On assisted dying

It can sometimes feel as though there is an inevitability about the legalisation of ‘assisted dying’ in at least some parts of the UK.

Many media organisations like to present it that way. A poll reported on 11 March said that out of about 10,000 people, 75% supported ‘making it legal for a person to seek assisted dying’ – with 14% opposed. However, the poll was commissioned by pressure group Dignity in Dying – scarcely a neutral party – and looking on that organisation’s website it was not possible to find the detailed data from which very generalised headlines were generated.

Some of the arguments presented in this debate are facile. Writing in the Financial Times, Emily Jackson, a London School of Economics law professor, said: ‘Those in favour of legalisation do not want to make assisted dying compulsory. Rather, they think it should be available as a choice… In contrast, opponents of assisted dying do not just want to rule it out for themselves, but for everyone else as well.’ Oh, those nasty, horrible, intolerant monsters!

Theological arguments against legalising assisted dying are well known: every human is made in the image of God; human beings should not play God; it is for God to give and end life. There are plenty of pragmatic arguments against change too: even an organisation as morally confused as the Church of England told a House of Commons committee in December it would be impossible to bring in any system of euthanasia which could safeguard against people being coerced into wanting to die. There are further pragmatic arguments against change which focus on palliative care, the hospice movement, and the principle of ‘double effect’ (whereby necessary doses of pain relief at the end of life may, as a secondary effect, hasten its end).

But what may be more persuasive to secular, liberal minds is the voice of Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, the Paralympic wheelchair athlete who won 11 gold medals. In January, she told Sky News: ‘There are really big consequences if you change the law, and the relationship between an individual and society fundamentally changes… I’m really worried that disabled people, because of the cost of health and social care, [and] because that’s being removed [through financial cutbacks], that choice is then taken away – so the only choice they have is to end their lives.’

Voices such as hers must be clearly heard.