Labour peer Lord Falconer has announced his intention to present a bill before Parliament next week to legalise assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in England and Wales.
Under the terms of the bill, doctors would be permitted to prescribe drugs to help "mentally competent" adults to end their lives if they are judged to have less than six months to live.
A Private Members Bill on the issue is to be tabled by Lord Falconer in the House of Lords next Wednesday (15 May).
Carefully timed
It appears the bill has been carefully timed to follow the hearing of Paul Lamb at the Court of Appeal on 13 and 14 May.
Mr Lamb, a 57 year old man with quadriplegia, is seeking permission for a doctor to kill him by means of a lethal injection.
Dr Peter Saunders, CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, commented: “Off the back of media coverage of this case, Falconer, who is being backed by Dignity in Dying (the former Voluntary Euthanasia Society), will argue that his proposal is modest in comparison.
“Lamb is not terminally ill and wants a doctor to give him a lethal injection (euthanasia). Falconer however is only asking for people who are terminally ill to have the right to receive help to kill themselves (assisted suicide).
“…Falconer is thereby attempting to position himself as the reasonable middle ground between those who wish to keep euthanasia and assisted suicide illegal and those who want extensive decriminalisation”.
Failed attempts
The proposals come despite three failed attempts to legalise assisted suicide in Britain over the last six years amid concerns about public safety.
Doctors’ groups have strongly opposed a weakening of the law in this area, with the British Medical Association (BMA) rejecting a proposal to adopt a neutral stance on the issue last year.
Re-iterating its opposition to assisted dying, the BMA emphasised that doctors were central to safeguarding vulnerable patients, and warned that any safeguards proposed by those championing assisted dying were “no more than a checklist.”
Commission
The new bill, supported by Dignity in Dying, is based on the conclusions of Lord Falconer’s Commission on Assisted Suicide.
Despite being touted as an independent group of peers and academics, the Commission has been heavily criticised for being a “sham” due to its perceived bias.
Members of the Commission were handpicked by Falconer himself, and nine of the twelve members are well known to be in favour of a change in the law.
The Commission has been encouraged and partly funded by Sir Terry Pratchett, a well-known assisted suicide campaigner. Lord Falconer himself has long campaigned on this issue, and previously attempted to legalise assisted suicide via an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill in 2009.
Oregon
The new bill is to be modelled on a system currently in place in the US state of Oregon, where the annual number of assisted suicides increased dramatically by over 450 per cent between 1998 and 2011.
Statistics show that one in six of those dying under the Oregon law are depressed, less than one in 20 receive psychiatric assessments and some patients have actually been denied medical care and offered assisted suicide as a cheaper alternative.
Current legislation
Under current legislation, helping in the commission of a suicide is a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment.
However, there have been no prosecutions in reported cases of assisted suicide since landmark guidelines were introduced by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, in 2010.
Pressure
“Any change in the law to allow assisted suicide (a form of euthanasia) would inevitably place pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives so as not to be a burden on others,” said Dr Peter Saunders, “and these pressures would be particularly acutely felt at a time of economic recession when many families are struggling to make ends meet and health budgets are being slashed. Especially when fears about the NHS are actually fuelling support for assisted suicide. The so-called right to die can so easily become the duty to die…
“The best system is what we have already – a blanket ban on both assisted suicide and euthanasia which provides a strong deterrent to exploitation and abuse whilst giving discretion to both prosecutors and judges to temper justice with mercy in hard cases…
“So let’s keep that system in place and concentrate on providing the best possible care to people who are dying. Let’s major instead on killing pain without killing the patient”.
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