I know that over here quite a few people working low on the totem pole at low positions* at nonprofits are making significantly less than minimum wage when you look at how many hours they work. So unless you guys are a lot nicer, I wouldn't assume it!
*I am told this is an offensive phrase. Thank you. Changed.
Yes. To me euthenasia has the connotations of someone else making the decision (as in the case of pets). MAID is initiated by the individual themselves not by others.
I'm not going to comment beyond this one thing, as this discussion has been vastly improved by me shutting up, but when I clicked on that link it said "Canadian euthanasia" and then the page refreshed itself and the header said "Assisted dying." There's a note indicating that the lede was revised and why, but nothing about the header. And there's an article linked to at the bottom which refers to "euthanasia" in Canada for the mentally ill. Brits and Canadians will of course use words that make sense to them, but to me "euthanasia" has not a connotation but a denotation of someone else making the decision.
Unsurprisingly, the word euthanasia doesn't seem to appear anywhere in the annual report itself.
The BBC article starts with:
The rate of medical assistance in dying - also known as euthanasia - has grown in Canada for the fifth straight year, albeit at a slower pace.
Given that euthanasia can be voluntary, non-voluntary or involuntary, this seems somewhat misleading.
[time passed]
Several hours later, regarding Ruth's post, if I reload the page, I see it now says:
Medically-assisted dying – also known as voluntary euthanasia – accounted for 4.7% of deaths in Canada in 2023, new government data shows.
And a note has been added at the end that says:
Clarification 12 December: This article's introduction has been amended to be clearer about the fact that these figures relate to voluntary euthanasia and to more clearly and prominently explain the background to the data for two groups who successfully sought medically assisted dying.
So I guess someone eventually gave it a bit more thought.
Min wage should be entry level jobs with no experience or skills required. Does anyone think people doing EoL care should be entry level first job unskilled workers? Shouldn't we want people who've already gained qualifications, experience and skills in social and health care first?
The race to the bottom is highly inappropriate in this sphere. It's already an endemic problem in social care.
I agree, and it's only now that I realise some of you may have taken my initial comment as supporting those management decisions rather than criticising them.
How a woman at the end of her life is being cruelly mistreated and neglected by the NHS funded continuing healthcare (CHC) service.
This stuff really needs fixed - otherwise they're just going to drive people into wanting to take their own lives through cruelty and neglect. Why isn't helping people to live a major priority for our lousy government?
How a woman at the end of her life is being cruelly mistreated and neglected by the NHS funded continuing healthcare (CHC) service.
This stuff really needs fixed - otherwise they're just going to drive people into wanting to take their own lives through cruelty and neglect. Why isn't helping people to live a major priority for our lousy government?
Isn't that one of the arguments the anti-Assisted Dying side have? That it is cheaper for governments to allow people to more seriously consider taking up the Assisted Dying option; than providing more effective end-of-life care? Now that - so the argument will go - the administration has agreed to put in place the apparatus for enabling people to take this option, why worry too much about funding hospice and properly effective palliative care? I don't know how the sums work out, so I can't comment either way.
The Canadian cleric, Michael Coren, who initially supported MAID, was writing in The Church Times this week about his subsequent change of mind. He said this was partly on account of his being requested by one woman to support her application because she was lonely, depressed and in despair. He had no idea, he says, whether or not she could possibly have been accepted for MAID, given that criteria. But what struck him was the assumption she had that feeling so helpless and hopeless, death was to her the only viable resort. Coren said she was introduced to a community who welcomed her, fixed her up with access to the internet and since then all mention of assisted dying has ceased. He implied that recent moves to extend MAID to mental health suffering conditions alone (in 2027?) might also be seen as something of a slippery slope.
I feel like I am far enough away from my own grief-induced ideations to finally comment on this thread.
I used to work in the very fancy dining room of a very fancy "retirement community" whose members were what I would call "pharmacological personae" - people able to get themselves dressed and down to supper but whose personalities were heavily regulated by their daily cocktail of medications. I saw enough of that to decide that I never want to live like that.
My father's stroke paralyzed his right side and his swallowing and speech centers. It happened three weeks before physician assisted suicide was legalized in Ontario, and he was the very first to request it from his hospital. They didn't even have a protocol set up. In the end he died by suicide - he had a living will that the hospital refused to acknowledge until the seventh time he pulled his feeding tube, after which the nurses did their usual thing by upping the morphine until his organs shut down.
My Mom's stroke happened in exactly the same location in the brain as my Dad's, and she collapsed after her favorite Chinese takeout meal six months after Dad left. She didn't pass right away, and it took me 24 whole hours to travel home from Spain where I was living, and the hospital was amazed she hung on as long as she did. I knew she was upset about Dad passing without us at his side so I knew she wouldn't pass alone. She passed eight hours after I arrived.
So I came to the conclusion that leaving the earth suit is as much of a decision as it is coming into it.
For myself I won't be asking anybody's permission to take the exit. Everyone wants to die in their sleep doing something they love. [redacted]. I hope that day is still long in the future - because verything good in my life has come to me through the love I've received and given and I feel I still have love left to give.
@A Feminine Force I am sorry to edit what is clearly a heartfelt post - but this is a publicly viewable site and we are concerned that the specific statement redacted could put you and us at legal risk.
@A Feminine Force I am sorry to edit what is clearly a heartfelt post - but this is a publicly viewable site and we are concerned that the specific statement redacted could put you and us at legal risk.
Doublethink, Admin
Oh duh. So stupid of course. Thanks for watching out for me. I take these things too matter of factly and this isn't the first time. Thank you from my heart.
Following the vote to proceed with the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill in Edinburgh earlier this week (70 votes to 56).
Tomorrow being a Friday, it's Private Members' Bills day in the House of Commons, starting with Kim Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which should include voting (on amendments, etc). A number of MPs have indicated that they've changed their position since the last vote or that they would do so if certain amendments weren't incorporated.
I understand that debates on Private Member's Bills are only allocated 5 hours a week, on Fridays. And that concerning the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, dozens of proposed amendments don't have time to be discussed or voted on.
A current controversial issue is whether doctors should be allowed raise the option of assisted dying with a terminally ill patient, or should wait for the patient to raise it first.
I was surprised when I heard that it might even be something doctors might want to raise with a terminally ill patient but it seems that many think the option so important that a doctor should be able, legally, to raise in discussion an option felt to be in the patient's best interests.
The next vote on the Bill is 13 June.
I will be surprised if the Bill survives its passage through Parliament and passes into law.
I’d like to see a requirement to justify that all possible measures had been taken to improve the patient’s quality of life, before any assisted dying request is progressed.
If people wish to die because, for example, they are in chronic pain - has their pain management been reviewed by a specialist pain team etc ?
I would think that taking the exit would be the decision of last resort, not first resort. As in "we've tried everything, there's nothing further we can do, and any new developments are still years on the horizon".
Someone who is determined to take their life into their own hands will find a way to exit without help. I think it's only people who sincerely would rather not exit the earth suit, but who see no better option, who ask for help in doing so.
That, and it’s explicitly only for people who are going to be exiting the earth suit pretty soon anyway. Going on to live a long and happy life isn’t an available alternative.
In theory, but in practice I think it often is not. Also, patients may not know what it is possible. I remember my grandmother asking my mother to kill her, in her last illness, and how upset my mum was. It was because her pain was not controlled - once palliative care kicked in and she had proper pain control she no longer felt that way and was able to have visits from all her friends and loved ones.
Yes. My mother flat out refused pain control despite clearly needing it, which was traumatic to everyone watching too. But whether you get properly evaluated and cared for depends on the end on your most local agencies and caregivers. I’m a bit concerned about my own future, given that I’m opiate insensitive for the usual routes of administration, and I’ve already had a hospital screw my pain relief up after surgery, despite being told.
The 'Assisted Dying Bill' made it through Parliament on Friday and will have a Third Reading next Friday. I was surprised that the amendment that would have banned doctors from raising the issue with eligible patients was voted down. For further summary see:
The safeguarding around this, of it comes into law, is going to be an absolute fucking nightmare.
Unlike child protection, there is no central adult protection register in the UK - I doubt the government even knows how many section 42 enquires are carried out a year specifically in regard to allegations of abuse being perpetrated by caregivers and/or family members.
314-293. I was watching coverage on BBC. From the reporting I have heard, it seems to have more guardrails than the Canadian legislation but I must admit I have not read the British bill.
As a disabled person who was/is very much in favour of the Assisted Dying Bill (unsure of how to phrase it given that it has now passed) I find the way that terminally ill and other disabled people (because terminally ill people ARE disabled) have been pitted against each other to be really disheartening. Denying those terminally ill people who are suffering *right now* the right to die with dignity on the chance that the law might change at some point in the future seems unbelievably cruel and selfish to me, regardless of what other ableism the government is up to. PIP cuts aren't their [terminally ill people] fault or their problem.
As a disabled person I don't want to be denied the kind of painless and dignified exit that a pet dog gets but somehow a human is denied. Me being disabled means I want more medical autonomy, not less.
As a disabled person who was/is very much in favour of the Assisted Dying Bill (unsure of how to phrase it given that it has now passed) I find the way that terminally ill and other disabled people (because terminally ill people ARE disabled) have been pitted against each other to be really disheartening. Denying those terminally ill people who are suffering *right now* the right to die with dignity on the chance that the law might change at some point in the future seems unbelievably cruel and selfish to me, regardless of what other ableism the government is up to. PIP cuts aren't their [terminally ill people] fault or their problem.
As a disabled person I don't want to be denied the kind of painless and dignified exit that a pet dog gets but somehow a human is denied. Me being disabled means I want more medical autonomy, not less.
I really appreciate that point about pitting terminally ill people against other disabled people, Pomona.
As the legislation is implemented I think it will be very interesting how much real protection there is for disabled people, how much provision there is for mental health, and finally and most importantly how it's implemented. I have read some about what the law says, but the devil's in the details.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has *not* been passed - it's still a Bill, not an Act.
It has passed the final vote of the reading, committee and report stages in the House of Commons and now moves to the House of Lords for similar consideration. There's probably a majority of peers in favour of the Bill, but it's likely that they'll add more amendments, after which it would return to the Commons for consideration of the Lords' amendments and a final, final vote.
While some MPs and Lords object to the Bill on principle, many oppose this particular assisted dying Bill because they think that it doesn't provide sufficient protection for vulnerable people, hence the large number of amendments that have been proposed. While many of these amendments weren't debated or voted on, those that were addressed a wide range of concerns.
For example, the Bill makes (external) coercion a criminal offence. An amendment was proposed on Friday that a person would not be eligible for assisted dying if they were substantially motivated by:
(a) not wanting to be a burden on others or on public services,
(b) a mental disorder (including depression),
(c) a disability (other than the terminal illness),
(d) financial considerations, including lack of adequate housing,
(e) lack of access, or delayed access, to treatment or other service which a public authority is required (or can reasonably be expected to) provide, or
(f) suicidal ideation.
which was defeated.
An area of concern expressed by a number of MPs and activists is that while individual choice is widely seen to be a good thing in principle, in practice it is affected by the provision and the availability of services - how much choice do you really have if you are unable to access the palliative care you need? And on the minds of many MPs and others is that from a financial viewpoint, the provision of assisted dying is likely to be more cost-effective than the provision of palliative care. Can the system itself be guilty of coercion?
Thinking about Pomona's last point, the state restricts our autonomy in various ways - some intentional, many unintentional. It also restricts our autonomy unevenly, often according to our identity and particular circumstances. I'm not confident about the extent to which the Bill as it stands will increase medical autonomy for all. Given the number of assisted dying Bills that have failed over the past few years, I'm inclined to think that the reason its being passed this time round is that enough MPs have reached the conclusion that at least it increases medical autonomy for some.
Watching and reading about the passage of this Bill, one aspect that seems more pertinent than usual is wondering about the extent to which the people making these decisions (in parliament) understand the reality of having to live with significant restriction of their autonomy.
I don’t see how you could exclude suicidal ideation if you are applying for a process to end your life, that is logically incoherent.
The desire not to use the word suicide for assisted dying, to avoid stigma, somewhat avoids the issue: which is that we are process of moving as a society from a position where we say we don’t think there is any reason good enough for you to take your own life or have someone assist you to do that - to one where we say we think some short list of reasons are good enough provided we are sure they are true. (The safeguarding concerns effectively amount to saying, we think reasons presented may not be true with a particular concern about intentional and unintentional coercion.)
The reasons, in this legislation, seems to be - you are going to die soon and you are suffering or wish to anticipate and prevent future suffering and/or disability. A lot of the argument is framed around dignity and autonomy though. But it doesn’t seem our society is currently in the position of saying, you can have the dignity and autonomy to organise your death at any point in you life of your choosing - at the moment, only if you are imminently going to die.
This doesn’t make much sense, and I think that is why scope of this type of legislation tends to widen over time.
I don't know what I believe on that topic,* @Doublethink . But I want to argue that we can coherently argue that the bill is okay but shouldn't expand. It is natural as animals to want to live. If situations are healthy, we should want to live. If we do not want to live that often means that our part of society is wrong and is breaking us or something in us is unwell.
But dying animals do often at some point stop eating and otherwise stop fighting the process. It would be natural and relatively reasonable if dying humans reached a point that they felt they were close enough to death that it was time to finish the process. Under that logic assumption, such people may use other means to finish the process more painlessly than an another animal is able to. However, a non-dying human should not want to finish a process that isn't happening, so they should be helped instead.
*Basically I know what I believe a in simple theoretical situation. But how things like coercion and conflicts of interest will affect the theoretical situation mean I don't particularly know what I think.
Can you expand a bit on your last paragraph so I can understand a bit more, Pease?
It doesn't come as a big surprise to find that disabled people are more aware than undisabled people of the effect disability has on autonomy, or that this is experienced in all areas of life, including access to care and health services. I was thinking of the way that undisabled members of parliament are rather less likely than disabled MPs to take this into account in their decision-making. More generally, I haven't seen anything that leads me to think that access to assisted dying will be more equitable for people with protected characteristics than other parts of the care and health system.
Comments
*I am told this is an offensive phrase. Thank you. Changed.
It's the word we commonly use when we do exactly the same thing to our pets. Is it commonly used of MAID for pet animals in Canada?
https://www.grammarly.com/commonly-confused-words/connote-vs-denote
The BBC article starts with: Given that euthanasia can be voluntary, non-voluntary or involuntary, this seems somewhat misleading.
[time passed]
Several hours later, regarding Ruth's post, if I reload the page, I see it now says: And a note has been added at the end that says: So I guess someone eventually gave it a bit more thought.
And me....
Min wage £11.34/hr
Lowest NHS pay scale - £12.08
So yes, but by very little.
Min wage should be entry level jobs with no experience or skills required. Does anyone think people doing EoL care should be entry level first job unskilled workers? Shouldn't we want people who've already gained qualifications, experience and skills in social and health care first?
The race to the bottom is highly inappropriate in this sphere. It's already an endemic problem in social care.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/28/terminal-illness-care-england-motor-neurone-disease
How a woman at the end of her life is being cruelly mistreated and neglected by the NHS funded continuing healthcare (CHC) service.
This stuff really needs fixed - otherwise they're just going to drive people into wanting to take their own lives through cruelty and neglect. Why isn't helping people to live a major priority for our lousy government?
Isn't that one of the arguments the anti-Assisted Dying side have? That it is cheaper for governments to allow people to more seriously consider taking up the Assisted Dying option; than providing more effective end-of-life care? Now that - so the argument will go - the administration has agreed to put in place the apparatus for enabling people to take this option, why worry too much about funding hospice and properly effective palliative care? I don't know how the sums work out, so I can't comment either way.
The Canadian cleric, Michael Coren, who initially supported MAID, was writing in The Church Times this week about his subsequent change of mind. He said this was partly on account of his being requested by one woman to support her application because she was lonely, depressed and in despair. He had no idea, he says, whether or not she could possibly have been accepted for MAID, given that criteria. But what struck him was the assumption she had that feeling so helpless and hopeless, death was to her the only viable resort. Coren said she was introduced to a community who welcomed her, fixed her up with access to the internet and since then all mention of assisted dying has ceased. He implied that recent moves to extend MAID to mental health suffering conditions alone (in 2027?) might also be seen as something of a slippery slope.
I used to work in the very fancy dining room of a very fancy "retirement community" whose members were what I would call "pharmacological personae" - people able to get themselves dressed and down to supper but whose personalities were heavily regulated by their daily cocktail of medications. I saw enough of that to decide that I never want to live like that.
My father's stroke paralyzed his right side and his swallowing and speech centers. It happened three weeks before physician assisted suicide was legalized in Ontario, and he was the very first to request it from his hospital. They didn't even have a protocol set up. In the end he died by suicide - he had a living will that the hospital refused to acknowledge until the seventh time he pulled his feeding tube, after which the nurses did their usual thing by upping the morphine until his organs shut down.
My Mom's stroke happened in exactly the same location in the brain as my Dad's, and she collapsed after her favorite Chinese takeout meal six months after Dad left. She didn't pass right away, and it took me 24 whole hours to travel home from Spain where I was living, and the hospital was amazed she hung on as long as she did. I knew she was upset about Dad passing without us at his side so I knew she wouldn't pass alone. She passed eight hours after I arrived.
So I came to the conclusion that leaving the earth suit is as much of a decision as it is coming into it.
For myself I won't be asking anybody's permission to take the exit. Everyone wants to die in their sleep doing something they love. [redacted]. I hope that day is still long in the future - because verything good in my life has come to me through the love I've received and given and I feel I still have love left to give.
AFF
(ETA redacted for legal risk, DT Admin)
Doublethink, Admin
Oh duh. So stupid of course. Thanks for watching out for me. I take these things too matter of factly and this isn't the first time. Thank you from my heart.
AFF
Tomorrow being a Friday, it's Private Members' Bills day in the House of Commons, starting with Kim Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which should include voting (on amendments, etc). A number of MPs have indicated that they've changed their position since the last vote or that they would do so if certain amendments weren't incorporated.
A current controversial issue is whether doctors should be allowed raise the option of assisted dying with a terminally ill patient, or should wait for the patient to raise it first.
I was surprised when I heard that it might even be something doctors might want to raise with a terminally ill patient but it seems that many think the option so important that a doctor should be able, legally, to raise in discussion an option felt to be in the patient's best interests.
The next vote on the Bill is 13 June.
I will be surprised if the Bill survives its passage through Parliament and passes into law.
If people wish to die because, for example, they are in chronic pain - has their pain management been reviewed by a specialist pain team etc ?
I would think that taking the exit would be the decision of last resort, not first resort. As in "we've tried everything, there's nothing further we can do, and any new developments are still years on the horizon".
Someone who is determined to take their life into their own hands will find a way to exit without help. I think it's only people who sincerely would rather not exit the earth suit, but who see no better option, who ask for help in doing so.
AFF
In theory, but in practice I think it often is not. Also, patients may not know what it is possible. I remember my grandmother asking my mother to kill her, in her last illness, and how upset my mum was. It was because her pain was not controlled - once palliative care kicked in and she had proper pain control she no longer felt that way and was able to have visits from all her friends and loved ones.
https://www.dignityindying.org.uk/news/assisted-dying-bill-heads-towards-historic-third-reading-in-commons-with-solid-and-sustained-mp-support-for-law-change/
Unlike child protection, there is no central adult protection register in the UK - I doubt the government even knows how many section 42 enquires are carried out a year specifically in regard to allegations of abuse being perpetrated by caregivers and/or family members.
This is out of date, and doesn’t break it down in the way I suggest but it gives at least a suggestion of scale.
As a disabled person I don't want to be denied the kind of painless and dignified exit that a pet dog gets but somehow a human is denied. Me being disabled means I want more medical autonomy, not less.
I really appreciate that point about pitting terminally ill people against other disabled people, Pomona.
As the legislation is implemented I think it will be very interesting how much real protection there is for disabled people, how much provision there is for mental health, and finally and most importantly how it's implemented. I have read some about what the law says, but the devil's in the details.
It has passed the final vote of the reading, committee and report stages in the House of Commons and now moves to the House of Lords for similar consideration. There's probably a majority of peers in favour of the Bill, but it's likely that they'll add more amendments, after which it would return to the Commons for consideration of the Lords' amendments and a final, final vote.
While some MPs and Lords object to the Bill on principle, many oppose this particular assisted dying Bill because they think that it doesn't provide sufficient protection for vulnerable people, hence the large number of amendments that have been proposed. While many of these amendments weren't debated or voted on, those that were addressed a wide range of concerns.
For example, the Bill makes (external) coercion a criminal offence. An amendment was proposed on Friday that a person would not be eligible for assisted dying if they were substantially motivated by: which was defeated.
An area of concern expressed by a number of MPs and activists is that while individual choice is widely seen to be a good thing in principle, in practice it is affected by the provision and the availability of services - how much choice do you really have if you are unable to access the palliative care you need? And on the minds of many MPs and others is that from a financial viewpoint, the provision of assisted dying is likely to be more cost-effective than the provision of palliative care. Can the system itself be guilty of coercion?
Thinking about Pomona's last point, the state restricts our autonomy in various ways - some intentional, many unintentional. It also restricts our autonomy unevenly, often according to our identity and particular circumstances. I'm not confident about the extent to which the Bill as it stands will increase medical autonomy for all. Given the number of assisted dying Bills that have failed over the past few years, I'm inclined to think that the reason its being passed this time round is that enough MPs have reached the conclusion that at least it increases medical autonomy for some.
Watching and reading about the passage of this Bill, one aspect that seems more pertinent than usual is wondering about the extent to which the people making these decisions (in parliament) understand the reality of having to live with significant restriction of their autonomy.
The desire not to use the word suicide for assisted dying, to avoid stigma, somewhat avoids the issue: which is that we are process of moving as a society from a position where we say we don’t think there is any reason good enough for you to take your own life or have someone assist you to do that - to one where we say we think some short list of reasons are good enough provided we are sure they are true. (The safeguarding concerns effectively amount to saying, we think reasons presented may not be true with a particular concern about intentional and unintentional coercion.)
The reasons, in this legislation, seems to be - you are going to die soon and you are suffering or wish to anticipate and prevent future suffering and/or disability. A lot of the argument is framed around dignity and autonomy though. But it doesn’t seem our society is currently in the position of saying, you can have the dignity and autonomy to organise your death at any point in you life of your choosing - at the moment, only if you are imminently going to die.
This doesn’t make much sense, and I think that is why scope of this type of legislation tends to widen over time.
But dying animals do often at some point stop eating and otherwise stop fighting the process. It would be natural and relatively reasonable if dying humans reached a point that they felt they were close enough to death that it was time to finish the process. Under that logic assumption, such people may use other means to finish the process more painlessly than an another animal is able to. However, a non-dying human should not want to finish a process that isn't happening, so they should be helped instead.
*Basically I know what I believe a in simple theoretical situation. But how things like coercion and conflicts of interest will affect the theoretical situation mean I don't particularly know what I think.