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**Hugh** · 14-09-2012, 12:14

Terry Pratchett wrote an interesting article (imho) in yesterday's Times (behind a paywall).

Quote:

So step forward Anna Soubry, the new Health Minister, who has spoken of the viability of assisted dying here. In a very British way she was talking about a discussion. She was not saying “let’s have it here and now”, just “let us take it seriously”, given the number of people from the UK who make their way to Dignitas for the surcease denied to them in Britain.

This sounds promising; a politician talking about, well, talking. But the mere suggestion that there might be discussion doesn’t sit well with some. Ms Soubry has driven right into a hailstorm of abuse from the likes of Nadine Dorries MP and Melanie Phillips, of the Daily Mail. They’ve got rather shrill. Perhaps sensing, correctly, that we are edging ever closer to change.

And now there are the remarks of Baroness Hollins, the President of the British Medical Association, saying that the medical establishment does not want to allow this.
Strange, isn’t it? Because I know that there are a number of medics who would look kindly on assisted dying for the UK if all the legal and other safeguards were put in place. Never trust a doctor telling you what doctors think. They are simply telling you what they think. There are younger doctors, especially, who would have an open mind. And all the time, circling around all this, are the usual suspects declaring that assisted dying is bound to lead to abuses.

Earlier this year a commission of the great and the good was set up by myself and another gentleman of means, to look at practices in other countries where assisted dying is commonplace and to report on how it could be evolved to suit Britain.
It looked for abuses — there were none. The countries that allow assisted dying are careful democracies, just like us. It’s not a free for all. There are rules, rules everywhere. Some time ago I set out with Rob, my assistant, to track down every rumour of assisted dying abuse on the planet and I have to say that when electronically cornered, people making allegations of abuse lamely said that it was on the internet. I think everything on the internet is true, don’t you?

We had some fun talking to the FBI about a pernicious rumour involving two doctors; once again the truth was that absolutely nothing illegal had been done or contemplated. Nevertheless, those irrevocably against anything like assisted dying will continue to muddy the waters and so there will continue to be more tragedies like that of Mr Nicklinson and more people trailing off to Dignitas to the embarrassment of the Swiss and the shame of Britain.

Why is it that opponents of change don’t want to engage with concrete evidence that answers their concerns? Such evidence was published in July in The Lancet, looking at the state of the law in the Netherlands. Far from there being an increase in ending life without an explicit request since the law changed, it has, in fact, decreased.

Evidence of a slippery slope and relaxing of practice is not supported by the evidence from the Netherlands or from anywhere else where the law is more compassionate.