Our Irish value system changed with the legalisation of abortion, it changed with the introduction of gay marriage and it changed with the legalisation of divorce. In fact, the change to the value system was also the point in the change of the law. It is never, ever just about individual cases no matter how sympathetic those cases might be.
Campaigners also seek to change the culture.
So, when the debate on assisted dying returns to public airwaves in Ireland I ask for two things. First, a respectful debate where it is acknowledged that both sides are driven by compassion for the vulnerable. Second, a move away from lazy assumptions that this is all about old Catholic Ireland opposing further liberalisation and the progressives demanding change.
This is what has happened in the UK, and it would be refreshing if the example that has been set over there were followed in Ireland.
I am broadly opposed to the proposed British measure, which I will explain later. But be in no doubt that a similar change in the law will be sought in Ireland once a new Oireachtas is elected, so paying attention to how that debate has been conducted is instructive.
Members of Parliament in the House of Commons will vote on a Private Members Bill to legalise assisted suicide or assisted dying on Friday. It is a very tightly drafted bill; a person who is terminally ill and seeks assistance to hasten their death i.e commit suicide, will need the approval of a High Court judge, and it must be only done to alleviate unbearable suffering.
There are two points that I have found fascinating about the debate in the UK.
The first is how civilised the debate has been between those who support relaxing the law and those who oppose. The second is how it has not been split down traditional lines of right and left, conservative or liberal, or religious and atheist. Perhaps the atheists lean more towards to liberalisation, but there are plenty who oppose.
The split on the left has been noteworthy. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke movingly about his opposition in the Guardian. There are few politicians with more decency or a greater concern for the vulnerable than Gordon Brown.
Mr Brown explains clearly the motivation of both sides in the debate, namely that both are driven by compassion. Not for him personal insults or underhand attacks. He points out that “both sides in the assisted dying debate share a common concern: the genuine compassion felt for all those suffering painful deaths.”
Mr Brown and his wife Sarah lost their baby girl Jennifer 11 days after she was born. “Jennifer, the baby daughter my wife Sarah brought into the world a few days after Christmas 2001, died after only 11 days. By day four, when the extent of her brain hemorrhage had been diagnosed, we were fully aware that all hope was gone and that she had no chance of survival. We could only sit with her, hold her tiny hand and be there for her as life ebbed away. She died in our arms. But those days we spent with her remain among the most precious days of my and Sarah’s lives. The experience of sitting with a fatally ill baby girl did not convince me of the case for assisted dying; it convinced me of the value and imperative of good end-of-life care.”
Socialists Jeremy Corbyn MP and Dianne Abbott MP are both expected to vote against the bill while John McDonald MP, also firmly on the left, has changed his mind on the issue and his expected to support it. Ms. Abbott MP tweeted, “If the bill does pass we will soon have a national suicide service fully funded by the NHS, while palliative care is 30% funded, at best.”
Indeed, the state of the creaking NHS looms large over those opposing the Bill. As does how society currently views the old, sick and infirm, namely as disposable and unworthy of care. Well known feminist campaigner Kathleen Stock wrote in the Sunday Times of her concerns. “There are indeed some distant scenarios in which I might accept the state being empowered to kill people who ask for it — scenarios where killing wasn’t cheaper than keeping someone alive, or where the surrounding society did not excessively revile disability and old age. But I don’t live in that kind of a world, and nor do you.”
Disability campaigner Liz Carr has also argued forcefully how the entire debate on assisted suicide is terrifying those who live with disabilities.
The Health Secretary Wes Streeting MP is opposing the change in the law, again saying the state of the NHS is such that people will be pressured to end their life. He believes end of life care is not good enough for people to make an informed choice and being the Minister in charge of the NHS he is well placed to know.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is also expected to vote against the bill. And although he will not get a vote, the very left-wing Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has come out against the Bill. He said, “I’ve got real concerns in relation to the lack of palliative care available to those who are terminally unwell. I’ve concerns about the state of the NHS. I’ve concerns about the state of social care provision. I am concerned as much about coercive control. I am concerned about some of the guilt those who are terminally ill may well have. So, for those reasons, if I had a vote, I’d vote against.”
The other cabinet minister who opposes the change is Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood saying that as a Muslim she has an “unshakeable belief in the sanctity and the value of human life”. In response Lord Falconer complained that she should not push her religious beliefs on others. This was like what People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny said, “my view is that religion should actually be kept out of this debate (in Ireland).” On this they are both clearly wrong.
This is a specious argument. If we went with that argument, then you might as well start tearing down all the William Wilberforce statutes as that evangelical Christian went around imposing his views on the slave trade on the British empire. Those views being that it was one of the greatest evils of human design. Similarly, that man President Abraham Lincoln with all his high highfalutin ideas on the evils of the institution of slavery, which were also based on his Christianity, should have been ‘excluded from the debate.’ If we just debated on purely economic grounds, then the international slave trade would be alive and well.
Lord Falconer received a lot of pushback for his exclusionary and discriminatory views against those motivated by religious belief. What Catholic TD will be brave enough in Ireland to say that yes, his or her views on the sanctity of human life will influence their position on assisted suicide? Not many I’d say.
Clearly MPs and TDs are influenced by different value systems when it comes to making laws. They could be Christian, Muslim or Jewish but politicians of faith are entitled to rely on them and use them to examine their conscience as much as an atheist or liberal is.
If the Bill passes it will represent a huge change in the law. Seismic legal changes always change the value systems of entire societies. I oppose assisted dying either in the UK or Ireland for this very reason. For me, arguments as to slippery slopes are not compelling. I accept that an assisted dying law could be carved very tightly and not expanded. Nor I am I judging individuals who would seek assisted suicide; if I did judge them, it would be to say, that I totally understand their decision.
No. It is how assisted suicide will transform the health system, our value system and he medical system as whole that causes me to oppose such a change. We all have a stake in what doctors can and cannot do. That is not a private matter. At the moment, doctors cannot kill a patient, even out of compassion. They must care for them, which includes administering pain relief in a proportionate way. Once you turn doctors into killers, even if motivated out of compassion, I think you have passed the Rubicon. I think you have fundamentally changed our value system for the worse.
Second, such a change would change societal attitudes to the old, infirm, and perhaps the disabled. Even if the law remained that a patient couldn’t be put under pressure to end their lives (the requirement is that you be terminally ill) I believe it would change our approach to the most vulnerable amongst us.
The truth is the old and infirm are a burden. The old and infirm do require care that most of us would rather not provide. There is nothing cute about them (unlike babies and toddlers). In fact, some can be downright aggressive and unpleasant if they suffer from Alzheimer’s. So let’s not pretend that such a change in the law would change our value system and attitude towards such people. Matthew Parris, columnist at the Times admits it would.
In one of the most brutally honest statements you are likely to read, Mr Parris said: “Let’s acknowledge and confront the strongest argument against assisted dying. As (objectors say) the practice spreads, social and cultural pressure will grow on the terminally ill to hasten their own deaths so as “not to be a burden” on others or themselves. I believe this will indeed come to pass. And I would welcome it.” (My emphasis.)
He continues, “If assisted dying becomes common and widely accepted, hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — will consider choosing this road when the time comes; and in some cases, even ask themselves whether it would be selfish not to.”
Parris, a long time liberal conservative, continues to say that with an aging population people hastening their end will in fact be seen as socially responsible. Brutal but honest. It is simply dishonest for those who support assisted suicide to say that there will be no cultural shift, no change in our value system once such a fundamental change occurs.
In the UK, at least, they’re debating it openly and from all perspectives. It would be a welcome surprise were the same to happen here.