THE GUARDIAN: MPs says what terminally ill people ‘really’ need is access to hospice care and proper end-of-life care
Diane Abbott has warned it could soon be cheaper for GPs to encourage seriously unwell patients to “sign on the dotted line for assisted suicide” than to find them a place in a hospice.
The senior Labour MP voted against changing the law because she fears vulnerable people will get swept up in the assisted dying route when “actually what they really need is access to hospice care and proper end-of-life care”. » | Aletha Adu | Sunday, December 1, 2024
This is a licence for the state to kill the sick with impunity. As I have already stated in earlier posts, this is state-sanctioned murder by any other name.
This country’s coffers are empty. Further, the National Health System is in a parlous state – it is short of cash, short of equipment, short of nurses, and short of doctors. Its infrastructure is to a large degree also in urgent need of repair.
Exceedingly strapped for cash, resources, and manpower, it is going to be very tempting for the medical profession to help very sick patients along their way to ‘the next life’! I wouldn’t want to trust the medical profession to do its best for me if this awful bill passes. Moreover, with surgeries and clinics looking after their own budgets, there are great incentives for them to save money. The more money clinics can save, the greater the profits!
I understand full well that many people suffer at the end of life, often with agonising pain and discomfort. But I also understand human nature pretty well, too; and how people are tempted by financial gain. The greater the potential financial gain, the greater the temptation to encourage a burdensome family member to take the decision to end his or her life.
I am not at all convinced by the safeguards this government — or any government — will put in place. Safeguards and guardrails can easily be moved.
This country’s ethical standards are beginning to resemble the shifting sands of the desert! This is a sad turn of events. It used to be that God gave life and only God could take it away. But in post-Christian Britain, anything goes. Britain is fast losing its moral anchors. – © Mark Alexander
