Lives are profit and loss under the red Tories
As Skwawkbox and others have warned, right-wing Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s ‘assisted dying’ legislation – which is fully supported by the Starmer government – will see the killing of sick and disabled people, and even those with mental health issues or diabetes, carried out by corporations for profit.
Leadbeater has refused campaigners’ requests to exclude disability, Downs Syndrome, diabetes, arthritis or anorexia as a reason to kill someone, despite international evidence that people suffering those conditions have been coerced elsewhere, ignored expert psychiatrist witnesses after lecturing them that they didn’t understand suicide in terminal illness and has been accused of treating the last months of someone’s life as “so self-evidently not worthwhile that there is no need to ask about, or offer help with” any issues relating to undue or ‘modifiable’ influences pushing someone toward suicide.
And in February, Leadbeater announced that the ‘assisted’ suicide process would not, as had first been promised, require sign-off by a High Court judge – instead only needing approval by a social worker or psychiatrist, or potentially a secret panel of them, supposedly because High Court judges would be too busy to look at applications for death and make sure that there was no coercion or pressure and that no one standing to profit would be influencing the wish to die. She has even said that trying to talk a loved one out of suicide is ‘coercion’.
It’s clear that corporations and so-called ‘care providers’ are already looking to see how they can profit from the death bill if it becomes law, as a member of Buckinghamshire Disability Service (BuDS) found out yesterday when they were asked by the finance director of a care home group how many disabled residents might qualify for death when the bill becomes law – and about ‘assertively marketing’ the ‘option’ to ‘free up places’:
This is far from a one-off and fits into an overall pattern of existing pressure on disabled or otherwise impaired people to sign ‘do not resuscitate’ (DNR) agreements, as responses to the BuDS post made even clearer:
The Starmer regime is a government of sociopaths that is waging war on the vulnerable and freely uses ‘useless eater’ rhetoric that disability and sickness benefits are ‘unsustainable’. Leadbeater’s bill is a licence to turn people that the government considers a ‘burden’ into corporate profit.
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She has even said that trying to talk a loved one out of suicide is ‘coercion’.
Disgraceful. Typical Westminster shithousery.
And especially when you think it was her sister said: “There’s more that unites, rather than divides us”
I’m afraid not
Professor Martin Vernon from the British Geriatric Society, is worried that older people with complex needs might feel coerced by societal pressure and poverty) into choosing assisted dying.
“Safeguarding” inadequacy – the removal of the High Court from the safeguarding process, have led to concerns that the bill is “rushed and badly thought-out.” But what if it’s deliberate and intentional, ie that Leadbeater’s ‘assisted dying’ bill purposely facilitates ‘the killing of sick and disabled people, and even those with mental health issues or diabetes’, then it’s not “badly thought-out” at all – it’s exactly what it was always intended to be.
GP,Dr. Farooq, opposes the bill on the grounds of sanctity of life and that suicide is a ‘sin’, and (to me) more forcibly on the grounds that the NHS is not adequately funded and resourced to provide good quality end-of-life care. Fix that and Leadbetter’s Bill would be needed by remarkably few people and seen as the ‘sign of failure’ that it is.
This is a trust issue inasmuch that you would not trust these psychos to count the railings properly without nicking them to make a quick buck for their paymasters.
Once that precedent is set, what guarantees exist to prevent these bloodsuckers moving beyond the criteria of health and extending it to other criteria?
Educational attainment mayhap? Employment status perhaps? Earnings level maybe?
Or class status? Weight? Height? Age? Who your ancestors were? How much resources you use? Whether you hold the “right/correct” opinions?
It’s Corporate fascist dictators wet dream.
I have a lot of sympathy with an Assisted Dying Bill which is probably the most personal & difficult decision loved ones can make.
But this Bill is top down & presented by political lightweights who didn’t have a clue how to consult, control freaks.
From my experience I have found Disabled citizens some of the most compassionate human beings I have ever met so an AD Bill should have been built WITH them but Lightweight Labour completely sidelined them.
I said Disabled peoples reps & Older Peoples reps should have been on any panels, to safeguard both groups.
But bourgeois Lightweight Labour politicians are ignorant when it comes to co-production.
Would be interested to hear how the Scottish AD Bill might differ as from experience they seem to do some things a bit better.
But could weep for a missed opportunity & believe me learning to let someone you love go is the most compassionate thing any human being can do.