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Home Information Why we Support Voluntary Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide
Why we Support Voluntary Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide PDF Print E-mail

  • SUICIDE means taking one's own life
  • ASSISTED SUICIDE means asking someone else to help you to do it
  • PHYSICIAN ASSISTED SUICIDE means asking a doctor to help you
  • VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA means asking someone else to take your life for you


Suicide has never been illegal in Scotland & has been allowed in the rest of the UK since 1961, but it is a crime for anyone else to be involved. This means that if you are too ill or disabled to take your own life, the person who helps you can be charged with murder.

Most people die peacefully but some suffer greatly before the end comes. Care for the dying has improved a lot in recent years, but medical technology has also enabled life to be extended even when the person is past being able to enjoy it. We believe that we should be able to ask for help when we feel we have suffered enough.

Opposition to voluntary euthanasia comes mainly from those with religious convictions who say they believe life is a gift from God & is therefore sacred. Other arguments are used to support these views but the fundamental one is 'the sanctity of life'.

VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA & ASSISTED SUICIDE
ARGUMENTS AGAINST ARGUMENTS FOR
THE SANCTITY OF LIFE
This phrase has little meaning unless both 'sanctity' & 'life' are defined. Sanctity means 'sacredness', something that must not be interfered with, but to us life is a continuum. It starts with the egg & the sperm which are biologically programmed to be lost in their hundreds & millions throughout the lifetime of the individual; on to the embryo; the foetus; the infant; the child; the man & woman, to the 'lean & slippered pantaloon, sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything' as Shakespeare so graphically put it. Brainless old age is what we all fear but it is possible to lose one's 'biographical life', one's individual personality, in childhood or adolescence as Tony Bland did. He lay in a Persistent Vegetative State (his brain was so damaged that he was always in a coma) as a result of the Hillsborough football disaster. The House of Lords decided that his biological life could be ended - four years after the tragedy.

UNNECESSARY & UNNATURAL
Palliative care is so good that life can end 'naturally' with the minimum of suffering. This is not true as will be shown in the 'Arguments For'. Some people die in intensive care, being fed intravenously, attached to a ventilator with tubes coming out of every orifice. How can this be regarded as natural?

THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
Once euthanasia is legalised it will open the door to abuse & will allow unscrupulous relatives to put the elderly & infirm to death, like Hitler did. Old people will feel pressurised to ask for euthanasia so that they are not a burden. Evidence for this view is often misquoted: a survey of deaths in the Netherlands in 1991 (the Remelink Report) showed that 2.5% of all deaths were by euthanasia; a second (1996) & third Report (2001) came up with the same 2.5% figure.

DOCTORS MUST PRESERVE LIFE
They have sworn the Hippocratic oath - the trust between them & their patients would be destroyed if they were allowed to perform euthanasia or PAS. Few doctors practising today have been asked to swear this ancient Greek oath, but they do have a professional duty to care for their patients to the best of their ability with compassion & skill. Sometimes patients can be too trusting as Dr Shipman's victims demonstrated!

 CHOICE
We can now choose our partner, when to have a child, & whether to continue with an unplanned pregnancy. We have the right to accept, or refuse, medical treatment. We should have the same right to decide when & where to die. The present law is based on traditional beliefs which are no longer held by many UK citizens & should not be imposed on those who do not share them.

TERMINAL SUFFERING
Even with the best palliative care, between 5% & 10% of those dying cannot have their suffering adequately relieved. Pain is often a major problem, but not the only one - nausea, vomiting, coughing, breathlessness, incontinence, & other horrible symptoms can be difficult to treat. Severe weakness & total dependence on others are inevitable & many people find this the most distressing thing to bear. The final stages are often treated by increasing the dosage of pain-killers such as morphine & heroin & also by giving sedatives which induce sleep which slides into coma & death. This is known as 'terminal sedation' & in most cases the patient takes no part in the decision to use it.

DOCTORS' DUTY OF CARE
Those who truly want to do their best for their patients by responding to a request to end their suffering are forbidden by law from doing so. Many surveys of British doctors have shown that some already help their patients to die & risk their professional career by doing so. Doctors are also able to give pain-killers in such high doses that people die more quickly. This is known as the 'double effect' - if the intention is to relieve suffering, but the side effect is death.

PUBLIC OPINION
81% of the public think that a person suffering unbearably from a terminal illness should be allowed by law to have medical help to die if that is what he or she wants (National Opinion Poll 2002).

WORLD OPINION
Euthanasia has been accepted in the Netherlands for over 20 years & a law was passed in 2000 to regulate this. Belgium passed a similar law in 2001. In the US, one state, Oregon, has had a Physician Assisted Suicide law since 1998.

THERE MUST BE SAFEGUARDS TO PREVENT ABUSE

These are the guidelines followed in the Netherlands for over twenty years:

  1. There must be unbearable physical or mental suffering
  2. The suffering & the desire to die must be lasting
  3. It must be the patient's own decision
  4. The patient must have a clear understanding of his or her condition & prognosis. He or she must be capable of assessing the options & must have done so
  5. There must be no other acceptable solution
  6. The time & the way the patient dies must not cause avoidable misery to others (eg the next of kin should be informed & the patient's affairs be put in order)
  7. The doctor involved must consult another professional
  8. A medical doctor must be involved in prescribing the right drugs.
  9. The decision process & the actual treatment must be carried out with the utmost care
  10. The person receiving help to die does not have to be terminally ill, but must be suffering unbearably
With safeguards, people who do NOT wish to die will be better protected than they are without any law.

LET THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN THE 'SANCTITY OF LIFE' DIE 'NATURALLY' BUT LET THE REST OF US CHOOSE HOW, WHEN, & WHERE WE MAKE OUR EXIT WHEN WE BELIEVE WE HAVE SUFFERED ENOUGH.

Why not join us?