Assisted dying campaigner and Alzheimer's sufferer Terry Pratchett at a book signing with a young fan. Photo credit: firepile
Doctors should be allowed to help terminally ill patients die, a new report claims, just days after a senior legal official blasted current assisted dying legislation as “incoherent and unsafe”.
The Commission on Assisted Dying, funded by writer Sir Terry Pratchett, a prominent campaigner for legally assisted suicide, and chaired by Lord Falconer, the former justice secretary who once brought assisted dying legislation before the House of Lords, claimed that there is a “strong case” for allowing assisted suicide for terminally ill people. The Commission heard evidence from medical practitioners, assisted suicide campaigners, those against assisted suicide, legal experts and other; though the Commission’s panel was chosen by Lord Falconer, not everyone on the panel reportedly supports assisted suicide. The Commission’s report, issued on January 5, declared that the current legal status of assisted dying is “inadequate and incoherent” and suggested a new framework for allowing legally assisted suicide.
Download the report here.
Among its suggestions are that individuals over the age of 18, judged as terminally ill and likely to die within 12 months, be given the right to commit suicide; euthanasia, a lethal dose of medication administered by a doctor, however, should not be allowed. If implemented, The Telegraph reported, it could mean 1,000 people in England and Wales being allowed to die each year. The report follows a claim by former Metropolitan Police commissioner and member of the Commission Lord Blair, in an opinion piece in The Independent, that the current laws around assisted dying are “incoherent and unsafe” and must be changed.
But the Commission is being slammed by critics for an apparent bias and for the quality of its suggestions. Should the Commission’s findings impact legislation? And should assisted suicide ever be legal?
Commission is biased, legal assisted dying is worrying. The Commission on Assisted Dying is not, The Daily Mail warned in a leading editorial, an official or even impartial body, no matter how it sounds. Funded and set up by leading proponents of assisted dying and chaired by a man who led an attempt to bring an assisted suicide bill before Lords three years ago, the Commission “was highly likely to favour bringing in a law that would allow doctors to help kill their patients.” But, the paper continued, “One glance at its report, however, should warn how fraught with difficulty and danger any such legislation would be.” Doctors, the paper claimed, can be very wrong about life expectancy and prognosis, so legally helping patients who have a year to live comes with significant complications. The paper concluded, “If assisting suicide is made legal, isn’t the danger that it will become routine?”
The Commission may be biased, but it’s not wrong. The state of law regarding assisted suicide is confused and problematic, Mary Wornack claimed in an opinion piece in The Observer, ahead of the report’s release. The Commission carried out its work “thoroughly and conscientiously” and, despite what may be the leanings of its principals, its findings should not be ignored. “Society is getting better at facing the fact that many people at present suffer horrible deaths. The commission has reinforced this welcome trend, to think seriously how things can be improved.”
“Opponents to a change in the law will continue to attack any efforts to find a solution to the unbearable suffering which continues daily in the absence of a compassionate assisted dying law, but they themselves cannot suggest an alternative,” said Sarah Wootton, CEO of Dying with Dignity, the charity that set up the Commission. “Some who oppose change refused to give evidence to the Commission, but refusing to engage does not get us any closer to reducing the suffering of those who want more choice and control at the end of their lives.”
‘Less safe’ than Oregon’s rules? Oregon, in America’s Pacific Northwest, has allowed assisted suicide since 1997; the Commission’s new proposals, The Telegraph reported, are being slammed as a “less safe version” of those. Oregon doctors are permitted to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to residents who are over 18, mentally competent, and likely to die within six months; patients must also make two oral requests and one written request to receive the prescription. Still, despite assisted suicide’s legal status, only 65 people in Oregon in 2010 used the law. The Telegraph cited anti-assisted suicide group Care Not Killing as calling the Commission’s proposals “a less safe version of the highly controversial Oregon law, which sees the terminally ill offered drugs to kill themselves, but not expensive life saving and life extending drugs”.
A Com/Res poll conducted this week found that roughly half of Britons worry that making assisted suicide legal would increase pressure on the terminally ill to end their lives.
Twitter reacts. “Assisted dying” was a trending topic much of the morning the report was released, with some users blasting news outlets for presenting the Commission’s claims as “independent”, and others debating the issue itself. Read one tweet, “But legalisation of assisted dying while removing benefits for sick, disabled and terminally ill people feels a bit like it’s a hint…”, while another noted, “Everybody has the right to live, so shouldn’t everybody have the right to die if it’s their choice? Assisted Dying should become legal.”
