Chance for ethical debate fades away

‘Guernsey is set to become the first place in the British Isles to have a suicide clinic,’ the paper confidently assured its readers.

In the process it moved the debate in the opposite direction.

For within hours the nation’s websites were full of wild comment and speculation that bore little resemblance to the facts and destroyed any chance of a reasoned, thoughtful look at Deputy Gavin St Pier’s assisted dying requete.

The subject will now be dominated not by what is proposed but by what is not.

Nobody involved with the requete wants Guernsey to develop a Dignitas clinic.

The suggestion is that only local residents would be eligible.

And allowing people who have been legally diagnosed with a terminal illness to administer a lethal injection is a long way from setting up a ‘suicide clinic’.

The States debate and any subsequent consultation should be about whether sufficient checks and balances can be brought into place to ensure that it is only those who are dying and in great pain and distress who can take their own lives.

And it should be about the ethical dilemma for doctors and health professionals asked to help.

Sadly, that debate is now likely to be usurped by talk of ‘death tourism’ and the harm such publicity will do to the island’s reputation.

At that point deputies who might have had an open mind will get nervous and move straight past the ethics and into damage-limitation mode.

An alliance of such waverers with those who fundamentally disagree with assisted dying and those who regard anything that is not ‘the economy’ to be a distraction could close this issue down for another decade.

Which is a pity, as national surveys indicate that three out of every four people agree with some form of assisted dying and there is no reason to believe Guernsey is any different.

Deputies should be able to explore that view in an informed, ethical debate.