Life and death - choices and rights

Lord Falconer’s amendment to the assisted suicide bill failed to make it to the statute book. Some say it would have clarified the position of relatives who help family members to die, Margo Milne unpicks the complexities

One hundred and fifteen Britons have ended their lives at the Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas since 2002. Eighty had cancer, MND or MS. The rest had conditions normally considered non-terminal, including rheumatoid arthritis and tetraplegia.

Some commentators have expressed horror that people with non-terminal conditions should seek assisted suicide. And of course we all know that disabled people can lead meaningful and empowered lives. So why would a non-terminally ill disabled person take the apparently extreme step of travelling abroad to seek help dying?

I’m in the final year of a PhD, researching disabled people’s attitudes to issues like assisted suicide.

I also have MS. I’ve gathered opinions from people with a range of impairments.

Some people want to keep living, without question. For others, it may be the fact that the condition isn’t terminal that makes them want to end their lives. They find their situation unbearable, and do not want it to continue indefinitely.

There’s a particular dilemma for people with progressive conditions who may want to take their lives later. Do they kill themselves now, when they don’t want to die but are still physically able to do so? Or do they wait until they feel the “right” time has come, by which time they’re no longer able to do the deed? I believe that this is why some people with progressive, non-terminal conditions seek out clinics like Dignitas.

Debbie Purdy, who has MS, has been seeking legal clarification. Helping someone to travel to a clinic could be interpreted as assisting them to commit suicide – which is illegal in the UK.

Purdy asked for a ruling as to whether her husband would be prosecuted for helping her to travel abroad for assisted suicide, if she should choose that in the future. But the courts say it is up to Parliament to change the law.

An amendment to the assisted suicide bill said that any help to travel to a country where assisted suicide is legal will not be treated as assisting suicide, as long as: two doctors confirmed that the person was terminally ill, the person made a formal declaration before a witness who won’t benefit from their death that they understand they’re terminally ill, and plan to seek assisted suicide in a country where that is legal.

Some thought this went too far – attempting to legalise euthanasia here by stealth. Others that it didn't go far enough, being limited to people who are terminally ill. As someone with a progressive condition, I believe that this amendment would have given those very few people who do wish to travel to clinics like Dignitas the assurance that their loved ones would not be prosecuted as a result of helping them.