Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
I'm sure you won't agree, but yes, I believe there is. Why should a spouse or other loved one be forced to maintain a terminally ill patient, incurring all of the tremendous costs involved, if there is absolutely nothing that can be done to save the patient? (Assuming, of course, that the patient is ready and willing to die.)

And I also wonder how long hospitals and doctors would keep those patients alive if they could no longer receive any funds, either from the family or the insurance, but had to pay to keep those patients alive themselves? I would guess they would quickly lose about 95% of their "moral" objections to termination.
I'm not sure if I agree or not, which is why I asked the question: I hadn't een thought of the situation where the hospital might want to accelerate death because of the cost (or the need to free up a bed). And again, many people choose to die at home.

I don't have a position on this question - or maybe I have several mutually incompatible ones - but this is a problem that is exercising many legal brains over here.

Sir Terry Pratchett, who suffers from Alzheimer's Disease, argued for the creation of tribunals that could "authorise" the voluntary death of an individual by "gentle medical means," in his Dimbleby Lecture earlier this month, (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...icide-tribunal to read an extract).

"... I have vowed that rather than let Alzheimer's take me, I would take it. I would live my life as ever to the full and die, before the disease mounted its last attack, in my own home, in a chair on the lawn, with a brandy in my hand to wash down whatever modern version of the Brompton Cocktail some helpful medic could supply. And with Thomas Tallis on my iPod, I would shake hands with Death."

(I can almost hear Spem in Alium myself, the music filling my head and the taste of brandy on my lips, and while warming rays of sunlight fall onto this halcyon picture my own still body waits while the shadow of the Grim Reaper slowly approaches ... Enough of that!!)

" ... That is why I and others have suggested some kind of strictly non-aggressive tribunal that would establish the facts of the case well before the assisted death takes place. This might make some people, including me, a little uneasy as it suggests the government has the power to tell you whether you can live or die. But, that said, the government cannot sidestep the responsibility to ensure the protection of the vulnerable and we must respect that. It grieves me that those against assisted death seem to assume, as a matter of course, that those of us who support it have not thought long and hard about this very issue. It is, in fact, at the soul and centre of my argument."


Sir Terry points out that, in his view, such a tribunal would be working both in the public interest, and as protector or guardian of the "applicant". A terrible responsibility that could be fulfilled only by the wise heads of professional people who had built up long experience of dealing with the terminally ill.

A reasonable preacaution. Who could measure up to it?

He then goes on to deal with the point made by the hospice nurse I referred to earlier (although not entirely satisfactorily, from my point of view): "The Care not Killing Alliance assures us that no one need consider a voluntary death of any sort since care is always available. This is questionable. Medicine is keeping more and more people alive, all requiring more and more care. Alzheimer's and other dementias place a huge care burden on the country. A burden that falls initially on the next of kin who may even be elderly and, indeed, be in need of some sort of care themselves."

Care Not Killing is an association that lobbies against "right-to-die" movements. It points out that, no-one can prevent you killing yourself, but equally, no-one should be allowed to kill you. Not even a doctor. The association is supported by some eminent health practitioners who worry that Britain could introduce "on demand" euthanasia unwittingly, and ride roughsod over a 2,000 year old medical tradition of preserving life, not taking it. They question the publicity given to Ray Gosling's confession by the BBC, which, they suggest, should have informed the police before screening the programme, and they quote the Archbishop of Canterbury's assertion that granting a right-to-die would be a moral mistake that would upset the "balance of freedoms": "... the current law served the public better than an 'opening of the door' into provision for the legal ending of lives."

I have to admit, this patchwork of quotations has set my head spinning, and probably does no justice to either side of the argument. Yet we are all entitled to form a view, if we can, on whatever information we are aware of. As yet, I cannot. I worry about terminating life, when, as an atheist, all I can see is, life is all we have, and life is sweet. Yet I sympathise with Sir Terry Pratchett when he says: "... if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice."