Dying with dignity

The DT ran a large piece by Charles Moore on dying with dignity last week (July 5th), the first that I have seen which is against legalising assisted suicide for those who, for some good & sufficient reason, have had enough.

The piece comes in four columns, the first two of which are scene setting waffle. The third column points to the sometimes poor quality of care for the elderly, taking a swipe at the NHS while he is at it (this is the DT after all). The fourth column explains that, if we make it possible to assist such suicide, such assistance will become the norm. That the old will feel that they have become a burden, that everyone expects them to go and that they will, in consequence, go before their time.

To which I offer three answers.

First, most of us will be content to die of natural causes; for most of us palliative care will do the trick. But there will be some, and I suspect there are always going to be some, for whom palliative care is not enough and who want to call a halt to the misery. Perhaps as many as a few hundred a year in this country - and Moore does not offer anything for them. I observe in passing that it is ironic that a gentleman of the right, generally inclined to deplore government interference in matters large and small, should be advocating government interference, that is to say government prohibition, in this matter.

Second, I do not think many of us would allow ourselves to be pushed into suicide, assisted or otherwise, in the way that Moore suggests. Most of us are far too keen on living and far too frightened of dying. And the proposed protocols should provide adequate protection against any pushing that there might be.

Third, there is no evidence of abuse of the right to assisted suicide from those places where it is legal, for example in Oregon, where it has been legal for many years now. And it is hardly going to be difficult to keep the sort of records needed to be sure that there was no systematic abuse (to say no abuse would be going too far, no system is going to be perfect). Just keeping an eye on the annual totals would go quite a long way towards providing the necessary reassurance to those unconvinced by my second point.