Assisted dying on the NHS?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Saturday 19 October at Church House, Westminster.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

This autumn, Parliament will debate the issue of assisted dying, thanks to a private member’s bill introduced by the former justice secretary and Labour peer, Lord Falconer. This would allow terminally ill adults with six months or less to live to get medical help to end their lives. Keir Starmer is reported to be in favour and has confirmed he will allow a free vote in the Commons on the issue.

Legalising assisted suicide in the UK has gained support recently, including from celebrities like Esther Rantzen and Miriam Margolyes. The actress Diana Rigg recorded a death-bed message arguing a law would give ‘human beings true agency over their own bodies at the end of life’. There is polling evidence to show that the UK public now overwhelmingly thinks terminally ill adults should be allowed to make that choice – but those polled also have qualms. Law changes would mean asking NHS doctors to hand a patient lethal drugs so they could end their life, effectively allowing assisted dying on the NHS. No wonder the health secretary, Wes Streeting, has said that it is ‘a debate I will wrestle with. I’m uncharacteristically undecided on this issue’, although conceding ‘it is a debate whose time has come’.

A survey for the think tank Living and Dying found that 43 per cent feared a change in the law could incentivise health professionals to encourage some patients to take their lives, given the pressures on the NHS. Such fears seemed to be confirmed by a column in The Times by Matthew Parris earlier this year, which provoked outrage by arguing that it would benefit the economy if we allowed assisted dying to help avoid ‘the ruinously expensive overhang’ of ‘old age and infirmity’. Meanwhile, 60 per cent said they felt that giving GPs the power to help patients take their own life would fundamentally change the doctor-patient relationship, given that the current prime responsibility of medics is to save and protect life.

The Law Society, which is adamant that it does not have a moral or ethical position on a similar bill under consideration in Scotland, has also noted that the proposed role for medical professionals is a concern. That bill’s provisions, the Law Society notes, have not considered key questions, such as who can provide a medical assessment and what happens if a doctor does not believe the requirements for assisted dying have been met. A British Medical Association survey in 2021 found that those working in clinical oncology, general practice, geriatric medicine and palliative care were all more likely to be against decriminalisation than in favour.

Is such opposition to assisted dying a case of medical professionals riding roughshod over patients’ wishes? Is assisted dying a reasonable extension of bodily autonomy – a key facet of medical ethics? Or are opponents of the legislation right to claim it would mean NHS doctors, however well-motivated, being licensed by the state to commit premeditated killing of human beings? Should we be concerned that legalisation of assisted dying in other countries has soon moved beyond the terminally ill to other groups? Who should have the final power to decide who lives and who dies, and should the NHS be involved?

SPEAKERS
Dr Piers Benn
philosopher, author and lecturer

Baroness Ilora Finlay of Llandaff
president, Chartered Society for Physiotherapy; professor, palliative medicine; co-editor, The Reality of Assisted Dying: Understanding the Issues

Rev Canon Rosie Harper
bishop’s adviser in women’s ministry and bishop’s chaplain

Professor Kevin Yuill
emeritus professor of history, University of Sunderland; author, Assisted Suicide: the liberal, humanist case against legalization

CHAIR
Gareth Sturdy
education and science writer; co-organiser, AoI Education Forum