Assisted suicide isn’t so ‘easy’ when we can’t say how long a sick person has left
I note that those wanting to legalise assisted suicide in Scotland are seeking yet again to change the previous decisions of our parliament (“Fresh bid to legalise assisted dying in Scotland”, The Scotsman, 20 April). They will no doubt insist that this would only apply when medical opinion is that the applicant has less than six months to live. Are they aware that only this weekmorethan50seniordoctors wrote to the government in an attempt to persuade it to reverse its decision to limit extra benefits to the terminal- ly ill if the individual had less than six months to live rather than, as previously, less than two years. Their reasoning behind this public intervention is that they don’t believe that a six-month prognosis can be given accurately, and has no meaning in many terminal and incurable illnesses.
Advocates of assisted suicide should take careful note of this. Those 50 members of my profession are aware, as I was over a career caring for and treating cancer patients, that it is impossible to accurately determine that someone with an incurable illness has less than six months to live. Proponents of assisted suicide seem to believe that the “guarantee” that someone has a lifespan limited to those few months will assuage our fears over what is a radical change in medical ethics and practice.
Can doctors reliably and consistently – and honestly – say that an individual patient has less than six months of life left? I have never thought so and never been able to do so.
(DR) ALAN RODGER
Clairmont Gardens, Glasgow
It is hard to imagine anyone who has experience of an old person in distress, pleading day after day, week after week, month after month for help to die and end it all, not to be in favour of assisted dying.
Yes, there are concerns about potential abuses, but other parts of the world with assisted dying legislation seem to have addressed these successfully. Rather, it amounts to abuse of the most helpless and vulnerable members of our society not to help them out when we have the means to do so. I am ashamed to be party to this as, I’m sure, are many others.
PETER JEFFERIES
Sandbank Dunoon, Argyll and Bute
The older one gets the more one realises that our time on earth is limited and the day will come when we depart. The greatest wish of everyone is that at that point it is a painless departure and we have the opportunity to say goodbye to everyone we have loved and to relatives and friends.
What nobody wants, and it is what many currently endure, is a long, lingering death with the medical profession struggling to ensure that the best palliative care is made available.
I was encouraged by “Margo’s Bill”, which incorporated many safeguards, and strongly believe that a civilised society should respect the human rights of a terminally ill patient – when they say enough is enough – and enable them “slip away” at a time of their choice. It would be their choice and it is their right.
ALAN MCKINNEY
Beauchamp Road, Edinburgh