A welcome rejection of assisted suicide

Ray

"Do you really have to believe in God to believe in the sanctity of life?"

No, but it sure helps.

Carly

Fraser you are wrong. If someone wants to die it's should be their choice. Why should they be condemed to die in pain, agony or with indignity? If you wouldn't want to commit suicide that's your choice but other people should be free to exercise their choice also.

welcome

Brilliant jounalism Fraser BUT deciding when death occurs is a responsibility of politics not religion, or even moral philosophy and also all of the above.

paul holdstock

quite how 'lord flatmate of sychophant' feels he is qualified, either medically, or morally, ( the scale of dissembling he's been party to with this government),beggars belief.
there appears to be no area of our lives, or in this case, deaths, that this appalling man, and appalling government will not pontificate about.
quite apart from the epic level of lying they have perpetrated on almost every subject,
they have never been able to differentiate between governance, and rule.
i daily become ever more impatient for them to be taken to a swiss clinic.

Walsingham's Ghost

Let's not kid ourselves here - Doctors in this country have been administering 'lethal' injections to patients nearing a painful and inevitable end for as long as there have been Doctors. Those that are hauled up in front of the Courts are (usually) found not guilty and the term 'Mercy Killing' creeps into the narrative somewhere along the line.

But when we start talking about removing all barriers to 'assisting someone to die', we start down a road that will inevitably lead, sooner or later, to a Relative in dire financial difficulties persuading (or incentivising) a couple of compliant Doctors (yes, they do exist, remember Harold Shipman) to sign the necessary paperwork.

This has all the sinister undertones of the (currently) failed Government attempt to make organ donation compulsory unless you specifically opt-out of the scheme (when a Government speaks of 'harvesting' your organs, it's time to be concerned).

This proposal will come back again in due course - when it does, I hope the House of Lords will come to the same decision...

Andy Pandy

Nearly twenty years ago my mother in good mind and profoundly wishing to die found a doctor at a Sue Ryder home who was willing to help her. My mother had motor neuron disease and I remember her with great difficulty communicating that she wanted to die to me and my sister. Both of us were terrified (not for legal reasons primarily) and so we did nothing. But in the end thanks to the unnamed GP that came regularly to Sue Ryder she found someone to help her. He agreed to act if she went a weekend without food as he would take this as the sign that truly she wanted to die. He would ask that she be tranquilized so she fell asleep by administration through her veins. He and the nurses would then undertake to keep her sleeping until she died of pneumonia. And just three days after that weekend she died peacefully in her sleep. Her final waking day was spent with dignity, in control and happy and as a card carrying atheist. Her last waking moments were with her two children by her bed.

Afterwords I spoke to the nurses expecting them to say that quietly and secretly this kind of thing happened all the time. They were in awe of my mother's bravery (as they saw it) and assured me that this had never happened at the Home before. Most of the patients there had cancer and though often in great pain clung tenaciously and fearfully to life.

I think that our attitude to euthanasia says much more of our attitude to death. We live in a society where we all cling fearfully and tenaciously to life and where death remains the great taboo. Yet in the end we will fail because all of us will surely die. And when we do will it be the quality or quantity of our life and the time of its ending which will be the important thing? I know what my answer is to this question.

Tom FD

I can't imagine how a doctor could sign such a form without breaking the Hippocratic Oath.

Charlie Dyson

It is up to individuals to decide the manner in which they leave this world, rather than be told they have no choice than to suffer till the end. How can society tell people they do not own their own bodies and that they may not choose the manner of their demise? Most importantly: by what authority can the state deny such an inalienable right? To compel the dying to suffer thus against their will is no better than any other means of torture.

Jeremy

“… people could be sent to their deaths for no reason."

Choosing, by oneself and for oneself, to die is not the same thing as being "sent" to your death by somebody else. A clever but misleading use of language on your part, Fraser.

"And, even then, imagine what would happen if the principle were established. If we, as a society, decided that lives are disposable - that there was an officially sanctioned "off" switch - then how would that make our elderly feel?"

Provided the elderly individual had the sole power of decision over whether or not (and when) the switch was to be turned off… then I should think their possession of the option to do so would give them a sense - a feeling - of comfort and security.

"My concern is that it would plant in their heads a nagging question: should they do the decent thing, and ask to be sent to Switzerland so as not to be a burden?"

Well, I don't think the elderly should be actively prevented from visiting Switzerland, if that is their wish. I'm sure there are many notable landmarks and sites of great natural beauty to be seen there. Or perhaps we now present at the birth of a new euphemism. In answer to the question "How are you?", instead of saying "I'm dying" (which may cause distress to those who asked the question) one could instead say "I'm going to Switzerland". The meaning would be clear, but the form of words might ameliorate any sense of distress felt by those hearing them.

"I'm delighted that Lord Falconer has just failed in his attempt to legalise assisted suicide for people sending friends and relatives to Swiss death clinics."

I could make merry with this. Was Lord Falconer seeking to legalise assisted suicide for those "sending" friends and relations "to Swiss death clinics"? If so, then he rather mistook the object of the exercise...^^

"...it goes straight to the heart of how we, as a society, regard the disabled and the elderly."

No. It's not about how we regard the disabled and the elderly (or anybody else, for that matter). It's about how they regard themselves. Where the power of decision rests with the individual, it is about how they regard themselves and how they regard the quality of their own lives. And it is also about them deciding, by and for themselves, how and when to end their lives.

"...to help one's friends and relatives be killed in the Swiss death clinics."

Your choice of words is emotionally and psychologically manipulative. To decide, by oneself and for oneself, to end one's life - and to subsequently accept the means of doing so - is not the same thing, at either the emotional or psychological levels, as your own statement about helping one's friends and relatives "to be killed in the Swiss death clinics". You are deliberately seeking to raise, in peoples' minds, the historical and cultural associations of the terms "be killed" and "death clinics" in order to introduce a note of emotive hysteria into the subject - and also in order to disgust people with it and frighten them off it. And you are sophisticated enough to know what it is that you are doing.

"...people could be sent to their deaths for no reason."

Here we go again. Choosing by and for oneself to go to Switzerland to die is not the same thing as being "sent" to one's death. You are deliberately raising in peoples' minds the cultural and historical associations of the phrase "sent to their deaths" in order to disgust them and frighten them away from the subject. Shame on you, Fraser, for doing that. For you are clever and well-educated enough to know what it is that you are doing.

As for your statistics....well, I dare say that you're clever enough to bamboozle a both me and the kangaroo with those...

"This issue is often portrayed as religious groups v the rest."

Absolutely right. If Christians and/or Muslims are against euthanasia then let them not do it to (or for) themselves. Simple as that. But there is no reason why those of us who are neither Christian nor Muslim should live within their strictures. However, it appears to be typical of the religious mindset that it has to impose itself and its values upon absolutely everybody regardless of whether or not they either agree with or believe in it. Which is one of the reasons why the world has seemingly always experienced and continues to experience such difficulties with religiosity as ours currently is. It is the religions that stand in the way of human progress, evolution and development. Man must get over religion, or (as both history and current events show) religion will most assuredly get over man.

"If he is such a supporter of assisted suicide, he can go and help the Labour Party get on with it. I'm glad that tonight, he's been told (by 194 votes to 141) to leave the rest of us alone."

If you are joking, that's actually quite funny and quite subtle.

But if you are inferring that one has to be a supporter of the Labour Party in order to approve of euthanasia, then that is quite simply untrue. Or, to put it another way, are you seriously suggesting that every person of a Conservative inclination in this country is against it?

Justicia

Mr Nelson I really do take issue with your stance here.

The ability to end one's own life when terminally ill should be taken by that person alone, and should be wholly available to them if having considered the options in a sound and sober state of mind (hence the need for medical coapproval) they feel it to be their best option.

While I agree there is a worry that people may feel compelled to end their lives due to family pressure and a lack of worth, the culture that already exists in this country, as well as statutory provisions preventing the *encouragement* of suicide are salient methods of preventing such an infringement of personal rights.

Secondly, while the Lords' statistic is undoubtedly correct, I feel your use of it is misleading. 5% of misdiagnosed terminal illnesses does not in any way account to 5% of euthanasia users dieing without reason (assuming you accept a reason can exist). By its very nature, euthanasia is generally taken only by those with illnesses, terminal or otherwise, which are so wholly debilitating and so detrimental to quality of life that a person can soundly choose to do so.

Your position obviously has a number of powerful points. But your second to last paragraph really did unsettle me: it suggests, Mr Nelson, that you're seeking to frame this debate as one between those who value life and those who don't. An appreciation of life's value is a fundamental requisite for a belief in the sanctity of life and, regardless of their conclusions, both sides of this debate definitively have that.

- J

egh

welcome: "...BUT deciding when death occurs is a responsibility of politics not religion, or even moral philosophy..." WHAT????!!!????
I also disagree with Andy Pandy's assumption that "we all cling tenaciously to life." I find his generalization both fallacious and insulting. And that these two arguments appear, in all seriousness, on the Spectator blogsite is one more sign of the debased hell-hole this nation has become. It's rather like finding that people think the 'baddies' in films are the better role models. Now they're telling us the dystopias are 'the way to go'!!!

Walsingham's Ghost, however, seems to me to speak from reason and experience. I would add, though, that I have seen the 'uncontrollable infection' methodology at work in the NHS; I therefore view government-controlled euthanasia in Britain as genocide.

I'm not the only one who thinks this - I remember the Scots who told me, during the outbreaks up there, "They're killing the patients." I was incredulous; but later I was horrified at what they did to both my lonely, unprotected, aunts (and admitted to doing to one of them). For this reason, I will never willingly let anyone put me into a nursing home or a hospital. When my time comes, I plan to get as far away as possible from the inhuman race, and let nature take its course.

If anyone's interested in the enforcement of organ donation, and hasn't read Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go" (2006) - the novel provides a thoughtful slant on the subject. It was a Booker Prize finalist.

Verity

Andy Pandy: "I think that our attitude to euthanasia says much more of our attitude to death."

Yeah. Well, it would.

"We live in a society where we all cling fearfully and tenaciously to life" - so does every other sentient creature on earth; it's not just us - "and where death remains the great taboo." Since when? Any animal will fight wildly to live.

Death is not a taboo. Death is why we have undertakers, coroners, graveyards, crematoria, burial services and memorial services, death certificates, wills ... people running funeral flower services. Death is pretty well covered by mankind. It's not "taboo". Never has been.

Kirsty

"Do you really have to believe in God to believe in the sanctity of life?"

YES. It's a religious term.

It all comes down to this: people should be able to decide for themselves if their lives are worth living. Seriously, those people are NOT sent to the swiss clinic to die, they CHOOSE to. Fraser, you need to read up more on this, your post doesn't sound very intelligent.

sarah

In response to Fraser Nelson's question about religion - I'm an atheist but fully agree with your misgivings about assisted suicide. As this is a complex and painful area I find it difficult to have absolute, fixed views on the topic. However, although I have no objection to indirect or 'construcive' euthanesia - ie doctors using painkillers in large doses knowing death will result - death clinics seem a step too far. I have huge sympathy for those in unbearable personal circumstances but feel this is an area where perhaps the freedom/wellbeing of the individual must give way to the well being of society as a whole. For, as has been noted above and elsewhere, all sorts of abuses and mistakes will be bound to happen.

Jonathan

It seems to me that in these cases of the acute and debilitating terminal illness, it takes great courage -- not fear -- to "cling tenaciously to life".

The strong motivation to persist is a natural consequence of the belief that one's life, and one's suffering has a purpose.

Michael Booth

The worrying thing here (leaving the pros and cons of assisted suicide to one side for a moment) is how Lord Falconer attempted to use the Coroners and Justices Bill to sneak something like this through. This Bill is a danger to our democracy - it has been so drafted as to allow the government unprecidented powers and needs to be challenged.

Paul Huxley

You're quite right Fraser. Where assisted suicide is legalised, say goodbye to palliative care (a quick glance at the facts is all you need). Add this to a recession and a massively messed up NHS and you've got yourself a recipe for disaster.

Hawkeye

Fraser, go spend some time with someone in terminal agony and pain, who is suffering horribly and for whom palliative care is having no effect. Spend a month listening to them scream and then revisit your opinions on the dignity of death.

It is not needed for everyone, but it is needed for some. If an animal was left to suffer as much as some people are then somebody would be prosecuted for animal cruelty.

Chuck Unsworth

Never mind the topic or subject, I'm just delighted that Falconer has suffered a defeat. More please.

Jonathan Cook

The fact is that 100's of British people have been to the clinic in Switzerland and received assisted suicide.

We have to deal with the issue. As much as it is wrong for some people and in some cases, it is also the right thing for others.

There must be some way to legislate to make assisted suicide an acceptable and reasonable course of action in certain circumstances.

It is lazy just to reject the issue out of hand.

Free Thomist

Michael Booth has identified the real issue here("This Bill is a danger to our democracy..." .

That such an contentious issue, with far reaching consequences for individuals and society, should tagged onto this bill is a disgrace.

Shame on Falconer and on this Government.

Chris M

Fraser, mind your own business and let me die when I want, how I want. Or watch me die miserably in agony.

Publius

@Jeremy
Well said. A fine post.
I'm afraid that sometimes Mr Nelson's youth shines through his clever prose.

Publius

None of this would have arisen if it were not for the left-wing obsession with controlling every aspect of a person's life. One would simply get a liberal supply of potent sleeping pills and take them when necessary.

But now such things are regulated by prescription, and doctors are forbidden to prescribe sleeping pills potent enough for a person to use to end his life.

So now one is reduced to jumping in front of the proverbial train (and even this has been made as difficult as possible) or travelling to e.g., Switzerland while one is still able to do so unassisted.

The law just doesn't belong in this area.

Mike Withers

I have enjoyed reading Fraser Nelson's incisive and trenchant views in the The Speccie for a couple of years. only now have I discovered that Fraser is in fact female! Is this widely known? I remember an interview many years ago on the Old Grey Whistle test in which Annie Nightingale asked Paul Simon how he was able to continue writing songs now that his collaboration with Art Garfunkel had ended. He replied that he wrote all the songs on his own anyway and that Art had never been part of the process. Annie asked (sensing a scoop) if many people were aware of this fact,"everyoe but you, Annie" replied Paul.
I know how she felt!

THX1138

I watched my mother die a horrible slow and painful death from a brain tumor she begged to be put out of her misery.

I wish now that I had the bravery to help her but I was too weak but she worked as a nurse on a cancer ward and knew exactly what to do.

Who are we to deny the dying the right to the time and choosing of their own death it's a basic human right.

Scott

I couldn't disaggree with you more Mr Nelson.

cuffleyburgers

Fraser is right.

The point is like all these new labour tinkerings, that they totally overlook the law of unintended consequences.

If this legislation were passed it is inevitable that there will be an increasing number of cases of people coming under pressure from relatives to end it rather than "spending the inheritance" on a decent rest home for example...plus it puts doctors in an invidious position a odds with their vocation and oath.

The current situation is not perfect, but I suspect that there are many cases where doctors assist to prevent eccessive suffering and heartache through borderline illegal means, and provided society retains a sense of decency and proportion that is possibly the correct way to deal wih this.

Labour don't do decency and proportion (or competence) which is why their administration has been such an inmitigated catastrophe.

For what it's worth I would go to switzerland rather than suffer uselessly for years; I don't want to deny anyone a choice, but also to make sure that so far as possible people have the possibility to a choice to stay.

Ridcully

Hawkeye: Indeed, no-one should have to die in such a terrible manner, but that is not an argument for euthanasia, but rather for adequate pain relief.
Another point to consider is that if people have a "right" to assisted suicide then theoretically someone else must be compelled to carry out that assistance in order to grant that "right."

Tankus

There should be a right to death as well as a right to life.

Having been through two close members of my family having terminal cancer and Parkingson's
. If I had it I would dearly want the option once its past the point of no recovery.

what Hawkeye @8:28am has stated

I want to make that choice for myself ...not you

Jo

I don't think many of the people writing against individual's choice today have actually read or engaged with the amendment - but meerly jumped on the 'pro-life' bandwagon. This isn't about the elderly or the disabled and most importantly this isn't about those who want to live. This is about a small minority of people who are terminally ill and mentally competent choosing to go abroad to die, which is legal, being able to go with loved ones in the knowledge they are not putting their loved ones liberty at risk. It's a simple as that and is frustrating that Peers and journalists have tried to make it something that it's not.

Mark M

My life is mine and I should be allowed to choose to end it if I want (not that I want to). I have seen the suffering of so many people who have wished death upon themselves in order to escape their pain. Why should they be humiliated by their regression into 'second childhood' just because some people want to deny them the choice?

It is not the right of the state to tell me that I am wrong should I want to end my own life, and it is not their job to deny me my rights.

Ridcully

Jo: Two words; slippery slope.

Hawkeye

Ridcully said: "Indeed, no-one should have to die in such a terrible manner, but that is not an argument for euthanasia, but rather for adequate pain relief."

I agree with what you say, but for some people in the final stages of their illness there is NO adequate pain relief and they quite literally die screaming.

What is your solution for those people? Their numbers are not insignificant. Talk to palliative nurses and see. I knew one chap who had cancer of the spine and the hospice staff knew when he died because the screaming stopped.

Did he deserve to die like that? He was not able to see his young children because they would have been so upset.

We treat our dogs better and that's what makes it a disgrace.

David Ossitt

Verity and Michael Booth I agree with your arguments.

Paul Huxley
"You're quite right Fraser. Where assisted suicide is legalised, say goodbye to palliative care (a quick glance at the facts is all you need"

Paul it needed saying and I agree.

But I have a different slant on all of this; the very same politicians; pundits and left wing liberals who want to see euthanasia legalised and those who pander to that attention seeking woman who is suffering from motoneuron disease, would all be the first to argue against capital punishment.

Why? are they happy to see the sick enfeebled innocents 'put to death' because whatever you call it, that is just what it is.

When these same people would shout-down the argument of me and others who are of the opinion that a man who rapes a two year old little girl and also tortures a toddler before killing him by breaking his back should hang by the neck until dead. As should all of those who are found guilty of murder.

David Ossitt

Mike Withers.

"Fraser is in fact female! Is this widely known?"

Mike; who is filling your head with this nonsense.

Fraser is; appart from being the political editor of The Spectator, a very masculine, seriously butch kind of chap.

Jeremy

Publius:

"...sometimes Mr Nelson's youth shines through his clever prose."

Does it really? Well I never. Mr Nelson's shining youth...^^ For God's sake don't tell him that, Publius. It'll go straight to his head...

And thank you for the kind words. Had I spent just a little more time on the post, I could have got rid of those few wretched typo's...

THX1138

David O It's about personal choice . Why is that the right who want government to butt out of our lives are happy to allow them to legislate for how we choose to end it ?

Verity

Carly - People can commit suicide until they're blue in the face. People who kill them, even at their own request, are called murderers and that is against the law in every society - save Switzerland.

When will the first plea of, "The deceased had said several times that he wanted to die, m'lud, and my client only assisted him during the process of burgling his home."?

And well said Paul Holdstock.

And well said, too, to Cuffleyburgers, who refers to "New" Labour's continuous tinkering.

THX1138

I bet the palliative care is better in Switzerland than here!

David Ossitt

THX1138.

THX. I am deeply sorry that your mother had a very slow and painful death; it must have been almost unbearable.

My own mother; was found dead hanging from the coat hook behind her own bedroom door.

She was suffering from severe depression.

My father never forgave himself and neither have I; but I belive that she had the right to end her own life, but nobody else had the right to kill her.

Northern Monkey

Fraser Nelson = another freedom-hating Big State Conservative.

THX1138

Thanks David

liberty

THX- I'm sorry about your Mom. Live life to the fullest. That is what she wants.

Laura

Surely it's better for people to be able to die in a dignified way with friends and family than starve themselves or put a plastic bag over their head. I am glad Lord Falconer is at least attempting to legalise this. If assisted suicide is illegal in this country, why should it be wrong for friends and family to travel abroad with their loved ones?