Call for assisted dying for terminally ill

Terminally ill patients who have less than a year to live should be allowed to take their own lives, a controversial new report argues.

Assisted suicide, allowing the terminally ill to choose when to die in as painless a way as possible, would be preferable to the current “inadequate and incoherent” system, says the study by a panel of leading experts.

The proposals come from the Commission on Assisted Dying, set up and funded by campaigners who want to see the law changed. It is chaired by barrister and ex-Labour Cabinet minister Lord Falconer and includes doctors, an ex-police commissioner and a former president of the General Medical Council.

Following a year-long consultation the 415-page document insists that strict “safeguards” would protect those with dementia or depression.

For instance, assisted suicide should be limited to those over 18 who have the mental capacity to express a desire to end their life and the physical capacity to take the drugs themselves. That would avoid possible abuse of the vulnerable.

Two independent doctors should agree on a diagnosis of terminal illness where the patient is likely to have fewer than 12 months to live.

There would also be a minimum two-week period in which the dying person would have time to change his or her mind.

And while the patient should administer the drugs either by mouth or, if disabled, by an automated system, a doctor should supervise their death.

The report does stop short of recommending euthanasia – where someone else administers the lethal dose - as practised by Switzerland’s Dignitas clinic.

Lord Falconer said: "We are absolutely clear that there can be no circumstances in which the act is done to somebody. They must do it themselves."

But campaigners have reacted strongly to the proposals and claimed the Commission is fundamentally biased because it is funded by backers of assisted suicide including author Sir Terry Pratchett.

Campaign group Care Not Killing predicted 13,000 assisted suicides a year. Its spokesman Dr Peter Saunders blasted the commission as a “sham”, adding: "This investigation was unnecessary, biased and lacking in transparency and its report is seriously flawed.

"Those with a differing view, including representatives from the major disability rights organisations and doctors’ groups, were not invited to join the commission.”

But Sarah Wootton of Dignity In Dying said: “Opponents to a change in the law will continue to attack any efforts to find a solution to the unbearable suffering which continues daily in the absence of a compassionate assisted dying law, but they themselves cannot suggest an alternative.”

Assisted suicide is currently a criminal offence in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. However, the director of public prosecutions said in 2012 that he would judge the motives of anyone who assists a death. Of 40 cases considered since, nobody has been prosecuted.

This article was published on Thu 5 January 2012