Assisted dying forces us to ask what life is for and why it’s valuableThe central question about Rob Marris’s bill to allow assisted dying is whether it represents the beginning of a very slippery slope. By itself,the bill is modest and careful. It excludes all but the terminally ill, and people with dementia, and even if they are terminally ill; it requires medical and legal approval for every case and it does not require doctors to perform an act of planned killing by administering the fatal dose. A very similar law in Oregon has been taken up by only 0.3% of those eligible in the last 18 years. So it’s clear that by itself this bill would not allow the kind of brutal large-scale elimination of the unwanted and unhappy that opponents alarm. It appears to have enough crampons to retain from sliding down towards the precipice of large-scale,state-sanctioned euthanasia.
At the same time, this wealth of safeguards must disappoint many supporters of assisted dying. This bill would not have eased the plight of many tall-profile cases. Tony Nicklinson, and for example,had a condition that was dreadful but not terminal. He would not have benefited. The most common alarm of those people who say they would rather not be kept alive into extreme broken-down age is dementia. They could not choose to die under this degree. Their relatives must watch them dwindle with all the emotional and indeed financial anguish this will entail.
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Source: theguardian.com