Should the government make 'Right to Die' facilities publicly available?

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Should the government make 'Right to Die' facilities publicly available?

Yes			82%

No			18%

The 'Right to Die' debate seems to get larger and louder daily so to foster discussion here on Ooffoo we have asked our own question. To kick things off we invited two leading voices, Dignity in Dying & Care Not Killing, to contribute. But most importantly, we want to hear what you think.

YES! The government should make 'Right to Die' facilities publicly available
by Dignity in Dying
Dignity in Dying does not support an unfettered ‘right to die’. What we do advocate is greater personal control over the process of dying, including the option of an assisted death, within safeguards, for the terminally ill. This is an important distinction. We believe society should continue to discourage irrational attempts at suicide, where people need support and care, but at the same time should not compel dying people to suffer unnecessarily, and against their wishes at the end of life. The majority of the public understand this distinction, but our law does not. However, Government has so far been reluctant to resolve this legal fudge. Instead, via the Law Lords, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has now been given the task of clarifying a confusing law.

We currently have a situation in the UK where people have to make very difficult and often desperate decisions when trying to take control at the end of their lives. They can choose to travel abroad for a legal assisted death, if they are physically and financially able, but they have to travel alone to do this or risk the liberty of their loved ones if they are accompanied. This situation may change in September once the DPP issues his interim guidance on his prosecuting policy in this area. Other terminally ill people attempt suicide alone, often resulting in them being in a worse physical state than they were before, or ask loved ones or doctors to again risk their liberty and help them to die, or suffer a death that they didn’t want to suffer. This status quo is unacceptable – it has gone on long enough and we need an answer to the problems it raises for terminally ill people and their loved ones.

The DPP’s guidance will go some way to making the situation better for those who want choice and control at the end of their lives. People will know under what circumstances they are able to help someone to die, if at all. But what we really need is a new, full and safeguarded law in the UK to allow assisted dying for terminally ill, mentally competent adults which is appropriate for today’s society. This would prevent us from having to export our dying abroad, prevent people from having to die alone and add transparency to end of life practice. The landscape is changing and it is only a matter of time before things change significantly in favour of choice at the end of life. This needs to happen sooner rather than later, before more people suffer needlessly at the end of their lives.

NO! The government should not make 'Right to Die' facilities publicly available
by Care Not Killing
The law forbids assistance with suicide in order to protect vulnerable people – from themselves as much as from others. Very few people would argue with that. But it’s now being suggested that seriously ill people should be an exception. The campaigners tell us not to worry because there would be ‘safeguards’ to prevent abuse. They parade in front of us a selection of cases of strong-willed people who are apparently fully resolved to end their lives and of sound mind. And they quote public opinion surveys that show support for a ‘right to die’.

So what’s the objection to all this? First, look at the ‘safeguards’ – that the person should be terminally ill and mentally competent and have declared that that’s what he – or she - wants. These may sound like safeguards to the layman, but doctors who treat seriously ill people every day know just how vulnerable their patients can be to pressures – from within themselves as well as from others – to cut their lives short and how difficult it can be to predict life expectancy or be sure about such things as freedom from depression or coercion. Five years ago a parliamentary select committee examined these ‘safeguards’ in detail. They highlighted their weaknesses and suggested how they might be strengthened. What they had to say has been largely ignored by the campaigners.

The law deters malicious assistance with suicide through the penalties it holds in reserve. But these penalties are often not needed – because the law also provides discretion not to prosecute if it is clear from the facts of a case that there has been no coercion or manipulation and that the person who has died was suffering severely and had earnestly requested help to end his or her life. And this discretion is used in practice – as we have seen in a number of high-profile cases. In other words, the law as it stands combines a stern face to deter foul play with a not unkind heart to deal leniently with genuinely compassionate cases.

Many people say, when they are healthy, that they wouldn’t want to ‘linger on’ and that they would want to ‘end it all’ if they became seriously ill. And it’s all too easy to whip up support in opinion polls for suggestions that those who are ‘suffering unbearably’ should have a ‘choice to die’ But the reality is that very few people when they become seriously ill are resolved about wanting to cut short their lives. Some raise the subject with relatives or their doctors, usually as a cry for help and safe in the knowledge that it can’t be taken seriously. But changing the law to allow it and creating procedures to help seriously ill people kill themselves would create pressures on them that currently don’t exist to go down the suicide road.

Creating a loophole in the law to allow assisted suicide is unnecessary and would put vulnerable people at risk of self-harm.

What do you think? Please do vote and give us your comments.

Listed In: health , death , vote , debate

Created on: 11/08/2009
Last edited on: 18/09/2009

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Comments about this listing

The law is fine as it stands. I am with Care Not Killing on the issue. Better a tight law with room for compassion than a loose law with room for abuse.

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Posted By: Hamboy
Date Posted: 11/08/2009 11:12

Pardon me for stating the obvious, but I assumed that my life belongs to me and I should have the choice to end it if I was terminally ill with no chance of a cure. Surely that is a basic right of any human. The law should change and allow people the right to die with dignity, surrounded by their loved ones and in their own country regardless of financial status, physical ability or fear of prosecution.

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Posted By: Neil-Leeds
Date Posted: 11/08/2009 11:50

Neil, you have the right to do whatever you choose but society has the right to disapprove and in this case disapproval and a lack of legitimacy acts as a huge deterrent from abuse.

What exactly are you being prevented from doing? Precedent shows that assisted suicide cases rarely get progressed to prosecution in cases of genuine compassion.

There is no legal problem to solve; rather, like marriage, people seem to seek state approval for a personal decision.

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Posted By: Hamboy
Date Posted: 11/08/2009 11:53

I take the point that Hamboy makes and that is made by Care Not Killing that, when it is a case of "genuine compassion", prosecution is rarely pursued. However, the question is whether we should have facilities in THIS country. If we are accepting of cases of genuine compassion, perhaps it be more compassionate to remove the obstacle that requires international travel for someone already suffering, if that person would like to die assisted by professionals who know what they're doing, and who are not going to be as personally distressed by providing assistance as the loved ones? If the law has to change in order for loving appropriate professional facilities to be created then I would support a change in the law. Not because I think state approval is necessary.

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Posted By: Clara
Date Posted: 11/08/2009 12:23

As Clara has pointed out, we are prevented from deciding to die in THIS country. It seems unbelievable that people who are already suffering so much have to then travel to foreign lands to seek a service that should be given here in the UK. It just seems obvious to me that by allowing a right to die service in the UK (with proper safeguards),we would give those people who are suffering so much the chance to die in a controlled enviroment with their family around them at the time THEY choose.

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Posted By: Neil-Leeds
Date Posted: 11/08/2009 13:14

I agree with Neil-Leeds. The fact is that the way the law is structured at the moment means that the suffering person is putting their loved ones at risk of prosecution to help them. Even if the law allows for compassion there is no guarantee that your loved ones won't be prosecuted if they cannot prove their innocence. I would suffer enormous guilt and stress to even ask for help from loved ones knowing that there was the slightest risk of their being prosecuted. I don't think you can rely on a law that requires interpretation. It is just too dangerous. We are allowed to travel to have a dignified death so there is no reason for those who can't afford it to be given the same facilities here.

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Posted By: Tanya Mo
Date Posted: 11/08/2009 16:45

What are 'appropriate safeguards', exactly? We have safeguards in place for all sorts of things, yet they're frequently open to abuse. I have seen many patients in my former nursing days (NHS) who died through active euthanasia: it happens all the time, yet is not openly admitted ( it's usually a large dose of diamorphine that's administered for pain relief, but in the full knowledge that it will suppress the respiratory centre. This hasn't been with the patient's consent - and often no family was present. Instant, clinical and unnatural death. I'd be very nervous that 'appropriate safeguards' - especially over time (and with increasing economic constraints; rising populations and climate change, etc) - wouldn't mutate into selective euthanasia. Death is a natural event, and should be 'beutiful'. The Natural Death Movement is all about re-empowerment in this regard.

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Posted By: Anonymouse
Date Posted: 11/08/2009 19:13

Whilst I am in full support of a fully concious person making the decision to end their life my recent experiences have unnerved me about what happens to the unconcious patient. My husband collapsed with multi organ failure and the decision was put to me that I could agree to him being cared for in a side room with no active treatment "until he gently drifts away" however I insisted they took the 10% chance of survival they estimated he had and he's coming home this weekend! What if I had wanted his removal from my life? The power handed to me was too great.

Posted By: rosie
Date Posted: 12/08/2009 20:55

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Both my parents died using care not killing (they were both Roman Catholics) but the care meant sitting in a bed for six years suffering from Parkinson's disease for my mother and ending up looking like a survivor from Belsen for my father. I am an athiest and wish to indicate my preferred end before I lose the capability to do so. If it is not available by the time I am starting to lose it, I will go to Zurich.

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Posted By: Norfolk
Date Posted: 11/08/2009 19:48

I think we should have the right to say when enough is enough. I speak from experience of caring for relatives till their agonised end and a suicidal relative. It doesn't make sense to me that we would have our pets put down, when they are suffering. Yet don't do so, when a human being has no quality or will to live anymore. To some extent I don't know why there is such an anti mob to the suggestion. Surely we are not talking of millions of people taking up the offer! Yes, I do understand their could be some greedy relatives hoping to benefit and that is where standards have to be set high, by independant people. Like anonymouse said the NHS are already using methods to help people passing and sometimes cures are worse than death, so I think we have the right to chose and progress with dignity.

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Posted By: Kairen
Date Posted: 11/08/2009 22:09

When someone is terminally ill, I don't see that we have any moral duty to make them suffer to the bitter end. It seems more caring, compassionate and a greater act of love to let them go when they are ready.

I know from experience that caring for a dying loved one takes its toll on the carers as well. There is a certain selfish hope that they will pass soon - as much to relieve our own suffering as theirs. I don't think this is a bad thing - certainly it is perfectly understandable and natural to feel this way. It does not make the carers bad people and I don't believe that it means that assisting the loved ones death is any less loving or compassionate.

I think that our cultural fear of death contributes greatly to this debate. In most western society death is no longer seen as a natural part of life. Living is held in such high regard that we value quantity over quality and we have abdicated any control we might have over our own end.

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Posted By: kiwimeg
Date Posted: 13/08/2009 04:49

A friend of ours is dying from cancer right now and he has chosen to die in his own home with his family around him. The strain on them is unfathomable. There are nurses and doctors visiting at all hours. Surely we would not let an animal suffer in this way.
I think carrying a card like a Donor Card on which we state our wishes would be a sensible thing to do.
I, personally, am not afraid of actually dying but I am afraid of the pain, discomfort and mental anguish that may come before the final curtain comes down. I would like to think that when my own time comes that if there was no hope of survival for me or no quality of life assured then some kind person would put me gently to sleep and let my spirit drift off into the ether.

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Posted By: Marian
Date Posted: 13/08/2009 20:29

It's a very complicated subject; by its very nature, there can be no blanket rule. It will be very important to judge each case individually as each person and illness is unique.

Although I agree that there should be a choice regarding your own manner of death, as with your own manner of life, I also recognise the scope for abuse. Perhaps, then, a previously written statement about the persons wishes in case of terminal illness might be appropriate? SUPPORTED by a statement/request at the time if/when the question is raised.

Although there are exceptions, my experience of doctors in todays hospitals (which is a lot of experience, I am sad to say) is that, unless you are treated by a single doctor over a number of years, they simply don't have the time to remember even your name without checking the notes. This is not a dig at doctors, but the system under which they have to work. So are the doctors really the only people who can make these decisions? Surely the loved ones (and I mean the ones that love the patient, not necessarily a few inheritance-hungry relatives), are the best people to help the patient make the decision?

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Posted By: Toni
Date Posted: 16/08/2009 11:04

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