Doctors' views should be heard in assisted suicide debate, says Baroness

Baroness Finlay, Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group Dying Well, has highlighted the importance of considering the views of medical professionals in the debate surrounding physician assisted suicide.

Private members bill

She made the comments in an article for the British Journal of General Practice, which has been published in the wake of a private members bill presented by Lord Falconer to introduce physician assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in England and Wales. 

Baroness Finlay points out: “‘Assisted dying’ is a euphemism for assisted suicide. But what is being proposed isn’t just assisted suicide, it is physician-assisted suicide.

“What Lord Falconer’s Private Member’s bill is proposing is to license doctors to supply lethal drugs to patients whom they believe to be terminally ill and mentally capable so that those drugs can be used by the patient to commit suicide.”

In her piece, Baroness Finlay highlights that the issue at hand is one of whether a doctor should be permitted to provide a lethal drug to end the life of a patient, which she notes would “represent a major change both to the criminal law and to the principles underpinning clinical practice.”

“Frontline”

She argues that the views of medical practitioners are particularly important since they are the ones who would be at the “frontline of any such law”, and who would be responsible for making the decision as to whether or not a patient was eligible for a physician-assisted suicide.

She added: “Those who want to see the law changed suggest that doctors should stand aside from this issue because it is ‘a matter for society as a whole’.

“It is also suggested by some advocates of ‘assisted dying’ that the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) should stand back and not express a view on whether the law should be changed.

Nonsense

“… I am sorry, but this is nonsense. As long as we are talking about physician assisted suicide, the views of the medical profession, and especially of those within it who are likely to find themselves in the firing line, are of particular importance. It is a case of ‘no decision about me without me.’”

Baroness Finlay concludes by encouraging GPs to make their views known to the RCGP, stating that it was vital for the body to take a stance on the issue, preferably via a ballot of the membership.

The full article is published in the British Journal of General Practice, September 2013 available here(payment or subscription required)