LONDON – Doctors could be given the right to be able to help terminally ill people to die.
Adults who are likely to have less than a year left to live could be given the chance to ask their doctor for a dose of medication that would end their life, the year-long Commission on Assisted Dying has said in a report.
However stringent safeguards must be in place to protect those who might not have the mental capacity to make such a choice, or who might be clinically depressed or experiencing pressure from friends or relatives.
The commission, chaired by former lord chancellor Lord Falconer, said that under its proposals, a terminally ill person would need to be able to take the medication themselves as a clear sign their actions were voluntary.
The findings will anger campaigners against a change in the law who have warned that it would risk increasing the pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives out of fear they might become a burden for others. It could lead to about 13,000 deaths a year, the Care not Killing alliance said.
Since new guidelines for prosecutors in assisted suicide cases were brought in in February 2010, anyone acting with compassion to help end the life of someone who has decided they cannot go on is unlikely to face criminal charges.
Assisted suicide remains however a criminal offence in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, and individual decisions on prosecution will be made on the circumstances in each case.
The commission called for parliament to consider developing a new legal framework for assisted dying, saying that the “current legal status of assisted suicide is inadequate, incoherent and should not continue”. It also called for more choice in how people die.
One member of the 11-strong commission, though, the Rev Canon Dr James Woodward, said he was unable to back its majority decision, saying it was not the right time to consider changing the law until a greater ethical, moral and social consensus had been generated on the issue.
Under the proposals, the process would involve the assessment, advice, support and independent judgments of two independent doctors, with support from other health and social care professionals where necessary.
Safeguards would also be built in to ensure the eligibility criteria were met, that the person had a “settled intention” to die and that he or she had a reliable and supported assisted death.
Other measures would be put in place to ensure the eligibility criteria were met, that the assisted deaths were reported correctly and that the lethal medication was stored and transported safely.
In September it emerged that of more than 40 cases considered by prosecutors since the new guidelines were brought in by the director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer, no one had been prosecuted.
Supporters of a change in the law say the guidelines are not enough, but critics warn that prosecutors risk creating “legalisation by stealth”, which could “encourage more abuse and place vulnerable sick, disabled and elderly people at much greater risk”.
In 2006 David Cameron signalled his opposition to changing the law in a letter to anti-assisted suicide campaigners. MPs however would expect to be given a free vote if the issue comes before parliament.
The commission took evidence from legal, medical and religious experts and people with personal experience – such as Alan Cutkelvin Rees, who helped his partner Raymond Cutkelvin to travel to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to die in 2007, and Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis and has campaigned to know if her husband will be charged if he helps her travel to Dignitas.
Dr Peter Saunders, campaign director of Care Not Killing, insisted the law did not need changing. “What the commission is proposing is a less safe version of the highly controversial Oregon law, which sees the terminally ill offered drugs to kill themselves, but not expensive life-saving and life-extending drugs.”
Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, said: “Recommending only a limited reform in the law to allow assisted dying but not euthanasia, and only to encompass terminally ill people rather than also including people who are unable to end their own lives but who are incurably suffering, permanently incapacitated and have made a clear, informed and resolute decision that they wish to do so, is ethically inconsistent.” – (PA)