It is 16 years since I started this blog and one of the first things I wrote about was Assisted Dying. It was an important subject then and it has been regularly debated ever since. Culminating in the latest version of the Assisted Dying Bill being rejected yet again in Parliament for the third time.
I have posted over twenty blogs on the issues and although I remain open minded to both sides of the argument, I have not changed my overall opposition to the Bill currently being presented.
Given the scale of growth of the older population it is disappointing that the debate has hardly moved forward. We need to be guided by well considered factual analysis, not by heart rending emotion.
No new insights have emerged, indeed the same old issues remain unresolved:-
- How do you prevent coercive pressure from families ?
- How can you be sure about the length of a terminal illness ?
- Is the experience of assisted dying abroad helpful ?
- Would more hospice care change the argument ?
- Is the pressure on NHS beds a factor in the debate ?
- Why are so many medical professionals opposed to it ?
These and many more questions remain unresolved after years of political debate. It is a sad indictment of the current political process that there has been no improvement in over twenty years.
Surely by now if progress had been made on these questions the Bill brought before Parliament would have at least helped us all reach a better position.
GrumbleSmiles 
PHEW what a subject and there again ones personal view on the subject? It is not easy to solve?
If one is younger [under say 55 years] and has a relatively difficult medical condition whhich can not be solved easily with painfree treatment, There again one may have to deal personnally with mental issues which makes daily life, unless under medication say difficult to negotiate.
That is just a starter if one has advanced years of age nearing ones eighties/nineties, and while had a good healthy life, and maybe faced with difficulty in mental and mobility reactions, and in memory looks back at a good happy life, may not wish to pursue life with the bad effects/ailments that mentally of physically one may face on a daily basis. What does the individual think or come to a positive conclusion on life.
It is difficult as one may in their life expressed and shown love for their fellow man, and in particular ones family! Then the decion of life may be a total family involvement with the emotions that this wold bring!!!
The decision of the value of a life is difficult, Even the law in our nation has , or took the decision some years ago that a COMMITTED MURDER by a FELLOW HUMAN BEING, is a SIN! But the LAW has taken the decision not to hang/KILL HUMANELY the COMMITTED MUDERER, but denigh them freedom.
I politely ask what does on do eor we do as a ;SOCIETY; about an act to assist a fellow human being end ones life peacefully and not to suffer pain in the act of continuing to live before death?
AS quoted many societies and groups of persons with deep religious beliefs have ‘ETHICS’ and Codes of conduct,and while as an individual I may follow one;s belief, at the end of my life when I may have to make the choice of pain over life, and a lifestyle, i wish to follow under care, I trust I have the courage to talk openly to my family, and maybe make a oersonal decision with a regstered medical doctor, how I wish to end my life>[PILLS POTIONS ETC], without having to cause my family and society. embaressment, and my ultimate decion is taken a very personal one!!!
HEREI Have trouble with the rule of SOCIETY and Parliament, as I may wish to take a personal view based upon health of the body and soul and not MONETARY ISSUES?
Again I have opened another door, for didcusion and society and family when discussing death and premature death, the ETHICAL PROBLEMS and RELIGIOUS BELIEFS may and have to be encontered,
AS a society we may have to discuss the actual occassion of death and the implications upon the person chosing death as a choice, and the implications and actions not of society, but the close family members invovled in such a situation.
REGARDS Enjoy your future thoughts and deep thinking.