Our right to choose assisted dying to ease the suffering
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Version 0 of 1. Thursday will be the fifth anniversary of my wife Brenda’s death, almost exactly two years after being diagnosed with bowel cancer. She lived a remarkably full life almost to the last, but always said that if her condition became unbearable she would wish to be helped to end it. Fortunately, thanks to the excellent treatment she received from the NHS and the care provided in her last weeks by St Oswald’s Hospice in Newcastle, her worst fears were not realised. I understand the concerns of those who oppose assisted dying, vividly expressed by Giles Fraser (Loose canon, 29 August), but her wishes and the experience of those two years led me to support Charlie Falconer’s assisted dying bill, with the important safeguards its embodied, when it was debated and supported in the House of Lords. I know she would have disagreed profoundly with the notion that this would have amounted, in Fraser’s inaccurate and no doubt unintentionally hurtful phrase, to “the equivalent of a zero-hours contract with life that can be terminated at will”.Jeremy BeechamLabour, House of Lords • “No politician will ever come out and say that those who ‘no longer serve the land’ should choose suicide,” says Giles Fraser. Is he right? How about “If you’re demented, you’re wasting people’s lives – your family’s lives – and you’re wasting the resources of the National Health Service … Actually I’ve just written an article called ‘A Duty to Die?’” – Baroness Mary Warnock, in 2008. Or this from Jacques Attali, former president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development: “As soon as he gets beyond 60-65 years of age, man lives beyond his capacity to produce, and he costs society a lot of money … euthanasia will be one of the essential instruments of our future societies.” Right or wrong, the vast majority of those campaigning in favour of assisted dying surely mean to be kind. But their fellow travellers – and Giles Fraser’s excellent piece – starkly remind us that, in the words of Milton Friedman, “one of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programmes by their intentions rather than their results”.Professor Neil ScoldingBristol • Giles Fraser has again misunderstood many people’s feelings and views. Assisted dying is sought by many to prevent or curtail intense and unnecessary suffering at the end of life. It is often deeply wished for by the patient, and hoped for by relatives and friends in their distress at seeing or fearing such suffering. With safeguards, legal assisted dying can greatly lessen our fear of our own last days or weeks, reassuring us that we will not have to suffer more than we think we can bear. In places where it has been legalised, the number of people seeking it actually drops, as people know that, if their suffering becomes terrible, they can ask for help.Sue WillsonFarnham, Surrey • Giles Fraser is wrong to suggest that MPs have “inadvertently stumbled upon a new way to address spiralling NHS costs”, because (unfortunately) it is far from certain that most MPs will support the private member’s bill on assisted dying. This is despite the demonstrable public support for the bill. And while the care and support of relatives, friends and neighbours at the end of life is to be encouraged, there comes a point when this is not enough. This is when those people who do not have a “contract with life”, whatever that is, wish to have the option to decide their own time and place of dying, in order to end their pain and suffering. Yes it is a personal choice, and allowing it, with safeguards, demonstrates just as much compassion as caring and supporting someone up to that point in their life.Graham RossLondon • What a cynical article, implying that the movement for assisted dying is motivated by the wish to reduce the number of older people. The motion coming before parliament is very tightly worded: assisted dying will be possible for people suffering from terminal illness with less than six months to live. The idea that a doctor would ask an old person if she wanted to commit suicide because she was lonely is ludicrous. Many Christians support this bill. When it was previously put before the House, George Carey, former archbishop of Canterbury, announced that he had changed his mind and now supported assisted dying. Desmond Tutu also supports it, saying that a dignified death is a right and he does not want his life to be prolonged artificially. So Christians have differing views on the subject, and many accept that some intervention is merciful. In fact, 79% of religious people support assisted dying. Christians say it is not for human beings to decide when someone should die. But with the interventions of modern medicine we already do so on a daily basis. So why should this intervention be illegal when so many others are accepted? Giles can decide it is not for him personally, but do let those who wish to avoid the terrible last days of a terminal illness be allowed to do so. With appropriate safeguards this law could operate safely and humanly. Countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and various states in the US that have already adopted some form of assisted dying have found it works very well. Just knowing that they can have an assisted death if they need it gives people great comfort and solace. I suggest that Giles should show some Christian compassion towards those dying an awful death, and to their relatives.Maureen WoodBradford on Avon, Wiltshire • Assisted dying is about changing the law to allow terminally ill people with no hope of recovery to end their life at a time and place which they consider appropriate, with no legal risks for family, friends or medical practitioners. It has no connection whatever with the story of lonely 90-year-old Maud. Having been diagnosed two years ago with the incurable asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma, and having access to excellent NHS medical and palliative care, I do not understand why, when I can no longer breathe or have any reasonable quality of life, I should be forced to continue. This is not about economics or being a burden, it is about the choice to say “this is as far as I can go”. Why would Giles Fraser want to see me, and hundreds like me, suffer to the bitter end? Is this Christian compassion, or just a way of disguising the belief that only God can make decisions on our behalf?Sonia MarkhamLondon • Giles Fraser talks about a decline in strong and stable communities as a reason for people being forced into assisted suicide. But I would say that people are often unwillingly pressured into extending their lives by the communities they are a part of. Isn’t this just as bad?Judit BrodyWitney, Oxfordshire |