That's Life! presenter Esther Rantzen now suicide cheerleader, defects to the dark side, Ian Hilpus

Dame Esther Rantzen reveals she is considering going to Dignitas if her lung cancer worsens: Childline founder, 83, says she doesn't want family to see her have a 'bad death' which would 'obliterate the happy times'

https://politicsthisweek.wordpress.com/2024/10/10/not-the-bcfm-politics-show-presented-by-tony-gosling-211/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12879005/Dame-Esther-Rantzen-Dignitas-assisted-dying-lung-cancer.html

Assisted suicide could be voted on before Christmas as Labour MP launches bill

https://righttolife.org.uk/news/assisted-suicide-could-be-voted-on-before-christmas-as-labour-mp-launches-bill

An assisted suicide Bill will be introduced in the House of Commons this month making it very likely that MPs will have a vote on assisted suicide before Christmas.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who came first in the Private Members’ Bill ballot, announced yesterday that she would be introducing an assisted suicide Bill could be voted on before Christmas.

Though details of the Bill have not yet been released reports suggest it is likely to be similar to Lord Falconer’s assisted suicide Bill in the House of Lords, which is his seventh attempt to change the law on assisted suicide.

The announcement comes after it was reported that the Prime Minister was behind the Government approaching Labour MPs high up in the Private Members’ Bill ballot encouraging them to take forward a Bill on assisted suicide.

A YouGov poll commissioned by King’s College London shows that 65% of the general population are worried about access to palliative and end-of-life care and 41% think there is too little NHS resource allocated to palliative care. 

People with disabilities and doctors opposed to assisted suicide

No major disability advocate groups in the UK – including Disability Rights UK, Scope and Not Dead Yet – support a change in the law to introduce assisted suicide or euthanasia.

Polling commissioned by Scope showed that the majority of people with disabilities (64%) – including nearly three-quarters (72%) of young disabled people – are concerned about moves to legalise assisted suicide. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of people with disabilities who were concerned about a change in the law were worried that pressure would be put on disabled people to end their lives prematurely.

No doctors’ groups in the UK support changing the law to introduce assisted suicide or euthanasia, including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Physicians, the British Geriatric Society, and the Association for Palliative Medicine.

In particular, there is strong opposition to introducing assisted suicide from doctors who specialise in working with people with incurable conditions at the end of their life. A survey of palliative care doctors who are members of the Association for Palliative Medicine found that 82% oppose the introduction of assisted suicide. The results of the Association for Palliative Medicine survey have been mirrored in a more recent survey of doctors by the British Medical Association, which found that 83% of palliative care doctors oppose a change in the law to introduce assisted suicide, while only 6% supported such a change. 

Palliative care doctors have specialist knowledge and experience of the care that can be provided to people to alleviate suffering at the end of their lives and the results of these surveys show that it is clear to these doctors that specialist care is the solution, not ending their patients’ lives through assisted suicide.

Polling reveals public concern about pressure to end life

Polling from ComRes found that 51% of the general population, when asked if they “would be concerned that some people would feel pressurised into accepting help to take their own life so as not to be a burden on others if assisted suicide were legal”, said yes. Only 25% disagreed.

Polling of Members of Parliament, conducted by YouGov, showed that only 35% of MPs supported a law change to allow “doctors to assist in the suicide of someone suffering from a terminal illness”.

Wish to die linked with depression and loneliness

Researchers from Trinity College Dublin found that the “wish to die” among older people is often “transient” and linked with depression and feelings of loneliness.

The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), found that almost three quarters of people over 50 who had previously expressed a wish to die no longer had that desire two years later.
Furthermore, TILDA found that 60% of those who reported a wish to die also had “clinically significant” depressive symptoms while half had been diagnosed with depression.
The study also found high rates of loneliness among those who had a wish to die (WTD).
“Almost three-quarters of participants reporting WTD also reported loneliness at least some of the time, while almost one fifth with WTD reported that they were lonely all the time. Almost one-third of participants who felt lonely all the time also endorsed WTD”.