Posted on 05/08/2006 10:58:35 PM PDT by FairOpinion
Senior doctors have joined the opposition to Lord Joffe's Bill that would allow them to help terminally ill patients to die.
Twenty-four consultants who specialise in palliative care say that the attempt to legalise assisted suicide is a "bad solution to a difficult problem".
In a strongly argued letter to The Daily Telegraph they say that the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill, which has its second reading in the Lords on Friday, is deeply flawed.
They say the Bill "overturns without a thought the medical ethic of avoiding malevolence and the criminality of assisting suicide" and they fear that if passed it would "open the floodgates".
Dr Steve Dyer, a palliative care consultant at St Peter and St James Hospice, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, who organised the letter, said: "This Bill is at variance with the well-received principles of the care of the dying. We respect the views, the dignity and the autonomy of our patients but we do not believe it is right to end a patient's life."
David Cameron strongly opposes the Bill. Tory MPs will be given a free vote if it reaches the Commons.
The person who has a say in the aggressiveness of your treatment should be one who would view your death as the worst outcome, other only than your suffering severely without any prospect of recovery and then dying.In the absence of such a person as that, a decision to limit the aggressiveness of treatment in dire circumstance is inherently morally problematic.
The UK spends half what the average US citizen does on healthcare per head - how can we have a high cost of healthcare?
Are you sure of your figures here? As discussed previously, we spend 6.5% of GDP on the NHS in the UK, mostly in the form of a 30% component of VAT.
With median UK incomes at - what - 22K? - this comes to about £1440 a year.
So this is the point for discussion: do our American FRiends really spend about $4000 per year on healthcare? Even if they do, their median incomes are higher, so the real question is - what % of median income do Americans spend on healthcare?
No we don't,
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.