Nicola Waters
@AberdareNic
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Valleys girl living in North Essex. Mother of two boys, age 13 and 10. Fighting MND one day at a time.
Joined October 2011
Many people do not realise what is meant by assisted dying. Hardly surprising with the myth-information pushed by campaign groups.
Public opinion is in favour of Assisted Dying Bill. It seems too that a majority of peers want Assisted Dying Bill to be thoroughly scrutinised and then get sent back to Commons. It is therefore not “The Lords” which is blocking the Bill, but a minority of peers who are
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The Times’ view: Peers who want to continue blocking this bill and prevent it from ever becoming law are justified in doing so. If Sir Keir wants to see assisted dying put into law, he should make it government policy and subject his version of the bill to full parliamentary
Peers are justified in blocking assisted dying bill https://t.co/OoBBtPLMFb
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Seems the government really believes the bill can be made safe. Here are some other verdicts:
Govt has come out swinging for Assisted Dying Bill, despite saying they're 'neutral'. Govt Chief Whip says Lords will be made to sit an "eight additional Fridays" by end March. Lords usually sit only one Friday a month. Typically there are about ten a year. £10m cost for 1 PMB
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It's now perfectly clear that legalising assisted dying for disabled people is a covert **government** policy. Their lawyers re-wrote the Bill, their whips are seeing it through Parliament, their backbenchers loyally vote for it. But where is the accountability?
BREAKING: The Chief Whip in the House of Lords has assigned an extra ten days in the new year for the assisted dying bill to be debated. This makes it far less likely that the bill will run out of time.
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They are our only hope!
So my message to Their Lordships: Do NOT be intimidated by the sabre rattling. The Parliament Acts exist to protect serious scrutiny, not to let campaigners bulldoze legitimate concerns from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and dozens of disability groups. Stand firm. 11/
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Those who support assisted dying, believe it to be palliative care or a discreet service for a few. They don’t support this Bill, which offers suicide proposed by medical professionals and open to mentally disabled and ill, and to those who cannot access care.
“The elected chamber has approved assisted dying and it has the support of most voters. It will be disgraceful if it fails to become law because it is “talked out” by a clique of unelected peers.” Great piece by @andrewrawnsley
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Attributing any of this to "gender incongruence" is like saying it is because of an "imbalance of the humors."
Children with gender incongruence deserve safe, compassionate and effective care. That healthcare must always be led by evidence. 🧵
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It doesn't seem like an ethical process - trialling a total life changing process on unwitting children, based on a political ideology pushed by activists.
We're now setting up clinical trials to build the evidence base we need to support vulnerable children properly.
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Possible risks? We already know these drugs make children sterile so the question is whether there are ‘possible benefits’ which outweigh the risks we know about as well as those we don’t.
"We're not expecting a one-size-fits-all finding." A new clinical trial to assess the risks and benefits of puberty-blocking drugs for children will be carried out by King’s College London. Chief investigator Professor Simonoff tells #R4Today what the trial is looking at.
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In 10/15 years, the trial participants will be taking legal action and/or there will be a national inquiry about this trial. Anyone with an ounce of common sense can see it is unethical.
Regulators approve first trials for puberty-blocking drugs in children since ban More from Sky's @t0mclark3 ⬇️ https://t.co/z7Prh6vjCF
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Why would anyone want to push through a Bill that multiple experts including royal medical colleges say is unsafe? It is so irresponsible.
Two days in Committee have seen serious flaws in the Bill exposed by Peers. In response assisted suicide promoters are running a campaign of complaint, to undermine that legitimate process of scrutiny.
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We really need to drop this idea that all science is unbiased, non ideological - it really isn’t.
NEW: Puberty blocker trial for children gets green light, but many questions remain. Sadly, my request to attend a media briefing & put some of them to study leads was turned down on the grounds I’m not a ‘specialist’ health/science journalist.
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Many of the amendments come from peers who support the bill in principle but who realise that it is dangerous in its current form.
With 1000+ amendments added to the Bill, the risk of deliberate time-wasting from opponents is clear and profoundly unfair. In reaction, Dame Esther Rantzen has urged the House of Lords not to "try and sabotage democracy". https://t.co/EVEZ7aQhMs
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I’m not sure there is ‘massive public support’ for an assisted suicide regime that does not require doctors to ask ‘why’ individuals want to end their lives. This Bill is broken.
In Friday's Committee session, Baroness Hayman reminded colleagues that an "enormous" number of amendments (now over 1000) must not stop the House from properly scrutinising the Bill - or returning it to the Commons which has already voted it through on the back of massive public
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What a shambles. HoL, please put this woeful Bill out of its misery!
Pretty devastating critique here from Baroness Cass: “You cannot ask the person why they want to die. I don’t know how then you can possibly assess for coercion Unless you can hear from the person, in their own words, why…you can’t advise on symptom control let alone coercion”
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This sums up the man perfectly. His attitude during the Commons committee was very much ‘couldn’t care less’. I understand people supporting assisted dying, I don’t understand why they don’t care about safeguards.
It's hard to think of a politician who embodies the banality of evil more completely than Kinnock. Striving soullessly to make an NHS assisted suicide service to kill my patients while allowing the collapse of our hospices. And now this. The sheer gormless gall this man.
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Legalising assisted suicide does not reduce other suicides and can be accompanied by an increase in such suicides, especially in older women.
Also, evidence from other places with assisted dying shows that suicide outside of the assisted scheme increases.
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Also, evidence from other places with assisted dying shows that suicide outside of the assisted scheme increases.
This from a man who wants to INCREASE the number of men dying by suicide by making it free on the NHSs. You couldn’t make the double-think up if it weren’t right under your nose.
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I worked in Whitehall for 15yrs and saw many Bills where details were pored over and debated. This has not happened for the Assisted Dying Bill - the sponsors have avoided scrutiny. As a result, it is an absolute shambles, a disaster waiting to happen.
1. How do we know the AS bill came to the Lords in a totally inadequate state? As Lord Biggar points out in the Times, there’s a simple answer: “Hansard records that some MPs only waved it through on the assumption that the Lords would somehow rectify its myriad deficiencies.”
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Under the Bill, drugs used for animal euthanasia will have more rigorous regulatory oversight than that for humans, despite plenty of evidence of adverse effects. Not such a dignified death. The Bill is a shambles!
Extremely informative article on drugs used in euthanasia / assisted dying / suicide. So many important questions, so few answers, and so much currently being left to secondary legislation. https://t.co/LuVXLdAn8H
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