Do we have the right to die?

One of the major disappointments of the Brett Kebble murder trial was the fact that in granting Glenn Agliotti a section 174 discharge at the close of the state’s case we were unable to see whether Lawrence Hodes SC was going to raise the issue of assisted suicide during the defence.

As many will recall the parties who carried out the killing alleged that it was on the instructions of the deceased himself who no longer wished to live.

Assisted suicide is not a defence in South African law but the trial would have afforded the judiciary the opportunity of examining our position on the issue and, perhaps, bringing it into line with the thinking in Europe.

On Wednesday, Professor Sean Davison, the academic charged with murder after helping his terminally ill mother to die in New Zealand, arrived back in South Africa.

Davison, currently awaiting trial in the Dunedin District Court for giving his mother Patricia, 85, a lethal dose of morphine four years ago, told the media that he would be campaigning for a change to local law to permit voluntary euthanasia.

As head of the department of biotechnology’s forensics laboratory at the University of the Western Cape he is being allowed to work in South Africa until his trial next year.

Davison said: “What I did to help my mother at the end of her life I did for the love of my mother. I now see the importance of having control over one’s own death if one is faced with a terminal illness and the need to change the law to make this possible in certain circumstances.

“I believe the South African society is receptive to the idea of changing the law to allow voluntary euthanasia in a very carefully monitored context such as how it is done in Switzerland.”

New Zealand legislators have rejected two pieces of legislation on assisted suicide for terminally-ill patients.

Davison was quoted in the Cape Times: “I don’t want to go jail. When morality and the law collide, morality usually loses out. I certainly hope it doesn’t happen in my case.”

As society evolves many previously unthinkable questions have to be confronted and this is certainly one of them.

In terms of the South African Constitution : “10. Human dignity: Everyone has inherent dignity and the right to have their dignity respected and protected. 11. Life: Everyone has the right to life.”

Does the right to have one’s dignity respected include the right to decide, within certain parameters, when they choose to die?

If so what circumstances would justify suicide — including assisting someone — or should this be open-ended?

Usually it is thought of in terms of the terminally ill but should the debate be limited to that?

Could, for example a Brett Kebble — if this was the case — decide that circumstances were just too much and it was time to end it all?

The global debates have been ongoing for decades and centre on the legal, religious and moral conceptions of suicide. And just as there are many views on what the current status should be so too there are many different approaches by countries to it.

Some like Switzerland allow it in certain prescribed circumstances while the US strictly prohibits it.

In South Africa the debate over legalising euthanasia is ongoing.

“Willem Landman, a member of the South African Law Commission, at a symposium on euthanasia at the World Congress of Family Doctors stated that many South African doctors would be willing to perform acts of euthanasia when it became legalised in the country.”

Advocate Dieter Achtzehn in his discussion on “What is happening in South Africa with euthanasia” says that if legislation were to be tabled he is of the view that it would pass the Constitutional Court.

He says that while the Constitution provides a right to life it does not prescribe a duty to live.

Also of interest is the paper by Lourens Botha Grove on euthanasia in South Africa which looks at the current approach and possible legislation.

None of this however must detract from the fact that it is currently illegal in case any of you were wondering.

The debate is enormous and this exercise was done in the hope that it will contribute in some small way towards getting people to discuss the issue.