Lord Falconer's Choice Illusion

So the Falconer "commission" has rebranded itself as a "panel of legal and medical experts" and confessed to being funded by and packed with assisted suicide supporters. In fact, the MP involved said, there was no one on the panel previously opposed to it. 

The fundamental issue seems to me to be a matter of choice, but it's not a matter of individuals choosing how they want to die. Rather it's a matter of us deciding what sort of society we want to live in.

This is the article I'd hoped would be published in a national paper, but wasn't in the event.

"Last year, in the midst of austerity and recession, the BBC’s ‘Children in Need’ raised a record £26,332,334 by the end of a single evening.  Today the self-styled Commission on Assisted Dying under the chairmanship of Lord Falconer, champion of the legalization of assisted suicide in England and Wales, will be presenting their conclusions.  Considering the ‘commission’ is funded by and predominantly made up of similarly-minded people, it’s not been hard to predict what some of those conclusions might have been.  They’ll be couched in reasonable and balanced terms no doubt, and they’ll hardly be novel.  However, on the principle that if you keep repeating something enough times, it will eventually be believed, they’ll serve their purpose. 

"One of the main themes, let me guess, will be that of freedom of choice.  The argument runs something like this: since 1961 suicide has ceased to be a crime.  Terminally ill people, for example with Motor Neurone Disease or Locked-in Syndrome, reach a point when they are unable to take their own lives.  Thus they are deprived of a civil right and unfairly discriminated against.  They, it is said, of all people might well want to end their lives - and the law as it stands means they can’t, because the same Suicide Act (amended 2009) goes on to state: “A person (“D”) commits an offence if (a) D does an act capable of encouraging or assisting the suicide or attempted suicide of another person, and (b) D’s act was intended to encourage or assist suicide or an attempt at suicide”.  It does also leave the jury discretion to convict or not, and only permits proceedings “by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions” - which explains the minimal convictions under the Act in 50 years.

"If someone like myself should wish to leave our disease behind, why should we not say so and why should we not be assisted, without the fear of our assistants’ facing prosecution?  Surely it’s my life and my choice? 

"In discussions people have said to me, “Suicide’s been legalized.  That means it’s my right to take my life.”  The wording of the Act does not exactly express that meaning: “The rule of law whereby it is a criminal act for a person to commit suicide is hereby abrogated.”  To say that the state will not regard a suicidal person, whether successful or unsuccessful, as a criminal, is not the same as saying that the state sanctions or encourages suicide.  In fact the wording of the 2009 amendment was widened in order to cover internet sites promoting suicide, implying that the state’s inclination is to discourage suicide.  Mr Justice Baker’s judgement in the recent case of patient ‘M’ summed the principle up: “The factor which does carry substantial weight, in my judgement, is the preservation of life. Although not an absolute rule, the law regards the preservation of life as a fundamental principle.”

"The question is whether personal choice can trump the preservation of life.  It is, of course, not true that we have unfettered freedom of choice.  For example, we are not free to drive on the right or without a seat belt, because the state does not want us to kill either ourselves or each other.  Similarly, where we may smoke is restricted.  Even what we may say and write is limited.  There are good reasons for such things, but the point is choice is not an inherent right.  Autonomy, the oft-touted synonym for choice, literally means “having one’s own laws”.  That is incompatible with being part of a larger society.  Therein lies the flaw in arguing for legislation which allows for a variety of practice in the taking of life, or assisting to die.  Once you say that it’s possible to decide your own personal laws in matters of life and death you have no fundamental ground to say a particular action is unacceptable.  It will all depend on circumstance and motive – and that is shifting sand.  Even ‘compassion’ is an elusive and subjective motive.  You may set apparently water-tight perameters, but they also will shift.

"To abandon the preservation of life as a fundamental principle of our society’s laws, in the name of personal choice, would be to retreat from centuries of hard-won progress.  It was, after all, only in 1969 that Parliament voted to abolish the state taking life.  During the debate on the abolition of hanging, Duncan Sandys led the opposition to the vote, arguing that “We have no right to assume that the firmly held views of the overwhelming majority of the British people are unworthy and misguided.”  His view was shared neither by the Commons nor the Lords, and so even the life of the murderer was protected.  (It will be interesting to see whether Sandys’ contention about public opinion, which seems predominantly to favour euthanasia, will be echoed by the ‘commission’.)

"So what will society say to me when I get near the end of my MND – if it’s not to allow someone to top me when I’ve had enough?  I hope it will say, “We will see you through this.  We will give you the best quality of life that’s possible.  We will provide all the palliative care that you need, including supporting your carers.  We will do everything possible to ease your symptoms and to control your pain.”  And I would say, “Please keep me comfortable.  If the pain relief should shorten my life by hours or days, that’s all right.  You’re only doing your job.  And when I should die, just let me be.” 

"Is it a Utopian ideal?  In fact it’s the legal situation now.  But aren’t there doctors out there who’ll betray one’s trust?  Aren’t there trusts and commissioning consortia who will try to trim their care costs?  There are horror stories of the neglect of the elderly in hospitals, after all.  (It’s worth pondering whether one factor beneath the horror stories is the progressive devaluing of the dependent person?)  Well, there are risks, but the society which firmly holds the preservation of life as a fundamental principle will be on the lookout for such breaches and, most importantly, put its resources where its principle is.  And the risks are small beside the risk of abandoning the principle that life is precious above all else. 

"‘Children in Need’ projected on our TV screens the courage and beauty of disabled, dependent and often dying children.  It showed us the incredible endurance and compassion of those who care for them.  There can be no question as to their worth and of the value of enhancing or at least ameliorating their lives.  We know it's right.  The society which cherishes life, even at its most tenuous, is far preferable to one which admits the principle that some lives are disposable.  'Children in Need' or the 'Commission'?  I know which vision I prefer."

from Children in Need website

I know the so-called experts are not calling for euthanasia, but only for assisted suicide of mentally competent adults, but my point is that once the preservation of life is breached as a foundational principle of law and life-taking is permitted a Rubicon will have been crossed, and we shouldn't be fooled that it's the end of the road for the advocates of euthanasia.

Counsel of hope

This week there have been two stories which have leaped to my attention. One, I have to confess, I first heard on the Breakfast Show on 5 Live (Well done, the BBC!). The other appeared in The Guardian and The Telegraph. What they had in common is that they are about men confounding the realists and the scaremongers.

The Bolton News

The first is the story of Gary Parkinson: Paralysed former professional footballer Gary Parkinson has been given a role scouting for his home town club — despite only being able to communicate with a system of blinks. Gary Parkinson once played for Middlesborough and was coach for Blackpool Youth Team. He had a brain-stem stroke which has left him with Locked-in Syndrome (like Tony Nicklinson whom Jane and I met in the early summer, you may remember, for BBC West's Inside Out programme). It doesn't sound as though he has the same fancy computer, but he communicates with his wife, Deborah, through blinking his eye. He once played with Tony Mowbray, Middlesborough's manager; and he's now sent the many DVDs of youngsters hoping to get a contract with the club, whom he rates by blinking: from once, no, to four times, sign him!

I was really impressed by the determination of his friends and family (and presumably himself) not to give up on him. At the end of the Bolton News article, I read:
"The 43-year-old was initially confined to his bed following a stroke in his brain stem.

But there have been improvements.

"He has been for day visits to his home, while there are hopes he will get his speech back after an operation on his vocal chords.

"Mr Mowbray, speaking in Middlesbrough’s match-day programme on Saturday, said: 'We were determined to give Gary a role, where he could feel involved. Not only that, I genuinely value his opinions about the game.'"

The second story was from Belgium and concerned Rom Houben who had been in a "coma" for 23 years. He had been a martial arts enthusiast and almost killed in a car crash in 1983. He was regularly diagnosed as being in a permanent vegetative state. "For 23 years Rom Houben was ­imprisoned in his own body. He saw his doctors and nurses as they visited him during their daily rounds; he listened to the conversations of his carers; he heard his mother deliver the news to him that his father had died. But he could do nothing. He was unable to communicate with his doctors or family. He could not move his head or weep, he could only listen" until a neurologist from the University of Liege took another look. "Using a state-of-the-art scanning system, Laureys found to his amazement that his brain was functioning almost normally." With intensive physio, he now has some movement and is able to communicate using a touch screen with one finger.

From The Guardian

"The moment it was discovered he was not in a vegetative state, said Houben, was like being born again. 'I'll never forget the day that they discovered me,' he said. 'It was my second birth'." 

One wonders if in the brave new world of euthanasia, which some organisations are pressing towards, Rom Houben would have survived to see his second birth - or whether his "quality of life" would have been written off as negligible, his care withdrawn and his death engineered. The preservation of life is a paramount principle in human and humane society. 

"Dum spiro, spero" - while I breath, I hope - the old saying goes. What a shame that so many now utter counsels of despair! "You're disabled: you'll not be much use." "You're old and going senile: you're just becoming a burden." "You have a terminal illness: you've got nothing to live for." That's all diabolical nonsense. Every life is great gift.  

The preservation of life

Today there was some good news from the High Court. The family of Patient 'M', who's in a Minimally Conscious State, were denied permission to order her life support (food and water) to be turned off on the grounds that she would not want to "live a life dependent on others". There are thought to be thousands of people in a similar situation. It was an example of what could happen when families think they can second-guess their incapacitated relatives. However Mr Justice Baker ruled against the family, and I'd say in favour of the patient: "The factor which does carry substantial weight, in my judgement, is the preservation of life. Although not an absolute rule, the law regards the preservation of life as a fundamental principle." 


That's a principle worth maintaining against the tide. I'm glad it's been upheld. I expect there'll be moves to get the family to appeal, though I trust not. It's all very well to encourage people to write down their wishes about dying, as the family lawyer said after the verdict. It's long been known that apparently unconscious patients are more aware of their surroundings and conversations than we imagine. How awful to be aware of being slowly starved to death! That's not something such people will suggest you anticipate, will they? And when will they stop peddling the lie that a dependent life is not worth living?