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Response to the Consultation on Dying with Dignity
- We recognise that the proposals of the Consultation Document arise out of a feeling of deep compassion to help the terminally-ill who feel trapped within a downward spiral of suffering, pain and loss of dignity from which there appears to be no possibility of release other than by death.
- Like any other normal person , we too recognise that there is an immense moral pressure on us to “do something” when confronted by people desperate to be relieved from a prolonged process of death that appears to have no point to it.
- We do, however, oppose the proposals of the Consultation and would not like to see the way opened up for the medical profession to be asked to respond positively to a patient's request to die.
- In registering our rejection of the Consultations proposals, we do so as part of our Christian Faith's emphasis on the value of life as a God-given gift, about which our fluctuating sense of values conditioned by culture and circumstance are an uncertain guide. As a consequence, we cannot ever say about people, whatever their physical or mental condition, that their lives are valueless and not worth living, even as we do not believe any individual can make that ultimate kind of judgement about himself or herself. At the same time, we do not hold to a frantic holding on to life at all costs by artificial means, when the merciful release of death is near and to be welcomed.
- We would see our responsibility as encouraging an increase in the resources and expertise going in to the palliative care of the dying in a way that responds to the physical, emotional, relational and spiritual needs of the dying. Seeing these needs as an integrated whole in a person's make-up is important, because attention to one aspect can have a positive effect on the other aspects and change a person's general outlook on their condition.
- Quite apart from our deep-rooted convictions about the nature of life and its God-given value, we do see unwelcome aspects that might appear if the Proposals of the Consultation ever saw the light of day in our legal system, such as :-
- an insecure defence against wrong diagnosis which might lead someone to put in a quite unnecessary request to die
- too much weight being given to medical predictions or guesses about the number of weeks or months left to a terminally ill person
- the possibility , however unlikely , of abuse by a few in the medical profession who might encourage a person to hasten on death because of other factors eg saving costs of expensive treatment
- covering up misdiagnosis
- creating more hospital space etc
- the pressure of relatives eager to be rid of an unwelcome caring burden
- an increase of anxiety amongst the elderly who might begin to feel that they were expected to do the “decent thing” and request to die once a terminal illness was diagnosed
- the undermining of the doctor's position in society where s/he is now seen as a possible dispenser of death rather than someone given over to the alleviation of suffering. Along with this would go the psychological brutalising of the doctor her/himself.
- We remain unconvinced that the situation in countries such as the Netherlands where there is legislation for “assisted dying” is quite as positive and helpful as the Consultation Document makes out and we would suspect that the concentration of resources on palliative care may have lessened.
- We note the Consultation Document's attempt to make sure that great care is taken to go slowly and carefully in responding to a request from “a competent adult suffering from a terminal illness... the right to receive medical help to bring about his or her own death”. However, once this becomes accepted practice, no matter the safeguards put in place , the professional angle of approach to the terminally ill patient is altered in a potentially alarming way. Once this new approach is established and patients, relatives and professionals become familiar with it, there can begin to grow out from it the beginnings of a move towards a position where decisions about the value of living are taken out of the hands of the patient and given to someone else.
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