Peter Moore - Assisted dying: I decided that i cannot decide

Isn’t a columnist supposed to have passionate and strongly held views? It is difficult when I can see both sides of an argument and I end up unsure.

One of the most controversial subjects at the moment is around euthanasia, now euphemistically called assisted dying. Several countries including Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Spain all allow assisted dying. Assisted suicide, when people are allowed to assist suicide without actively killing them, is allowed in several American States including Oregon, Washington and California.  The Scottish Parliament introduced a bill to allow assisted dying on 27th March although it has a long way to go before it could be implemented.

Personally, I am conflicted. My heart feels that killing people is wrong. I spent my career helping people and trying to save lives. How can we justify taking lives? I’m not sure I could have picked up a syringe with the express purpose of killing someone,

But my head hears all the arguments from campaigners such as Esther Rantzen, Terry Pratchett  and the case of Diane Pretty with motor neurone disease and I feel compassion. Sitting on the fence is shared by my profession. In a survey of members of the Royal College of GPs in 2023 47% opposed a change in the law and 40% supported it while 11% wanted the College to be neutral. The British Medical Association voted to remain neutral.

Currently there is a typically British fudge. Doctors are allowed to stop treatment in some circumstances. We also have “double effect”. If someone is dying and it takes a large dose of medication to control the pain and suffering that it acceptable, even if the dose could prove fatal. The important point is that the reason for the drug is to relieve suffering not to kill. It is illegal is to use a drug for which the only effect is to kill.

When I first came to Torquay I worked at the newly opened Rowcroft Hospice. The medical director told me to never use the expression “nothing can be done”. There is always something that can be done but sadly there may not be a cure. Palliative care has come a long way and before we allow assisted dying we must ensure that everyone has the advantage we have in South Devon, assess to good palliative care and a good hospice. There is also the fear that older people might feel a burden and be pressurised to agree to assisted dying although all proposed legislation has been tightly drafted to try to plicate this fear.

Once passed, could the law be open to “mission creep”, evolving in ways never envisaged by today’s proposers? Without wishing to open a debate on abortion the 1967 Abortion Act was originally intended to only apply when there was a medical need. Social abortion on demand was never intended but has now become normal. Personally, I am not opposed to this in the right circumstances, but the changes have never been debated in parliament.

I have also seen people suffering and felt unable to help despite every modern resource available. There are plenty of unpleasant diseases such as motor neurone as well as cancers. If someone is already dying and wants to avoid continued suffering is not it right to help them, provided all the safeguards are in place?

We can learn from other countries. One common pattern is that, not surprisingly, the number of people opting for assisted dying has increased substantially. In the Netherlands 1 in 26 deaths are now “physician assisted”. In England and Wales that would mean 20,000 a year. It has also widened so that doctors agreed to assisted dying for a woman in her twenties with post traumatic stress disorder and another with severe anorexia.

Public opinion is moving. The group Dignity in Dying claim 78% support in Torbay. It is likely that it will be legalised in all of the UK eventually.  Is this a positive move?  I hear all the arguments on both sides and still can’t decide.