Mal Fletcher comments

Mal Fletcher

Author Terry Pratchett has made no secret of his desire to request an assisted death at the time and in the manner of his choosing.

In a BBC documentary aired last week, Mr. Pratchett, who suffers from the onset of Alzheimer's disease, said: 'Is it possible for someone like me, or you, to arrange the death they want?'

'When I can no longer write my books, I'm not sure I will want to go on living,' he added.

The argument over assisted dying and its bedfellow euthanasia is not a new one.

Indeed, the issue of whether one has the 'right' to end one's life has long been a subject that has vexed philosophers, ethicists and theologians alike. The idea of empowering another party, in law, to 'assist' in the process, to actually inject the chemical that ends a life, is an extension of that debate.

Yet in our time, the debate has taken on an almost trendy quality. Recently, a number of prominent British celebrities, among them actor Patrick Stewart, publicly announced that they will be seeking an assisted death when, in their own estimation, they will no longer be able to function independently or to enjoy a certain quality of life.

The enshrining into law of the right to assisted death may sound very tolerant, but it is a ticking time bomb. It is a disaster waiting to happen, especially in the longer term, and for more than moral reasons alone.

Its potential impact on our social structure should not be underestimated.

First of all, there is the issue of how assisted death, were it to be legalised and instituionalised, would be administered.

Dignitas is a privately owned Swiss organisation that provides assisted dying as a service. Much has been made of the stories of the few British people who've paid the fees and travelled to the clinic in Switzerland to die.

Very little is written about the many thousands who stay at home and receive palliative care, passing away relatively peacefully in the hands of caring family members and professionals. (When did you last see a TV documentary on aged or sick people who die well, in a hospital or care facility or at home?)

Terry Pratchett honestly admits that Dignitas sounds like something of a 'one stop shop', offering a highly mechanised and impersonal approach to dying.

Yet this is the inevitable eventual result of empowering professional practitioners to end a life upon request when care, if not cure, is available.

At present, we worry - rightly - about the impact of privatising areas of the National Health Service. Our concern is that profit motives may quickly become more important than the burden of care.