Falconer and the 'final solution'

No one, least of all Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, was surprised at the conclusions reached by the Falconer Commission on assisted suicide. But it remained important for disabled people on the opposite side of the debate to make their views clearly heard. Ian Macrae reports

When we speak following the publicity of the Falconer Commission’s report on assisted suicide, Baroness [Jane] Campbell is remarkably chipper.

That’s because she’s heard from what she clearly regards as a thoroughly reliable source that there will be no government action based on the report.

“Number 10 picked it up and put it on the shelf”, she says.

“We’ve got a bit of a breather until the next avid backbencher puts in a private member’s bill because that’s the way it’ll happen. There’ll either be a member of the House of Lords or the House of Commons who’ll put it through on a private member’s bill but it won’t be a piece of Government legislation.”

But why does Baroness Campbell think that this is an issue which never seems to go away?

“There’s always been a very well-resourced lobby on assisted suicide. It started with Exit, and we’re talking over 30 years of organised activity on this issue. They are relentless. they’re also well-heeled.

“The people that tend to want this are those who are very much in control of their lives and fear more than anything else losing control; they fear incapacity.”

She lists those who’ve spoken out on the pro-Falconer side of the debate. They include broadcasters Jenni Murray and John Humphrys, journalist Polly Toynbee and, of course, Sir Terry Pratchett.

And she makes the direct comparison.

“It’s very hard for those who are of the opposite opinion to campaign against it because the people who are the perceived ‘Beneficiaries’ are never people with power: we’re certainly not people with huge control over our lives and you only have to set our funds of £450 and a handful of volunteers against the might of Dignity in Dying and the money that people like Terry Pratchett can bring to this debate. It’s no wonder that it keeps coming back and back and back. The relentlessness wears people down and when the climate is depressed – the social and economic climate – that’s when we’re at our most vulnerable because fear breeds this kind of activity.

“It’s what I call the final solution and we all know where that phrase originated.”

Baroness Campbell’s own campaigning on this issue has also been relentless. But there’s a feeling that now is the time for others to speak out. For the past year, Kevin Fitzpatrick has been acting as a spokesman for the lobby group Not Dead Yet UK. His view on the Falconer report’s recommendations is equally vehement and unequivocal.

“What this report will do is bring pressure to bear on people who are in vulnerable situations to end their lives because they’re a burden or are being made to feel that they are a burden.

“We’re also very concerned that it will change the already lax attitudes of some doctors and practitioners who’ll feel that its okay to go ahead. The practicality will be that more people will be frightened for their lives with real justification.”

Dr Fitzpatrick also believes that the focus of the commission’s pre-determined agenda and the predisposition of its membership has left large and obvious holes in its investigation and conclusions.

“The report talks very carefully about investigating the wishes of someone who wants to die. But the motivations of the people who are being asked to do the killings are not questioned in any sense or not tested in any way. We believe that the people who’ll step forward to do this are the very medical practitioners who believe that this is the right thing to do.”

Most people on this side of the debate believe that the law as it stands offers perfectly adequate protection to disabled people. Under the 1961 Suicide Act, it’s a criminal offence to assist someone to take their own life.

Evidence so far suggests even with that provision, there is currently little appetite for prosecuting relatives who have actively participated in someone’s death: the Director of Public Prosecutions has not brought any cases to court.

The Falconer Commission seems to have regarded a change in the law as desirable, necessary and inevitable. But Kevin Fitzpatrick says this would not only make ending someone’s life easier but would also prey on stresses and emotions which exhibit themselves at vulnerable times.

“No human motivation can ever be pure, and compassionate reactions, even those of close and loving family members, are always mixed up with frustrations, lack of support, fear, exhaustion, the pain of watching another person suffer. So the idea that we can get into a situation in which a law can be created that can, in advance, determine that any given situation is one of compassion is nonsense.