How do we as a nation really feel about assisted suicide?

For a long time people who had successfully committed suicide were not permitted burial in consecrated church ground and up until the Suicide Act 1961 came into force, attempted suicide was a crime punishable by law. The crime of committing suicide has been abrogated; however, assisting suicide remains a crime.

Setting aside for the moment the religious debate and entering the moral argument, the rights and wrongs of this fact continue to be hotly debated. By now we all know the arguments. On the one hand, the right to die at a time of your own choosing, with dignity and amongst family. On the other lies the grizzly issue of abuse, and the protection of vulnerable people from decisions made by family members on their behalf regarding the quality of life of those under their care.
Sir Terry Pratchett, the much loved author who has struggled with alzheimers, has entered the debate and stated his aim to help establish a tribunal to provide seriously ill people with legal permission to end their own lives. The author has offered himself as a ‘test case’ for these tribunals, which would include members of the medical profession familiar with terminal illness.

Like attempting to see clearly in the dark on cloudy starless night, the discussion is largely opaque to the vast majority of us. It is challenging to engage fully with the debate unless you yourself or a member of your family is seriously or perhaps terminally ill. No outside experience can guide judgement, and the deepest pit the imagination can stretch to cannot envisage the degree of daily torture that would make assisted suicide the desired alternative. Like mentally venturing out on the aforementioned night, the temptation is to rush home and switch the light on, return to comfortable normality and not to stray into the darkness and strain our eyes to search out uncomfortable truths…

I cannot imagine the level of extreme anguish and compassion that would persuade a person to help a loved one to commit suicide. Despite the relief that must be felt for the deceased set free of worldly suffering, there must be a dark well of personal grief. The sacrifice of that person is undoubtedly great.

But there is another layer to the issue, beneath the rights of the individual and the protection of vulnerable people, there is an underlying squeamishness in this country when it comes to death. Until fairly recently in the history of our culture, death happened at home, in bed and witnessed by family. Death as a sterile medical process occurring in hospital is a modern invention- perhaps it could be argued, not one of our best. Life is kept distinct from death and death seems, largely, preventable. The very idea of death seems almost unnatural, therefore the notion of assisted suicide is perverse.

This might all be set to change. Last week Kay Gilderdale, from Stonegate in East Sussex was cleared of attempted murder after assisting her daughter Lynn- who had been bed-ridden for 16 years- to commit suicide. Kay will appear on tonight’s BBC One Panorama programme: I Helped My Daughter to Die. In addition, a poll conducted by the programme found 73% of those surveyed believed that the assisted suicide of a terminally ill loved one, should be allowed.

Sir Terry is due to set out his ideas in tonight’s Richard Dimbleby lecture. In the keynote lecture Shaking Hands With Death the fantasy author will present his thoughts in favour of the legalisation of assisted suicide. So the debate looks set to intensify.

Whichever conclusion is reached, the issue needs to be resolved in order to stabilise the current uncertain legal ground, upon which rests the crime of assisted suicide.

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