Euthanasia and Assisted Dying
What is Euthanasia?
It basically means to end a patient's life who is suffering due to a painful or incurable disease.
There are several different categories within this and in order to understand the debate around it it is important to know each meaning.
Active Euthanasia- when someone intervenes and deliberately ends someone's life (it has been planned)
Passive Euthanasia- death is caused as a result of upholding the essentials needed to survive eg. not feeding food to a patient in a comma.
Voluntary Euthanasia- the patient requests to die
Involuntary Euthanasia- when the patient who wants to live dies anyway (this arguably the main reason why it is banned in the UK due to cases like Harold Shipman- a doctor who gave patients lethal drugs and signed death certificates stating the patients requested this or that death was due to illness, estimated to kill over 200 people!)
Assisted Suicide- the physician will hand the lethal drug so the patient ends their own life.
Assited Dying- this is a subterm of assited suicide but is only used when the patient is already dying.
Arguments for Euthanasia
Autonomy is one of the 4 medical pillars, which states that the patient will make their own choices, so if the patient would like to end their life, they should have the right to do so
Sometimes the most compassionate and loving thing to do is for the patient to end their life, so some may even say allowing it obeys the medical pillar of beneficience as you may be promoting their well-being and relieving their suffering
Many people will go abroad to do this, so will still end up doing it, the only difference is they cannot die with their loved ones next to them.
Democracy is a key part of out country, and 76% of the public and 80% of healthcare workers believe euthanasia should be legalised. the MPs should be representing the public not just expressing their own personal views on a matter!
If Euthanasia is leaglised it does not necessarily mean that all patients who fall into the category will take it, it will most likely comfort many that they can chose to do it if they wanted to.
If it is not leaglised many will still attempt to end their lives, but just in an unsafe and dangerous way, carrying it out wrongly- this is similar to what happened when abortion was illegal.
In modern-day society people should be able to make their own choices as long it does not harm anyone and euthanasia does not directly harm anyone.
Professor Sam Ahmedzai a retired palliative care doctor and former NHS advisor on end-of-end life care said comapring countries with and without assisted dying, both systems work parallel to each other- where assited dying has been introduced, palliative care has been improved Arguments against Euthanasia
Physicians have sworn an oath not to do harm and Euthanasia directly opposes this, it also goes against the medical pillar of non maleficence which means to do no harm to patient
It is irreversible so if in the near future a new cure was invented that could have saved the patient, it would be too late for them to be saved.
Legalising may pave the way for other laws, effecting more vulnerable groups, for example in Belgium even children can have euthanasia
The governments have been put in charge as they know what is best for the public, they can forsee the long-term benefit for individuals and are generally in a better position to make desicions.
The same way that doctors can refuse to do certain treatments on patients if they do not believe it will be beneficial or in patient's best interest, euthanasia can also be viewed as a treatment as drugs are given.
This may reduce the patient's trust for the doctor due to cases like Harold Shipman. This legalisation would also assume docotor's are benevolent when in fact the doctor may agree to euthanasia as it is the easier path for the doctor.
The UK has a very good palliative care and there are many hospices which supports end of life care.
What are the recent changes and debated on Euthanasia?
An MP recently proposed a new law for assisted dying to give terminally ill people the right to choose to end their lives. The condiitons include that the patient must be expected to die within 6 months, this being signed by two seprate doctors with at least 7 days between each assessment, the patient would also take the drug themselves.
The government is expected to revisit Terminally Ill Adults Bill on June 13th 2025 for further debate.
In the Isle of Man the Assisted Dying Bill is reaching its final stages in the Manx parliment and in May 2024 Jersey approved plan to allow assisted dying for those with a terminal illness- this should be implemented in 2027 (earliest).