Euthanasia
The topic of whether euthanasia or assisted dying should be legalised is soon to be in the public eye again.
The House of Lords is due to debate the issues raised by Lord Joffe's bill on assisted dying for the terminally ill, which ran out of time before the general election last May. Since then the British Medical Association (BMA) the professional body of doctors in the UK has dropped its opposition to the legalisation of assisted dying. This does not mean that individual doctors are in favour of the proposed change in the law but just that the BMA has decided that it is the role of the legislators to decide.
Several links to useful documents follow. First an official statement issued by the Seventh-day Adventist Church then a series of articles in the British Medical Journal (BMJ - the main professional journal for doctors in the UK). The inclusion of the latter is not to imply support or disagreement for the views of the BMJ but to provide an indication of the sort of thoughts presently in doctors' minds.
A Statement of Consensus on Care for the Dying
Approved and voted by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Executive Committee at the Annual Council session in Silver Spring, Maryland, October 9, 1992. [Click here]
A cluster of articles
These presents various opinions about assisted dying, which will be debated In October 2005in the House of Lords.
Branthwaite argues that people who want assisted suicide should have the same rights as patients who can end their lives by refusing life sustaining treatment. George and colleagues say that legalised euthanasia would leave vulnerable groups open to therapeutic killing without consent.
Sommerville says that the BMA has adopted a neutral policy to allow parliament to decide.
Tännsjö presents three moral outlooks and concludes that permitting euthanasia in limited circumstances seems the most beneficial approach.
A Dutchgroup reflects on a decade of monitoring euthanasia in the Netherlands.
Time for change
M A Branthwaite
BMJ 2005 331: 681-683.
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Legalised euthanasia will violate the rights of vulnerable patients
R J D George, I G Finlay, and David Jeffrey
BMJ 2005 331: 684-685.
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Changes in BMA policy on assisted dying
Ann Sommerville
BMJ 2005 331: 686-688.
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Moral dimensions
Torbjörn Tännsjö
BMJ 2005 331: 689-691.
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Dutch experience of monitoring euthanasia
Bregje D
Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Agnes van der Heide, Martien T Muller,
Mette Rurup, Judith A C Rietjens, Jean-Jacques Georges, Astrid M
Vrakking, Jacqueline M Cuperus-Bosma, Gerrit van der Wal, and
Paul J van der Maas
BMJ 2005 331: 691-693.
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Responses from BMJ readers
