Should relatives who help a family member to die face prosecution? John Humphrys considers the issues in light of new report
Every now and again the news headlines are dominated by a desperately sad journey: the trip a terminally-ill person takes to the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland in order to be helped to die. Sometimes that person is accompanied by a loved one. They make the journey because in this country helping someone to commit suicide is illegal. But now a report recommends that assisted dying should be made legal in certain circumstances. The report is controversial - and not only for its conclusions.
Virtually everyone agrees that the current state of the law is unsatisfactory. The 1961 Suicide Act is clear enough in stating that it is a criminal act to help someone else to take their life. But what is much less clear is whether or not someone who does precisely that will actually be prosecuted.
This problem was highlighted by the case of Debbie Purdy, a sufferer from multiple sclerosis who was afraid of dying a painful and prolonged death. She wanted to know whether or not her partner would be prosecuted if, one day, she asked him to take her to the Dignitas clinic. The case went to the Law Lords who ruled that she had a right to a proper answer to this question. As a result the Director of Public Prosecutions published some guidelines to help clarify the situation.
But campaigners for making assisted dying legal in Britain felt that this was insufficient and this led to the setting up of the Commission on Assisted Dying which has spent the last year investigating the issue and taking evidence from 1,300 sources in the process.
Opponents of assisted dying protest that the commission has tried to present itself as a wholly independent body, intent on reaching conclusions only in the light of the evidence presented to it. But this, they say, is far from the truth. The commission was set up by Dignity in Dying, an organisation campaigning for assisted suicide to be legalised, and financed by the author, Sir Terry Pratchett, who suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease and who himself wants the law changed. Nine of the eleven commissioners, they say, were already on the record as expressing views favouring the legalisation of assisted dying. So, they conclude, the commission was anything but impartial and independent. Some of those who might have been expected to give evidence to the commission refused to do so on these very grounds.
The chairman of the commission, the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, has responded by saying that although some of his team had made remarks on the subject in the past, all were genuinely concerned to hear the evidence. The commission members included doctors, police commissioners, and a former president of the General Medical Council. One member, Canon Dr James Woodward, declined to go along with the majority opinion.
The commission recommends that assisted dying should be made legal in what it regards as precisely defined circumstances. These are:
- that the person whom wants to be helped to die should be over eighteen;
- should be terminally ill;
- should have less than twelve months to live;
- should make the choice voluntarily and without being under undue influence from others;
- should not be suffering from any mental impairment;
- should only be assisted to die, and should take the final, fatal step themselves.
Euthanasia (actually killing someone else) should remain illegal even if that person has asked to die. Two doctors should independently verify that these medical conditions are satisfied before assisted dying may legally proceed.
Lord Falconer argues that legalisation under these conditions would help the 'small cohort' of people who cannot face the suffering of a terminal illness and who prefer to die first. But he (and the commission in general) acknowledges that what most terminally ill people want and need is not the legal right to be helped to die, but more resources put into palliative care. The proposed measures are intended to help only the minority who wants to die.
Opponents of the proposals are worried on several counts, not the least of which is that if assisted dying became legal, this 'small cohort' would become larger. The danger, they say, is that 'legalisation equals normalisation'. And they worry about this especially because they believe that the conditions for legalising assisted suicide are nothing like as strict as the commission claims they are.
Baroness Finlay, the professor of palliative care at Cardiff University, and a former president of the Royal College of Medicine, is a fierce opponent of assisted dying. She argues that, far from being watertight, the conditions are very leaky. For example, she says that it is 'more or less impossible' to know whether a terminally-ill patient has less than twelve months to live. The condition that such a patient should be mentally unimpaired is also far too difficult a matter to judge with any great degree of confidence. confidently enough as the basis for taking such a life-and-death decision. She also worries about the use of the phrase 'undue' influence.
This, she argues, seems to leave open the possibility that it would be all right for such a patient to be under some influence from relatives who may be growing weary of having to handle the trauma of dealing with someone dying in their family. It is this point, in particular, which leads her and others to think that the number of people supposedly volunteering for help in ending their lives would grow.
Lord Falconer admits that no conditions can be completely watertight. But, he argues, unless we take the careful, cautious step down this road, which is what he says his commission is recommending, then we are condemning people who are already suffering to the despair of knowing that all their future holds is even worse suffering. We should be allowed, he says, to ask for help to prevent that from happening.
What’s your view?
- Do you think, in principle, that assisted dying should be made legal or do you believe that anyone who helps a dying person to visit the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland should be prosecuted?
- If you do support the principle of legalised assisted suicide, do you think the conditions the commission recommends are adequate, or not?
- Do you think the condition that a terminally-ill patient should have less than twelve months to live for assisted dying to be legal is too long a period?
- How worried are you that such a patient could be improperly influenced to choose to die?
- What do you make of the claim that 'legalisation equals normalisation'?
- Do you have any sympathy with the view that people should be allowed to choose the timing and the manner of their own death?
- Do you think the law will be changed?
Let us know your views in the comment box below.
