Comments on: Lord Joffe Bill on assisted suicide

By: Bronwen Wrigley

Bronwen Wrigley — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 16:49:21 +0000

How I agree with Boris and Psimon. I myself suffer from MS and I live in constant fear of what I may become. I have seen people with this disease who are stone blind, unable to move a muscle, to eat, drink, talk, even to breathe without help. This is not a state which a slug or bluebottle should have to endure, let alone a human being.

The Sanctity of Life groups are well-meaning, but totally ignorant and misguided. They speak of humans as being more important than animals. Okay, then why not allow them a peaceful and dignified end if that is what they wish?

Medical technology is heading ever nearer to a position where it is going to be possible to keep many, if not most, people alive for years by the means of tubes and machines. Do the Sanctity of Life groups really believe this is what God intended? If He did, then this is not a God I want to follow.

If I knew that, should I reach the point where life had no longer any value whatsoever, a doctor would be able to help me end things peacefully and painlessly, then I would be able to enjoy far more what limited quality of life is left to me now. What right do politicians, the medical profession or religious bigots have to deprive me of this comfort and security?

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By: Macarnie

Macarnie — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 16:57:55 +0000

One should beware the walking along the precarious tightrope between allowing a suffering person to die with dignity, at a time of their own choosing, and the next step: pushing that person over the edge, merely because their age of perceived usefulness is past.

Life is precious until it is no longer perceived as such by its ‘owner’.

Suicide, by its very definition, is an act for one person alone. The taking of another person’s life must always be regarded as the last taboo. This has to do with common law and public order, and should not be thought of in purely religious terms.

If pain; suffering and quality of existence/ life, are considered, alone by the person concerned, as no longer being bearable, a loving, helping, hand should not be withheld, providing the desired end is overseen by two independent physicians.

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By: Raphael Altman

Raphael Altman — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 10:12:15 +0000

We should all beware being blinded by the sanctimonious pontifications of the religious lobby, who seem to believe that they can command the moral high ground by simply invoking the words ‘sanctity of life’. We are, thank goodness, pre-eminently a liberal democracy now, not a medieval theocracy. Sacrificing individual choice, torturing some of the terminally ill, and inflicting agony and sometimes criminality on loving relatives, is not noble, but ignorant.

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By: Psimon

Psimon — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 09:20:55 +0000

Not saying the Bozzer has no life, no. That what be foolish.

I just noticed that in the article he talks about watching a horrifying bit of TV, on a BBC programme, but has previously stated he has no TV, and hence needs not a TV licence.

Probably best to assume he saw the prog round at a friends house.

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By: raincoaster

raincoaster — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 01:49:26 +0000

Are you saying you don’t think BOris has a life? I’d hate to be a civil servant, too, but I still think they’re “life as we know it”.

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By: Psimon

Psimon — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 23:41:23 +0000

(I still want to know about that tv….)

;o)

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By: Nick Williams

Nick Williams — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 19:29:48 +0000

Good to see an intelligent debate on this thorny issue, free from religious cant!

For what it’s worth, I still vividly remember the last two years of my grandfather’s life. To watch a formerly active man, who had achieved so much in life by his own efforts, sit drooling in an armchair was heartbreaking – more so on the rare occasions when lucidity returned and he cried at the burden he had become to his loved ones.

It strikes me as a cruel form of torture to allow people to suffer by continuing their lives when we have the means to release them. Especially when the attitude of society is so heavily influenced by the vociferous proponents of religions which few people actually practice.

I certainly hope that we’ll have moved on enough so that somebody can legally give me the chop if and when the time comes!

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By: raincoaster

raincoaster — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 03:55:11 +0000

Psimon:

As I’ve said, I expect that my family will pull the plug, assuming that to be my wish. Even if I’m clear with them that it’s not, I expect they’ll convince themselves “she wouldn’t want to suffer like this”. They mean well, but we disagree on this.

My mother’s wishes didn’t merely relate to her; she wished me to take an action I could not. I don’t think it was the right choice, but I would not have interfered if she’d asked someone else to do it. We can only control our own actions; in this case, we can only make our wishes known. If we truly reach a point where we are unable to take the action, and we can’t find anyone willing to carry it out, then yes, we’re pretty much stuck. This law would ensure that, even if family members couldn’t bring themselves to do it (how many “Dad died in his sleep last night” stories are only technically true?) there would be a qualified, capable professional available.

Even I, who don’t support suicide in any form, can support that.

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By: Matty Smith

Matty Smith — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 19:54:53 +0000

Mr Johnson, this morning I listened to my son-in-laws’ mother, Lesley Close, talking on BBC News 24 about her accompanying her brother, John, to Swizterland in order to enable Dignitas to help him take his own life. He suffered from motor neuron disease – a condition for which there is no cure and virutally no ‘palliative care’ and from which death follows a tortuous and degrading decline into pain the like of which most of us cannot imagine.
Listening to Lesley patiently explaining (again) why she supported her brother and now actively supports Lord Joffe’s Bill on Assisted Suicide, I am left in no doubt that for a range of very specific situations there is a real need to revise the law and to enable sufferers the dignity of a death of their own choosing.
This is not about euthenasia – which, by definition, is about others deciding when one should die. It is about giving those who are the sufferers of painfull and terminal conditions the right to determine at what point they may ‘bow out’.
I sense from your article that you feel there are circimstances, such as those suffered by John Close, that fully justify the passing of this Bill and I very much hope that you will support it’s progress into law.

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By: Psimon

Psimon — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 14:52:00 +0000

Raincoaster: I hope that someone respects YOUR wishes if, fate forbid, you find yourself in the same predicament as your mother.

It must be terrible to make your decision on your own fate, and be over-ruled by another.

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