Angela Bennett 🦀🕊🇪🇺🎻🐓🐈‍⬛🌱

After Assisted Dying is legalised: Doris, who is frail, and owns her 4 bedroom house, starts to be visited by her nephew, Sam, who hadn't taken much interest in her before. She likes his visits as he is suddenly very kind to her. He praises her for living independently, and often mentions how awful it would be if she had to go into a care home. He never mentions that the cost of care concerns him. He always talks about the "indignity" of care homes and how he thinks people must suffer terribly there, looked after by strangers who don't love them. When she develops pneumonia and has a fall, she goes to hospital. Sam visits often and says how sad it is that she is so dependent on others now. The pneumonia is treated but the doctors think she is too frail to return home to live alone now. Sam asks Doris if she can bear the idea of living in a care home, he reminds her of the awful stories he has heard of how badly people are treated in care homes. "I just worry about your quality of life Aunty Dot. If only there was a way you wouldn't have to go through that indignity after such an independent life." He never mentions Assisted Dying. Doris asks the doctors about it herself, and they agree that she is frail enough that her life expectancy might be less than a year. At her request, she is given a lethal cocktail of pills which she struggles to swallow, and Sam holds her hand supportively for the three hours it takes for her to die. The staff comment on what a devoted nephew he is. Sam pays off his mortgage and retires early with the inheritance from Doris's estate. Not a penny was wasted on care homes. He feels he earned it. No doctors and no judge could ever detect the way Sam had manipulated his Aunty Dot for months before her request for Assisted Death. The only effective safeguard against coercion of the vulnerable into Assisted Suicide is if Assisted Suicide remains illegal.