SAVES is not affiliated with Exit International / Dr Philip Nitschke and opposes the public availability of a 'peaceful pill'.

One of the final barriers to legalising voluntary euthanasia in Britain was overcome when a poll determined that four-fifths of people with disabilities want the law changed so they can be helped to die if they become terminally ill.

The finding suggests there has been a huge change in British attitudes, because disability rights groups have often strongly resisted any move to legalise voluntary euthanasia due to fears of possible abuse. The poll of 2,000 people with disabilities by research firm YouGov found that eighty per cent would support a bill allowing a rational person living with disability to be allowed assistance to die if diagnosed with a terminal illness.

The poll follows a High Court judge’s decision to refuse to intervene to stop the husband of a woman with a degenerative brain disease from taking her to a clinic in Switzerland for an assisted death. This is despite the fact that the man’s actions could be interpreted, in law, as a crime. The 46-year-old woman elected suicide by medication at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich. According to the poll, seventy seven per cent of people with disabilities consider the law on suicide to be discriminatory. This is because they may be physically incapable of exercising the choice to end their own lives.

Dr Hazel Biggs, Director of Medical Law at the University of Kent and author of Euthanasia: Death with Dignity and the Law, calculates that at least 18,000 people a year are assisted to die by doctors who are treating them for terminal illnesses. Biggs, who has submitted evidence to the House of Lords select committee, which is examining Lord Joffe's private member's bill Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill, makes the following claim in an article submitted to the European Journal for Health Law.

‘If you extrapolate from countries that have published data, you're looking at quite a large number of patients who may have had their end hastened, not necessarily with their consent,' she said. 'What this says to me is that we know these practices are going on, but they are completely unregulated…and maybe, because of that, the law ought to be changed so that people can give voluntary consent, which will give them more protection.'

Successive surveys reveal about 80 per cent of people support the move. A survey by the society also found that 47 per cent of people said they were prepared to help a loved one to die, even if it meant breaking the law.

Deborah Annetts of Britain’s Voluntary Euthanasia Society stated 'This survey has removed the last objection to changing the law in this country, and it explodes the myth that the elderly and the disabled cannot speak for themselves. The people of Britain are demanding that the law gives them more choice.'

References:

Adam Sage, The Times (UK), November 27th 2004 and ‘Disabled people want the right to die’ by Jamie Doward and Jo Revill Sunday Dec 5, 2004 The Observer.

The Associated Press reported on the 10th November that the Bush administration has asked the Supreme Court to block the Oregon law allowing physician assisted death on the request of terminally ill patients. Attorney-General John Ashcroft had been expected to appeal a lower court ruling that the federal government could not punish Oregon doctors who prescribed lethal doses of federally controlled drugs.

The Bush administration has argued that assisted suicide is not a ‘legitimate medical purpose’. The issue is a significant one for conservative Christians, who helped President George W Bush win a second electoral term. Paul Clement, acting Solicitor General, argues that the law conflicts with the federal government's powers.

The Supreme Court will likely decide early next year whether it will hear the case. Justices determined in 1997 that while there is no constitutional right to assisted suicide, states may decide the issue for themselves without federal interference.

Also in the USA, a poll in Vermont has found strong support for physician- assisted suicide with nearly 80% of respondents supporting a bill that would allow a ‘mentally competent adult dying of a terminal disease the choice to request and receive medication from a physician to peacefully end suffering and hasten death’.

The exceptions were people who described themselves as ‘very conservative’ and those who attended church once a week or more.

‘Poll finds many back ending life of very ill’, AAP January 7 2005

A jury has found that British Columbian woman, Evelyn Martens, not guilty of assisting the suicides of former nun Monique Charest and Vancouver teacher Leyanne Burchell. Martens, a member of the Canadian Right to Die Society had visited both women before they died. The Crown was unable to prove Martens was physically implicated in the women's deaths.

Terminally ill patients in France may now demand an end to treatment, including artificial feeding, under a new law which came into effect after eight months of consultations by thirty one members of parliament.

At a patient’s request, doctors will now be able to switch off life-support machines which artificially extend life. The French government, the opposition, the Roman Catholic Church and part of the medical establishment support the proposal that followed a national debate over the plight of a 22 year old man who suffered severe and multiple disabilities in a car accident. The background of this case has been covered in earlier editions of the VE Bulletin.

His doctor eventually disconnected the life support system but now faces criminal proceedings which would have been avoided under the recent legisaltion. Philippe Douste-Blazy, the Health Minister, states that the legislation will clarify existing medical practice in French hospitals. ‘In 2004, 100,000 life-support machines will be switched off in France although there is no legal framework to say how it should be done,’ he said.

However, many argue that the bill is not comprehensive enough and seek similar legislation to the Netherlands and Belgium, that allows for voluntary euthanasia; or Switzerland, where doctors can help the terminally ill by prescribing appropriate medication.

Reported by Jamie Doward, social affairs editor The Observer newspaper, London September 19, 2004