Thetownend.com

With the vote in parliament tomorrow, thought it would be interesting to see what the opinion of the forum is.

Please don’t use this as an opportunity to try and change anybody’s mind

The difficulty is in the detail and I get the concerns from disabled groups in particular, but a firm yes in principle.

A firm yes from me.

There was an interview with John Curtice where he was going over some polling which had been done, the surprising outcome was the elderly seemed more in favour of it than younger people?

A solid yes from me.

Having watched my Dad fade away over a few years and been on the receiving end of his requests to finish him off, a yes from me.

Yes.

There has to be rigorous checks in place, but yes.

This is my thoughts as well. The tricky thing is how to make sure the correct checks are in place but red tape delays are minimised. I also voted yes.

Surprising? Really? Why would you think it was surprising?

Probably because most had seen or know someone who would probably have benefited from the option, whereas the younger people hadn’t had as much exposure, yet

An emotive issue for sure.
50/50 for me.
Supportive of choice.
Concerns about regulation, scope creep, possible slippery slope in terms of erosion of valuing life etc.
Not a fan of the "Well people are allowed to take their pets to the vet to be put down, so..." argument. Jeez, really.
On balance went no.

Yes

I’m probably closer to the end game than most on here. I’m, hopefully, getting my skin cancer sorted but you never know. I certainly have no fear of dying but I do fear some of the physical/mental states a person can get into.

Hope this club can fucking sort itself out before they nail me down.

No. I think legalised killing can never be a good thing. From a personal point of view the more days I get to see my loved ones the better.

I'm not trying to debate this as such, your view is your view and respect that.

Just checking that we all know that the assisted dying proposal is. It says that anyone who wants to end their life must::

I do very much get the argument that someone in the position may not be compos mentis (isn't this subjective) to make that decision, and may be pressured into it too.

Some people go through hell, these are the people to consider.

So the actual bill has passed in parliament, with a much closer margin than on here.

Really interesting the pattern of votes - basically every party split on it apart from the NI ones. Starmer and Rayner on opposite sides, so were Davey and Cooper, Farage and Tice, McDonnell and Corbyn. Fascinating to see how parliament operates without a whip system.

Was also pleasing to note that our parliamentarians can act like grown ups, something that's been lacking in that place for many years.

My wife is an end of life palletive care Nurse for a cancer hospice you would change your mind if you  had a chat with her believe me.

This.

Interesting how your own personal opinion changes when you have to walk in someone else’s shoes.

I listened to a lot of the speeches in parliament yesterday, and basically all of them were 'my own personal traumatic experience  of watching a loved one die tells me this is a good/bad idea'. And there's the rub - no two deaths are the same, same as two lives. There are some people for whom assisted dying isn't the right option, and sadly there are people who will feel pressured to choose it. There are rightly safeguards being put in to try and prevent this but you can never be foolproof. The sad fact is that you're balancing that against not forcing people to die in agonising pain or to end their lives painfully themselves/travel to Switzerland alone.

There are a few people who are against this in bad faith, but a lot of the opposition is people who have weighed up the balance of good and bad and come down on the other side to me. It's a genuinely difficult one.

As others have said, this is a personal thing . I have watched and cared for relatives who have died from cancer and other conditions. I am still not sure where I stand on this . Walking in my shoes (the phrase adopted earlier ) equally applies.