I can't imagine how much more disturbing I'd find it to live in a Scotland where a culture of death has been reintroduced in a completely different but much more widespread form. Death certificates giving state-assisted suicide as the cause of death would become extremely routine, far more so than was the case with the death penalty - 5% of all deaths in Canada are now assisted suicide, and it's likely that we would follow suit. If you could guarantee me that the only people who would die under the new system would be single-minded, determined individuals who had freely chosen to avoid suffering, and who had not been coerced or malignly influenced, either directly or indirectly, then probably my attitude would be different. But anyone who actually believes that is astoundingly naive.
If this legislation goes through, there will be people who die for economic reasons - either because they've been told they are a burden or because they assume that other people regard them as a burden. There will be people who die because of treatable depression or low self-esteem or personality disorders. There will be people who die because doctors actively put the idea into their heads. For the first time since 1963, society and the state will be deciding that some people are better off dead and actually making them dead.
I hope this bill is rejected. If it's not, I'm not sure I'll even recognise this country in the years to come.
Incidentally, when I spoke out a few weeks ago against Ash Regan's bid to introduce the Nordic Model on prostitution law, Stuart Campbell rather outrageously implied that I must have been motivated by self-interest, ie. that I must be someone who pays for sex myself. I'll be interested to see what dark or cynical motivation he'll ascribe to me in this case. It's true that I was brought up a Catholic, and that probably does influence me, because my default setting is that life is sacred unless there's an exceptionally good reason. But I'm not sure that's such a bad principle to live by, and it's fair to say a great many atheists take exactly the same view, even if the terminology they use is different.
I'm also against for exactly the same reasons. Having legal assisted dying actually incentivises the state and private organisations to make the lives of terminally ill people miserable so as to nudge them in the direction of suicide. Uncomfortable rooms, inadequate care, crap food all build up and sap your will to go on.
ReplyDeleteAssisted dying without guaranteed high standards of palliative care is euthanasia.
In case anyone asks, I'm against capital punishment and for a woman's body autonomy
I’m against it being on the NHS because I do not trust hospital and NHS managers. They are not clinicians but have targets to meet and costs to save.
ReplyDeleteI believe it should be a private option, regulated by the state, but not provided by it. It could be taken out as a medical insurance policy or added to a funeral plan. The providers could be a registered charity. But being a private option, which people have chosen when in health for a time in the future when they might prefer that exit if life had become intolerable, there would be no question of coercion because the person has already decided long ago that this would be their preferred option if faced with unendurable terminal suffering.
Many of the so called managers you deride are actually clinicians. It’s ok for privatisation? I’ll stick with the nhs even in death
Delete9.50 What happens if you have changed your mind years after you have signed this fictitious document but are too ill to communicate that you want to continue with the medicine that helps you to live? Will the drug companies have a say in who lives or dies?
DeleteGranting the right to kill to private enterprise is a much more radical step than extending the existing right of the state to do so
Deletewhen they bring it in they should offer to anyone obviously useless and a drag on society -
ReplyDelete- like, they could put a suicide booth at holyrood
anyway, how much is your granny's house worth?
must be rotten for her, quality of life and all that
IT WAS FOR THE BEST
I am also probably against but did they not amend to those who have 6 months to live?
ReplyDeleteI did think about inserting footnotes on the blogpost to avoid this kind of predictable reaction. Many people with a six month prognosis (which is sometimes inaccurate, of course) suffer from treatable depression, or a personality disorder, or low self-esteem, or imagine themselves to be a burden. That's point 1. Point 2 is that other jurisdictions have shown that legislation like this is typically the thin end of the wedge, and there's very quickly a big expansion of the categories of people eligible for assisted suicide.
DeleteTotally off-topic. I generally find out which blogs have new articles from www.voices.scot - but I see that this stopped updating during 11 March. Anyone have any idea who runs it and why it has stopped?
ReplyDeleteI don't know the answer to your question, but I do have this vague recollection from a few months ago of someone going absolutely nuts at me, because he didn't like my blogpost titles, and even though he didn't actually read the blog, he was still exposed to them on the Voices site. I pointed out that wasn't my responsibility and if he had a problem he should take it up with the owner of the site. Maybe he took my advice!
Delete@JK Yes I remember your long titles getting your articles blocked - I think after a few days the site owner just truncated the titles. But the current situation is not blocking. The site has just not reported ANY new articles since Wednesday.
DeleteSuddenly, voices.scot is back. Great resource, surprised that it is not more used.
DeleteCannot agree James.
ReplyDeleteI watched both my parents dying, one in excruciating pain and the other from a condition which meant they could not swallow any nourishment, were too weak to be given it any other way and who literally starved to death over a extended period, I know for a fact that both of them wished to leave this world with at least some semblance of dignity and at a time of their choosing.
They desperately wanted to control when and how they passed, but were denied that final choice.
I sincerely hope that the Bill gets enacted, with the necessary safeguarding amendments.
As has been said millions of times, we treat our pets with huge compassion when they are at the end, but we let our own species endure a suffering and torment we would never foist on our animals.
This Bill will hopefully help remedy that.
I would expect a far higher standard of palliative care to be available for humans than exists for our pets. If that isn't the case, that's what we need to start addressing.
DeleteIf you believe that life is sacred for humans then you must accept the same thing for all life as created by the same religious deity that humans claim created them, and yet for all life on planet earth humans consider only themselves to be sacred and not the rest of life on this planet
DeleteSelective deity worship is an invention of mankind for the control of mankind since the dawn of mankind, it's a tooth fairy Santa Clause fabrication for the simple minded
It's Barbie and Ken invented by stronger people for the control of simple minded scared adults who are afraid to accept fact reason and science
I've already pointed out to someone on Twitter that they were misinterpreting my meaning in using the word "sacred". I meant it simply in the sense of "untouchable". There's a perfectly straightforward humanist argument for regarding human life as particularly sacred without having to get supreme beings involved.
DeleteMy parent who literally starved to death was under a palliative care regime.
DeleteThe consultant was very clear that there was no manageable way to get food or sufficient nutrients into her and she was only able to take very small drinks of fortified water. She was like a skeleton at the end and her organs gradually failed.
Despite best efforts, she also suffered considerable pain with bedsores which kept rupturing.
Palliative care is not always what most people think it is, believe me.
She asked numerous times for an injection or pill to end her life and wanted to pass long before her body finally gave up.
For the family if was horrendous to watch and for her, it completely stripped away the vibrant person she was until she was nothing but withered skin and bone.
This Bill would have saved her most of that.
I will be delighted to see it pass into Law.
I'm extremely sorry about what happened to your mother, and the despair and helplessness you all felt. However I'd also be equally sorry for the loved ones of a vulnerable person who ended up dying as a result of this legislation. My view is that the whole notion of "perfect safeguards" is utter fantasy. And I also do not believe, frankly, that the standard of palliative care is always as high as it should be.
DeleteWho gets ‘assisted’ first? The poor……..or the rich who can afford all of Streetings private health care to prolong life.
DeleteTo the Anon OP, you have my sympathy and understanding. I've been through similar circumstances with both my parents dying from cancer. First my dad 30 years ago, who died within a matter of weeks from diagnosis, in obvious pain throughout, even when in hospital at the end. You'd have hoped in the last 30yrs we'd have learned, but not obviously so. My mum passed away just over a year ago after her own battle with cancer. A long, lingering death at the end, unable to eat or drink, confined to bed, suffering from bed sores, often in pain despite the medication, but fully mentally aware throughout. She was at home, supported by her family throughout, but it's traumatic to watch, especially when she was more than able to voice her desire to "no longer be here". Both had a prognosis in the last few weeks that was NEVER going to change, both died an undignified and "inhuman" death. We MUST do better, and at least part of that , with safeguards, has to be allowing people to make their own choice.
DeleteWe MUST have safeguards for our Start A Man-Made Tsunami Law, a couple of tatty umbrellas should suffice.
DeleteI sympathise, but I think you are being something of a con artist. I am well aware of end of life procedures - and so I have to ask : were your parents given the full variety of (very strong) painkillers and sedatives? There is no need for any suffering and I think you are "at it". As for nourishment, they have these things called intravenous drips.
DeleteIf the bar for legislation was a guarantee that there will never be unintended negative effects, the legislature wouldn't do much. The question is whether it will bring more good than harm, and whether the harm has been minimised as much as is practicable. The rights of those who may die needlessly as a result of the bill are not a trump card, they have to be weighed against those who die in excruciating agony now and would not if this became law.
ReplyDeleteThe point made above about animals is actually pretty good. We accept this trade-off with pets, and it's not clear why the same calculation should not apply to people. If the argument is that human life is more valuable than that of other animals, is human suffering not a greater ill than animal suffering?
"The question is whether it will bring more good than harm"
DeleteOh no no no no, that is absolutely not the question, any more than we say about the justice system "better that one innocent man should go to prison than ten guilty men should go free". If vulnerable people are coerced into dying as a result of this legislation, then the "safeguards" are bogus and it is bad law. But your comment is useful because it demonstrates that proponents of the law know in their heart of hearts that this stuff will happen. Few are honest enough to admit it.
Hear, hear.
DeleteAs a society we make value judgements all the time in respect to life and death. We don't stop everyone driving because some people drive like idiots, resulting in them killing someone. We define the rules as laws and punish people who break those rules (however imperfect this may often be). No, it doesn't stop some people breaking the rules, but overall the judgement society has made it that its beneficial to allow people to drive despite it undoubtedly resulting in innocent people dying. I'll not even go down the line of supporting dubious "wars". I agree there's a debate to be had, but the fear of a few people dying unnecessarily can't automatically override the many who still die after unacceptable suffering.
Delete"We don't stop everyone driving because some people drive like idiots"
DeleteNo, but we did ban handguns, which tens of thousands of people in the UK used safely, because one man walked into a Dunblane primary school and massacred a class of children. That's a better analogy, and for the avoidance of doubt: we did absolutely the right thing. There'll be far more than one person abusing the assisted dying law, let's be honest.
There is no perfect assisted dying solution, and I agree that anyone claiming that is deluded at best. Introducing stricter ownership rules for guns (it's not a complete ban as such) after Dunblane was a societal value judgement. Despite the number of deaths caused by people using knives it's unlikely that the same level of restriction will ever be placed on them, again a value judgement. Assisted dying can never be perfect because humans are imperfect, we abuse the world and each other in so many ways, this would not be any different unfortunately. The question therefore has to be, can we introduce a system that would be an improvement, while minimising the ability for it to be abused? My personal experience, and that of so many others, convinces me that we have to try.
DeleteIf vulnerable people are coerced into dying as a result of this legislation, then the "safeguards" are bogus and it is bad law.
DeleteIt doesn't mean that they're are bogus, merely that they're not infallible, and likely can't be, but we should strive to make them as watertight as possible.
Oh no no no no, that is absolutely not the question, any more than we say about the justice system "better that one innocent man should go to prison than ten guilty men should go free"
But that is what we say, at least implicitly. The only way to guarantee that no innocent man goes to prison is to abolish prison. Unless you believe that we should do that, you've accepted the imperfect safeguards in our justice system as the cost of having a justice system at all
"but we should strive to make them as watertight as possible"
DeleteThere are some people who will earnestly tell you that they are striving to make nuclear war as survivable as possible.
"But that is what we say, at least implicitly."
No it isn't. I chose those words because they are the precise opposite of the traditional maxim, ie. "better that ten guilty men walk free than that one innocent man should be imprisoned".
"My personal experience, and that of so many others, convinces me that we have to try."
DeleteAnd as soon as the first person is coerced into dying, the personal experience of that individual's loved ones will tell them that we've made the situation worse and we need to reverse the legislation. But by that point will anyone be listening?
"But that is what we say, at least implicitly."
DeleteNo it isn't. I chose those words because they are the precise opposite of the traditional maxim, ie. "better that ten guilty men walk free than that one innocent man should be imprisoned".
Do you believe that our criminal justice system guarantees that no one will ever be wrongfully imprisoned? If not, do you believe that it follows that we should have no criminal justice system?
We're making progress, because you've given up on claiming we say that we're merely trying to ensure that the "good outweighs the harm" in the criminal justice system. On your original version, we apparently say that if five innocent men go to jail, that's fine as long as six guilty men are convicted. Now you're talking about "guarantees" that "no one" will ever be wrongly convicted, in which case a better analogy is: do you think that unless we can guarantee that no-one will ever illegally smuggle a handgun into the UK, it's pointless to have banned handguns in the UK? Conversely, even with a ban on assisted suicide, people are occasionally illegally assisted to commit suicide, so on your line of thinking, one might almost ask: why do we need to bother legalising it if it happens anyway?
DeleteWhile still in pretty decent health; at age 74 I'm not entirely disinterested in this issue.
ReplyDeleteIf it could be managed to avoid abuse I'd be for it. However our loathsome political elites have allowed so much of our way of life to be corrupted by greed, and so called 'market forces', that I can see little prospect that managed ending of life would not quickly be profit driven.
So, probably not safe to introduce such a change. Thus the profit takers create yet another situation in which their beloved 'markets' potentially increase the suffering of a vulnerable portion of the rest of us.
What a surprise !
OT - I see Trump is threatening his “friends” in NATO again. Friends don’t threaten. Israel dictates USA foreign policy and have got what they wanted. Trump last week didn’t need “our” aircraft carriers as the war was won but now wants the RN to risk our sailors lives. Send the RN to the North Atlantic where they should be as part of NATO.
ReplyDeleteI recall my late Ma, when still living, and in hospital, pleaded with me: "don't let them put me in a care home ". This was her fixed decision she had repeated numerous times over the years.
ReplyDeleteA few hours later I was approached by the hospital social worker, who informed me she had been speaking to my mother. According to this social worker, my mother had requested, that she be placed in a care home ASAP.
Of course, it was a complete lie. Hospitals want rid of "bed blockers". Some professionals will try to achieve this by any means, whether placing people in care homes against their will - or by other means.
Or maybe she wanted to live with her family.
DeleteAnon at 5.10: I'm not sure you're quite grasping the point there.
Deletemerely some of the public believe the state should do everything. it seems to me that some family wash their hands of their elderly relatives until their will is read out.
DeleteJames, thank you for putting into words what I was thinking.
ReplyDeleteSuperficially the British establishment has grown a pair of haw maws overnight.
ReplyDeleteFormer Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Sir Nick Carter has a been sent out to deliver a semi-deniable message. NATO he says "is not an alliance that was designed for one of the allies to go on a WAR OF CHOICE and then oblige everyone else to follow" (emphasis added). Incredibly strong words, and he’s not wrong.
Technically the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a “war of choice”, although not a NATO one (France was part of NATO at the time, and abstained).
It would be flattering to see this as a moral decision. It is one of necessity. If we could join in the military adventurism we probably would, but we can’t.
The United Kingdom has been hollowed out by decades of exclusive fealty to the City of London. Since 1979 our manufacturing base has been sacrificed to the benefit of the financial speculation class.
Britain is an irrelevance militarily speaking. Last year Parliament was recalled at the weekend to nationalise (in all but name) Scunthorpe steel works. Scunthorpe was spun at the time as being “a strategic economic asset”. It isn’t, and it wasn’t (arguably Port Talbot steel works, which is twice the size of Scunthorpe is).
Scunthorpe is a strategic defence asset. It is the only facility capable of producing the plate steel in the required tonnage for armaments, and strategic infrastructure.
At the current rate of tax payer “subsidy” Scunthorpe will have burned through £1.5 billion by 2028. Scunthorpe is being portrayed as an economic basket case, but the “subsidy” is only necessary because the whole British economy is being run for the singular benefit of the spivs in the City of London.
Not that the suits in the glass towers of the Square Mile will be bothered when the UK descends into a complete post-industrial, zombie apocalypse. They’ll just up sticks and decant to somewhere else like Dubai. Oh yeah …
Scunthorpe has the major advantage that Port Talbot or Ravenscraig could never have - its in England.
DeleteHideous comment from Ifs@8:52pm.
DeleteAnon troll at 2.43pm.
DeleteAnon at 2:43 PM
DeleteI'm guessing you put yourself into Scunthorpe?
They will put it on the books with a laundry list of caveats, safeguards and rules to protect against all abuses and exploitations ...
ReplyDelete- in practice, these will all end up being ignored. Then "once you become a bother" YOU GET THE NEEDLE.
This is "leiben unwertes leiben" territory and I hope you all get the reference (mobile gas vans next?)
What baffles me is why anyone right now would vote for it - we all have a vested interest and we will all be old one day, all get sick and we may find ourselves under the power of those who have no love for us.
James said in his article from last Thursday:- " Even if you genuinely believe that there is only a 10% chance of Swinney doing what he's promised, the rational thing to do is vote SNP and at least give that 10% chance an opportunity to play out."
ReplyDeleteI agree that his sentence is rational and makes sense. The trouble for me is that I think there is a zero % chance of Swinney doing anything about independence.
So if you think there is a 100% chance and anywhere down to 1% go for it and vote for Swinney's non plan. We will still be in the same position after the election - a de facto colony of England. The nutters that post on SGP will happily blame Alba, Salmond and any others they want to shift the blame on to for nothing happening and we will arrive at the 2031 Holyrood election ( assuming Farage hasn't closed Holyrood) in the same position.
I voted SNP in 2021 not because I thought there was any chance of Sturgeon/Swinney doing anything about independence but because I wanted there to be a majority for independence in Holyrood so that independence supporters would hopefully see that they would do nothing to progress independence and realise the leadership were devolutionists. This was a forlorn hope. Some did and left the SNP but not enough of the current members would accept what was staring them in the face.
If Swinney got his majority of MSPs and did nothing would that change the opinion of the leadership loyalists - I very much doubt it.
The SNP is now a de facto devolutionist party that Westminster is quite relaxed about.
I'll probably vote SNP on the Regional list. Again it will be interesting to see how many SNP list MSPs there are for all the votes they get. I doubt my vote will make any difference but James has said the Regional list vote is the most important so perhaps my vote will help Swinney get his majority of MSPs and an easy life in Holyrood right though to his retirement.
Scotland take notice! IfS has spoken!
DeleteAnon at 3.03pm - I don't need or want an agent.
DeleteThere already is assisted dying. It's when the hospital put DNR (do not resuscitate) on your hospital bedside notes. They should call the bill what it is - SAS - no nothing to do with Somerville - state assisted suicide.
ReplyDeleteEmbarrassing by Ifsy.
DeleteIt's the lowlife hard core troll at 10.00am. Only 3 words this time. Too much Buckfast through the night but give him credit - no spelling mistakes this time in his 3 words.
DeleteR Alastair: I've considered long and hard whether to publish your comment, because it obviously makes a very serious and legitimate point, but unfortunately the final sentence drives a coach and horses through one of the key points of my moderation policy, ie. you've misrepresented my own position as clearly set out in the blogpost. The sheer cynicism of that misrepresentation is such that I've decided not to publish it. You should be capable of making your own argument without misrepresenting mine.
ReplyDeleteI apologise for that - I did not intend to misrepresent you. As you can likely understand, this is a highly emotive topic for me and something I've given a great deal of thought towards. Having finished my comment and feeling mentally exhausted due to the content, my final remark was made as I glanced up at your original post - a comment that can maybe be explained but cannot be excused. If you are able to post the comment and edit out the final part, that would be greatly appreciated. I don't know how I can access the comment again, is there a way to?
DeleteIt was my intention to follow up my first comment with a discussion of deontology vs consequentialism and the case for a Rawlsian approach to assisted dying as a 'right to die as fairness' as opposed to a simple question of numbers.
R Alastair ... can you not simply compose your comment again, without the final bit?
DeleteI'd rather not, truth be told. It was an in-depth description of my late sister's final few months of her life and what she went through. If it's possible to retrieve it then that's OK, otherwise I'll return later to discuss the deontology/consequentialist issue alluded to above with what I think is a decent 'justice as fairness' argument in favour of assisted dying.
DeleteThere’s a fascinating and complex discussion to be had on deontology/consequentialism, but is this the forum for it?
DeleteOf course it is, we rarely discuss anything else here.
DeleteYouGov UK poll.
ReplyDeleteWas the US right to take military action?
Only 18% say right. 57% say wrong.
Do you support the UK joining offensive military action?
70% oppose and 17% support.
Despite these figures the best laugh is that:
Has Keir Starmer responded well?
Only 37% say well and 41% say badly. It looks like it is baked in that Starmer is not liked by the UK populace.
Farage’s petulant spat with YouGov goes against his carefully created, relaxed, man of the people schtick. Like Trump, when he doesn’t like the trends in the polls, he denounces the messenger. Fake News!
ReplyDeleteYouGov have removed their tactical voting, prompt, and tweak to their algorithm. The impact is minimal. It was always going to be thus.
More worryingly, Farage’s outburst betrays an inherent tendency to interfere with the workings of a private company (and one owned by a senior Tory at that). Surely a free enterprise zealot like Farage would respect the iron rule of the laissez-faire market? Apparently not. If he ever gets into power, he’ll try and emulate Trump by regulating / deregulating the media environment.
Quite how he’ll go about this is not clear. Perhaps Farage’s much vaunted connections to the far right in America will lead to the Ellisons buying up major UK broadcasting brands. They’ve apparently got billions to burn on vanity projects which destroy the credibility of the networks they acquire.
YouGov’s Westminster voting intention poll for this week has the SNP on 2% again. Margins are fine, and fractions of a percent can be rounded up, or down.
ReplyDeleteScottish sub-sample.
Con 11%, Lab 15%, LibDem 13%, SNP 27%, RefUK 22%, Green 8%, others 4%.
Unweighted sample is 168. Weighted sample is 203. If you only get 168 respondents on your first trawl, where do the other 35 people come from? Extrapolation, ie mathematical fiction?