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How did Britain embark on a situation where the dying account that will contain the strongest protective measures in the world presented as an attack on vulnerable? Those of us who want mercy for a desperate, deathly ill people portray as reckless zealous or useful idiots for those who want to get rid of burdened relatives. The conservative lobby in parliament is poured by the vast majority of voters who are united to support the dying dying.
When Sir Keir Starmer came to duty, his support for a humane and limited right to escape from terminal diseases seemed to have been set up to make him one of the most common prime ministers lately. He rightly wanted to vote for the parliamentarians for free about this fundamental conscience. But he was reluctant to put his seal too tightly at him knowing that his cabinet was divided. Downing Street therefore supported MP Kim Leadbeater to bring an account of private members.
This was a mistake. Leadbeater and her account are now in serious problems. After insisting that the High Court judge should be monitored every case, and presented this to MPs as vital protection against abuse, she recognized that it was unnecessary and that too much pressure on the courts. Instead, she suggested an even stronger protection – that cases are referred to a professional panel. But her slightly stumble in the center of attention, they let opponents claim that the procedure was shameful, that the vital issue was not considered enough and that there was not enough protection.
The tragedy is that Leadbeater and her street streets have overcome their protection in an effort to convince those who accuse them of being unscrupulous. I can’t find any other country that uses judges in this way. Most jurisdiction – including states in Australia, New Zealand and America – relies on the opinion of two independent doctors. In Oregon, which legalized suicide with the help of a doctor in 1997, and the Netherlands, which did so in the 1980s, more poll and reports in Medical Ethics in 2007, found evidence of vulnerable pressurized groups, or disproportionate to seek to die.
The idea of the board also has a little precedent. The closest analogy is Spain, where cases are referred to a lawyer and a health care worker after two doctors confirmed that the patient meets the criteria. In 2023, less than half of the 766 Spanish requests were conducted, and a quarter of the applicant was dying before their wishes followed. It is difficult to “slippery slope”.
If the British account passes, it is so closely drawn that few people will qualify. Around one Briton a week he travels to Switzerland to die – and that will not change much. Even those with motor neurons will not qualify if doctors believe that they have only been left for six months. Former Judge Sir Nicholas Mostyn, who has Parkinson’s disease, claimed that he had spread to neurodegenerative diseases. The suffering at the end of life for Parkinson’s patients is “unbearable,” he said, with some incapable of swallowing or breathing. “That’s what I’m facing. And I would like to know why opponents are determined to condemn me. “
This is a question we have to come back to. Many of those with strong religious faith believe that life is holy. I respect that. But it’s hard for me to warn of “playing God” when medicine holds people living against my wishes. It’s not my God. It was not even the god of my old friend Frank Field, a pious Catholic and former Labor MP who changed his mind about helping dying after watching a close friend of the cancer. He himself did not want a assisted death, but he did not believe that it was correct to deny mercy to others.
Sometimes we seem to live through a unique cruel age. People live longer and with more complex diseases than ever before. My grandfather, vicar, would often give the last rites to people who stopped working only a few years before; Dugana’s death was rare. We have also lost persuasion that a family doctor who knows us can accelerate things with a bottle of morphine to relieve pain. This compassionate proceedings ended after Dr. Harold Shipman was convicted of multiple murder mostly the elderly 25 years ago.
Two words dominate this discussion: “vulnerable” and “burden”. Christian conservative MP Danny Kruger says advanced workers should oppose a change in the law, because politics should be “protecting vulnerable from abuse of power.” Really. But who abuses who? Doesn’t the state abuse its power when blocking those who suffer the relentless mental and physical torture, but cannot physically take their lives? The only time for Tony Nicklinson, a rugby player who lived for seven years with almost complete paralysis, was to starve to death in front of his family. Isn’t that serious injustice?
The opponents also armed the idea of not wanting to be a burden somehow unnatural. No one should be under pressure to die a cousin trying to get his money. But it is a deep human instinct to want to protect your loved ones from anxiety, to wish me dignity. My father did not want me to see him in the country where he was when he was dying. He did not want to endure my suffering, as well as his own. “I hope I won’t die in a hospital with pipes that were thrown out,” he said. Yes.
If this account is deducted, it is unlikely that (for many years will be considered. Many MPs who have not decided, are easier to do. But the status quo is unspeakable.
