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John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle seems to be tacitly in place in Western societies, when we allow others to harm themselves through personally chosen activities: from smoking to rock-climbing. As Mill noted: “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.” When it comes to Mr Nicklinson’s case, we have a strange inconsistency: our principle that allows smokers to destroy their lungs disappears when it comes to the idea of ending the life we’ve otherwise allowed to be harmed. We allow a person to slowly or quickly destroy his life, but we don’t allow him to end it – even when the choice is determined by that same person.
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Who else, rather than Mr Nicklinson, should decide how he should live or, indeed, whether he should live at all, when he is capable of communicating and contemplating this choice? It is true that we ought do all we can to provide him with reasons to live, since this amounts to giving more information with which he can make a more informed decision: the more information one has, the better decision it will be. This is not coercion but making available more evidence so that Mr Nicklinson is able to exercise his autonomy.
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we have no good reason to stop him from performing a self-harming act, unless it unnecessarily and excessively harms the lives of others.
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mainstream politicians fear religious institutions that oppose voluntary euthanasia, even though individual believers often do not follow their religious leaders’ views. Polls in various countries have shown that a majority of Roman Catholics, for example, support legalization of voluntary euthanasia. Even in strongly Catholic Poland, more people now support legalization than oppose it.
In any case, the religious beliefs of a minority should not deny individuals like Dudley Clendinen the right to end their lives in the manner of their own choosing.
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Surveys show that more than two-thirds of Canadians support legalization of voluntary euthanasia – a level that has held steady for several decades. So it is not surprising that the report received strong backing in the mainstream Canadian media. What is more puzzling is the cool response from the country’s political parties, none of which indicated a willingness to support law reform in this area.
There is a similar contrast between public opinion and political (in)action elsewhere, including the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and several continental European countries. Why, when it comes to dying, do democratic institutions so often fail to translate what people want into legislation?
We obsess in this country about how to eat and dress and drink, about finding a job and a mate. About having sex and children. About how to live. But we don’t talk about how to die. We act as if facing death weren’t one of life’s greatest, most absorbing thrills and challenges. Believe me, it is. This is not dull. But we have to be able to see doctors and machines, medical and insurance systems, family and friends and religions as informative — not governing — in order to be free.
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Lingering would be a colossal waste of love and money.
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I’d rather die. I respect the wishes of people who want to live as long as they can. But I would like the same respect for those of us who decide — rationally — not to. I’ve done my homework. I have a plan. If I get pneumonia, I’ll let it snuff me out. If not, there are those other ways. I just have to act while my hands still work: the gun, narcotics, sharp blades, a plastic bag, a fast car, over-the-counter drugs, oleander tea (the polite Southern way), carbon monoxide, even helium. That would give me a really funny voice at the end.
I have found the way. Not a gun. A way that’s quiet and calm.
Knowing that comforts me. I don’t worry about fatty foods anymore. I don’t worry about having enough money to grow old. I’m not going to grow old.
I’m having a wonderful time.
Assisted dying, providing a patient with the means to kill themselves, is a highly controversial issue. For this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast Raymond Tallis, who is both an eminent gerontologist and philosopher, discusses this topic with interviewer Nigel Warburton.
Listen to Raymond Tallis on Assisted Dying
Terry Pratchett presented a BBC programme last night following a man suffering from motor neurone disease in his quest for assisted suicide.
Christine Jackson, who suffers from terminal cancer, said she thought the programme was important in making sure the issues involved are being debated publicly.
"I would like to control how and when and particularly where I die," she said. "It saddens me that people have to go to such lengths to have a peaceful death."
But the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali said it was a bias contribution to the debate which glorified suicide.
"It wasn't a peaceful death, it was a terrible death," he said.
the broadcast of Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die, in which the Discworld author accompanies a motor neurone disease sufferer, Peter Smedley, on his trip to die at Dignitas in Switzerland. The documentary, which has caused controversy on account of its depiction of Smedley's final moments, has moved assisted dying to the centre of the national debate, and can be viewed online via the BBC's iPlayer service.
To coincide with the documentary, for our new issue we asked Pratchett to tell us why he supports a change in the law on assisted dying. Here's what he wrote for us:
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Initially, I thought the opposition was largely due to a certain amount of curdled Christianity. Despite the fact that there is no scriptural objection, Christian opposition came about in the 14th century when, because of religious wars and the Black Death, people were committing suicide on the basis that, well, as this world was now so dreadfully unpleasant, maybe it would be a good idea to make an attempt on heaven. Authority objected otherwise. Who would milk the cows? Who would fight the wars? People couldn’t be allowed to slope off like that. They had to stay and face their just punishment for being born.
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Every time the question of assisted dying is broached in this country there is a choreographed outcry, suggested overtones of Nazism and, of course, the murder of grandmothers for their money. And the perpetrators get away with it because the British have a certain tradition of bullying from the top down. “The common people are stupid and we who know better must make the decisions for them.”
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A millionaire British hotelier and scion of the Smedley's tinned food empire has been identified as the man whose assisted suicide was filmed by the BBC.
Mr Peter Smedley, who was suffering from motor neurone disease, was referred to only as "Peter" in Sir Terry Pratchett's controversial new BBC2 documentary Choosing to Die.
The 71-year-old's death will be the first assisted suicide to be screened on terrestrial television in the United Kingdom when the film is broadcast on June 13.
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Mr Smedley was such a private man that none of those friends had known in advance that he had planned his own assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, where he drank poison and died on Dec 10 last year.
A few days after Mr Smedley's death, his close friends found individually-written letters from him in their post, telling each one how much they had meant to him. -
They were in for a greater surprise when they were joined at his memorial service by Sir Terry, the author and campaigner, and the BBC crew that had filmed Mr Smedley's final moments.
Unknown to all but his closest family, Mr Smedley invited Sir Terry to accompany him and his wife Christine, 60, to the clinic in Switzerland.
Moments before he died, said Sir Terry: "I shook hands with Peter and he said to me 'Have a good life', and he added 'I know I have'."
When a clinic worker asked him if he was ready to drink the poison that would end his life, Mr Smedley said: "Yes" and added: "I'd like to thank you all."
After Mr Smedley died, said Sir Terry: "I was spinning not because anything bad had happened but something was saying', A man is dead... that's a bad thing,' but somehow the second part of the clause chimes in with, 'but he had an incurable disease that was dragging him down, so he's decided of his own free will to leave before he was dragged'. So it's not a bad thing."
sociologist Émile Durkheim made an important discovery: across Europe, Protestant regions had a higher suicide rate that Catholic regions. This, he said, was because Catholicism created more integrated societies. In today's parlance, Catholicism generates more social capital.
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Since then many studies reinforced this theory, showing that Catholicism, and indeed religion in general, seems to protect against suicide. Unfortunately, almost all these studies have been flawed - most often because they looked at average suicide rates and average religious beliefs across particular societies. They didn't look at the individual characteristics of those people who commit suicide.
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Three new studies have addressed this problem. Each of them them takes advantage of new data to explore in some detail the link between religion and reduced suicide.
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