Why politicians were right to reject assisted dying

The lead-up to this debate led to many contributions to the Open Lines letters page from many different people who had strong arguments for both sides of the debate.

The majority of the letters that I read had sound arguments and were well written and thought out, especially on a subject as emotive and controversial as this one. Moreover, this debate traversed the English Channel and gained media attention in England, among other places.

However, as I was off-island, I missed the actual debate and have been told on my return that Guernsey will not be known as ‘Death Island’ and euthanasia is still considered an illegal practice.

I am sure that the people against were happy with this result, yet the people who support euthanasia were disappointed.

I decided not to voice my opinion over this subject until the debate had finished and I came back to Guernsey.

I am for euthanasia as I think it is the basic right for people to decide when they depart this planet, especially when they are in tremendous pain due to terminal illness. However, I am happy that this debate was voted against by our local politicians.

People who read this letter might now be confused as to why a pro-euthanasia supporter, which I am, was happy that this policy was voted against by our local representatives? I have two reasons for this:

Firstly, since media outlets notified this debate was happening I came to the conclusion that this was nothing more than a vanity project for a select few of our politicians and local ‘personalities’ (you know who you are) that want to either stay relevant in the public eye or to gain public or political support, which I find abhorrent and disgusting.

Secondly, considering that local practising nurses, doctors and other medical professionals follow the stringent English legislation, if the debate had succeeded Guernsey would somehow have to create a law and then force the UK to implement this law.

I ask people who are reading this, has Guernsey, since this island existed, been able to either convince or force the UK to implement new laws?

To my knowledge, this has never happened, especially with such an important and emotive topic as euthanasia is, which leads me to ask why the politicians decided to open up this debate in the first place?

I hope that in the future there is a law to allow euthanasia in Guernsey and the UK so that people who want to die do not need to travel to another country to do this, but I sincerely hope the next debate about this topic will have a better strategy and thought to it before it becomes a local and national debate.

Name and address withheld