Hi Dave

This will be one of the hardest debates and decisions that MPs will ever have to make. For religious people of all major faiths, the answer is clear, suicide is forbidden. For others it can seem a way out of needless suffering, merely in order to postpone the inevitable for a short while. It would place a great emotional and moral burden on doctors who would also be in breach of their hippocratic oath. So opt outs similar to those who do not wish to be involved in abortion (like me) would have to be put in place. There are some wicked people who would urge the demise of a frail elderly relative in order to quicker secure an inheritance. The victim may be persuaded they would cause a lot less bother if they went now. How would these people be protected? Also by what means would an assisted suicide take place, it is not easy and sometimes not painless killing people. Look at the difficulty of executions by lethal injection in the US.  I once saw an exhibit in Sardinia, it was a pointed axe which, in the days before anaesthesia, the local priest would use to despatch people in unbearable pain, what a responsibility on the poor man.

To a degree assisted suicide already takes place in the UK for example when it is decided to withdraw treatment from a terminally ill or brain dead patient.                                                                                    Without my knowledge, but with his consent, my own father in desperate pain from cancer was put on the Liverpool pathway, a form of assisted suicide, a high continuous dose of diamorphine and a powerful sedative via a syringe driver is used. The death is caused by dehydration and takes around 3 days. It is now discredited and rightly so.

During a previous period of remission, I booked a holiday to Switzerland, a friend thought the worst and tried to persuade me not to go until I told him I was going to Sierre and not Dignitas. Joking aside I would like to have the option to go at a time of my choosing if needed when the time comes. When I was really ill I did research on means of suicide, but found I could not easily order online the means to do so properly, without risking a botched attempt, which would have made life even more miserable. I'm glad I was unable to do so as I'm still here now enjoying life, which brings my last point, at what point in life can the decision to end it be made?

I look forward to reading the views of others on this subject, Im sure there are lots of other considerations to be brought up.

Hi Dave

This will be one of the hardest debates and decisions that MPs will ever have to make. For religious people of all major faiths, the answer is clear, suicide is forbidden. For others it can seem a way out of needless suffering, merely in order to postpone the inevitable for a short while. It would place a great emotional and moral burden on doctors who would also be in breach of their hippocratic oath. So opt outs similar to those who do not wish to be involved in abortion (like me) would have to be put in place. There are some wicked people who would urge the demise of a frail elderly relative in order to quicker secure an inheritance. The victim may be persuaded they would cause a lot less bother if they went now. How would these people be protected? Also by what means would an assisted suicide take place, it is not easy and sometimes not painless killing people. Look at the difficulty of executions by lethal injection in the US.  I once saw an exhibit in Sardinia, it was a pointed axe which, in the days before anaesthesia, the local priest would use to despatch people in unbearable pain, what a responsibility on the poor man.

To a degree assisted suicide already takes place in the UK for example when it is decided to withdraw treatment from a terminally ill or brain dead patient.                                                                                    Without my knowledge, but with his consent, my own father in desperate pain from cancer was put on the Liverpool pathway, a form of assisted suicide, a high continuous dose of diamorphine and a powerful sedative via a syringe driver is used. The death is caused by dehydration and takes around 3 days. It is now discredited and rightly so.

During a previous period of remission, I booked a holiday to Switzerland, a friend thought the worst and tried to persuade me not to go until I told him I was going to Sierre and not Dignitas. Joking aside I would like to have the option to go at a time of my choosing if needed when the time comes. When I was really ill I did research on means of suicide, but found I could not easily order online the means to do so properly, without risking a botched attempt, which would have made life even more miserable. I'm glad I was unable to do so as I'm still here now enjoying life, which brings my last point, at what point in life can the decision to end it be made?

I look forward to reading the views of others on this subject, Im sure there are lots of other considerations to be brought up.

Hi,

Thanks for being the first to share your thoughts. I guess if assisted suicide was legal, the Liverpool Care Pathway would never have been needed. I am told by someone who helped develop it back in the 1990s that the problem with the Liverpool Care Pathway was that it wasn't being followed as designed, but being applied as a label to the withdrawal of food and water. The original guidelines included full consultation with patients and their family with the pathway only being gone down if there was a consensus that it was the only viable option - all else having failed. The worst case I read was an elderly lady who was admitted with a broken shoulder, given morphine for her pain and then "put on the LCP" because she had symptoms of dementia - which were of course side effects of the morphine. Luckily her family intervened and she made a full recovery.  

As it stands today, if you can afford a trip to Switzerland you have access to the service but if you can't you have to suffer. Surely that can't be right?

I hope our politicians have the guts to address this but I shan't be holding my breath as no-one wants to risk becoming unelectable by being seen to advocate suicide in the face of religious opposition. 

There are lots of chemicals and plants which would do the job. In the USA none of the suppliers wants to have their drugs linked with lethal injections, so refuse to provide their products explicitly for this purpose. m.livescience.com/51389-why-lethal-injection-is-getting-harder.html

I'm still genuinely undecided on this - suicide is no longer illegal in the UK but anyone assisting can be sent to jail - regardless of their motives.

Dave

The thing with Dignitas is that you have to make a few trips to Switzerland before the final one, so there is considerable cost involved.  I am presuming if we had assisted suicide in this country we would use the same concoction of drugs use in Dignitas which is a very fast end to your life.  

My mother, many years ago was in a hospice for a few days.  She was in no pain and we had both requested that she not be given morphine.  I left her for a couple of hours and when I came back they had put a syringe driver of morphine in her.  I asked them to remove it but they refused, telling me that once it was inserted they couldnt remove it.  She died the next morning.  I was later told that they hadnt understood our instructions.

Before I had cancer I disagreed with any form of suicide but now I am not so sure as, although not frightened of death, I am a little worried about the method.