Dignity in dying?

For several reasons, the issue of assisted dying has cropped up in my working life this week. And it's a subject that I am still chewing over, and finding remarkably difficult to digest.

I work for a Labour MP, who has received a number of requests to sign an Early Day Motion which calls for a debate on the law on assisted dying and assisted.

I think for both my boss, and me on a personal level outside of work, it's hard to make a snap judgement about what changes do need to be made to the law, if any. The Coroners and Justice Bill is currently going through Parliament, and with it comes the opportunity to MPs to: "Modernise the law on assisting suicide to help increase public understanding and reassure people that it applies as much on the internet as it does off-line."

The issue has been in the news this week because of British couple's decision to go to Switzerland to die. Peter and Penelope Duff, who both had terminal cancer, travelled to a Dignitas clinic Switzerland last week to die together.

Mr Duff, 80, a retired wine consultant, and his 70-year-old wife are believed to have been helped to end their lives last Friday with an overdose of barbiturates. They are the first Britons to die at the clinic since the Lord Chief Justice signalled that anyone helping a terminally ill person to organise an assisted suicide abroad would not be prosecuted.

Sarah Wootton, Chief Executive of the UK charity Dignity in Dying said this week:

"This is an extremely sad case of two more terminally ill UK citizens being forced to travel to an unfamiliar country to die. It demonstrates, yet again, that we are currently on a slippery slope which forces people to make difficult and often desperate decisions so that they can take control of the time and manner of their deaths.

"Dignity in Dying campaigns for terminally ill, mentally competent adults to have the choice of an assisted death, subject to strict legal safeguards. Mr and Mrs Duff were both terminally ill and therefore may have been eligible for an assisted death under this sort of legislation. Had they had the option of an assisted death in this country they may still be alive, as their physical ability to travel would not have been a factor.

"It is time for Parliament to fully debate this issue, and there is that opportunity now. The Coroners and Justice Bill is being debated in Parliament at the moment, and within this Bill is the opportunity to modernise the 1961 Suicide Act. Parliament currently has no plans to change the scope of the Suicide Act to allow assisted dying, but surely this case highlights the importance of addressing this issue with urgency to prevent any more people from having to take the decision to travel abroad to die."

Dignity in Dying say that 80% of the British public (ie voters) support a change in the law on assisted dying for terminally ill, mentally competent adults.

There are some complicated issues to consider with this. For example, in terms of modern medicine and healthcare systems, how do we define who is 'terminally ill' and who is not? People can, fortunately, live many years with illnesses such as cancer, AIDS, and various degenerative diseases. We have the technology to give them a far better quality of life than they would have had a decade or so ago.

There is also the issue of identifying the 'mental competence' deemed to be necessary to make the decision to be assisted in ending your life. By the time a person with a terminal illness has degenerated to a level where they would consider ending their life, in many cases their mental competence has degenerated along with their physical health, and again it is questionable of whether they can be left to make such a decision.

This issue poses a challenge for the current Government and future ones, as it is nigh on impossible to consider the issue without brining your own personal feelings and experiences along with you. But if the Government can't make decisions on this who can? It is too risky and area not to be regulated by legislation - it poses too much of a risk to the people and families involved to just leave it up to personal choice in each case. And I think it is too much to ask the family members to have to be put in the position of making such decisions. And so, the debate will rumble on...I hope that whatever changes are made to the law, they still convey what is really meant by having dignity at the end of your life.