Time to rethink law on assisted deaths, says top surgeon dying of cancer
A TOP brain surgeon with advanced prostate cancer yesterday called for an inquiry into assisted dying.
Henry Marsh, 71, insisted a review is ‘absolutely essential’ – and said opponents fear ‘losing the debate’.
The retired neurosurgeon, who is also a best-selling author, was diagnosed six months ago.
He has now given his support to a group of more than 50 MPs and peers who have written to Justice Secretary Robert Buckland calling for a review.
Mr Marsh said: ‘It is extraordinarily difficult to think about your own death.
‘My own suspicion as to why the opponents to assisted dying oppose a public inquiry is they fear that actually the evidence is so strong that their hypothetical arguments against it don’t hold water, that they will lose the debate.’
The letter argues that UK laws on assisted dying are behind the rest of the world. Assisting suicide still carries a jail sentence of up to 14 years in England and Wales.
This includes buying a friend or loved one a ticket to Switzerland, where clinics such as Dignitas provide legal assisted dying.
Some signatories are politicians who previously voted against any such law change.
The letter was organised by Humanists UK and campaign group My Death, My Decision, of which Mr Marsh is a patron.
Mr Marsh is due to start radiotherapy in a few months but believes ‘something should be done to change the law in this country’. He told the BBC yesterday he felt ‘deeply shocked and terribly frightened and upset’ when he learnt how serious his diagnosis was.
The neurosurgeon said he had backed assisted dying in ‘one form or another’ in the past, but only in theory. However, Mr Marsh admitted he never thought it might apply to him.
Breakthroughs in medical science in the last 50 years, particularly in palliative care, have made assisted dying an inflammatory topic. In October, a poll revealed half of doctors believe there should be a change in the law to allow patients to be prescribed life-ending drugs.
But chief executive of the Care Not Killing alliance, Dr Gordon Macdonald, said: ‘Our current laws protect the most vulnerable in our society – the elderly, the sick and disabled – from feeling pressured into ending their lives, exactly as we see in the handful of places around the world that allow assisted suicide or euthanasia.’
Andrew Copson, chief executive of Humanists UK, said: ‘The ability to choose how, where and when we die is a fundamental freedom which cuts across party political and ideological lines.
‘In coming together to demand an inquiry, Henry and the lawmakers who have signed this letter have put the voices of the terminally ill and incurably suffering at the centre of the debate.’
Mr Marsh became a neurosurgeon 40 years ago after his threemonth-old son had a brain tumour removed. He pioneered the technique of awake craniotomy, where a tumour is ‘sucked’ out while the patient is conscious.
In his bestselling 2014 memoir Do No Harm, he wrote: ‘Life without hope is hopelessly difficult but at the end hope can so easily make fools of us all.’
‘Behind rest of the world’