Assisted death... a dying taboo?
The 71-year-old cosmologist, who has motor neurone disease, told the BBC: “We don’t let animals suffer, so why humans? I think those who have a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their lives, and those who help them should be free from prosecution.”
Professor Hawking had previously been less supportive of the right to die, saying in 2006 it was a mistake as “there is always hope”.
In his 2013 BBC interview, however, he said he now believed “those who have a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their lives, and those who help them should be free from prosecution”.
Like Hawking, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, has also changed his mind and just days before the House of Lords in London prepares for a crucial vote today on a Bill on assisted dying.
Modelled for the most part on a system that has operated in the US State of Oregon since 1997, the Bill — if passed — would enable a mentally competent, terminally ill patient, with “settled intention”, to end his or her own life, to self-administer a prescribed fatal dose of drugs if, according to two doctors, he or she has no more than six months to live.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Parliament is expected to consider the Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill early in 2015. The Bill was introduced by the late Margo MacDonald MSP, who was stricken with Parkinson’s Disease and died in April aged 70.
In July 2008, she cooperated with BBC Scotland in the making of a documentary on assisted suicide. During the course of the programme, she said: “As someone with a degenerative condition — Parkinson’s — this debate is not a theory with me. The possibility of having the worst form of disease at the end of life has made me think about unpleasant things. I feel strongly that, in the event of losing my dignity or being faced with the prospect of a painful or protracted death, I should have the right to choose to curtain my own, and my family’s, suffering”.
Her Bill would provide a means for certain people who are approaching the end of their lives to seek assistance to end their lives at a time of their own choosing. The Bill outlines in detail three stages to the process that a person seeking an assisted suicide would be required to follow.
It would also provide protection against criminal and civil liability for those providing such assistance, so long as the processes set out in the Bill have been followed.
The crucial difference between the English and Scottish legislation is that the latter would enable a person who is physically unable to end his or her own life (though he or she may not be terminally ill) to seek assistance in order to do so.
Here in Ireland the controversial question of assisted dying made headlines when the Supreme Court issued its ruling on April 29 2013 in a case brought by 59-year-old Marie Fleming, a former UCD lecturer, who was in the final stages of multiple sclerosis. She wanted help to end her life at a time of her own choosing.
The full seven-judge court ruled that the right to life did not import into the Constitution a right to die, and said there was no express right in the Constitution to commit suicide. Reading the judgment, Chief Justice Mrs Susan Denham said there was no constitutional right to commit suicide or for people to arrange for the termination of one’s own life at a time of their own choosing.
However, she added that there was nothing in the judgment to prevent the State from introducing legislative measures, with appropriate safeguards, to deal with cases such as Ms Fleming’s. The latter died months after the ruling, on December 20, 2013.
In a foreword to a new book entitled Assisted Dying — Who Makes the Final decision? the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling Discworld series, Terry Pratchett says: “I don’t fear death, but, like many other people, I do fear dying badly”. In December 2007, he announced that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.
Sir Graeme Catto President of the College of Medicine in the UK, has claimed, that we are at a turning-point in the history of assisted dying and the campaign for greater choice at the end of life.
The decision by the former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey to support a change in the law puts him at odds with the present Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who has warned that any change in the law is “mistaken and dangerous” and would leave a “sword of Damocles” over the elderly.
Announcing that he had changed his mind on the issue, George Carey said: “The old philosophical certainties have collapsed in the face of the reality of needless suffering.
Today we face a central paradox. In strictly observing the sanctity of life, the Church could now actually be sanctioning anguish and pain, the very opposite of the Christian message of hope”.
Days after the Carey statement, an even more formidable figure, Desmond Tutu, the retired Archbishop of Cape Town in South Africa, said a dignified death is our right — that’s why he said he was in favour of assisted dying. “I do not want my life prolonged artificially. I revere the sanctity of life but not at any cost.”
He also said that what was done to Nelson Mandela (his great friend) was “disgraceful”. He was kept alive through several painful hospitalisations, and forced to endure being televised with South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma, even though you could see he wasn’t “fully there”. “He did not speak. He was not connecting. My friend was no longer himself. It was an affront to his dignity.”
Indeed, there is reason to believe that it may well have been what Pope Benedict XVI witnessed during the final phase of Pope John Paul II’s long pontificate — when he was in the grip of Parkinson’s Disease and clearly no longer able to carry out his functions — that prompted his own shock decision to abdicate.
As Fr Andrew Greeley observed in his 2005 book The Making of the Pope (written just before the Conclave that elected Joseph Ratzinger), no one was “really in charge” for the last three years of Karol Wojtyla’s papacy.
Today’s vote in the House of Lords on the Bill introduced by Lord Falconer will show if indeed a turning-point in the history of assisted dying has been reached.
In May 2006, a somewhat similar measure — the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill — introduced by Lord Joffre, was defeated in the House of Lords by 148 votes to 100. This time the proponents of change, like Terry Pratchett, will be hoping for a different outcome.
