Though I’ve got every desire to live forever and make it to the ships, I do think the right to die, to decide for myself when and where I want to end my life is as fundamental a human right as you can have. If you do not have this control over your own life, what control do you have? But as we all know, often from personal experience with loved ones at the end of their life, the gap between desire and ability can be large. That’s why having some form of legal assisted suicide available is so important. There have always been cases in which some terminally ill patient has been “helped along” by a caring nurse, doctor or family member, but in the UK these helping hands always run the risk of being prosecuted for murder. Convictions have been rare, but it no doubt prevented some people from doing the right thing, leading to the unnecessary suffering of their loved ones.
For Terry Pratchett the issue went from abstract to personal when he was diagnosed with Alzheimers a few years back. He has said before he would like to decide for himself when to make an end to it and has now called for legalisation of assisted suicide through the establishment of medical tribunals:
In his lecture, Shaking Hands With Death, the author will volunteer to be a test case before a euthanasia tribunal himself.
The tribunal panels would include a legal expert in family matters and a doctor with experience of serious long-term illness.
“If granny walks up to the tribunal and bangs her walking stick on the table and says ‘Look, I’ve really had enough, I hate this bloody disease, and I’d like to die thank you very much young man’, I don’t see why anyone should stand in her way.”
I’m a bit skeptical about the idea of tribunals myself; the system we have in the Netherlands seems more flexible and less bureaucratic for everybody involved. Instead of making the sufferers establish a case for euthanasia beforehand, it provides a protocol for doctors afterwards to protect themselves from prosecution for murder:
The law allows medical review board to suspend prosecution of doctors who performed euthanasia when each of the following conditions is fulfilled:
- the patient’s suffering is unbearable with no prospect of improvement
- the patient’s request for euthanasia must be voluntary and persist over time (the request cannot be granted when under the influence of others, psychological illness or drugs)
- the patient must be fully aware of his/her condition, prospects and options
- there must be consultation with at least one other independent doctor who needs to confirm the conditions mentioned above
- the death must be carried out in a medically appropriate fashion by the doctor or patient, in which case the doctor must be present
- the patient is at least 12 years old (patients between 12 and 16 years of age require the consent of their parents)
This law includes provisions for “a written declaration of will of the patient regarding euthanasia”, in which a patient can declare when they’re still sound of body and mind if and when they would like to end their lives. In this way there’s the option of euthanasia for everybody while still protecting helpless people from murder disguised as euthanasia. With tribunals, the power to decide whether or not somebody can end their lives lies too much on the doctors’ side, in my opinion.