8mm
Posted on 06/08/2008 5:08:54 AM PDT by markomalley
On Wednesday, Debbie Purdy will initiate proceedings to try to force the Director of Public Prosecutions to clarify the law on assisted suicide.
Ms Purdy has multiple sclerosis. She believes her life may well soon become unbearable, and she wants to know that if she decides her best course is to end it in a country (such as Switzerland) where assisted suicide is legal, her husband won't face charges in Britain when he returns after helping her. She has already asked the DPP to clarify his position on the topic. He declined. She now hopes she can use judicial review to make him do so.
I feel a great deal of sympathy for Ms Purdy. For one thing, I have multiple sclerosis myself, and may one day be in the same position as she is. For another, I helped my mother to die - or at least did not create any obstacles to actions that would accelerate her dying.
When she had terminal cancer, was in great pain, and was unable to communicate, my father, my sisters and I were each asked separately by the doctors and nurses caring for her if we thought my mother would want to have her morphine dose increased. It was explained very clearly that the effect would not just be to diminish her pain; it was also almost certain to hasten her death.
Each of us said she would want her dose of morphine increased. The doctors duly increased the dose. My mother died, peacefully and apparently painlessly, within days.
Although no one thought of it as euthanasia - that possibility was never even discussed, let alone considered - what happened in my mother's case amounted to euthanasia in all but name. Euthanasia is illegal in the UK. But no prosecutions or even investigations followed. How was that possible?
The loophole is that the law allows a doctor to prescribe medication that will hasten death, provided the intention is solely to reduce pain and suffering. The line between causing pain relief (which is permitted) and causing death (which is not) is wafer-thin. It is rarely completely clear - and that means the legal situation is extremely messy.
Nearly three years ago, Dr Howard Martin was charged with murder for giving large doses of morphine to three patients: he said he was trying to relieve their pain. The prosecution alleged he was trying to kill them. He was acquitted.
The three-week trial, however, may have had a "chilling effect" on doctors thinking about increasing doses of morphine to the point where they would effectively relieve pain, but might also kill the patient. Many believe it would be an improvement if the law were changed to make it explicit that patients had the "right" to die, and doctors had the right to assist them without facing the possibility of prosecution.
Ms Purdy's legal challenge does not go that far, but it is an attempt to clear up the confusion and apparent hypocrisy surrounding the law, and it would be the first step on the way to an explicit legal recognition of an entitlement to euthanasia.
For those without religious convictions of the kind that insist that only God is permitted to take life, or even for those who simply believe that religion should not be used to determine what the law is, the issue, at the level of abstract principle, is pretty straightforward: terminally ill people who are suffering unendurable pain should be entitled to decide that their own life is not worth living; they should be entitled to end such a life; and doctors should not be penalised for helping them do so.
Practice, however, can be very different from theory - and it is considering what would happen in practice that can generate doubts as to whether making a law that explicitly entrenches the "right to die" would be a good idea.
Just as the "right" of a 17-year-old to volunteer during wartime for front-line service can generate the sense of obligation to sign up, so the "right" to die can create the feeling that there is an obligation to stop being a burden and exercise that right. Once the option is explicitly available, there would be pressure to take it.
And, in that situation, what could you say to your mother or father to convince them that you really did not want them to do so? There is nothing you could convincingly say. And knowledge that the option was there would hover uneasily over every meeting and poison it.
An explicit "right to die" would subtly but significantly change the context in which the life-or-death decision was made. That change would make it more difficult to be sure of what is by far the most important issue: whether the individual taking the decision genuinely wanted to die, as opposed to being pushed into voicing that view by the sense that it is what everyone around him wanted him to do.
Despite the theoretical attractions of creating a legal "right to die", we should think very carefully before we do so. I can understand why Ms Purdy wants to remove all ambiguity from the law.
But I can also understand why the DPP is so reluctant. So far, he and his predecessors have used their discretion extremely well: although 92 people have gone abroad to hasten their deaths in countries where that is lawful, not one of the friends or relatives who helped has been prosecuted on return to the UK - although the 1961 Suicide Act makes it an offence, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, to aid suicide.
The present situation unquestionably has many drawbacks. But it would not be an improvement if every very ill person knew that doctors were authorised to help them die from the moment they chose to say the word. Dignity in Dying, the pressure group that aims to change the law so that it explicitly licenses euthanasia, supports Ms Purdy's appeal.
The organisation claims that "the current law is failing the vulnerable". I think that is the opposite of the truth: the current law protects the vulnerable - those very ill people who might only too easily feel pressure, real or imagined, from their families to cease being a burden or a cost or an irritation, if the option of "getting out of the way" was explicitly and unambiguously sanctioned by the law.
If we change the law so it explicitly endorses euthanasia, we'll certainly make it easier for those who know they want to die to achieve their goal. But what about the thousands of others who aren't so sure? We'll never know how many would get pushed into taking the irrevocable option when they don't really want to. That, to me, is the best reason for keeping the law as it is - its confusion and apparent hypocrisy notwithstanding.
pro-life ping
The danger is when the “right to die” turns into an “obligation to die.” Something we baby boomers need to consider when our grandchildren have the option to pay 75% of their wages in taxes to pay for social services or declare that grandma and grandpa have a poor quality of life and it’s time for them to go. It is “we’re here for your liver” writ large.
btt
The power of death resides with the state alone and the state cannot allow this or any violence in any other hands but its own.
Prediction:
In 25 years, the “right to die” will indeed be legalized in the UK.
But - only for non-Muslims....
Encouraged, for all others....
- John
Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.
FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
Ping
Prediction:
Soon the “Right to Die” will become the “Duty to Die”.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.