Face up to the euthanasia debate

Voluntary euthanasia in Britain is an open secret in the Health Service. Each year, evidence mounts that doctors, nurses and relatives, often for the very best of motives, are helping patients to die with dignity rather than have their lives prolonged by medical technology for no clear purpose.

So what does the public think? Two surveys published last week provide some insights. The pensioners’ magazine, Yours, asked its 2,500 readers, whose average age is 69, for their views. Nine out of 10 thought that doctors should be allowed to end the lives of terminally ill people and wanted the law changed; eight out of 10 had told someone they preferred to die rather than suffer in pain. More than half said that they would help a friend, relative or spouse to die in such circumstances.

The issue is too sensitive and the ethical questions too profound to come to a simple conclusion. But events are forcing some kind of reform. The Government should appoint a Royal Commission now to ensure that such a sensitive debate is both well informed and conducted in a dignified manner.

Task 2. Read the arguments for and against euthanasia. Say what you think are the reasons for an increase in euthanasia.

Hospice physician, Dr Anthony Smith, explores the controversy

The case for...

Sometimes, to some people, death seems preferable to life.

We think of someone who requests termination of life because of terminal illness, incurable disability, pain, suffering and hopelessness.

Surely, they say, to assist such a person to commit suicide, or to help him die when he cannot bring it about for himself, is simply an extension of suicide and ought to be acceptable in a caring society where suicide has been decriminalized.

“You would not treat a dog like this,” they say.

Sometimes, indeed, it is argued that this is a final self-sacrifice that the aged, infirm or terminally ill wish to make on behalf of others.

The case against...

The answer to requests for euthanasia is that pain, sickness and other distres­sing symptoms can be effectively relieved these days.

Euthanasia would diminish a person’s self-worth. The request for termination of life often springs from a feeling that life is not worth living

But to respond with euthanasia is to agree that the person’s life is worthless. Everyone is inherently worth more than a dog or cow (or, even, many sparrows!) and his or her very life is worthy of respect.

For whatever motive it may be done, all religions and civilizations have regarded this as morally wrong.

To expect the medical (or nursing) professions to undertake this action would seem an improper extension of their role as careers whose concern was to cure or alleviate suffering.

To expect this to happen in hos­pitals, hospices or nursing homes is to change the nature of these caring institutions into places of fear.

One of the sadnesses of the recent Dutch experience has been that, where as a large proportion of younger people have welcomed it, 64 % of elderly people in residential homes live in fear that they will be candidate.