Courtrooms should not be used to solve emotional dilemmas
THIS week Noel Conway is in the courts fighting for his right to die.
Last week the parents of Alfie Evans were in the courts fighting for his right to live.
A few months before that Chris Gard and Connie Yates were there, fighting for their baby Charlie Gard to be kept alive.
The frequency and fury behind these cases reveal all too clearly that our current system isn’t working.
Our antiseptic courtrooms are entirely unsuitable for fighting out these issues to the death.
In fact all they are doing is entrenching views and polarising conversations we all need to start having as a society about life and death.
And about individuals’ free will – or not – to control those things.
Since our laws were made about when life must be ended and when life must never be ended, so much has changed.
Death in childhood has gone from something which touched most families to a rarity. And advanced treatments and surgical procedures mean more people of all ages are kept alive for longer.
At the same time we’ve become a deeply questioning and sceptical society where the judgement of “experts” must be held to scrutiny. Even, on occasions we’ve seen recently, to scorn.
Meanwhile religious faith in an afterlife has become a belief held by a minority. So no longer as a society are people prepared for judgements to be made for a purely moral or spiritual reason. The world has changed. And our laws seem illequipped for the here and now.
Take former college lecturer Noel Conway. Once a keen walker and skier, his life is being stolen from him day by day by motor neurone disease. He is challenging the 1961 Suicide Act.
He’s been back and forward to the courts claiming that when he is still in sound mind he should be legally entitled to take his own life.
In January the High Court said “No”. Now he hopes the Appeal Court will overturn that ruling. There are clearly huge concerns about the right to die. Because behind every well-intentioned ruling to reduce pain for individuals may lie unforeseen consequences – how could our society, with its disposable culture, regard the sick and elderly in future?
And for every well-intentioned ruling on allowing parents to keep their seriously sick babies alive, what could be the unforeseen consequences for the children themselves – and for other parents with children in these situations?
These are complex and highly emotional dilemmas. But one
Laws seem ill-equipped for the here and now
thing is for sure – our courtrooms are not the place to solve them.
We need to talk about life and death, and what it means, in a sensible, constructive way. Charlie Gard’s parents are talking about a Charlie’s Law which would mean tribunals could help medical professionals and parents work together constructively rather than combatively in a courtroom.
It’s a great idea – but just the beginning. For while death will always be with us, how we deal with it should always be open to change.
What skill the surgeon must have who has finally crafted a straight, symmetrical nose on Mike Tindall’s face. But could they put a smile on his mother-inlaw’s face. That might be a challenge too far.