As a doctor I know how members of the medical profession can come under intense pressure from relatives, and sometimes from their own emotions, to hasten death. If medically assisted suicide is legalised, then both doctors and patients will find themselves under new stresses. Pressure on terminally ill patients to kill themselves may come from family or health professionals, but it may also come from those individuals who are suffering themselves, especially if they are concerned about the impact that their illness is having on loved ones.
Perhaps of even greater concern is the potential impact on the vulnerable, especially the vulnerable elderly. How often have we heard elderly people say something like “I just don’t want to be a burden to my family”, or “I think it would be much better for you if I wasn’t here any longer”? Once assisted suicide is legally available, then those with a terminal progressive illness will need to provide a justification for wishing to live.
In the well-known words of the English poet and cleric John Donne: “No man is an island… Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” Those of us who have been involved with suicide, either personally or professionally, know what a great tragedy it is. It is not something that we should legitimise. Although driven by desperation and hopelessness, the persone who commits suicide frequently hurts those who survive.
To commit suicide is to strike at the heart of what it means to live in community, for we are meant to be dependent on one another. The current legal prohibition on assisted suicide is part of the glue that binds our society together. Of course this does not mean that we just harden our hearts to those who are suffering desperately. True compassion points away from suicide and towards effective, skilled and respectful caring.
Doctors in the Netherlands who have experience of assisted suicide recognise that “failures” will occur from time to time. The Royal Dutch Medical Association recommends that a doctor be present when assisted suicide is performed (in the manner proposed in the Assisted Dying Bill), precisely so that euthanasia can be performed if necessary. I do not see this as an improvement to society. However well-meaning the proponents of the Assisted Dying Bill may be, they will open a Pandora’s Box which will change who we are and how we relate to one another in a fundamental and irreversible way.