Life and death choices

In the light of the recent Gilderdale and Inglis assisted suicide cases, and the torrent of debate unleashed by them about the so-called “right to die”, Peter White feels compelled to go back to this, the subject of his very first column for Disability Now

As I understand it, the role of the law is to protect people from harm caused by others and once that has been achieved, to allow people to pursue their wishes and beliefs without interference.

There are those people who want to choose the moment and manner of their death and they want people to be allowed to help them if they are no longer physically able to do it themselves. There are also people who fear the licence that this would give to end life prematurely and against the wishes of the person concerned, the most vocal amongst whom are disabled people who fear such power would be misused by those who put a low value on the quality of life and autonomy of disabled people. I have huge sympathy for both these points of view.

The key factor in the differences between the two recent cases seems completely clear: the wishes and the intentions of the person who died. Apparently, Lynn Gilderdale made it absolutely clear, not only to her mother but to many other people too, that she’d had enough. Whereas in the Inglis case, so far as I know, there was no clear intention expressed by Mrs Inglis’s son. Sympathisers with Mrs Inglis will say: “Yes, but that’s because he wasn’t in a position to express his wishes”. That may be true, but I have to say that we can’t have people interpreting other people’s wishes, and saying that they know best.

It’s here that I am in total sympathy with disabled people like Baroness Campbell who say that they have personal experience which leads them to feel at risk from people, mainly doctors, “who think they know best for us”. My problem is I don’t think we should protect one group of people, however genuine their fear, by restricting what seems to me to be the perfectly justified wish of people, who want to be able to end life when it becomes intolerable. It seems to me that it must be possible to frame laws which achieve both those aims, and that such a law must be based on a clear statement of someone’s personal wishes.

Anyone ignoring those wishes, however imposing his medical qualifications, is guilty of murder. Some will say: “well, what about those people who aren’t in a position to make that decision”. I take the line that if it’s not been possible to establish the person’s wishes when they were able to state them, then no-one has the right to guess at them, or judge what might be best.