Sorry for your loss Sam and thanks for sharing on the forum.
For anyone interested, here's a long, very good (IMHO) article by philosopher Duncan Reyburn that he published about a month ago. Not that I'm agreeing with what he's written but I found it very thought provoking.
https://open.substack.com/pub/duncanreyburn/p/citizen-disposal?r=4n4mm&utm_medium=ios
I couldn't really get on with this for the same reason as Remus. It's unnecessarily belligerent and reads a bit like something Dan C might have posted on here at one time.
Which is a shame because there's not really been much counter-argument presented, yet there are really important things to consider from the case against. Personally I'm in favour of some form of assisted dying, not least to avoid having circumstances where somebody dies prematurely because they feel pressure to take the action themselves before they're unable to do so. However, I'd favour a very limiting set of criteria for people to be eligible, and it would be really really hard to legislate and implement properly because of the variety in the individual circumstances in question.
In terms of agency, people who are physically well might want to die, and might make a rational decision to do so, but we don't view this sort of suicide as "acceptable" (if one of your mates told you that they were planning suicide and described their reasons to you then you'd presumably try and stop them) and nor should we.
Illnesses aren't binary. For many people living with dementia it is possible to live well for many years. A life at <100% is not necessarily not worth living. Having said that, I totally understand that for many people the disease may progress to a point where that person isn't living well - in that case I would choose assisted dying.
It's worth bearing in mind that there are already procedures in place whereby people with mental capacity can choose to refuse certain treatments, which may mean that they don't survive when doctors might otherwise be able to keep them alive. e.g.
https://www.resus.org.uk/respect/respect-healthcare-professionalsIf anybody wants a brutal read you can check out this blog:
https://substack.com/@diaryofapunterPaul describes his climbing accident here:
https://diaryofapunter.substack.com/p/on-breaking-my-neck-doing-what-i?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2Later on in the blog he describes his wish to die and says that he has applied to Dignitas, though maybe just to feel some sort of control. I've been wondering whether I think that assisted dying would be acceptable (under my own criteria) in his circumstances and this comment made me think that no, I don't think it is:
https://open.substack.com/pub/diaryofapunter/p/the-baying?utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=54971209