The global slide toward euthanasia

euthanasia THE GLOBAL SLIDE TOWARD

by LIAM GIBSON

When the British Abortion Act was introduced in1967 its supporters insisted that it would not lead to abortion on demand. Every abortion, they said, would have to be approved by two doctors. Fifty-three years on, over 500 babies are killed in Britain every day by abortion and medical approval is just a bureaucratic formality. Once the taking of innocent human life is made lawful, it becomes acceptable and eventually, it’s regarded as normal. This is also true of the practice of assisted suicide which is spreading across the globe at an alarming pace.

Last November, New Zealand’s Parliament approved the End of Life Choices Act by 69 votes to 51. However, the Act requires a referendum before it can be implemented. Under the legislation, New Zealanders over 18 years of age judged to have less than six months to live would be able to request a lethal dose of drugs. Patients would either take these drugs themselves or have them administered by a doctor or nurse practitioner. Although the words “grievous and irremediable” (terms which could be applied to people with depression or a serious disability) were dropped from an earlier version of the Act, attempts to introduce other safeguards were rejected.

In the neighbouring jurisdiction of Victoria, Australia, assisted suicide legislation came into effect in June 2019 and yet this law is already facing calls for further liberalisation. Euthanasia advocates now argue that a requirement for one of the two approving physicians to be a specialist in the patient’s condition is unnecessary. They say terminally ill patients in remote locations may have to travel to see a suitably qualified doctor. In December, a law with fewer safeguards and less conscience protection for medical professionals was passed by the government of Western Australia. It’s expected to come into force sometime next

year. Meanwhile, a draft Bill in Queensland would go further still.1 The proponents of that Bill believe under-18s should also be able to request lethal drugs and people with dementia should be euthanised if they’ve already given their consent in advance.

The same drift toward more and more radical laws seen in Australia is also reflected in the gradual abandonment of restraints in nations where euthanasia has become established. Last year a doctor in the Netherlands was charged with murder after administering a lethal injection to an Alzheimer’s patient while she was held down by her relatives. In February, a Belgium court considered the case of three doctors accused of the unlawful killing of a 38-year-old woman. The woman’s family told the court that while she had psychological problems, she was not suffering from an incurable mental disorder as defined by the law. All the doctors in both cases were exonerated. Opponents of euthanasia expect the legal precedents set by their acquittal to encourage even greater abuses.

Although procedures still have to be agreed, in February, Swiss officials gave the green light for sick prisoners to obtain assisted suicide. The Conference of Cantonal Departments of Justice and Police made its decision after a child molester serving a life sentence requested help to take his own life.

Later the same month, the German Constitutional Court lifted a ban on the practice of assisted suicide for commercial purposes. The ruling, which is even more radical than the law in the Netherlands stated that: “the self-determined act of ending one’s life is a direct, albeit final, expression of the pursuit of personal autonomy inherent in human dignity.” Since the European Court of Human Rights often takes its lead from the German court this represents a significant step towards the creation of a so-called human right to die.

As assisted suicide is increasingly viewed as a legitimate medical procedure in many countries, a debate has opened up about how organ donation and euthanasia might be coordinated. Earlier this year the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published an article by a cardiologist lamenting the fact that organs suitable for transplantation were being lost due to the time taken to retrieve them following euthanasia.2 The underlying assumption of this debate is that if a patient wants to die then why not let doctors end his life by taking his organs while they can still be donated to someone who wants to live. Although safeguards are hardly worth the paper they are written on, proponents of this approach argue that existing procedures would be sufficient to prevent vulnerable and terminally ill people being regarded as little more than a potential source of organs.

In 2005 the “right-to-die” lobby in the United Kingdom succeeded in passing the Mental Capacity Act in England and Wales. This allows – and in certain cases compels – doctors to deny food, fluids and reasonable medical treatment to patients who are neither terminally-ill nor in the immediate dying process (i.e. only days to live). This Act enshrined certain pro-euthanasia principles found in the Law Lords’ 1993 Bland judgment and in subsequent similar court cases. Since then, however, they have failed to make the gains seen in other countries. The downward spiral toward euthanasia that is now spreading across the globe means that the pressure to liberalise the law will inevitably lead to renewed attempts to legalise assisted suicide in Britain. At the same time, the slide into more and more radical practices in the countries which have already taken this route should act as a warning to the people of both the UK and New Zealand alike. Experience teaches us that once doctors are allowed to kill their patients, vulnerable people soon find that the right to die has become a duty-to-die.

New Zealand’s euthanasia referendum is scheduled to take place on Saturday, 19 September 2020.

ENDNOTES:

1. Jamie Walker “Euthanasia law a life of its own Legislation of voluntary assisted dying is gaining pace, state by state, nationwide”, The Australian, 31 August 2019 https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/euthanasia-law-a-life-of-its-own/ news-story/86c0fdfa059b99893526f65f5a0e7987 2. Lisa Rosenbaum, M.D. “Altruism in Extremis — The Evolving Ethics of Organ Donation”, xThe New England Journal of Medicine, 6 Feb 2020. https://www.nejm. org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2000048