I watched part of  Terry Pratchett’s Dimbleby lecture on assisted suicides last night and it was quite moving, you can see it here. He has called for tribunals  which could give people permission to end their lives:

Sir Terry Pratchett says he is ready to be a test case for assisted suicide “tribunals” which could give people legal permission to end their lives.

The author, who has Alzheimer’s, says he wants a tribunal set up to help those with incurable diseases end their lives with help from doctors.

This is bollocks, there is only one debate we need and that isn’t about the legality of assisted suicides, its how we protect vulnerable people from being coerced by family and friends and, more importantly, how we prevent the state making it compulsory. As far as I’m concerned it is his body, his life, and if he wants to end it it under his terms, rather than ending his days as a living vegetable in God’s waiting room that’s his choice. If he needs help and someone to end his life and that person is prepared to give him that help then good luck to them.

It strikes me that the idea of some form of tribunal has some merits and could provide the protections we need, the only issue is who sits on the tribunal:

“I think it would be rather better if a person wishes to die, they could go see the tribunal with friends and relatives and present their case – at least if it happens, it happens with, as it were, authority.”

A legal expert in family affairs and a doctor familiar with long-term illness would also be part of his proposed “non-aggressive” tribunals.

“It seems sensible to me that we should look to the medical profession, that over the centuries has helped us to live longer and healthier lives, to help us die peacefully among our loved ones in our own home without a long stay in God’s waiting room,” Sir Terry said.

Yes that could work. It wouldn’t be a pleasant job for most of us who don’t deal with death on a daily basis and we need to be careful that it doesn’t become just another job, but it is definitely worthy of more debate.

What I find offensive are those who would impose their will on the rest of us:

Responding to the Panorama poll, Director of Care Not Killing, Dr Peter Saunders, said: “To argue that if you are terminally ill you deserve less protection from the law than do the rest of us is highly discriminatory as well as dangerous.

“Many cases of abuse involving elderly, sick and disabled people occur in the context of so-called ‘loving families’ and the blanket prohibition of intentional killing or assisting suicide is there to ensure that vulnerable people are not put at risk.”

Are you not listening, Mr Rent-a-quote? He is proposing tribunals to prevent that abuse. Why not comment of those and propose something better?

And this is is nonsense as well:

Baroness Finlay, an independent peer who is a professor of palliative medicine, told BBC Radio 4’s Today it was “hardly surprising” the Panorama poll had found public support for assisted suicide because “opinion polls reflect the way something is presented in the media”.

She said licensing assisted suicide would be a “very dangerous step” because it would remove protection and “suck all sorts of people in”.

“Look at what happened in other countries, for instance in Oregon – the number of assisted suicides has gone up fourfold – if that is translated to Britain, we are not talking about a small number, we are talking about a thousand a year,” she said.

Of course cases of assisted suicide will increase, that’s because its become legal and, despite what we hear, people are generally law abiding and the last thing that they want is for their loved ones to end up in jail for helping them end their suffering.

I see that the usual authoritarians who want to tell us how to lead our lives are being trotted out:

The Archbishop of York has condemned a campaign to legalise mercy killings that he feels is being driven by celebrities without any regard for Parliament and the will of the “silent majority”.

What? First this will mean in a change in the law so who’s saying Parliament is being disregarded? This is about getting the law change by Parliament. And what of this silent majority crap? Did you also see how he changed the debate from assited suicide to euthanasia?

The Archbishop was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying: “The silent majority never get asked. One thousand people out of about 61 million really is not very much guidance.

OK, there is a margin of error in all polls but I would say that:

The Telegraph found that more than four out of five people believed the law should be amended so that relatives would be allowed to help terminally ill relatives die without facing prosecution. Another poll carried out by ComRes for BBC1’s Panorama programme, found 73 per cent thought family or friends should not face prosecution for helping a loved one to die.

Even with margins of error taken on the high side and deducted from those numbers that is still a majority. Perhaps someone needs to give the Archbishop a lesson in Psephology?

And anyway, nobody is talking about making it compulsory. If those of a religious persuasion don’t believe it is right, then they don’t have to get involved. They can make their peace with their God when they get there and leave the others to eternal damnation if that is what they believe. But don’t they all believe in a merciful God anyway? Wouldn’t that God understand that people might have done wrong in Her eyes but that it was a sin and can’t that sin be absolved?

As I said at the top, this is about allowing people to lead and end their own lives as they see fit, whilst making sure all are protected from the state. But it cuts the other way, those of us who believe in personal freedom and the right to lead our own lives need protection from authoritarians, of all persuasion. As the Daily Mash puts it:

PEOPLE who are opposed to assisted suicide are still absolutely convinced that it is any of their business, according to a new survey.

A BBC opinion poll found that of those who are against voluntary euthanasia, more than half are ‘fairly’ or ‘reasonably’ sure they need to have an ill-informed opinion about the inner-most recesses of someone else’s soul.

…

The poll asked, ‘Someone you don’t know with a horrible disease wants a close friend or relative to help them end their lives – what the fuck has it got to do with you?’.

According to the survey 22% said ‘a bit the fuck to do with me’, 46% said ‘a lot the fuck to do with me’ and the remaining 32% said that absolutely everything was their business all the time.