This is Prospect’s rolling coverage of the assisted dying debate. This page will be updated with the latest from our correspondent, Mark Mardell. Read the rest of our coverage here
7th April
The BBC’s medical editor Fergus Walsh has made two extraordinary films about assisted dying in North America—both well worth watching. Although they are as neutral and balanced as you would expect, the central person in both is someone who has chosen to die.
In California, 80-year-old Wayne Hawkins invites the cameras in as he takes the lethal dose. Thirty-five minutes later he is pronounced dead. I feel anxious about being a witness to this moment, sitting at home in front my laptop, worried that I will feel voyeuristic and ethically uncomfortable, but that isn’t the case. It is profoundly moving, and sad, but the sadness lessened because it is what he, his wife and his children wanted. Seeing him take the liquid that kills him somehow demystifies the process—and I find it hard to see how anyone could object to his choice.
The Canadian example is just as moving, but far more contentious—and even if Leadbeater’s bill does eventually become law in England and Wales, it would not be allowed here. That is because 39-year-old April Hubbard, far from having only six months to live, could go on for 40 years. She is not terminally ill. But she was born with Spina bifida and tells Fergus: “My suffering and pain are increasing and I don’t have the quality of life anymore that makes me happy and fulfilled.” Every time she moves or breathes, she says it feels like the tissues from the base of her spine “are being pulled like a rubber band that stretches too far”, and that her lower limbs leave her in agony.
Hubbard is a performance artist and intends to die on stage, in a big bed, surrounded by friends. She says she feels reassured by the knowledge she will have an assisted death. “Without that safety I don’t think I’d have the courage to keep taking the risk of living, and I think I would have made that choice to end it myself, and alone, and without the support of the people I love, long ago, and my fear is that that’s what will happen for many folks around the world.”
Indeed, that is exactly the truth of the situation in the UK even if the assisted dying bill becomes law. A combination of Leadbeater’s own deep pragmatic caution, the fears of disability campaigns amplified by those with religious objections, and cowed MPs more concerned about getting it wrong than getting it right has brought us here. It is a mix that makes for a law that still outrages opponents and is marginally more reassuring for some, but completely useless for others.
