Suicide Act to be modified

Dr Libby Wilson has become the first person to be arrested under the new guidelines presented by Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, that attempt to clarify the law on assisted dying in England and Wales.

Dr Wilson is a former physician and a founding member of the organisation Friends At The End, a group that aims to provide information to people who are considering suicide as a result of illness or frailty.

Dr Wilson was arrested in connection with the suicide of Cari Loder, who suffered from Multiple Sclerosis. In June, Ms Loder, a former university lecturer, killed herself by inhaling helium gas after having spoken to Dr Wilson in order to ensure she carried out her attempt successfully.

As a result of the two phone conversations with Ms Loder, the octogenarian was instructed to travel from her home in Glasgow to Woking, in Surrey, and was held in a cell for several hours before being released. “They took DNA, fingerprints, photographs... they took my shoes, all my belongings,” she recalls.

Her arrest comes at an important time for assisted suicide legislation both in England and Wales, and in Scotland. In England on 23 September, the Department of Public Prosecutions released a number of issues that will weigh for or against public prosecution of those who help others to die.

It is intended as an elucidation of the 1961 Suicide Act, which makes it illegal to “aid, abet, council, or procure the suicide of another”. The new guidelines, whilst attempting to prevent the potential abuses of assisted suicide, aims to discourage prosecution in a number of scenarios, for example, those in which “the suspect was motivated wholly by compassion”, or those in which the victim had "asked personally on his or her own initiative for the assistance of the suspect”.

Starmer is clear that these suggestions are not amendments to the law: “Assisting suicide has been a criminal offence for nearly fifty years, and my interim policy does nothing to change that."

They will not provide anyone suspected of assisted suicide a guarantee against prosecution. Amendments to the suicide bill were proposed but defeated in the House of Lords this summer. The proposal, by former Lord Chancelor Lord Falconer, attempted to legalise travel abroad to assisted dying clinics, such as the well known Dignitas in Switzerland.

In Scotland, Margo MacDonald is also working to clarify the law relating to assisted suicide, as she considers it an issue “not specifically covered by legislation”.

As MacDonald clearly points out though: “Under Scots law, an act of euthanasia by a third party, including physician-assisted suicide, is regarded as the deliberate killing of another and would be dealt with under the criminal law relating to homicide.”

Her efforts have come in the form of a proposed bill “to permit physician assistance to those who wish to end their lives”. It has garnered twenty one MSP signatures, enough to have the topic debated in Parliament.

Dr Wilson is positive about both initiatives, in particular about MacDonald's proposal. “I think Margo's bill is a very good step in the right direction and will make a huge difference to a lot of people,” she says enthusiastically.

However, she is less sanguine about its success: “(MacDonald) has got twenty one signatures, but what's that out of one hundred and twenty nine?”

As far as Keir Starmer's new guidelines are concerned, Dr Wilson can well attest to their current inefficacy. Of her organisation Friends At The End, she says: “We are not motivated, of course, by any financial gain...we are acting out of principle and out of compassion."

Under the new guidelines these factors would weigh against Wilson's prosecution, and yet she was still arrested and remains on bail until 18 November.

The case for assisted dying in the UK is still in its infancy. Both public and political opposition to any amendment of the laws pertaining to assisted dying are both vocal and well represented.

Although, Dr Wilson speaks of a number of indications that suggest things are changing. A number of opinion polls recently commissioned and released indicate that public opinion is very much on her side.

Dignity in Dying, an organisation supported by former minister for Health Reform, Lord Norman Warner, which campaigns for improved palliative care and assisted dying, published a poll in June 2008 indicating that 79 per cent of respondents believed “it was important not to have their lives prolonged against their wishes”.

Another poll, published by The Times in July 2009 indicates that 56 per cent of those questioned are in favour of a change in the law for people in extreme pain, over two thirds are in favour of a change in the law for people suffering degenerative, but not terminal illness, and 95 per cent consider that people with terminal illnesses should have the right to an assisted death.

A shift in political opinion is also noticeable. Although Margo MacDonald has only received 21 signatures in support of her proposal she has fared remarkably better than Jeremy Purvis, an MSP whose consultation document in favour of legalising physician assisted suicide, Dying with Dignity, failed to accrue enough support to be debated in 2005.

Dr Wilson thinks that the improvement may be in part because MacDonald is "such a feisty lady...such a prominent character," it might also indicate a nascent move in parliament towards a reassessment of assisted suicide.

She sees this change of opinion reflected in the ways in which the press now treat the issue: “I do think also there have been an increasingly favourable reactions in the media to the various cases that have been publicised. Most of the media nowadays write up the cases and report them in a more favourable light than they used to.”

Dr Wilson's battles for pro-choice have spanned half a century. “In my earlier life I was involved in battles about contraception,” she recalls. “In my working life I was very much involved in women's right to choose having an abortion or not.”

Anticipating the future success of campaigns to amend assisted dying legislature, she is quick to point out the similarities of today's debates with those of the past: “It's the same people who were opposed to abortion that are now opposed to (choice) at the end of life."