Author: NotDeadYetUK

Media interviews – remember to ask beforehand:

• Who is calling
• Where they’re calling from
• What they want to talk about and why they’re calling you
• If it’s broadcast, whether the interview is live or pre-recorded
• Whether it is in a studio or elsewhere
• Who will do the interview
• Who else is being interviewed with you (it might be someone from DADID or Dignity in Dying)

Media interviews – Do

• Spend a few minutes thinking through, or talking to someone else about, the main issues. Use the opportunity to read through the NDY briefing materials
• Leave yourself plenty of time to get to the venue, if you need to get somewhere
• Ask what the first question will be
• Have in your head three main points you want to make
• Make your three points simply and positively
• If it’s TV, ‘ook at the interviewer, not the camera or microphone
• Be passionate about what you’re saying

Media interviews – Don’t:

• Be late!
• Fail to return promised calls
• Go off the record, unless you trust the journalist
• Think you’re not being recorded
• Wear checks, stripes, sunglasses or loud colours
• Wear leather coats or noisy jewellery
• Fidget – it looks and sounds bad
• Worry about silences – it’s their job to fill them, not yours
• Answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ – use the opportunity to steer things

 

Other things to remember…

• ‘I don’t know’ is fine – you don’t have to be an expert on everything
• Be decisive about interruptions – it can look and sound bad
• Avoid waffle
• Good manners tends to win friends more than confrontations, but don’t be afraid to be assertive and clear.

Changing the subject 

An interview is an opportunity to tell the world about what you’re doing and why it is important. Sometimes, however, interviews can end up being frustrating because the interviewer doesn’t cover the areas you want then to. Don’t forget, interviewers may know very little about the subject they’re talking to you about. That gives you the opportunity to steer things the way you want them to go.

 

Here are some ways you can take control of an interview:

• ‘What I think is interesting…’
• ‘I’m not sure, but the most important thing here is…’
• ‘That’s not the point – what we should be looking at is…’
• ‘There has been some discussion about that but…’

OR

• ‘I really don’t agree…’
• ‘Some may have that view – I don’t…’
• ‘That really is nonsense…

Dr. Kevin Fitzpatrick OBE

Have you heard of the new Disabled Activists for Dignity in Dying (DiD)? And their claim that 75% of disabled people support assisted suicide/euthanasia? Is that really true?

And why should DiD feel there is any need for a ‘disability voice’ FOR euthanasia? There is no special pleading necessary for disabled people under their proposed law. Or are they arguing for disability rights for euthanasia? That makes no sense (as Paul Russell, CEO of HOPE pointed out recently).

DiD have always claimed their campaign is not to change the law for disabled people, but is meant to help those with only a few weeks or months to live.

Therefore, is DiD really a lobby for assisted suicide for all disabled people and sick people, rather than people who are very sick and soon to die?

Remember the report of the self-styled ‘commission’ funded by DiD recommends that physician-assisted suicide should not be offered to people with disabilities who are not terminally ill ‘at this point in time’.

So what is DiD’s real reason for suddenly claiming the support of a huge percentage of disabled people? – indeed what is their real objective?

So who are the DiD ‘activists’?

It is true they are all disabled people. However they are individuals with a point of view, not representatives of any Disabled People’s Organisation. For example, this new arm of the DiD campaign, is led by wheelchair user Greg Judge. He is listed as a member of staff and is therefore paid by DiD to represent the organisation’s core mission and values. Hardly representative!

NDY UK, on the other hand, is a network of disabled people working largely pro bono and who have been mandated to represent the views of many disabled people. There is a real difference.

And, to date, the majority of disabled people I know are either entirely against or have huge reservations about changes to the law on assisted dying.

Another DiD ‘activist’ is Lucy Aliband whose impairments resulted from a traumatic road accident; she joined this year after her experience of her mum’s death and like Sally O’Connor, who was diagnosed with MS, is naturally dealing with constant personal changes which will inform her view. The last is Melanie Reid, a journalist who also faces her own personal challenges having become quadriplegic just two years ago and who thinks it makes no economic sense to ‘keep people alive’. You can read her other opinions in the Times (March 27, 2012) where she indulges herself, in name-calling and unhelpful tirades. No evidence, no counter-argument. Melanie Reid refused to engage with me in any kind of honest debate.

This is the basic line up of Disabled Activists for Dignity in Dying. Does it sound representative to you? Just calling them ‘activists’ does not make it so.

Baronesses Campbell and Grey-Thompson, and others involved with Not Dead Yet UK, have a long and distinguished career of representing large numbers of disabled people’s rights through democratic structures and processes.

In the world of legitimate disability activism one thing is clear: we are required to seek the views of large numbers of disabled people in order to speak on their behalf – it is called democracy! That’s what we do.

I therefore question the legitimacy of this new group of disability activists on the basis that they do not represent disabled people but are self-appointed members of DiD who only represent themselves.

75% of disabled support assisted dying/euthanasia? Well, no actually.

So where has this figure of ‘75% of disabled people want their right to die’ come from? DiD source it in the British Social Attitudes Survey 2007.

Now why the BSA 2007 and not the latest available survey of 2012? The BSA’s own search tool reveals the following results for keywords/phrases: ‘assisted suicide’ 0; euthanasia 0; dignity 0; dying 1 (but that last appears in the report about relationships and nothing to do with assisted suicide).

But the authors of the 2007 report[1] say:

… and perhaps more importantly, in contrast to the results of the 1995 survey, those with a disability are not more likely to support assisted dying.

Indeed…their average score on our scale is actually slightly below that…amongst those without a disability

BSA conducted 3,248 interviews, and asked 4 questions in the disability ‘section’ of the 2012 survey none of which related to assisted suicide/euthanasia but were about prejudice and whether disabled people can live full lives. The number interviewed was around 2,100 for each of these four.

In 2007 from the ‘Number of units: 4,124 cases’ so far as I can see, the upper limit was just 2,176 people. Not everybody surveyed is asked all the questions or responds – so the results are based on about 50% of those surveyed. The surveys are generally carried out ‘by computer assisted personal interviewing’ in which ‘some questions are asked regularly, others less often’. The earlier report cites categories like ‘care of the disabled’ – no activism (nothing about us without us) here then.

Specifically, these survey results are based on a further survey of ‘respondents to our 2005 survey’ so people who had already been asked

these or similar questions two years before. But the authors also mention their seminar (NB not seminars, plural – just one seminar).

This is a public attitude survey. I can find no reference to specifically disabled people, let alone disabled activists, in responses either being reported or even collected in this report. Disabled people just do not appear as any distinct group of respondents. People with terminal illness and specific impairments do appear – they are the groupings used by the survey authors to get respondents to consider whether they are candidates for assisted suicide/voluntary euthanasia or not. They go on to say:

Intriguingly, support was particularly low when the scenario mentioned a specific condition – severe arthritis. Only one in three felt that having this condition would render

voluntary euthanasia acceptable. Perhaps some people underestimate the pain

that those with severe arthritis can suffer – or perhaps they think voluntary

euthanasia should be reserved for ‘exceptional’ circumstances, and that arthritis

is simply too common a condition to be regarded as sufficient grounds to permit

euthanasia. These findings suggest that the public does not regard voluntary euthanasia in

the black and white terms in which it tends to be regarded by its advocates and

opponents.

But that it precisely our point: as ‘opponents’ we are constantly resisting DiD’s portrayal of this as a simple issue – taking the life of any human being should always be terrible, in the sense that it should never be a light consideration, even if the person is already close to death.

Clery et al note Donnison and Bryson’s finding (1996), based on the 1995 British Social

Attitudes survey, ‘that people with a disability were more likely to be in favour of assisted dying, perhaps because they had greater empathy with those in pain’. I cannot access this report (it is not available directly on the NatCen site and I have as yet been unable to find it elsewhere). But in any case, even if they said ‘75% of disabled people…’, then that was the better part of 20 years ago. And I think we can have some serious doubts they even considered disabled people as a separate group, let alone disabled activists.

So what are we left with?

DiD claim 75% of disabled people support them – I can find absolutely no evidence for this assertion

I can find no hard evidence that any but a handful of individual disabled people including those in DiD employment, generally support their claim. In

fact disabled people’s organisations are implacably opposed are opposed to a change in the law.

The survey quoted above was based on 0.003% of the population.

Therefore I challenge DiD to explain how they have come up with the figure of 75%. Where is their evidence to support their claim?, I can only suggest this is just more propaganda unless and until proven otherwise.

So let’s now turn the question of what is DiD’s real motive?

By Lord Falconer’s own admission any law would affect a maximum of 1,000 people a year. I would suggest that a number of those would have serious second thoughts if they could access the very best in palliative and social care support.

Any law must, by its nature, be general covering everybody – which is why it makes no sense to make a special pleading for disabled people. The law will be there for not just the fewer than one thousand, but each and every one out of the 600,000 six hundred thousand who die in the UK every year. So where are the voices of the majority who do not wish to commit suicide? Again, the question is this democracy?

I have engaged in many debates against many people, especially on moral questions like this: usually, I can see the integrity of my opposition. I may not agree with them, but I can see how they might have arrived at their position honestly. I can respect them in some ways (depending on the extremity of their moral position).

But I cannot see any integrity in DiD’s approach here. They have started another part of their campaign based on the so far entirely unsubstantiated claim that 75% of disabled people support them. If this is completely false, as I think it is, their choice of the word ‘activists’ to describe the four signatories is also instructive – some might wonder whether it is just part of another attempt to break down our Resistance – divide and rule has long been a cynical ploy.

DiD know what the evidence shows – from Holland, where children over the age of 12 are entitled, and disabled babies are euthanased because of their disability, or because of their parents’ suffering, when the law was first introduced for exactly the kind of ‘desperate, hard case’ DiD keep promoting to gain public sympathy – from Belgium where people who are in need of support and care are euthanased – and where the current discussion to extend euthanasia to children is proceeding but where ‘We all know that euthanasia is already practiced on children. Yes, active euthanasia’ according to the head of the intensive care unit of Fabiola Hospital in Brussels. He made his comments to the Senate’s Judicial and Social Affairs Committee at a February 21 hearing 2013. Belgium, where if you are becoming blind you can opt for euthanasia, or if the healthcare system botches your sex-change operations your care options can include death by lethal injection, and where ‘studies…demonstrate that 32% of people killed

under the Belgian law were killed without consent and without their own request, in breach of a fundamental condition of that law’(as pointed out by Alex Schadenberg of EPC). A recent judgement by the European Committee on Social Rights found that that Belgium’s ‘inadequate provision of care and accommodation for highly dependent persons with disabilities amounted to a violation of human rights’. The importance of this is self-evident as to whether disabled people have any real choice about accepting the final option.

The situation in Oregon is often held up by DiD as exemplary: Oregon, where choice really is an illusion, where doctors write a prescription for lethal medication and it is not necessary for the person themselves to take it away, this can be done by a family member or patient representative, with all the inherent dangers this presents, Where the lethal drugs can be taken several years later and there is no requirement for an investigation, even though the drugs were administered a considerable time after they were prescribed.

[All] the protections [in Oregon’s law] end after the prescription is written. [The proponents of assisted suicide] admitted that the provisions in the Oregon law would permit one person to be alone in that room with the patient. And in that situation, there is no guarantee that that medication is self-administered. So frankly, any of the studies that come out of the state of Oregon’s experience are invalid because no one who administers that drug . . . to that patient is going to be turning themselves in for the commission of a homicide.[2]

All this information is in the public domain so DiD have presumably decided it doesn’t help their case to share it with their supporters.. They press on with their demands, courting public opinion without ever revealing the deeper truths or engaging honestly with the counter-arguments, instead they resort to labelling us as ‘cruel’ for opposing such a law. (I have had that criticism levelled at me more than once, as I’m sure have others. What we are actually saying isn’t cruel we simply want others to understand: ‘there’s so much wrong here, let’s stop and think about it more carefully’). No-one in DiD seems to consider the impact their high-octane campaign has on the lives and the feelings of the 4,400 families each year who have suffered a suicide.

Finally DiD are promoting themselves as a caring organisation who offer the ‘voice of reason’. They are using a handful of non-representative disabled people to promote the idea that disabled people agree with them. The facts do not support this assertion, real disabled activists are opposed to the law being changed and nothing I have read, seen or heard makes me think otherwise.

So again, I find myself asking: what is their real purpose?

[1]Elizabeth Clery, Sheila McLean and Miranda Phillips ‘Quickening Death: the euthanasia debate’ (in Park, A., Curtice, J., Thomson, K., Phillips, M. and Johnson, M. (eds.) Perspectives on a changing society (2007 London: Sage), British Social Attitudes: the 23rd Report

[2] Senator Jeff Essman quoted in The Oregon Studies are Invalid Margaret Dorehttp://www.choiceillusion.org/p/the-oregon-studies-are-invalid.html

by Dr. Kevin Fitzpatrick OBE

“Campaigners’ deaths prove we do not need suicide laws” by Dr. Kevin Fitzpatrick OBE

We do not ‘speak ill of the dead’. De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est, a mortuary aphorism that dates from at least the 4th century is, I suspect, rooted in a superstitious fear that the dead may come back to harm us if we say bad things about them; perhaps that we might ourselves be condemned to wander as ‘lost souls’ in revenge for badmouthing those who are gone. We may, at times, wish to honour the memory of someone we couldn’t stand in life, or whose works and their consequences we hated; but if we are to avoid dishonesty, insincerity, we must have the courage to stand by what we said when they were alive. We can still be properly respectful in how we speak.

Of course the rule does not apply universally, but it seems we only allow ourselves to tell hard truths if the dead person was truly bad, a mass murderer. Maybe that comes from recognising that we are all fragile, given to making mistakes, doing some bad things at times.

In any case, it is surely possible to distinguish between the person and their legacy. I met and debated with Debbie Purdy a couple of times and I thought she was wrong – she made what is called a ‘category mistake’ – mixing up the category of one individual saying ‘I want to die now’ with the idea that such a wish must be enshrined in law. Individual wishes are just that – individual. Laws cover every citizen of a state or jurisdiction in which they are passed – which means they are a whole different category. It was her campaigning for this category mistake to be legalised that brought us into opposition.

After hours of grilling by Tony Nicklinson, in an interview he had demanded, I asked him: ‘Say you get your way tomorrow and the law is changed, and the next day, even just one innocent person dies as a result – what would you say?’ He would not respond at that point, and terminated the interview.

But that is the point for me: if, as a campaigner, you cannot guarantee the safety of others, then the death of innocent people under such laws, even that threat, should stop the campaign in its tracks, force campaigners to re-assess what they are doing.

The legacy of such campaigners, three of whom (two in Britain, one in Australia) died ‘peacefully’ in hospice or palliative care settings over Christmas, is surely the biggest, final irony. These three died ‘good deaths’ without any change in law. They have proved there is no need for a change in law in the UK, in Australia, anywhere in the world.

So it is not out of some false respect that I say nothing about Debbie Purdy the person, but out of honesty, recognition that I am not qualified to speak about her personally. I barely knew her. I wish so many others would acknowledge that they too really knew nothing about her as a person. But the time I did spend with her allowed me to understand her motivations – whilst still seeing her mistake. The problem was and is, the damage that mistake brings.

Pro-assisted suicide/euthanasia lobbies around the world claim that ‘the people want this’ change in law. Opinion polls, which everyone knows are too easily manipulated, show one thing: people can be afraid to die. We needed a poll to tell us that? These polls confirm that when asked specific questions, 80% say they would like to die peacefully, at home in their own beds, surrounded by (only) loving family (and not the ones who can’t wait to see the end of the person dying, or get their hands on their money). The biggest surprise for me has always been – only 80%? What on earth do the other 20% want for themselves, for me?

Media headlines, that most people want to die peacefully, are just empty, the most facile statements of the obvious. Such headlines, these polls, give no additional strength to an already terminally weak argument about changing laws, and those who pretend the vox-pop is some kind of marker will run as fast as they can if the same opinion polls show, as they invariably do, that we should bring back the death sentence.

In Belgium, which only gave up its death sentencing in 1996, a convicted serial rapist/murderer was supposed to die by lethal injection later this month (January 11, 2015) under their euthanasia law. Now the doctor has refused to do it. In a perversion of liberal compassion, this man has been refused proper psychological care (after all, compassion has its limits) – but an execution, death by euthanasia – can you see the difference? For him? For us? Public outrage has stayed his sentence: for now. Even Belgium’s Dr Death has counted this as a step too far.

Debbie Purdy has left a legacy: a determined few who cynically use emotion will feed on the unfounded and illegitimate reactions of those who knew her not at all, and by those who opine in the shallowest manner about her ‘courage’, and all the rest. From our shared perspective of living disabled lives, I think it’s safe to hazard that Debbie knew something that a lot of people, and perhaps especially a lot of disabled people already know: living with a disability is not a question of courage – it is a routine, sometimes a tough one, not a lifestyle choice: disability is our fact of life.

Anyone can face the question ‘Yes or no?’ ‘Do I get up – or give up – today?’ A whole philosophical movement called existentialism was born of the feeling: Sartre and Camus – neither of whom died through suicide. Most disabled people admit they do not always have one answer or another, or the same answer every time, but most also get up and get on with their lives as parents, spouses, siblings, friends, work colleagues, customers, etc.

I say ‘most’ because like any section of the population, ‘disabled people’ is not a smooth category – there are as many different kinds of disabled people as there are people. Some of us will not want to lead a disabled life; some, will be ground down by lack of support from the world around them, will become exhausted by unnecessary struggles, the futility they experience crying out against the injustice say, of the destruction of the Independent Living Fund. By all accounts, the rate of suicide is rising in Britain amongst disabled people so badly affected by the cuts in support for them to live independently. Is that a reason for killing those sufferers,

for making it legal for someone else to do so?

I say, categorically: ‘No’.

As Sartre’s intellectual exercise proves, suicide is not such an alien thought to any of us. We do not need to fear it: it is part of the human experience to contemplate ‘disappearing’ when the going gets tough – just ask Lord Lucan. We all want the ground to swallow us up at some point – that’s why the expression is so common in our language – because the feeling is.

The terrible suicide contagion that hit (and I believe still continues to impact) on a South Wales community was never more poignantly highlighted than after one young teenager’s death – she was reported as having a handful of social media ‘friends’, being something of an outcast abused by her peers, a very unhappy child from an impoverished background. Her message was ‘Just wait and see how many friends I will have after this’ – the appalling sadness of any teenager being so fooled. Sure enough, there were many hypocritical ‘friends’ who had been bullying her, who then appeared on her ‘page’ – for a week or two – to declare their undying love for her, after she hanged herself. She wasn’t around to see it happen.

The power of attention pulls others into media campaigns too – it sustains them, gives them purpose in life – for a while. Campaigners seek results, naturally. But if Debbie Purdy’s legacy is a change in the law in Britain, built on the mistake of making hard cases into bad law, I personally will count it as a stain on her life and memory. Others may be upset by that but I think if this does happen, they will have made worse of her as a person in a way that I never could speaking any ill of her.

 

Why do you oppose a change in the law?

We’re concerned that people who are sick or disabled may feel pressured to make decisions about their lives based on concerns about being a burden, rather than an objective decision about whether they want to live or die.

We’d like to see the law changed so there’s a right to live a full and active life, rather than a right to ask a doctor for assisted suicide.

It looks like many disabled people are in favour of a change in the law? There’s even an organisation of disabled people campaigning for it.

The objective research on this is very limited. Most disability organisations and charities have said they don’t want the law to change because they’re concerned about the dangers it would bring.

It looks like the general public is in favour of a change in the law?

The general public also has said it wants to bring back hanging. This is a complicated debate, and it’s important not to be swayed by sensationalist headlines or simplistic opinion surveys. In the meantime, a change in the law would put disabled people directly in the firing line – the risks are huge.

Don’t you think people should have more choice about how they die?

People should certainly have more choice about how they live. If we lived in a society that fully supported disabled people’s choice and control, then having an informed debate on assisted suicide would be more straightforward. But we don’t. Instead, we’re seeing swingeing cuts to disability benefits and social care, and an increase in disability hate crime. Being disabled in the current climate is challenging enough, without putting assisted suicide on the table.

Doesn’t your opposition to change, and the current law, mean that you are condemning people who are dying to misery at the end of their lives?

We have one of the best health services in the world, and medical support around end of life care is improving all the time. If palliative care services are prioritised and fully funded, people would get the care and support they need at the end of their lives.

In the meantime, the law we have has a stern face, but an understanding heart. It holds serious penalties in reserve to deter abuse and manipulation. It combines deterrence with compassion: it gives us the best of both worlds.

Campaigners say this isn’t about disabled people, it’s about people who are terminally ill. Why are you worrying about it?

Because it is about disabled people. Being terminally ill isn’t an exact science, and we all know examples of people who have been labelled as terminally ill and since recovered. Disabled people are often considered, in our society, to have lives which are not worth living. It’s not a big step for people to conclude ‘Well, they don’t have a great life so isn’t it better for everyone if they have the right to kill themselves.’

It’s working OK in other countries isn’t it?

No. There’s limited records in Oregan, which is often highlighted as an exemplar. What we do know is that there is limited psychological testing for people who say they want assisted suicide; and there has been an increase in the number of people who have depression who have been given suicide drugs by doctors.

Campaigners have said there will be powerful safeguards in place; you don’t need to worry?

The law is an imperfect thing. Safeguards are also imperfect. Coercion is rarely obvious, and the current law protects us from malicious manipulation.

This is a revised up to date version of our Frequently Asked Questions and Answer Sheet. Hope it proves useful.

 Q.1 Campaigners for ‘assisted dying’ in the UK say they want to change the law for terminally ill people, not for people with disabilities. So why should people with disabilities feel threatened by the campaigning?
A. Terminal illness and disability are not mutually exclusive. Many people who are terminally ill are disabled people of one sort or another as well. Many long-term conditions, like (for example, Parkinson’s or MS, which involve disabilities can be life-shortening and can have successive ups and downs throughout their course. During any one of these ups and downs it would be possible for a doctor to say that the person concerned could be ‘reasonably expected’ to die within six months. Yet they are not terminally ill.

Q2 But why shouldn’t mentally competent adults who are seriously ill and suffering have the choice of physician-assisted suicide if they want it. After all, no one is going to be forced to have it?

A. Assisting a suicide is a serious matter. The law we have is there to protect us from malicious pressure or manipulation by others, who may have an interest in seeing us dead, and from ourselves too – from harming ourselves because we are depressed or feel a burden on others. It’s all very well to talk glibly about being mentally competent, but serious illness and disability are stressful experiences. It’s one thing to say whether someone who wants to ‘end it all’ is compos mentis, but it’s perfectly possible to be compos mentis and still be suffering from depression. The so-called safeguards that are being talked about may sound reassuring to the layman, but the reality is very different..

Q3. But isn’t it true to say that legalised assisted suicide is working well in Oregon?

A. No, it isn’t! The number of deaths annually in Oregon from legalised assisted suicide is now between six and seven times the number when the law came into force. Oregon’s current death rate from this source would lead to over 1,500 assisted suicides a year in England and Wales if we had a similar law here. And there is no sign of this rising trend coming to an end. Then there is the practice of ‘doctor shopping’ – people asking their doctors for assisted suicide but being refused and going from one doctor to another until they find a compliant one , who knows little about them beyond their case notes and who is, by definition, someone who may see suicide as a reasonable response to terminal illness. And recent research has shown that some people suffering from undiagnosed clinical depression are getting through the net in Oregon and being given suicide drugs to end their lives. Is this the sort of thing we want to see happening here in Britain?

The campaigning groups claim there has been no abuse of Oregon’s law and no demand for its extension. But there is no system in place in Oregon to scrutinise how requests for assisted suicide are being handled. It is impossible to know therefore whether there has been abuse. Moreover, we are now seeing attempts in the Oregon legislature to extend the definition of terminal illness to include people with an estimated 12 months to live.

Q4. Public opinion supports a change in the law. What right have you to oppose it?

A. Public opinion supported going to war in 1914 and appeasement in the 1930s; and opinion polls now regularly show support for the return of capital punishment and banning all immigration. You can’t safely decide complex and controversial issues like this on the basis of opinion polls.     And, when you examine opinion poll results carefully, you   often see that they do not say what the campaigning groups claim.

Moreover, surveys of doctors – the people who know what ‘assisted suicide’ means and who would be in the front line if it were to be legalised – show that the majority are opposed to legalisation and that only around one in seven would be prepared to have anything to do with it.

It’s all very well asking people hypothetical questions in opinion polls. As a select committee on ‘assisted dying’ was told by experts five years ago, most people know little about the subject apart from the sensationalist stories they read in the press and their responses can often be ‘kneejerk’ reactions to loaded questions about ‘choice’ and ‘suffering’. But, as people with disabilities, we are the people in the firing line who would be put at risk if the law were to be changed.

Q5. But isn’t the law as it stands cruel?

A. The law that we have has a stern face but an understanding heart. It holds serious penalties in reserve to deter abuse and manipulation. But, where assisted suicide does occur, the Crown Prosecution Service looks at the evidence carefully and, where it is clear that assistance has been reluctant and in response to persistent requests by a suffering individual, charges are not brought. It combines deterrence with compassion: it gives us the best of both worlds.

What the campaigners want to do is to replace this with a licensing system in advance. But enabling laws have a habit of encouraging the acts they enable. And, in any case, once an act of assisted suicide had been licensed, who is to say that no coercion or pressure has been applied before the act is actually carried out.

A recent Scope survey suggests that hostility from strangers towards disabled people is on the increase. Although this is primarily directed at those assumed to be so called “benefit scroungers” this is yet another attack on disabled peoples rights. It also adds fuel to the fire that we are an expensive drain on society and that our lives are not that valuable. It adds to the propaganda designed to suggest that perhaps assisted suicide has some value to society as whole! We need to counteract this insidious idea wherever we see it!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/14/disabled-face-increasing-hostility-strangers