Assisted dying should be about relieving suffering – ex-judge with Parkinson’s
Terminal illness should be redefined to focus on suffering, a retired High Court judge said as he told how he fears he will have to go to Dignitas rather than endure a “poor death” in the UK with Parkinson’s disease.
Sir Nicholas Mostyn told MPs the assisted dying Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament, “is not ever going to provide an assisted death for me”.
The co-presenter of the Movers And Shakers podcast, about life with Parkinson’s and which has previously featured fellow sufferer former Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, addressed MPs who are scrutinising the proposed law.
It's been suggested I want to expand the definition of terminal illness. I don't want to expand it. I want to redefine it so that it is more appropriately focused, in my opinion, on what this Bill should be about, which is the relief of suffering
The Bill could see terminally ill adults in England and Wales with under six months to live legally allowed to end their lives, subject to approval by two doctors and a High Court judge.
But as it stands it does not cover intolerable or unbearable suffering, something many campaigners have called for.
Sir Nicholas said: “It’s been suggested I want to expand the definition of terminal illness. I don’t want to expand it. I want to redefine it so that it is more appropriately focused, in my opinion, on what this Bill should be about, which is the relief of suffering.
“That is what I believe this Bill should be about. And you should get permission to have an assisted death if you are suffering intolerably within five months of death or seven months of death. There shouldn’t be this arbitrary line.”
The former judge added that he does not believe a new law should be open to people “who aren’t suffering but who happen to have a six-month life expectancy”.
He told the committee: “There are probably quite a few of them for one reason or another, their life expectancy is short, but their pain is being well managed.
“I don’t believe that assisted dying should necessarily be available for them.
“I do believe very strongly – this is not an expansion, but in my view, a more appropriate, focused redefinition of terminal illness – that it should be, as in Spain, as in Holland, focused on suffering.”
He also told the committee he might be someone who chooses to travel to Switzerland for an assisted death, but added that he would be “very surprised if any prosecution ensued” of his children if they accompanied him on the journey.
He said: “I fear I will be one of the people who has to go to Dignitas – frankly, I could afford to do that – because this Bill is not ever going to provide an assisted death for me.”
He said, given what the advanced stages of Parkinson’s can be like, that “it is going to either be a poor – I’m choosing my words carefully – a poor death here, or to go somewhere like Dignitas”.
Former director of public prosecutions (DPP) Sir Max Hill, who has previously stated his support for the Bill, said that should the proposed legislation pass, “it doesn’t follow” that those who take relatives who remain ineligible under the new law to Dignitas “would necessarily face prosecution”.
But he said it would remain the case that they could be prosecuted.
Encouraging or assisting suicide is currently against the law in England and Wales, with a maximum jail sentence of 14 years.
Sir Max said in his time as DPP some 27 cases of assisted suicide had come across his desk, with a “substantial proportion” having involved Dignitas.
In the majority of cases he had determined no public prosecution was necessary because a surviving relative had acted “wholly out of compassion” for the deceased person.
He said in each case the scrutiny began only after the person was dead, and that the “major advantage” of the current Bill “is that that will be reversed, and scrutiny will be before death”.
He added: “And in the case of coercion, where it fits the new potential clauses, prosecutions can and I’m sure will be brought.”
Under the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in its current form, a High Court judge must hear from at least one of two independent doctors who have signed off the dying person’s application and can also question the dying person as well as anyone else they consider appropriate.
Sir Nicholas said it would be “impossible, in my opinion, for this to be done by the High Court”, instead suggesting a panel as is the case in Spain, with a doctor and a lawyer checking everything has been done lawfully.
Speaking about High Court capacity, he said he had calculated, based on the number of hours which would need to be dedicated to each application and the potential number of cases, that there could be “nearly three quarters of the entire family division doing nothing but this”.
Sir Max suggested retired members of the judiciary might be drafted in to sit on a panel.