Learning from the last debate

In his foreword to my book Euthanasia, Ethics and Public Policy (2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 2018), Lord Judge described euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide as ‘the great moral and legal issue of our time’. Over the past 20 years several attempts have been made to legalise physician-assisted suicide in England and Wales. Bills have been modelled on the Death with Dignity Act in the US state of Oregon, which allows physician-assisted suicide for competent patients with a ‘terminal illness’. More recent Bills, like the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill introduced by Kim Leadbeater MP, which passed its second reading last month, have added the requirement of a High Court declaration that the criteria have been satisfied.

A call for clarity

This article will, for two reasons, refer to ‘physician-assisted suicide’ not ‘assisted dying’. First, there is no crime of ‘assisting dying’ known to the law: the Suicide Act 1961 prohibits