Should assisted suicide be made legal in the UK?

Should we allow assisted suicide in the UK?

  • Yes

    Votes: 13 92.9%
  • No

    Votes: 1 7.1%

  • Total voters
    14
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Banderill

New Member
Austria has a new law allowing assisted suicide. From Saturday, adults who are terminally ill or have a permanent, debilitating condition, can opt to make provisions for an assisted death.

Other countries where assisted suicide is legal include: Colombia, Australia, Canada, Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, and probably the first country that comes to mind, Switzerland.

Should we allow assisted suicide in the UK?
 

PK99

Regular
Without a doubt, yes!
 

Rusty Nails

Country Member
With sensible safeguards, yes.
^^^^^^^ This

There are so many ways of letting people kill themselves slowly without meaning to, encouraged by the government, that it would be iniquitous not to let people who are facing a mentally/physically painful end to their lives have the choice to end their suffering on their terms.

I say this as someone who chickened out when their father asked them to help him do the same, and watched him have a very undignified and unhappy end of life.
 

Beebo

Veteran
Yes. Of course, as long as we have sensible protection for the vulnerable.

Having witnessed my father in laws recent death it’s clear that high dose morphine is used to hasten death when it’s inevitable. The care nurse said as much at the time and as predicted he was dead within 2 hours of the morphine being administered.

It would be nice to end it before that point when everyone is more lucid.
 

farfromtheland

Regular AND Goofy
I used to know someone who lived in a supported home because of his disabilities. He was a lively, fit and joyful person, though with physical and mental handicaps. He went into hospital with flu and was not given life-saving treatment after his family signed a 'Do Not Resucitate' paper, against the feelings of his careworkers and almost certainly his own.

I am with DPAC in saying a facilitation of assisted suicide in UK law is too risky. Loved ones who do give a little help out at the end are more likely to be able to rely on compassion from the courts than the vulnerable are for protection.
 
I used to know someone who lived in a supported home because of his disabilities. He was a lively, fit and joyful person, though with physical and mental handicaps. He went into hospital with flu and was not given life-saving treatment after his family signed a 'Do Not Resucitate' paper, against the feelings of his careworkers and almost certainly his own.

I am with DPAC in saying a facilitation of assisted suicide in UK law is too risky. Loved ones who do give a little help out at the end are more likely to be able to rely on compassion from the courts than the vulnerable are for protection.
Wouldn’t a consent system that took more account of the wishes of an individual have provided greater protection for your vulnerable friend?
 

farfromtheland

Regular AND Goofy
Wouldn’t a consent system that took more account of the wishes of an individual have provided greater protection for your vulnerable friend?
He was not verbal in any conventional sense. Sang his own songs gloriously and a heck of a percussionist on the furniture.
 
He was not verbal in any conventional sense. Sang his own songs gloriously and a heck of a percussionist on the furniture.
It’s a sad tale but I don’t know how much it says about assisted suicide.
 

farfromtheland

Regular AND Goofy
That sounds liberating. It is the implications which take it to another level.

The people I know who are scared are not conservatives. We are people who have seen how our disabled comrades are already oppressed.
 

Rusty Nails

Country Member
That sounds liberating. It is the implications which take it to another level.

The people I know who are scared are not conservatives. We are people who have seen how our disabled comrades are already oppressed.
Is that conservatives with a small "C" or large?
 
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