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Hi Simon

Thanks for your article on assisted suicide. I am against assisted suicide and have thought long and hard about it and taken part in debates on with topic against such organisations as Friends at the End a pro-assisted suicide group.

You left of what I think is the fundamental reason against assisted suicide which is that it is morally wrong to kill an innocent person (euthanasia) or help someone to kill themselves. Our society is built on this fundamental pillar and although I do not disagree that there has already been some weakening of this pillar, the legalisation of assisted suicide would be a major blow.

One may argument that if someone wants to die, and has made that choice freely, then why should we or doctors not help them. This would be the same argument as if someone asked us to make them our slave. I would not do that, no matter how insistent they were.

There is an important difference between letting nature take its course and deliberately shortening someone's life. This is the so-called principle of double effect or unintended consequences and is a cornerstone of many ethical systems. Doctors are often called upon to make decisions that have the intention, for example, of easing pain which have, as an unintended side effect, shortening of someone's life. I don't have a problem with that. I don't want people to be kept alive for as long as possible at any cost. At some point future treatment can be unduly onerous on the patient and futile.

You mention that the slippery slope might be a way of introducing a restrictive law and, having assessed how it is going, widen the criteria. But this is not how it works in practice. The law is introduced with tight restrictions as this is more acceptable with the public but gradually, often through the courts rather than through legislation, the restrictions are eased. See Canada, Belgium and The Netherlands.

If you have time I suggest you watch this BBC documentary by Liz Carr, "Better Off Dead"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001z8wc

I'm very happy to continue the conversation as I could say a lot more.

Dermot Grenham

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Oct 27·edited Oct 27Author

Many thanks for commenting, Dermot.

It wasn't a deliberate decision on my part to ignore what you call the "fundamental reason". Although I realised that the moral stance you take may well be the underlying motivation for many who oppose assisted dying, I have never seen the morality argument articulated as an express reason.

My response to the point is simply that, if someone is suffering from an illness that is medically untreatable and causing unbearable suffering, I consider there to be an immorality in preventing them having the right to end their life.

I don't think there is any way to determine which of those morality arguments can be deemed superior. Do we not have to accept that, in a democratic society, the matter falls to be voted on? (And, in a Parliamentary democracy, those in parliament get the vote.)

Presumably a similar argument over morality is what lay behind the pre-1961 position in which suicide was deemed illegal because it was considered immoral. And then, in 1961, Parliament decided on a new position which it thought was a better moral stance. (And now it is being asked to favour another new position.)

One final comment on a matter of detail: restrictions can only be eased by the courts if Parliament gives them the leeway to do so, either by not legislating on a point or by doing so in terms that leave room for interpretation. If Parliament wants to set parameters that the court cannot change, it can do so by choosing its words carefully.

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Until everyone in this country has a right to the quality of life that makes it a pleasure to be alive, I am against giving those who had the luck to experience all that life offers those who can afford it, the right to die. Very poor people have little but Life itself and they’re not at all keen to let go of it, either because it’s all they have or because they still hold the hope that theirs, too, could be better. And it could be better.

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