I've blogged a number of times about my thoughts on the subject. Things like mission creep making it initially for the terminally ill and people in extreme physical pain eventually morphing into no more than a suicide booth for the mildly depressed, as witnessed in other countries that have adopted it.
Even the arguments during the debates are vague. "Dying with Dignity" was a slogan. What is that? Define that. I can understand the wish to end a life of extreme pain. Such a life would be tantamount to permanent torture. But mental torment? I'm not sure that gets my support.
The worst is "Not being a burden". To whom? Family? Carers? The State?
I can't countenance the granting of the ability of the state to take a life for medical reasons, especially if the state goes out of it's way to avoid taking a life for other reasons like murder.
I believe taking the life of an innocent person is immoral. Yes, you can square it in some way by saying it's a mercy killing. And maybe it is a mercy for those in desperate need. But I'm sure that in the not too distant future the people being killed will not be terminal, not be in extreme pain.
This is especially after ALL the restrictions tabled as amendments to the bill, to stop mission creep to less severe cases were thrown out. That tells you a lot about the government's motivation for bringing in the legislation.
Of course after the limitations put on the medical profession regarding the Liverpool pathway, the abhorrent way that assisted dying was done in the past (removing food and fluid so people starve to death) it was inevitable that the medical profession and the various government-funded fake charities jumped on the assisted dying bandwagon.
Then we had illegal DNR notices applied during COVID, the withdrawal of treatment for aged patients by the NHS, the list goes on. Now they have the all-clear to kill people, all it requires is a signature or consent of the family. Like that restriction stopped the illegal DNR notices.
Never before has the trajectory of the National Health Service been so radically changed. In the background, to avoid extra expenditure, patients have been "allowed" to die by removing life-saving or life-prolonging treatment.
This new legislation will make it legal for the NHS to now be more "active" in the death of the patient.
It's no more moral than the various nurses and doctors that have been convicted for helping their patients into the afterlife in the past.