Assisted dying

Why would a nonsense like a Citizens Assembly be employed on something like this? It's the Oireachtas' job to legislate.

TDs always decide things; citizens assemblies only ever make recommendations, but it remains the responsibility of the Oireachtas to act, or not act, on those recommendations.

Furthermore, citizens' assemblies only ever make recommendations on the matters that they have been set up to consider.

So, why did a citizens' assembly not make recommendations in relation to assisted dying? Because no citizens' assembly was set up to consider that matter.

If I get to a stage where I’m confined to a bed or chair for the rest of my days and I need others to move me, wash me and wipe my bum then I’d like off this planet please.

I also don’t want the children that I decided to bring into this world burdened with having to give up their lives to just exist for the sole purpose of prolonging my existence. I have no faith in the state care system as it is and can only see those services being eroded further.

The committee report isn't available online yet, but per newspaper reports it will recommend that the law apply to people diagnosed with an illness or a medical condition that is “incurable, irreversible, progressive” and at an advanced stage that will cause death within six months, or within 12 months in the case of a neurodegenerative condition.

Recode wouldn't qualify now, but they're expressly looking to the future. MS is a neurodegenerative condition and in the current state of medical science it's considered incurable. It's certainly irreversible and progressive. So, yeah, it looks to me that there could come a point for any MS sufferer where they would qualify.

Simply "not being content with long-term in a care centre" wouldn't get you there, though. Your disease would have to progress to a point where doctors are telling you that you have less than 12 months to live. Many people with MS never reach that point, but some do. And no individual person with MS can know with confidence that they will, or will not.

I know. But "rarely" is not "never".

Assuming. Good luck with that one.

No, the government would see it as a mechanism to reduced the unfunded state pension liability.

A side effect is that families would have an option to promote to their elderly and vulnerable members, which would speed up intergenerational wealth transfer. Think of it as like an unintended consequence.

And the death panels, don't forget the auld death panels.

Can I interest you in some tinfoil?

I’m in favour of assisted dying, in theory. How it’s put into practice is a whole lot of other questions. We should welcome questions and sceptics, especially over a matter of life and death.

Mmm. It's not a matter of conspiracy theories. You don't have to set out to design a policy that will produce bad outcomes in order to end up with one that produces bad outcomes. And bad outcomes are equally bad whether they are intended or unintended. And the possibility of quite seriously bad outcomes from a policy on assisted dying is obvious.

What you have to ask yourself is not only "what do we want this policy to do?" but also "what incentives does this policy create?". The post above relates a story in which a person seeking assistance and support for her condition was offered assisted dying instead. And this isn't the first such story concerning the Canadian regime; there are many similar. There are serious concerns that in the Canadian system assisted dying is offered in response to problems resulting from socio-economic factors, and this alleviates pressure to address the underlying socio-economic issues.

It's obvious that if we create a regime in which the state (or anyone else) can save money by administering assisted dying, that's a bad combination of incentives which is highly likely to have a bad outcome, involving avoidable deaths. That's not an argument for saying that you can't have an assisted dying regime at all, but it is an argument for saying that you have to think long and hard about your assisted dying regime; what it's supposed to do; what it might do; and how to make it do the one and not the other. Dismissing these concerns with references to tinfoil hats is pretty much a guarantee of producing an assisted dying regime that will produce horrible outcomes.

"mechanism to reduced the unfunded state pension liability." No conspiracy theory at all

You don't have to have a terminal illness, or to be dying, or even to have a shortened life expectancy, to qualify for MAID. Indeed, you don't have to be ill at all, if you have a disability.

There are three criteria:

• a serious illness/disease/disablity
• advanced, irreversible state of decline
• unbearable physical or mental suffering from the illness/disease/disability or the state of decline that cannot be relieved under conditions that the patient considers acceptable

So, if you have a disability (first criterion) that means you are permanently wheelchair-bound (second criterion) and being in a wheelchair causes you unbearable mental suffering, you've ticked all the boxes, if your mental suffering can't be relieved.

In the case that SeanW refers to, the person concerned wasn't seeking MAID — they were objecting to it being offered to them when they hadn't sought it — so the question of whether their condition was causing them unbearable mental suffering never came up.

But imagine a hypothetical case in which somebody found the constraints of living with a disability unbearable. They ask for assistance and support in relieving those constraints — the installation of a lift, a powered wheelchair, a home help, a subsidy for wheelchair-accessible transport, whatever. This, they feel, would relieve their suffering. But this is refused because there isn't a scheme to provide it, or their isn't a budget to pay for it.

The question is: Are they excluded from MAID because their suffering could be relieved by measures like this, even though they're not available? Or do they qualify for MAID because their suffering can't be relieved, because those measures are not available?

My dad has dementia, and has no sort of life. Doesn't know me, my mam or siblings, he's in a facility where the staff are absolutely amazing with him - but he doesn't know them, where he is, what he's doing - and worse, when he sees us there is something in his brain that tells him he knows us and had a relationship with us, and this makes him very, very upset and emotional and that is his suffering.

We either don't visit him, and he never suffers emotionally. Or we keep visiting and he suffers very extreme bad emotions and gets upset, crying, often can't be handled by the staff for a time afterwards.

He's barely mobile, has literally forgotten how to stand up from a seated position - he can just about feed himself, but more often than not needs to be fed mush.

It's no life, and I want to sign something now that states when/if I get that way, I want out. I do not want my wife and child, siblings and friends to go through what we are going through with my dad.

It would also free up the staff to deal with patients who they actually can help.

The case in Canada is more than likely a screw up in administration than anything else. Someone in Veterans Affairs got a request in and didn't understand what was being asked for or the state of mind the person was in when asking, nor did they fully understand the ramifications of what they were subsequently offering in suggesting MAiD. The fact that it seems to be a completely isolated incident, too, means there's not much to be worried over.

In any case, if Christine Gauthier had then requested MAiD on the back of that suggestion for consideration, she probably wouldn't have qualified.

Your last line has always stuck with me, I can't remember who said it on some debate years ago. But we do the kind thing for old animals to ensure they don't suffer but if it's a person? Suffer on... Such a weird dichotomy.

Conspiracy theories is that way >>>>

Sending you and yours my best thoughts x

The unfunded-pension issue is a huge problem for the government. Most certainly not a conspiracy theory.