Written by From the Editor, The Tablet, 14 February 2025
As was entirely predictable, the proposed law to allow state-assisted suicide in England and Wales is in trouble. The House of Commons committee examining the draft bill has comprehensively proved the adage that “the devil lies in the detail”. It is likely, therefore, that the bill that emerges from the committee and goes back to the Commons for approval will not be what MPs voted for during the second reading debate. For instance, the feature which made the bill’s original supporters hail it as having the most robust safeguards of any such legislation in the world – that each case had to be approved by a High Court judge – is being dropped in favour of “a panel of experts”.
No such proposition was mentioned in the second reading debate, while great play was made of the role of a judge. In other words, a strict legal test is being replaced by the collective opinion of three or more professionals, all of whom must have indicated that they favoured the principle of assisted suicide under some conditions, otherwise they would not be appointed to the panel. This substitutes a subjective test for an objective one. It is not robust at all. It is a safe bet such a panel will never say No.
The key issue here is the doctrine of absolute personal autonomy: that one “owns” one’s life and should therefore have a right to end it. It does not belong to family, society or God. The only essential condition is that it must be a free choice, made by someone in possession of their faculties and knowing that they have six months or less to live. This imposes an obligation on society – in this case via the state – not only to provide the necessary means for doing so, but also to verify that the choice is a free one. Hence the judge.
But complete personal autonomy is a myth; so is absolute freedom of choice. Human beings depend on other people, even from birth; and they have a moral responsibility to weigh the effect of their actions on others. Nor are their actions free from the influence of others. This is not just “pressure” from friends and relations, which the draft legislation claims it can detect. A person with a terminal illness is manifestly a burden on others, and the knowledge of that is a form of pressure that will always be there.
A civilised society accepts that burden, but it is nonsense to pretend it does not exist. So what happens when that burden – probably a costly one – becomes the result of a free choice whether or not to request a suicide pill? Does this not create, to use the language of Cardinal Vincent Nichols, a duty to remove that burden, “a duty to die”? Does this not compromise the right to life of every other member of the population, young or old, well or ill?
The drafters of the legislation still seem to believe there is a form of words they can devise that will remove all these intractable dilemmas. It is much more likely they will be forced to botch them, while denying they have done so. But Parliament must not be so easily persuaded.
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