The Final Exit
In “ On Liberty”, John Stuart Mill wrote “ The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral is not a sufficient warrant.”
Mill’s quote is particularly relevant when you examine the dreadfully sad case of Brian Blackburn.
Mr Blackburn was given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to an offence of the unlawful killing of his wife Margaret. She was terminally ill and clearly in great and unrelieved pain. Rather than seek their own doctor’s help they decided on a suicide pact. Mr Blackburn agreed to cut his wife’s wrists and then as part of a suicide pact, tried to kill himself by the same gory, and in his case unsuccessful, means.
You can read a report at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4174155.stm. Blackburn was very lucky that the prosecution accepted his plea to manslaughter.
In recent months courts have refused to stop people flying off to Swiss clinics where they can be helped to kill themselves. And no doubt in time the Netherlands will become the destination of choice for those who wish to ensure their unbearable suffering is ended.
It’s about time some sense was injected into this area. There are patients who cannot be given sufficient opiates to keep them pain free. In those circumstances some doctors are forced into the fiction of giving a fatal dose of morphine they know will end their patient’s life, but it is given, and written up, to relieve pain. In a recent poll, nurses have confirmed that euthanasia is being carried out in many hospitals.
Although euthanasia is still, I think, not lawful in the Netherlands, a protocol has been established under which doctors report medical decisions resulting in euthanasia to the public prosecutor who will examine each case. No prosecution will follow if the prosecutor is satisfied that the killing was carried out following the patient’s express wish.
The Royal Dutch Medical Association considers euthanasia permissible under the following conditions.
- Only a medical practitioner should carry out euthanasia.
- There should be an explicit request from the patient which leaves no room for doubt about the patient’s desire to die.
- The patient’s decision should be well informed, free and persistent.
- The patient must be in a situation of unbearable pain and suffering without hope of improvement.
- There must be no other measures to make the patient’s suffering bearable.
- The doctor must be very careful in reaching the decision and should seek the opinion from another independent doctor.
The patient does not need to be in a terminal condition, merely that his pain unbearable with no hope of improvement.
At the moment Lord Joffe’s Bill “To enable a competent adult who is suffering unbearably as a result of a terminal illness to receive medical assistance to die at his own considered and persistent request; and to make provision for a person suffering from a terminal illness to receive pain relief medication.” is before the House of Lords.
You can download an Adobe Acrobat version of the bill from http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200405/ldbills/004/2005004.pdf
and read Lord Joffe’s speech introducing his Bill at http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199900/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds03/text/30606-01.htm
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posted by Tony @ Saturday, January 15, 2005
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