UK commission mulls assisted dying

The Commission on Assisted Dying, being conducted by Lord Falconer in the United Kingdom, is focusing upon a highly controversial issue which will become more and more contentious as the 21st century unfolds.

It’s aim is to consider what system, if any, should exist to allow people to be helped to die and whether changes should be introduced to the law in the UK.

The CAD sets out it’s aims as, inter alia, the following: The CAD shall,

Investigate the circumstances under which it should be possible for people to be assisted to die;
Recommend what system, if any, should exist to allow people to be assisted to die;
Identify who should be entitled to be assisted to die;>
Determine what safeguards should be put in place to ensure that vulnerable people are neither abused nor pressured to choose an assisted death;
Recommend what changes in the law, if any, should be introduced.

It also sets out why the CAD was undertaken: “The reason for addressing the assisted dying debate at this point in time is that the legal and ethical status of assisted dying in our society continues to be an unresolved public policy issue.

“The Commission for Assisted Dying starts from the premise that, while assisted dying may be illegal in the UK, it remains possible for those with the financial and physical ability to seek assistance to die, for instance by travelling overseas or by engaging non-medical assistance at home.

“The Director of Public Prosecutions’ policy has effectively decriminalised ‘amateur’ assistance to die by distinguishing between compassionate and malicious actions.”

This needs a short step back. In the UK, Section 2(1) of the Suicide Act of 1961 says: “A person who aids, abets, counsels or procures the suicide of another, or attempt by another to commit suicide shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years”.

That law still exists to this day.

However during 2009 Debbie Purdy from Bradford, West Yorkshire — who suffers with multiple sclerosis — challenged the law in England and Wales as it relates to assisted suicide.

She wanted to know what, if any, actions her husband, Omar Puente, took in assisting her suicide would lead to his prosecution.

The Director of Public Prosecutions defended the challenge by claiming that it was not part of their responsibility to clarify the Act.

While Purdy was advised that her husband would be prosecuted if he helped her travel to Switzerland for the purpose of assisted suicide, in August 2009 the decision was made that the DPP had to clarify how the Suicide Act 1961 is to be enforced in England and Wales.

This was a step forward (or backward depending on your views) and the director, Keir Starmer QC, gave the public guidance on the manner in which they viewed assisted suicide in terms of the Act.

Within a year, Charles Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton and the commission undertook the work that is set out above and which may well be followed by many countries in Europe and around the world.

Mary Warnock, Baroness Warnock — a British philosopher on morality — told the CAD that the guidelines issued by the DPP are “particularly bad”, creating confusion and uncertainty.

She said that mercy killing should only be carried out by qualified medical professionals.

Dignity in Dying chief executive Sarah Wootton said that the 1961 Suicide Act was “no longer fit for purpose” and that the guidelines brought in after the case of right-to-die campaigner Debbie Purdy needed be replaced.

On the other side the CAD heard from Onora Sylvia O’Neill, Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve, who said that future legislation could never carry enough safeguards to stop people being exploited and that there was no way to pass safe legislation that could sufficiently protect vulnerable people.

She was of the view that people could be killed under the cloak of assisted suicide.

“I would be most concerned that it didn’t lead to people being killed by others under the cloak of assisted suicide when it was not something they had chosen.”

Another peer said that vulnerable people could be pressured into ending their own lives under laws on assisted suicide.

While the findings of the CAD are not due for a while yet it should be of interest to follow the proceedings online.

South Africa, like many countries, will be affected by the development of the law which is taking place not only in the UK but around the world.

It is, as I said above, going to be one of the major topics of this century.