ASSISTED dying seeks to address the excruciating pain and stress that many with untreatable illnesses go through. However, it is also an admission of defeat and a statement by society that there are circumstances where your death might be better than your life. There is an element of tragedy in that.
I often wonder why past generations would not even countenance the kind of legislation now being discussed, and I don’t think it was simply down to a different religious paradigm. Maybe it was because society was less individualistic and a had stronger sense of “being in it together”. Maybe it is also because severe illnesses were shorter and the range of available palliative care was rather narrower. Today, people are often kept alive simply because it is possible, and not because it is dignifying. Perhaps we should not be looking as much for more assisted dying as for less forced living.
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As always, Ruth Wishart mounts a strong and reasoned case for her cause (Let us end unnecessary suffering with long-overdue legislation, Mar 25). As any good columnist does, she engages with the positions of the other side, although perhaps not always quite as thoroughly as she should. To brush away certain concerns about the pitfalls of where the path to assisted dying could lead as “hypothetical” is misleading. Anything that has not happened yet is intrinsically hypothetical, but can nevertheless be plausible – rather like climate change was until quite recently (now undeniably in process).
Anecdotally, I have observed in conversations with people in countries where assisted dying is more accepted that it has already become easier to present it as a premeditated option to an ailing parent, be it simply to reduce their pain or be it to protect an inheritance which could otherwise be gobbled up by care costs. If such thought patterns are allowed flourish, then it is not difficult to predict where this could lead us in the face of a bulging population of senior citizens and a health care system that is already buckling. While assisted dying would nominally remain voluntary, people’s wills could be conditioned to seek it, feeling an expectation to “do the right thing” and get on and unburden society. Creepingly, it could cease to be an option and become a moral imperative.
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On this basis, any legislation on assisted dying should permit it only in very exceptional circumstances and put effective safeguards in place against creeping abuse. For instance, the illness of those seeking it should be terminal in nature, without any real chance of recovery or remission, and there should be no reasonable possibility of a life without severe pain. Also, approval should be based on the medical opinion of a specialised ethics board and not simply the signatures of one or two doctors. As a society, we must resist being drawn into the question of which lives are worth preserving and which are not. The answer is, and must remain, “all”. We must resolve to be life-affirming wherever we can, and never let those who depart from us go without greatest regret and reluctance.
Bruce Campbell
via email
ASSISTED dying is the ultimate in control freakery. Now is not the time to legislate on it because it is immoral, unnatural and unnecessary.
Euthanasia or “the right to die” may have become trendy recently – along with botox, cosmetic dentistry and hair transplants – but it is little more than the sad expression of a superficial, materialistic society grasping at instant gratification and attempting to thwart nature.
Perhaps Ruth Wishart would do well to reflect on the fact that all major religions fundamentally oppose euthanasia. She and LibDem MSP Liam McArthur may, with some justification, make the case that we no longer live in a society in which organised religion plays a significant role. This may indeed be true, but the quest for meaningful spirituality has never been more enthusiastically followed.
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I can only feel sorry for those whose lives are so devoid of a spiritual dimension that they seem to think of it only in terms of a consumer commodity that can be switched off when it seems convenient to do so.
Rather than legislating to facilitate assisted dying, we should be supporting the hospice movement and making it easier for those facing death to approach the moment as the inevitable climax of a completely natural process.
Rhodri Griffiths
Alford
I’M not against the idea of “assisted dying”, indeed I’m in favour of it, but I do feel it’s something that a referendum should be used to determine.
It certainly shouldn’t be a political football – it’s too important for that.
Alastair Gordon
via thenational.scot
I HAVE memories of Margo MacDonald trying to get a similar bill passed (McArthur believes assisted dying bill will pass as the ‘political mood has changed’, Mar 24). It failed, and I was upset. I hope it gets through this time.
Sel Govan
via thenational.scot
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