more on the assisted-suicide debate

The subject was discussed on Any Questions (BBC Radio 4) and three of the four panelists were opposed to assisted suicide. This was in contrast to the 80% of the population of the UK and over 70% of readers of The Church Times (!) who favour it. We needn't linger over the views of the Most Reverend Peter Smith, Archbishop of Cardiff, for we are used to the dogmatism and cruelty of the Catholic church, but I was astonished that Claire Short, former high flier in the Labour Party, should have spoken against it. She is a humanist and believes that life is precious; therefore nobody should be entitled to feel that their quality of life has reached a point at which they would like to end it. It's because life is precious that some people would like to take control of it. Imagine being in the advanced stages of a terminal illness and being allowed to say goodbye on your own terms rather than at the mercy of a brutal, industrial machine that keeps people alive but gives no quality of life. Interestingly, the doctor who posed the question from the audience was quite clear in his view: he had treated hundreds of terminally ill patients and knew for a fact that there was no such thing as totally effective palliative care. He believed that in some cases the humane, compassionate, reasonable thing to do for the patient, if he or she wanted it, was to let them go with dignity.

Another perspective was given by a former doctor who phoned in to Any Answers. Her view was that the whole debate was unnecessary as it is perfectly easy for somebody to commit suicide using the pain killers and sleeping tablets provided for palliative relief. Failing that, any supermarket will provide the means. I wonder if that isn't simply ducking the issue and possibly running the risk that a loved one, who perhaps makes sure the pills are available, might be brought to trial for assisting in suicide. It has happened often enough before.

Another person who called in works at a hospice, and she was totally opposed to assisted suicide, arguing that nobody in her hospice would ever want this facility. Fine for them, they won't, but there will always be people who do. She also mentioned that her hospice caters, I think, for the whole of Oxfordshire and can take only 18 people at one time (in 2001 the population of the county was 605,488). Regardless of this, it seems to me that the central issue here is one of individual freedom. One should be allowed to make an informed choice, and it should not be considered an abandonment of the Hippocratic Oath if a doctor provides the means, for if he prolongs suffering, is he or she not also failing the patient?