Oppose assisted dying on principle, but don’t pretend the current law is working - Dignity in Dying
Dignity in Dying responds to Lord Farmer's article on assisted dying, saying the current law forces terminally ill people to end their lives in a manner not of their choosing.
We suspect that Lord Farmer is one of many Parliamentarians opposed, in principle, to assisted dying. This opposition is often because of a deeply-held belief that life is sacrosanct. We do not criticise those simply for opposing assisted dying for terminally ill people on that basis. What we cannot accept is the view that the current law is somehow working, or it is the best possible legal outcome for dying people and their families.
Let’s be honest: there are no safeguards that would make some opponents reassured with assisted dying being made lawful. There are no conditions that would allow those opponents to countenance allowing a terminally ill patient to be assisted in this country to end their own lives. There is no amount of evidence of the suffering, and no amount of personal testimony of terminally ill people pleading for the right to end their lives that will persuade them. Let’s also be honest that the transparency of the current legal situation where a loved one who provides amateur assistance may not get prosecuted, which is now held up by opponents as being sufficient and sensible, was hard-won and vigorously opposed at every stage by opponents.
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The false choice between assisted dying and better palliative care was comprehensively covered in our original response but we must pick apart the implication in Lord Farmer’s most recent article that the current law is fit for purpose.
As he points out, the current law rightly outlaws people encouraging or pressuring terminally ill people to end their lives. That is all it does, however. Terminally ill people are ending their own lives, the law neither persuades nor deters them from doing so. Over 280 Britons have had to seek an assisted death in other countries and for every one travelling abroad, a further ten are ending their lives at home.
What the current law does is force them to end their lives in a manner not of their choosing, sometimes earlier than they would have done if assisted dying had been legal. Many want to but feel unable to have an open and honest conversation with their doctors about their condition and prognosis; they want to end their lives in a safe and assured way but often have to resort to doing so dangerously; they want to know their loved ones who’ve not encouraged or coerced them are protected but fear they will face interrogation or prosecution. How can we say the current law is working when the wishes of terminally ill people who are ending their own lives are so thoroughly ignored?
Sir Chris Woodhead, who sadly died at the weekend, suffered for many years from motor neurone disease before being later diagnosed with cancer and he was clear that under the current law he faced the prospect of deciding to “starve and dehydrate myself to death.” How can we say the current law is working when terminally ill people have to contemplate starving themselves?
Lord Farmer is concerned of an absence of scrutiny on people ending their lives under the Assisted Dying Bill, but terminally ill people are ending their lives currently with no professional or medical oversight or consideration of their circumstances, capacity or motives before they do so. How can we say the current law is working when people are ending their lives in the shadows with no scrutiny?
The Prime Minister accepts that there are problems with the current law. 82% of people support changing the law to allow assisted dying. Terminally ill people are ending their lives behind closed doors and in a manner that they do not wish. There cannot be a more compelling case of a law being broken and in desperate need of being fixed. On September 11th MPs don’t just have a chance, but a responsibility, to fix it.
Photocredit: Lorentz Gullachsen
