The Assisted Dying Bill for England and Wales was voted through yesterday in Westminster at around 2.15pm. It would allow terminally ill adults expected to die within six months to seek help to end their own life. There will be hurdles ahead before it becomes law and (I think) it requires two doctors and a judge to sign off on any procedure as a safeguard which could be cumbersome.
If the time is accurate there is a hidden Fire Grand Trine of Sun in the 8th house of death and transformation trine North Node (and Chiron) In the 12th trine Mars in Leo which Mars opposition Pluto. Both the 8th house Sun and ‘driving rod’ Mars Pluto opposition tie in with a profoundly serious, fundamental issue concerning death.
Uranus in the 1st conjunct the ‘destructive’ planet Algol oppose a 7th house Scorpio Moon. Algol features heavily in other dying with dignity campaigns and organisations. See
Taking control of death in terminal illness + Canada & EXIT 19th December 2023.
Dying with dignity – Algol rules 10th May 2023
Algol – light in the heart of darkness ++ additional thoughts 25th March 2024
Greg Wise – an Algol that breeds empathy 24th March 2024
On a personal note I used to be drawn to the notion of death being a spiritual journey which should not be interfered with – but the older I have got the more I see it as a personal choice. Modern medicine prolongs life long after it would have petered out in centuries past. And in more recent times pre-the odious Harold Shipman (the GP who bumped off scores of aged patients) doctors were happy to administer morphine overdoses to speed the process along when too much pain and suffering was involved.
Having had dogs and cats put down over the years when it was ‘their time’ and life had become too much of a struggle (with many tears but knowing it was in their best interest), it seems heartless to force people to hang on grimly to an often bitter and inhumane end.
Nothing religious in my view
The mercury retrograde makes me believe this will be a long process before law or will be have many complications
Meanwhile we have a not fit for purpose NHS in England with some professionals totally lacking in compassion I fear for those without robust support when they are very unwell.
I don’t care how many safeguards are talked about the reality regarding our care systems in England is another thing.
To me, it appears that there are striking similarities to the Abortion Act 1967. Even now, technically, in law, procuring an abortion remains a criminal offence in Great Britain (i.e. in England and Wales, and Scotland, excluding Northern Ireland) under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. What the Abortion Act did was provide legal defence for both the pregnant woman and her doctors in cases where the requirements of the Act were met.
Under that Act, abortion is permitted on the grounds of:
risk to the life of the pregnant woman;
preventing grave permanent injury to her physical or mental health;
risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family (up to a term limit of 24 weeks of gestation); or
substantial risk that, if the child were born, they would “suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped”.
Crucially, and this is where I see the similarities, the safeguard of the Act is that the abortion request needs to be signed by two medical professionals acting in good faith. That is very similar to the safeguards of the Bill as it stands now, with the addition of a judge to sign off as well.
We know that abortion has not only become the norm, it is considered a right and the safeguards are completely ineffectual. According to Wikipedia, 98% of abortions in Great Britain are signed off on the basis of affecting the mother’s mental health. I can easily see assisted dying go down the same pathway.
The Second Reading of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Bill (as then) was on 22 July 1966, a Friday, and based on current practice, the vote would have taken place about 2:30PM, the same time as the assisted dying bill. The Abortion Act (the Bill above, but renamed during its passage) was enacted on 27th October 1967 (time indeterminate, but most likely in the early afternoon, as it was also a Friday) and came into force on 27th April 1968, six months after enactment.
Do you see any astrological similarities between the two laws?
To add to the above, if you regret an abortion, you can try to get pregnant again (in most cases, you don’t lose your ability to conceive again). To that extent, you can reverse your earlier decision.
With assisted dying, there is no way back.
See the following contributors on the topic of assisted dying, Humphreys,
Maynard and Williams….use Google. Here is the London chart for
Assisted Dying with notes.
https://ibb.co/8Y9skH8
We have had an assisted dying law in Canada for about ten years. When it passed, an elderly physician told me he had been doing it through all his career and it didn’t change anything for him. The trend over time is to make it ever more flexible. People have taken to it and would not go back. It’s difficult to know where to draw the line: depression? minors? anticipated decisions before cognitive decline? The law has been expanded more than once, driven by the courts. It is hard to see where this goes but I am glad it is in place because I may need it some day. The opposition to it is largely based on a Catholic tendency to appease guilt through suffering. Public morals are changing profoundly.
Having attended 3 funerals in the past 3 months the variations in departure stand out:
September
A beloved 65 year old husband following a catastrophic stroke is taken off life support.
October
A frail bedridden 96 year old great grandmother, briefly installed at the home of her eldest daughter after years of pain and cognitive decline, passes of old age.
November
34 year old woman, artist, only child, plagued by mental imbalances jumps to her death one day after being released from the psychiatric ward.
It wasn’t until November I understood how fortunate September was. In effect, an assisted death. (Also, most mercifully a life very well lived.)
I have had several friends who have taken advantage of assistance in dying when suffering from terminal illnesses, one in Canada, another in California. Another, who has survived an unprecedented length of time with pancreatic cancer.and continues to fight to remain alive, takes comfort in knowing he has his prescriptions available should his quality of life become unbearable. It’s the most humane thing to allow.
Astrologically it feels a little Pluto in Aqua to me. Suicide was always a sin within religion and I suspect that has set part of the precedent against assisted dying all these years. But our society is increasingly secular and personal choice, irrespective of what society thinks, is very Aqua.
But I’m not criticising the analysis as 8th house concerns death. Isn’t the UK chart now having a transit of Uranus through its 8th?
It’s obscene that we are not allowed to let’s our animals suffer indeed we get prosecuted for cruelty. But as humans we should just be let to suffer to the bitter end. Tragic is too small a word.
Overtones of religeous ferver. We suffer here and now, and suffer during the final journey…to reach what? Everlasting purgatory? The nuns in Catholic Sunday school taught their lessons well. Even the tiniest venial sin prevents access to life afterwards.