UK MPs vote in favour of Assisted Dying Bill

I of course meant "operative word"!

And, just to expand on my last sentence, I dislike 'slippery slope' arguments. They feel a bit like strawman arguments - where someone struggles to articulate an objection to something without changing the goalposts slightly.

We saw it with the gay marriage debate, in objections like "well, if we let two people of the same sex marry, why not brothers and sisters, or three people, or a man and his pet?!"

If Bill's already dying why does he need to be assisted?

I'm in favor of this, although I can say I wouldn't want to be one of the two doctors affirming it.

I am not in favor, however, of Belgium's assisted dying law, which allows mental health patients who meet certain criteria to die. There are guidelines, but that really rubs up against my thoughts that someone who is that mentally ill doesn't really have the capacity to consent to something like that. I saw a thing on...I want to say Frontline, but maybe it was Nova, about 10-15 years ago which profiled a woman who had Borderline Personality Disorder who was given permission to end her life. I found it kind of chilling, TBH.

My uncle just ended his life under the provisions of Washington state law. I wish he and I had talked about it but he was a very well-loved person and had spent a lot of time talking in his last month with people who wanted to be with him and reminisce about the ways he’d been good to them, so I can understand that he was just ready to go.

I hope I get to die that way, too. I don’t want to have to suffer to death.

I just want to die like my grandfather, peacefully and in my sleep, not screaming like everyone else in the car.

The most important right is over one’s own body. It’s great that the UK is one step closer to restoring bodily autonomy to its citizens.

The way people are reacting you'd think the Commons had just passed a machine gun the homeless and mentally disabled act "Legal route for Harold Shipman" for fucks sake. As someone who had to spend the months leading up to his 18th birthday watching my dad slowly waste away from lung cancer with him wishing he could go at least once an hour. As long as the law has proper safeguards which from everything I've read this has. I can only ever think of it as a good thing.

[quote]If it does eventually pass, it'll mean those who are terminally ill and who have less than six months to live can choose to end their life. There are safeguards, such as it needs to be agreed by two doctors and a High Court Judge.

That takes the sport and the whim out of the thing, doesn't it.

It is better than not having the choice, but onerous. What if you had a prognosis of three years of rapidly declining health and then extended hospitalization?

What kind of soulless ghouls would want the job of death panelist? Wouldn’t they have to wear executioner’s hoods wherever they went?

Death is something the honorable man neither seeks nor avoids but simply welcomes when it comes for him.

I think anyone should be able to end their life anytime they want to. I understand the pressure from family members problem, but that should be easy to figure out with a simple interview of the person. Objections to this seem to be purely on religious grounds, which should be ignored.

It was an excellent four-hour debate in the HOC, I watched all of it. Many observed that this was Parliament at its best, and I agree. So much intelligence, decency, perspective, eloquence, and of course so many searingly sad stories.

This debate was about the principle of the case, and long months of scrutiny will follow. It is vital that so momentous a subject is now so prominent. I thought the majority decision was the right one, and were I an MP I would have voted in favour.

[quote]I saw a thing on...I want to say Frontline, but maybe it was Nova, about 10-15 years ago which profiled a woman who had Borderline Personality Disorder who was given permission to end her life. I found it kind of chilling, TBH.

That is very sad r3.

R12 Yes many are saying how respectful it was.

I, too, would have voted yes and I think even if the bill ends up being voted down at the next stage, it's clear there's a desire to see this introduced, so it'll likely come back again in a year or two anyway.

I must say I'm finding it a bit annoying that many religious and disabled people are very much against it. The disabled people I've seen arguing against have done so from a personal point of view when there's zero suggestion that anyone disabled would be offered this, unless of course they fit the less than 6 months to live criteria. But people like Tanni Grey Thompson and Liz Carr are acting like this bill wants to murder disabled people. It's an unfair representation.

Then the religious people annoy me because I don't think religion should ever be used to justify any laws. If they're against it because they're concerned about safeguards, fair enough, but if it's because they think it's against God's design, they can get lost. And I know certain MPs used their religion to justify their 'no' vote (like Tim Farron).

Death is the answer.