Letter from Dr Louise Gibbs, Dr Emma Hall,
Dr Victor Pace, Dr Debra Swann and Dr Nigel Sykes, Consultants
in Palliative Medicine, St Christopher's Hospice, London
We write in support of the submission to the
Select Committee from the Association of Palliative Medicine,
of which we are all members. As consultants in palliative medicine
we jointly care for over 1,800 terminally ill people each year
either in their own homes or in the Hospice wards. In our view
the Association has produced an excellent summary of the key issues
that relate to the Bill's provisions and we fully endorse its
clear opposition to the legalisation of physician assisted suicide
or euthanasia. Among the submission's many well-taken points we
would like to emphasise the following:
— Legalisation of euthanasia/assisted
suicide is likely to jeopardise the vulnerable. As the submission
explains this is partly because of the sense of burden many terminally
ill people feel, that may impel them to offer themselves for euthanasia,
once available, as the "decent thing" to do for the
sake of their families. It is also because once precipitating
death has been declared a moral good by being legalised in certain
circumstances those circumstances will inevitably, through a process
of attitudinal shift, be widened to include others, particularly
the incompetent. Involuntary euthanasia will speedily become a
reality and euthanasia will become the alternative to good care
for an increasing range of conditions. Additionally, should a
request for euthanasia become a ticket to a palliative care bed
this will distort clinical priorities and potentially deny needy
people the care they deserve.
— While approving of the inclusion
in the draft Bill of a conscience clause for doctors who feel
unable to take part in assisted suicide/euthanasia, we deprecate
the legal requirement for such doctors to refer such patients
to another doctor without similar scruples. This amounts to forced
complicity in the euthanasia/assisted suicide process and would
be an unjust and intolerable imposition upon the doctors concerned.
12 August 2004
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