National coalition formed to push for legal assisted dying

Made up of a cross-section of campaigners, including doctors and nurses, the Assisted Dying Coalition will campaign for legal recognition of the right to die for individuals who have a clear and settled wish to end their life and who are terminally ill or incurably suffering.

It is made up of six organisations: End of Life Choices Jersey; Friends at the End; Humanist Society Scotland; Humanists UK; and My Death, My Decision.

In May last year, deputies voted by 24 votes to 14 against Deputy Gavin St Pier’s proposal to introduce assisted dying in principle to the island.

The launch of the coalition last week coincided with the release of new figures which show that since the UK parliament last considered assisted dying laws in 2015, 233 people have travelled to Switzerland to end their life.

The coalition said thousands more people might want an assisted death but do not have the financial or physical means to travel to Switzerland.

Figures also reveal almost 1,500 UK citizens have a paid membership with an assisted dying organisation in Switzerland.

It costs on average £10,000 per person to access the services of a Swiss clinic.

Launching the coalition, the group’s chair Carrie Hynds, a long-time assisted dying campaigner, director of My Death, My Decision, said the issue could no longer be seen as ‘too ethically complex’ for government as 80% of the UK public now supported legalising assisted dying.

‘It is disgraceful that, in the last few years alone, 233 people have been forced to make that agonising journey abroad, far from their family and friends, to have an assisted death.

‘The various legislatures in these isles might want to wait, but it is too late for those who have already faced this injustice.

‘As a coalition, we will be working to ensure that people have the individual autonomy to make their own decisions about their end-of-life choices.

‘Several countries including Canada, Luxembourg and Switzerland all have assisted dying laws in place which give dignity to people in dying – the UK and Crown Dependencies must follow in the footsteps of these countries while also implementing strong legal safeguards that protect all individuals.’

End of Life Choices Jersey deputy co-ordinator Michael Tailbard said: ‘It matters how we end our lives, and we need to be empowered to make our own choices about it.

‘For some, the last phase of life is not just disappointing, but truly unbearable – unbearable through pain, or loss of dignity, or whatever else. For those people, any caring society would offer help to die decently, in a manner of their own choosing.’

Sarah Griffith MBE, who led the campaign for assisted dying in Guernsey, said she respects the coalition’s opinions and wished them well.

‘Our campaign was always based on the Oregon model for assisted dying and still is – it has a tight framework of principles to adhere to.

‘The coalition however appear to be campaigning for principles based on the Benelux countries, which are much more relaxed.’

She added: ‘Indeed anything that brings the profile of assisted dying further into the public eye must be congratulated.’

The new push for legalising assisted dying follows the announcement by the Royal College of Physicians that it will consult its members on the issue, and two recent high-profile public cases.

The first case was of a Humanists UK member Noel Conway, who has motor neurone disease and recently lost an application to appeal at the Supreme Court despite his lawyers arguing that it was a breach of his human rights to deny him an assisted death.

Mr Conway said his only option now was to remove his ventilator and suffocate to death.

The other was Humanists UK member Omid T, who died at the Lifecircle clinic in Switzerland in October 2018 after a long battle with multiple system atrophy. His dying wish was to bring about assisted dying reform in the UK.

• For information about the Assisted Dying Coalition, visit www.assisteddying.org.uk/about.