The right to take ones own life Suicide is not illegal in the United Kingdom and has not been since the Act of 1961.13 Lawyers will point out that the decision to decriminalisation of suicide was to stop the subsequent prosecution of people after a failed suicide attempt. The 1961 Act was introduced because it was rightly felt that such people need medical help not prison. However, it is clear that, certainly in the public mind, there is now a fundamental right (or even a human right) to commit suicide. Consider a scenario where a person cannot commit suicide because he or she suffers from motor neurone disease or is quadriplegic and so asks the help of another to perform the act of suicide. Is that murder (as would be in any other context) or helping that individual in fulfilling his or her human right?14 One could argue that a safeguard could be that a compassionate relative is the most suitable to help you commit suicide if you are unable to do it yourself. Unfortunately, since one is most likely to be murdered by someone you know rather than a doctor [16] and there is always the possibility of a secondary gain of inheritance, means that discerning motives of the relatives and helpers as well as the state of mind of the vulnerable individual who is contemplating assisted suicide are absolutely vital. This suggests that the safest way would be for a group of doctors, who would legally not be able to benefit from such a death, to interview all concerned, including the family doctor and relatives, as well as psychologically assessing the person contemplating VAE/PAS.
13
The Suicide Act 1961 (9 & 10 Eliz.2 c.60) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It decriminalised the act of suicide so that those who failed in the attempt would no longer be prosecuted. The Suicide Act was, however, a significant piece of legislation for, while s1 treated the rule of law that suicide is a crime as ‘abrogated’, s2(1) stated: ‘A person who aids, abets, counsels or procures the suicide of another, or attempt by another to commit suicide shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years.’ This created a new offence of 'complicity in suicide', but the effect is unparalleled in this branch of the law because there is no other instance in which an accessory can incur liability when the principal does not commit a criminal offence. The situation with a conspiracy to assist a suicide is likewise unique: if an individual incapable of committing suicide for him- or herself enlists the aid of an outside party in performing the act, that party may be charged with conspiracy. The wording of s1(1) Criminal Law Act 1977 provides that a conspiracy will come into being if, when everything has been done to realise the agreement, some conduct: (a) will necessarily amount to or involve the commission of any offence or offences by one or more of the parties to the agreement ... No offence will necessarily be committed by the suicide victim if the agreement is carried out, but the fact that it is legally impossible to commit the crime of suicide is irrelevant under the Criminal Attempts Act 1981 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_Act_1961).
14
The first human rights (Human Rights Act 1998) challenge to s2(1) was mounted in 2001 under the European Convention on Human Rights in Pretty v Director of Public Prosecutions (2002) 1 AC 800 with the ECHR rejecting the application in Pretty v UK (2346/02) shortly before her death by natural causes. Diane Pretty was suffering from motor neurone disease and was paralysed from the neck down, had little decipherable speech and was fed by a tube. She had only a few weeks to live, claimed to be frightened and distressed by the suffering and indignity, and wanted her husband to provide her with assistance in ending her life when she felt unable to bear it any longer, although she intended to perform the final act herself. Because giving this assistance would expose the husband to liability under s2(1), the DPP was asked to agree not to prosecute. When this agreement was refused, the case began. Article 2 of the Convention provides: 1. Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No-one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law. This direct challenge to the legislation sought to assert an individual's right of autonomy against public policies protecting the sanctity of human life. Mrs Pretty's full capacity for informed, rational consent was not disputed by opposing counsel. In Re B (Adult: Refusal of Medical Treatment) (2002) 2 AER 449 the court had already decided that a patient could refuse treatment knowing that this would result in death. However, the court in this case drew a distinction between passively allowing death through omission and active assistance in suicide, as per R v Brown (1993) 2 All ER 75 (the famous Spanner case), which ruled that a person cannot lawfully consent to anything more than the infliction of minor injury. Thus, the standing adjudication in English common law is that, as dying is an inevitable consequence of life, the right to life under the Convention necessarily implies the right to have nature take its course (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_Act_1961).
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Journal of Observational Pain Medicine – Volume 1, Number 1 (2012) ISSN 2047-0800