the shizzle > music, art and culture
Assisted Dying, UK Parliament
MischaHY:
Having witnessed the effect on my close family of my grandmothers slow descent into alzheimers over a five year period I agree that it would be better for everyone with a similar diagnosis to be able to go gently into the good night. There's no grace in losing your mind and memories.
mrjonathanr:
--- Quote from: stone on April 29, 2024, 09:05:50 am ---
Perhaps what is messed up is people seeing it as somehow being undignified to be demented and incontinent or whatever. When we are new born babies, we are like that and everyone is fine with that.
--- End quote ---
When I get very old, I do hope the people around me recognise that I have more agency than a newborn baby.
stone:
--- Quote from: mrjonathanr on April 29, 2024, 06:42:36 pm ---
--- Quote from: stone on April 29, 2024, 09:05:50 am ---
Perhaps what is messed up is people seeing it as somehow being undignified to be demented and incontinent or whatever. When we are new born babies, we are like that and everyone is fine with that.
--- End quote ---
When I get very old, I do hope the people around me recognise that I have more agency than a newborn baby.
--- End quote ---
My impression (happy to be corrected) is that when people say they want to "die with dignity", what they mean is minimising the period when they lack agency. Sometimes disease does cause us to lose all agency doesn't it?
I haven't really got a coherant view about all of this myself. That is why I was asking everyone on here. I was struck by what Amy Proffitt was saying. She was wanting better resourced palliative end-of-life care, but very much not wanting this assisted dying bill to go through.
Coronation Street (the TV soap) currently has a storyline about a character with MND and wishing to have assisted dying. I thought they did a good job showing all kinds of consequent strains in the relationships with those around him. The situation seemed similar in a Louis Theroux episode interviewing families where it was legal in the USA.
stone:
I just googled and saw that Amy Proffitt also wrote something about this subject when the RCP was choosing what position to take: https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/news/assisted-dying-why-rcp-should-be-opposed
mrjonathanr:
--- Quote from: stone on April 29, 2024, 09:15:02 pm ---My impression (happy to be corrected) is that when people say they want to "die with dignity", what they mean is minimising the period when they lack agency. Sometimes disease does cause us to lose all agency doesn't it?
--- End quote ---
Depends rather on your understanding of the term, but it’s not just loss of mental capacity that people want to avoid. The end stage of life with illness can result in miserable loss of bodily control, although the mind may be still sharp. I’ve known people who have lost either physical or mental capacity. It’s grim. I won’t elaborate.
The issue is an individual’s right to choose rather than be told. It’s an important topic, but feel you might be oversimplifying the reasons for making that choice tbh. Whatever the simplicity of the moral issue - control of your own destiny- fashioning good law around that will be tricky.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version