Protest against Assisted Dying Bill, in Westminster, on Friday
The next debate on the controversial Assisted Dying Bill is to take place in the House of Lords on Friday – and all those opposed to the Bill are invited to attend a planned public protest outside the House while the debate is taking place.
An online petition has also been raised on the Change.org website. This states:
Lord Falconer’s bill aims to make it legal for doctors to end the lives of those they judge to be terminally ill, if the dying individual requests this intervention. This issue affects everyone, but our experience as disabled people informs our belief that the law should not be changed.
Not Dead Yet UK opposes this because:
- It would be unacceptably dangerous to make it legal for one individual to end the life of another, because statutory safeguards cannot be made effective;
- Clear evidence from other countries, where assisted dying has been introduced, shows that people are being assisted to die when they are not terminally ill. This is not the intention of the legislation, but there is evidence to show that it happens and when it does it is often to disabled people. In the light of this, Not Dead Yet UK takes the view that ‘Assisted Dying’ would be more accurately described as ‘Assisted Suicide’;
- People can be led to perceive themselves as a burden, especially when support services are cut, and this may contribute to their decision making;
- We believe that a positive approach to the lives of disabled people, old and young, should be a priority for society;
- This means appropriate support for living and an accessible environment;
- Disabled people are being hit harder than many by the recession, which gives us the clear message that our rights and opportunities are low priority when times get hard. ‘Assisted Dying’ is often linked with the cost of disability, particularly Social Care and Continuing Health Care, which are becoming increasingly unavailable. We find this a legitimate and relevant cause for concern;
- In a recent poll by the Royal College of GPs, 77 per cent voted against legalising assisted suicide and many doctors acknowledge that it is very difficult to accurately predict when someone will die and they often get this wrong.
If you oppose the Bill and can make it to Westminster, please join the protest.
(Thanks to Mo Stewart for this information.)
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BOOOOO lets assist those in Westminster , it would be inhumane not to
No Ellie, let’s not. Did you actually read the article and the reports from other countries who have legislated in favour of assisted suicide (it is suicide, no matter what spin you put on it)?
If not, read them, digest the information and implications of such and let’s see if you feel the same. If you do, then I truly feel bad for you and all the similar misguided people.
Euthanasia is increasingly viewed by debt-ridden, industrialized nations as a panacea to their aging and infirm populations. Don’t be fooled by Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill. Euthanasia is destined to be introduced under the guise of compassion and choice; a euthanasia law was recently passed in my hometown province of Quebec. Lethal injection was obfuscatorily termed “medical aid to die.” (An Ipsos Marketing survey found only one-third of Quebecers understood this meant a lethal injection.) It is a cost-saving mechanism: The economic argument in favour of euthanasia regards the elderly, sick and disabled as all cost and no benefit—and it is designed to save the government monies in benefits provision and elderly care costs.
People in Britain should be asking: Have we forgotten so soon the lessons of the Liverpool Care Pathway scandal?
(Montreal, Quebec)
Reblogged this on sdbast.
Thanks for posting this Mike.
I’ll copy this to Jane Campbell who has an uphill battle in the Lords on Friday to stop this atrocity becoming law.
First we kill the dying, then we kill the disabled, long-term sick, elderly, disabled children – then we kill the unemployed.
Do No Harm.
Reblogged this on Jay's Journal and commented:
I am totally against “Assisted Dying” – or murder as it should be called…
Reblogged this on amnesiaclinic and commented:
Liverpool Care Pathway extended to all……
When this government has learned care, compassion, support and empathy for the poor, the vulnerable and the disabled then we can have a proper debate.
A long, long way to go!!!!!!
x
I want the freedom to choose how to die. Nobody should have the right to keep my body alive.
The concern is that you’ll end up with no freedom at all, while someone else decides to off you. Do you want THAT?
Yes. I do not want to be in a vegetative state for any amount of time.
My family is already fully aware of my wishes which I detailed in my will.
As someone who lives in constant pain every day and takes morphine just to make it through, I know there will come a time when the morphine will no longer take the pain away. I WANT the right to decide for myself when to leave this world with dignity. When the time comes, I want to be assisted by competent medical personnel, and be able to say my goodbyes to family and friends. I do NOT want to have to end my life by suicide, alone and scared. We have the compassion to end the suffering of an animal when the time is right – don’t make people suffer more than they need to.
But can you assure anyone that people won’t die when they DON’T need to? That is the issue here.
Their is another way without putting lives in danger Look at Catholic Care homes They stop pain but do not Kill It is called Palliative care
Has anyone noticed the Daily Mail revelation 17/7/14 that Norman Lamb OUR Minister for CARE of the elderly, disabled, vulnerable has come out supporting ASSISTED SUICIDE?
Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
Some of the effects of the proposed legislation can be seen in history. In many parts of Europe in the eighteenth century, it was the custom for the elderly to be killed or commit suicide when they were judged to be a burden to their families. One of the Georges rescued an elderly man, who was about to jump off a cliff for this reason, when they were riding through their duchy in Germany. The man lived for another twenty years at their court. I’ve been informed by a friend of mine, who studied this issue, that in Britain they turned such killing into a party, when a group met to smother the elderly or disabled person with a pillow, the noise of the party being intended to block out their screams. There is a profound danger that all this will return with this bill, regardless of the good intentions of people like Patrick Stewart. Pope John Paul II enraged secularists by referring to the Enlightenment as a ‘culture of death’. It was a gross exaggeration, but in this case he does have a point. It brings the country a little closer to the world envisioned by Friedrich Nietzsche. In his ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’, the philosopher of the atheist existentialist superman said ‘The problem isn’t that human life is too short. It is that some people live too long’. As for Patrick Steward, some of us can remember an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which an elderly scientist petitions Picard and the crew of the Enterprise for asylum. He comes from a culture where it is the law that people voluntarily commit suicide in special chambers on their 65th birthday. In this fictional world, this law was brought in to prevent them becoming a burden to their families, and dying in pain and squalor. They are surrounded by their families in a special, celebratory day when they take their own lives. This was a case of the writers of Star Trek trying to discuss a real issue maturely. However, real situations are too complex to fit nicely into a fifty-minute screen play with satisfying plot resolution, and the treatment can seem to be shocking shallow. The scientist in that episode is fit and healthy. The only thing against him is his age. He is, however, eventually persuade by his family to return to his world, where he can die with dignity by his own hand surrounded by them. In reality, the situation could be very different. This judgement brings us closer to that fictional world.