Jay Muuta_ Medical EThics The language of ‘assisted dying’ In addition to honing the thin end of the wedge so that death-by-request is confined, at least for the moment, to assisted suicide, advocates of the practice have also sought more acceptable terminology for these proposals. Even the name under which the ‘Voluntary Euthanasia Society’ campaigned for 70 years has now become toxic: in 2005, the organisation rebranded itself ‘Dignity in Dying’. The currently-preferred term, especially in England and Wales, is ‘assisted dying’, although its meaning has changed. In 2004, Lord Joffe used the term ‘assisted dying’ to refer to assisted suicide and euthanasia; however, Lord Falconer’s Bill defines ‘assisted dying’ so that it is confined to the self-administering of a lethal drug. To add to this confusion, Dignity in Dying deny that ‘assisted dying’ is assisted suicide. They claim that taking a lethal drug in an attempt to put an end to your life is not suicide if you have (or believe you have) only six months to live.[6] Hence they claim that they are not in favour of legalising assisted suicide. This is mere sophistry. If someone who has six months to live ends his or her own life, via any method, this is suicide. Plainly speaking, what is proposed in the Assisted Dying Bill is that, in some cases, seriously ill people who are contemplating suicide could be encouraged or assisted in that action. The preference for the euphemism ‘assisted dying’ is in part to avoid the negative connotations of the word ‘suicide’. Suicide is characteristically an act of despair, and the word reminds us that someone who expresses a wish to and their life must have their mental health assessed. In the early years of the practice of assisted suicide in Oregon these needs were at least sometimes addressed by referral for psychiatric evaluation. However, as assisted suicide has become more and more normal the rate of psychiatric referral among those who went on to commit suicide after expressing a wish to die has declined from 27% (in 1998) to 2.6% (in 2012).[7] If people requesting death are not even acknowledged to be ‘suicidal’ then their mental health needs are even less likely to be addressed. An argument put forward by Dignity in Dying in favour of a change in the law is that there are already some terminally-ill people who commit suicide. A change in the law, they claim, would allow people to end their lives later and with more legal control and medical supervision, but would not increase the number of people deliberately ending their lives.[8] This argument is neither plausible nor borne out by the evidence. Not only does legalising a practice make it more easily accessible, it also ‘normalises’ the practice, making it more socially acceptable. In Oregon the rate of physician-assisted suicide has increased steadily between 1998 and 2012 by 430% overall and there is no evidence that these deaths have been compensated by a concomitant decrease in non-physician-assisted suicides.[9] Rather the suicide rate in Oregon over the same period (excluding physician-assisted suicide) has in fact increased by 32% and has now reached approximately twice the suicide rate in the United Kingdom.[10] The rise in suicides subsequent to the new law does not necessarily indicate that the law caused a shift in the acceptability of suicide, but still less does it lend credence to the claim of Dignity in Dying that if assisted suicide was legalised in Britain ‘no more would die’.[11] In neighbouring Washington State the upward trend of deaths from legalised assisted suicide is steeper even than in Oregon - there was a 43% increase in numbers between 2012 and 2013 alone. https://thinkingfaith.org/articles/assisting-suicidal-and-caring-dying?utm_source=Thinking+Faith&utm_campaign=c50977aa8a-TF_201406276_27_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_620a4d7197-c50977aa8a-68841921&mc_cid=c50977aa8a&mc_eid=fe4f7f3a8b
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 18:58:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015