As a psychiatrist I have spent my working life helping people to find a reason for living and to make sense of disability – not a reason to hasten their death. So imagine my concern to find yet another attempt to legalise what is euphemistically called ‘assisted dying’ planned for the new session of Parliament starting this week.
In practice, assisted dying means licensing doctors to supply lethal drugs to terminally ill patients to enable them to commit suicide. This is quite different from pain relief or sedation,which are of course perfectly legal, although sometimes under-used for fear of litigation. Make no mistake, this is no mere amendment of the law that is being proposed but a major change to it – as well as to the principles that underpin medical practice. It’s all very well to say there would be safeguards but there are no possible safeguards that would protect vulnerable, sick and elderly people.
Let’s look at two of the so-called safeguards in Lord Falconer’s Bill, tabled in the last session but not taken forward….
Read it all.
Sheila Hollins–can you really tell if someone's of sound and settled mind for asstd suicide?
As a psychiatrist I have spent my working life helping people to find a reason for living and to make sense of disability – not a reason to hasten their death. So imagine my concern to find yet another attempt to legalise what is euphemistically called ‘assisted dying’ planned for the new session of Parliament starting this week.
In practice, assisted dying means licensing doctors to supply lethal drugs to terminally ill patients to enable them to commit suicide. This is quite different from pain relief or sedation,which are of course perfectly legal, although sometimes under-used for fear of litigation. Make no mistake, this is no mere amendment of the law that is being proposed but a major change to it – as well as to the principles that underpin medical practice. It’s all very well to say there would be safeguards but there are no possible safeguards that would protect vulnerable, sick and elderly people.
Let’s look at two of the so-called safeguards in Lord Falconer’s Bill, tabled in the last session but not taken forward….
Read it all.