First I think Assisted Suicide is a misleading description of a person choosing to end their suffering so henceforth I refer to Assisted Death.
The clarification of the ruling on Assisted Death is of Paramount importance to many subscribers to this site. Indeed the Report is giving a hint of certain relaxations. This will be welcome news to many in acute pain with conditions beyond help. It will also give comfort for those not at this stage yet .
Additionally there is hope for those who would normally have the prospect of depending on morphine etc to get from day to day not forgetting the stress and hardship it gives to loved ones.
I Hope you will all beam in on this and make your views known. It will give many of us the opportunity to snub this disease before it beats us!!
I Have put these views to the Macmillan Cummunity Team and they have requested me to write this Blog to try and monitor the amount of feeling by subscribers, so I ask you all to make your contribution which will give Macmillan a sound base from which to make representations to the Government, Vernon Cooper (Kidney Cancer)
FormerMember
The most frightening thing for me, as a terminal prostate cancer patient, is not the death as such but the mode of death ! I would like to be in charge and if I have had enough pain , I would like to think that I could ask and be granted the right to end it, instead of living a little longer in agony . repeating the well used saying , they wouldnt let a dog suffer , so why let a human?
I think its a very personal choice and for those that want the option it should be there, I have seen people suffer and its not pleasant, I even had a relative who stopped eating in the hope of endding things more quickly as she had lost the will to live following illness at 99 and I found that really sad watching her go through a slow death.
So I for one would support the option of choice and hope I never get to that point.
I also believe it is of personal choice but as already said it's not death I fear but how I die that is important to me and pain is not the way to go! so given a choice I think it should be legalised but monitored closely! I would like to think I would have my choice when my time arrives. The very last thing I want is to let my close loved ones see me die in pain knowing there is nothing they can do.
My dad died over 20 years ago, his death greatly sppeded up by the hospital who stopped feeding him and more importantly stopped giving him liquid. this was done without any discussion with his family. Assisted death has been going on within the medical community for years. I think we ought all have the right to control our death but it ought to be OUR decision and OUR families. I am not afraid of death or even of dying, my concern is the quality of life I have. The option of choice should be ours but we have to fight hard to make sure that it is ONLY an option and that it NEVER becomes an expectation.
