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
10th February
A piece of smart detective work by an Australian coroner following a particularly sad suicide has led to a review of the laws in Victoria state governing assisted dying—and might lead to the sort of changes some campaigners here would like to see to the Leadbeater bill.
Simon McGregor, a coroner in Victoria state, was examining the grisly case of an 82-year-old man who’d suffered a serious stroke but was turned down for voluntary assisted dying (VAD). He stabbed himself in the leg and bled to death.
Mr McGregor said the man would not have been eligible for VAD in Victoria, which reserves the procedure for people suffering from an incurable, advanced and progressive disease expected to cause death within six months. This led the coroner to order an investigation into other similar deaths.
They found nine cases of people who had tried to access VAD but were refused because they did not meet all the relevant criteria. Eight subsequently took their own lives—the ninth possibly killed themselves but the coroner could not be sure (which may be why the number is widely reported as eight, rather than nine).
Mr McGregor said: “A recurring theme throughout many of these deaths was the impact that voluntary assisted dying refusal had on the deceased.
“Family members often reported that when people believed they would have access to voluntary assisted dying they maintained hope that they would be able to exercise control over how they died.
“When their access to voluntary assisted dying was refused, their consequent despair and frustration contributed to their decision to take their own life.”
He concluded: “I understand the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act was the result of a thorough process through which the executive and legislative arms of government debated conflicting legal, ethical and clinical considerations. The circumstance of an individual suicide, or even 10 suicides, may not carry much weight in comparison. However, I’d ask the Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board to remain open to considering this finding as part of a developing body of evidence about whether there may be opportunities to improve the operation of voluntary assisted dying in the state.” It has been reported the board is now doing that, but the process is lengthy and subject to political whims.
There are campaigners here who’d like the Leadbeater bill to drop the six-month requirement or, at the very least, allow exceptions in certain cases. After all, the Scottish assisted dying bill has no time restriction at all, but simply states that the condition must be an unrecoverable one that can reasonably be expected to cause premature death.
There’s been much debate about how difficult it is to predict death with precision, and the looser criteria seem to make sense to me—but it’s not going to happen for the Leadbeater bill. Chief medical officer Chris Whitty has supported the six-month limit, and I’m told campaigners believe Leadbeater has no interest in widening the bill or doing anything at the moment that might attract even more opposition. It already faces plenty.
