochures around the place, would be close to zero.
You and I hold the same diagnosis but oppositional views on this particular piece of legislation. I don’t want anyone to die in pain. I don’t want to die in pain and I don’t want my children to face legal consequences for any actions they might take to alleviate that pain. But this is a bad law. I discussed the flaws at length in my previous article. I will be writing a follow-up to my original Substack https://open.substack.com/pub/ladyofshalott2/p/assisted-dying-the-terminally-ill?r=18oo7k&utm_medium=ios
Again, I urge people to ask themselves three questions - Why now? Who is driving this? (it’s not the public). Who gains? (and I don’t mean the families of the sick who will be accessing this law). Sometimes you have to detach yourself from the emotive nature of the issue and look more clinically. Like policymakers are supposed to do.
I don't know the answers to any of your questions as they relate to the UK.
I do know that for every country in the world with euthanasia laws, the timing was arbitrary, the reasons were driven by community demand and lobbying, abd implementation was mature societies accepting the ultimate dignity of people and the options available to them. There wasn't and isn't anything sinister behind euthanasia laws.
Nothing is ever driven by the public. The public are just made to think so.
Everything is top down. Always. And nothing ever ‘just happens’. It always happens at a particular time for a particular set of reasons because a group of elite actors seek it. If history has taught us nothing, it has taught us that. Only elites act.
Nobody gets out of this world alive. We're all terminally ill.
But we get through life by kidding ourselves that we'll live forever. When Covid came along people dismissed it with "it only kills those who were going to die anyway." Well, as we're not in the Marvel Universe, that includes all of us.
The difficulty with Assisted Dying and End of Life Care is that it forces us to confront these things before time or ill health forces us to.
Our self-serving assumptions get us through life and make it enjoyable and worthwhile. You have to face up to your own mortality to support the bill.
So there is a balance between the personal suffering of a few and the minor distress of the many. It's a big number times a small number against a small number times a big number. I think the argument is finely balanced, but this is a temporary problem: the discussion can be short-lived, it's the outcome that we need.
So deeply sorry to hear this. Great article , my aunt lives in Canada and my mum just told me she has her date for the end of the year, I said but her tumour is benign!? Would they allow that and apparently she is in a lot of pain and the laws in Canada are very lax ? I need to do some research
The laws are different is Canada. Over here (if the bill passes) they will require a terminal condition with less than six months to live. They don't require that in Canada but I don't know. exactly what the requirements are.
The normal circumstance around initiating euthanasia is the individual exploring or already making the decision, and family and friends being extremely upset (and then accepting).
The incidents of family members giving a relative a nudge, or leaving helpful brochures around the place, would be close to zero.
Always interested to read your viewpoint on this. I appreciated our lengthy discourse on assisted dying yesterday, further to my original post https://substack.com/@ladyofshalott2/note/c-88190564?r=18oo7k&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
You and I hold the same diagnosis but oppositional views on this particular piece of legislation. I don’t want anyone to die in pain. I don’t want to die in pain and I don’t want my children to face legal consequences for any actions they might take to alleviate that pain. But this is a bad law. I discussed the flaws at length in my previous article. I will be writing a follow-up to my original Substack https://open.substack.com/pub/ladyofshalott2/p/assisted-dying-the-terminally-ill?r=18oo7k&utm_medium=ios
Again, I urge people to ask themselves three questions - Why now? Who is driving this? (it’s not the public). Who gains? (and I don’t mean the families of the sick who will be accessing this law). Sometimes you have to detach yourself from the emotive nature of the issue and look more clinically. Like policymakers are supposed to do.
I don't know the answers to any of your questions as they relate to the UK.
I do know that for every country in the world with euthanasia laws, the timing was arbitrary, the reasons were driven by community demand and lobbying, abd implementation was mature societies accepting the ultimate dignity of people and the options available to them. There wasn't and isn't anything sinister behind euthanasia laws.
Nothing is ever driven by the public. The public are just made to think so.
Everything is top down. Always. And nothing ever ‘just happens’. It always happens at a particular time for a particular set of reasons because a group of elite actors seek it. If history has taught us nothing, it has taught us that. Only elites act.
Meanwhile, Irish women died.
Nobody gets out of this world alive. We're all terminally ill.
But we get through life by kidding ourselves that we'll live forever. When Covid came along people dismissed it with "it only kills those who were going to die anyway." Well, as we're not in the Marvel Universe, that includes all of us.
The difficulty with Assisted Dying and End of Life Care is that it forces us to confront these things before time or ill health forces us to.
Our self-serving assumptions get us through life and make it enjoyable and worthwhile. You have to face up to your own mortality to support the bill.
So there is a balance between the personal suffering of a few and the minor distress of the many. It's a big number times a small number against a small number times a big number. I think the argument is finely balanced, but this is a temporary problem: the discussion can be short-lived, it's the outcome that we need.
That's a great way of framing the discussion.