Moral maze: A one way ticket to Dignitas?

Backed by the pro-euthanasia organisation known as “Dignity in Dying”, Debbie Purdy has won her case in the House of Lords

by Rebecca Hunt

As I write, assisted suicide has been in the news again. Backed by the pro-euthanasia organisation known as “Dignity in Dying”, Debbie Purdy has won her case in the House of Lords and the Director of Public Prosecutions has been forced to issue guidance indicating the factors to be taken into account in deciding whether or not someone who “aids or abets” a suicide under the Suicide Act 1961, should be prosecuted. Debbie Purdy, a strong personality, described in The Guardian as “a self-confessed adrenaline junkie who had revelled in travelling the world diving from planes, conquering mountains, trekking through jungles and exploring the depths of the oceans”, but tragically now a multiple sclerosis sufferer, wanting to exercise complete control in death as she has in life.

What would the impact be of a law that, in certain circumstances, made it legal for us to kill one another? Despite the euphemisms of language that are used in this debate, this is what is being proposed. Doubtlessly a tiny number of very determined and strong-minded people would get what they profess to want. But what sort of pressure would it put upon those who already feel a burden to those around them? Surely the law against assisting suicide is there to protect the vulnerable: to shield them from the unscrupulous, and to make it unthinkable to them to ask to be killed. What impact would it have on the incentive to provide excellent palliative care for those who need it at the end of life? In Holland, where euthanasia has been legal for some years, the hospice movement is entirely under-developed and there is evidence of considerable fear of euthanasia in the population, particularly amongst the elderly.

In the words of John Donne, “No man is an island”. Life in community means laws which protect the vulnerable, sometimes at the expense of those more able to look after themselves. Which is worse: to say to someone who wants to die, “I’m not going to kill you”, or to kill someone who does not want to die?