The final right to dignity

Part of a recent column in the South Wales Argus

YOUR MP WRITES: Paul Flynn Newport West MP

2:20pm Wednesday 5th September 2012 in MPs writeBy Paul Flynn MP

It’s MPs and only MPs who can act. The courts do Parliament’s bidding.

To our shame we have debated assisted dying only once in the past 30 years. The distressed face of Tony Nicklinson haunts us.

He told his loving heroic wife not to mourn him. His locked-in condition meant that he was ‘already dead’. He feared another 20 years trapped inside a body that he could not control.

We were all moved by the pictures of him wracked with sobs after the court turned down his request to die at a time of his choice.

The cruelty of our present laws gives no autonomy to others in similar situations except to starve themselves to death. In the parliamentary debate in March, I read out a harrowing account of a local person who suffered the final torment of death by starvation. The law denied her the merciful end that she and her relatives desired.

Those countries that have introduced humane end of life laws are all strengthening them. In Oregon in the USA their controversial Death with Dignity laws were twice approved by an overwhelming majority of the public. The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland have legal frameworks that allow assisted dying. They have pioneered this bold step. In every instance public support has grown because the feared abuse of the reforms did not happen.

• A series of opinion polls in Britain prove than 80% of the population would like a law to allow assisted dying under controlled conditions.

We hear a great deal about many of our human rights. An important one that our timid politicians have neglected is our right to die in dignity.

 

Comments

[Mervyn James]

Withholding funds for cancer medication that is expensive is rife in the UK. This inevitably leads to patients having shorter life spans. Most of them prefer to live as long as they can, so the state is allowing them to die when an option to prolong life is available, be it days, months or more, if the NHS and state can do this now, who would give them the ultimate right to be the 'Terminators' to save more cash ? Politicians are more into sound bites and current fads, then looking into the realism that many people's lives are already being shortened by accountants at the NHS. Suicide is one thing, 'helping to die' is still murder in the UK, you advocate murder by legalising it.

[Paul Flynn]

Are you constituent of mine? Please pass on details of anyone who has died in the circumstances you describe. I will happy to investigate and so would any other MP

[Mervyn James]

There is such an grey area regarding 'quality of life' and 25% of the UK is depressed at any one time, I do not believe there are enough safeguards. Our NHS already decides who live and who die, they do it every day. Cancer patients die in agony and over a lengthy time because of COST of medication, If these patients then ask for assisted suicide, then the grounds would be highly contentious, as the state withdrew relief and life-prolonging medication, then endorses 'mercy killing', we are in dodgy territory.....

[Paul Flynn]

In Oregan and Holland laws permitting assisted dying have worked very well with effective safeguards. We are not pioneering in this - just building on success,

Paul Flynn

[Bernard Tyson]

could somebody explain how the death will be arranged ? i know this sounds rather goulish but surely the doctor or nurses who have been treating the patient wont do it . If so , how could any "dying " patient trust them . If new doctors or nurses are drafted in , what happens if their diagnosis differs ?

[Matt]

Well done Paul - a concise and coherent argument. I look forward to following your important work in this area to give those people who are denied it the rights they deserve, and to fight against the prejudices nad scaremongering of others.

[Paul Flynn]

In no country in the world where assisted dying has been introduced has the fears of people like Mervyn James been justified.

[Ad]

I wonder whether we should grant the same right to euthanasia to infants who are barely able to decide for themselves?

People die. There seems to me no problem with hastening the process for reasons of mercy.

I've no real experience with hospices and the like, but I gather they are about making peoples lives as comforting as possible before they die.

[HuwOS]

"Guess whose life they support ending ? "

We don't have to guess, we know!
They support themselves and the people they love who if they would be facing intolerable pain, degradation and/or suffering to have the option to end their lives peacefully instead at a time and place of their own choice.

[D.G.]

I'm all in favour of life, just not long, prolonged deaths.

My mother-in-law took 3 days to die after a stroke that left her comatose. I'm haunted by questions like, Could she feel anything? Pain, hunger, thirst? Her heart fluctuated madly at times - in the end they turned the beeper off, since they couldn't do anything for her - but was she frightened? I know there was no higher reasoning function left - too much damage - but emotions are base and easy. It was the hardest three days of my life so far. The thought that I might go through it, on some level, from the other perspective is absolutely terrifying.

Our poor little cat, though... about three months later, we had to rush her to the vet. The vet gently explained to us that she had a blood clot and wouldn't make it. A brief pin prick, a brief moment of pain and she was at peace.

Mum deserved at least as good a death as the cat had.

[mervyn Jmaes]

It is utter hypocrisy to use the rights argument for as some 'humanitarian reason for letting people die a bit quicker' British people would be up in arms if you used the same argument to terminate animals in pain, that is Britain they have no ethics nor any moral scruples. heaven forbid we 'arm' them with carte blanche to kill people they no longer see as 'useful to the state. They already refuse medications that prolong life for cancer patients, I suppose you would endorse euthanisa for them, save thousands wouldn't it ? they, do NOT want an early death despite pain, they want to live as long as they can. So they are left in pain until they agree with you ?

[Paul Flynn]

Discover what happened after the introduction of dying with dignity laws in Oregan and the Neherlands. the longer they have had the laws the more popular they become.

Paul Flynn

01633 262348/02072193478/ 07887925699

Twitter: @paulflynnmp

www.paulflynnmp.co.uk

[mervyn Jmaes]

If only, joe public were as supportive in preserving and enhancing life, as they are so 80% eager to support ending it. Guess whose life they support ending ? the disabled, the vulnerable, the elderly, not child killers, or rapists or.........