Health secretary Wes Streeting will vote against the assisted dying Bill, raising concerns that palliative care is not good enough for patients to make an informed choice on ending their life.
I suppose he’s right - if palliative care isn’t good enough it may force people to end their lives early. Sort that out and come back to this. I’m generally in favour of assisted dying but with the right safeguards and support, but the latter isn’t there right now.
I understand an appreciate this point of view to an extent, it opens a door to medical practitioners offering this to patients as an easy option when they may recover, or to poor people who can’t afford treatments in private care, knowing that NHS waiting lists mean they may never get free treatment before it is too late. Safeguards would be an absolute must, and would inevitably be abused without them.
However, whether it is legal or not to have a patient willingly end their life, it is an admittance that the person will have worse than acceptable end-of-life care if they die naturally under the current system. In Wes’ opinion, people with a terminal or life-limiting condition should have limited or even no say in how they spend their remaining hours, days, weeks, months of life.
To take one of the more gruesome examples, people with bone cancer in their skull have to face months of medieval-grade torture, agonising spikes burrowing into their eyes and brain, lose their eyesight, and left to waste away in abject agony. A bone cancer victim’s skull looks like this.
I don’t think it is acceptable to say, “Sorry, the NHS wasn’t able to detect it while it was treatable, but we won’t let you end your suffering in a controlled, safe, and painless way. It would be inhumane to kill you.”
Some people would rather take matters into their own hands, and this just results in suicides, in manners that are more painful to themselves and their friends and family who they will be afraid to tell, in case they try to stop them. Depending on the manner they choose, they may also inadvertently hurt others.
Bodily autonomy is a hot topic at the moment, and seeing as we have all been forced to endure life on this planet (for better or for worse), I think it’s only fair to have some say in how we end our life.
So Wes is voting against a policy that would allow people to opt to die peacefully and on their own terms, rather than struggle through avoidable pain and anguish, costing the NHS more money to maintain the painful and diminished life of someone who doesn’t want to be here anymore, perpetuating unnecessary costs on the NHS that, if saved, would then change Wes’ mind about the whole thing? Sounds like a catch 22. Why do pets and even some livestock get to die quicker and with more dignity than people?
This guy’s a fucking scumbag, he has no principles except that the NHS is terrible and needs to be sold off
Point me to where he (or anyone even remotely serious) has said that the NHS should be sold off.
And that trans people should have conversion therapy, not access to medical care
From the typical Conservative viewpoint this makes no sense.
“The state provision needs to be better or this needs to stay illegal”
So if the state can’t provide a service, neither can the private sector.
Extend that logic and Streeting is a hardcore socialist.
He’s not voting with any of his stated principles, which is proof he has none.
weird since streeting has no problem killing trans people
