The ‘slippery slope’ argument we so often hear has not become a reality
The first assisted dying law came into practice over eighteen years ago in the US state of Oregon after a public referendum. Since the law’s inception yearly reports have collated and published information and data which shows how the law works, and critically, highlight that a transparent law is better than the current situation we have in the UK.
The latest report shows that last year 155 people obtained life-ending medication, while 105 had an assisted death. The most recent data we have on the death rate in Oregon is from 2013 when 33,931 people died. This means that 0.3 per cent of deaths per year are assisted.
This is a small – but significant – number of people who exercised control over their imminent death. Many more people would have benefited from openly talking about this choice with their doctor (1 in 50 dying Oregonians initiate these conversations) and simply having the peace of mind of knowing it is an option if they need it will help many people with a terminal diagnosis.
This is not the case in the UK for dying Britons. Currently a person can be prosecuted and imprisoned for up to 14 years for assisting a loved one to die. One person a fortnight is travelling to Dignitas, choosing an assisted death earlier than they would if legal in this country.
Remarkably, British people make up the second largest nationality of patients at Dignitas after Germany, which shares a border with Switzerland. For every person who goes abroad, a further ten terminally ill people are ending their life in the UK, often alone.
Kevin Davis had lost the use of his legs as he was in the last stages of renal cancer and was found at the bottom of the stairs in a pool of blood after he had attempted to end his life. His family do not know how long he lay there, possibly alive. Crucially, we must not forget that there are many more people that are currently suffering against their wishes and will die without the choice that is their right.
If Oregon has shown assisted dying works safely for over 18 years then why hasn’t the UK changed the law already? The British public overwhelmingly support assisted dying and recently Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill won two key votes at Committee Stage – the first vote in Westminster on an assisted dying law for ten years – which showed a 2:1 majority of support in the House of Lords. Now it is looking as if the only barrier to law change is time.
But a vocal minority of opponents seem determined to stop dying people having the option of assisted dying and are now putting their own spin on the latest Oregon report. The number of assisted deaths rose 44 per cent in the last year from 73 to 105, but solely referring to this does not give an accurate picture, especially as other years have seen a drop. The percentage increase sounds dramatic but the absolute numbers involved are very low, and only 0.3 per cent of deaths in Oregon are assisted.
This hasn’t stopped Lord Carlile of Berriew drawing unfounded conclusions though. Speaking to the Catholic Herald, he said:
“I regard these as alarming figures…It suggests to me that in amongst these figures there are cases of people making the decision for assisted suicide for the wrong reasons – such as economic reasons, including the cost of private health care, draining the family assets, feeling a nuisance to their children, depression.”
There is actually no basis for these ‘suggestions’ in the report, which lists the three most common reasons for an assisted death as ‘loss of autonomy’ (91.4 per cent), decreasing ability to participate in activities that made life enjoyable (86.7 per cent) and loss of dignity (71.4 per cent).
In fact the report demonstrates that the law you enact is the law you get: the criteria for assisted dying has not been extended beyond terminal illness for the eighteen years the law has been in place, so the ‘slippery slope’ argument we so often hear has not become reality. Ultimately it is up to the dying patient to choose if they want an assisted death.
This is not the debate that the public deserve. Oregon has shown that a clear and transparent law can give dying people choice while better protecting vulnerable people.
Mickey Charouneau is press officer at Dignity in Dying. Follow him on Twittter
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45 Responses to “Oregon shows that assisted dying can work safely”
treborc1
We are not the USA and with everything now happening and the cost of our NHS I would not trust two doctors not to decide my life is unworthy so get rid of him .
No sorry the simple fact I’ve seen doctors help people to die they did with my father and we had to sigh to agree with giving my father a double dose of morphine. I watched the doctor not the nurse give it, before he gave it he said you know what this means and I said yes . he said are you sure and I looked at my old man laying in bed struggling to breath unconscious and I said yes . he was 88 years of age his heart was twice the size and he had been in hospital fighting for three months.
But I’ve regretted it ever since..
Mason Dixon, Autistic
I didn’t bring Scope into this, you did. The question has been put to you very clearly: why is it that Dignity in Dying has failed to convince organisations that campaign for rights for people who often are at risk of becoming terminal to consider assisted suicide to be an important right to have? I’m asking you questions I already suspect the answers to because your organisation is treated very gently by the media and balanced only by an easily dismissed religious opposition. I want to know if Dignity in Dying can argue the principle of assisted suicide on its own merits, without resorting to ad populism.
Leon Wolfeson
On the medical professional side, on reflection, a clear delineation that the bill is outside of NHS duties.
On the safeguard side, a dual system of legal and medical which would both have to be followed. I note that the proposed system would in fact not deal with most of the high-profile cases and if this law had been settled, then in at least one case murder charges would have been mandatory.
Mickey Charouneau
Dignity in Dying doesn’t campaign for assisted suicide, we campaign for assisted dying.
You need to ask the disability rights groups why, seeing as they appear to be ignoring the majority views of people with disabilities who support the Bill.
We don’t really have religious opponents, one of our biggest supporters is former Archbishop George Carey, and majority of people with faith support assisted dying. Majority of opposition comes from some people with disabilities.
I feel we’re going round in circles, what was your response to the evidence in Oregon?
Mason Dixon, Autistic
That disabled people are revealed to share pretty much the same perspective as the general population is not a revelation. It’s not a homogenous group and people will hold the same prejudices for conditions they don’t have which are also held by people without any disability or illness. You don’t have the support of *any* organisation of disabled people because the only ‘right’ you are interested in is one which contradicts in principle the social model that is the basis of rights that disabled and chronically ill people have actually fought for.
You will go around in circles for as long as ‘its popular therefore its right’ is all you have to speak as a case and can’t get assisted suicide to stand on it’s own merits. I call it that because assisted dying is euthanasia, which is illegal and should always be illegal.