22 Jul 2019

The assisted dying debate

Some days ago I listened to the House of Commons debate on assisted dying. Powerful arguments in favour were put forward, many for patients with motor neurone disease who were not necessarily predicted to be within six months of death.

The arguments against depended almost solely on the contention that because assisted dying might be abused to pressurise dependent old people into suicide that therefore all assisted dying should be prohibited. 

This is not a compelling or even an acceptable argument.  There is almost no human activity that cannot be misused and the answer cannot be to prohibit all such activities.  For example, driving a car can be abused by speeding or driving when intoxicated or causing accidents by lack of attention, but nobody in the past has suggested that driving a car should be forbidden because of these abuses.  Social media on the internet appear to be famously subject to misuse of a whole variety of kinds some of which endanger the mental health of people who make use of them and yet there has been no major campaign to forbid the use of the internet.  To take the argument to its extreme, you might say that one should prohibit all sexual intercourse because of its abuse by rape.  In that case, presumably the human race would either die out or would have to be repopulated along the lines laid out in Brave New World by artificial techniques.  It is really hard to believe that even the most “pro-life” members of the House of Commons would really support such actions.

It is only where there is compelling evidence that it is really impossible to put in place regulation that prevents major and significantly common abuse that the prohibition argument can be allowed any validity at all.  This is certainly not the case with regard to assisted dying.  Where assisted dying is allowed – Holland, Belgium and Oregon being good examples –  no evidence is forthcoming that there has been any serious problem with such abuse.  In these circumstances this argument against assisted suicide should be abandoned.