Scrubbing up: Your comments

It is not just friends and family who want clarity about potential criminal prosecutions for helping someone travel abroad for an assisted suicide - doctors too may face criminal proceedings for offering advice or assistance under the current law.

In this week's Scrubbing Up, the Medical Defence Union's Dr James Armstrong warns that doctors may be putting their livelihood and liberty on the line by becoming involved.

What do you think about the issue? Here is a selection of the comments you've sent to the BBC about this week's Scrubbing Up.

Of course doctors should be involved and of course the DPP's guidance will enable them to do so without risk: James Armstrong's approach is over-cautious. The deaths of 117 British citizens at Dignitas have been reported (my brother John among them) and, although relatives and friends have been questioned, there have been no news stories about doctors being involved in police investigations.

A doctor has a duty to provide medical information to a patient - it is the patient's information, after all, not the doctor's - and they should, surely, have their patient's best interests at heart at all times.

If a mentally competent, terminally ill adult who is suffering intolerably feels that their interests would be best served by ending their suffering - by bringing the date of their death forward by a few weeks - it is horrible to think that their doctor might prefer them, for purely selfish reasons, to carry on living despite their suffering.

James Armstrong is jumping the gun - he needs to see what Kier Starmer's guidance says before deciding whether or not he can abide by it. His attitude suggests that he has already made up his mind, taking the paternalistic view that doctors should oppose assisted dying whatever the guidance says.
Lesley Close, Amersham, England

Doctors should NOT be involved. Doctors are trained to heal their patients not to kill their patients. Palliative care is available to patients. There could never be adequate safeguards to protect patients from obvious abuses of suicide provision.
Anonymous, Farnham Surrey

Doctors should be involved to prevent vulnerable people being exploited. They will be in a position to administer caution and provide an objective viewpoint. We have moved away from preserving life at all costs, we realise that it is quality of life that matters.

If we put our pets down because they are in too much pain, then why don't we allow the same of humans who can and do articulate their wishes very clearly?
Shrimati, Reading

It is outrageous that the debate about assisted suicide is dominated by twisted individuals who enjoy other people's suffering and from pressure groups such as ProLife to push their sadist agenda. Of course we need proper safeguards to protect vulnerable people but any "right to life" must include the right to die at the time of your choosing to be meaningful.
Tom, London

Doctors should always adopt an advisory and informative stance. The decision is the concerned person's responsibility to end their life.

I personally would cling to any hope, however small, and not even consider basically 'putting myself down'. I do not support prostitution but believe it would be wise to legalise it. Similarly this very sensitive issue involving life and death needs the law clearly defined.
Tim McMahon, Penner

For years the Government has been championing the principle of patient choice, while at the same time making it almost impossible for patients to choose assisted suicide. This is absurd.

Doctors should be able to provide a medical report on the condition of a patient considering suicide, and provide a letter confirming their mental capacity to make the decision, without fear of prosecution. These are neutral actions and simply facilitate patient choice.
Sue Davis, Stroud

A doctor's first responsibility is to his/her patient. In a case where someone has asked for advice on assisted suicide, then the doctor should be able to give that advice without fear of prosecution if the advice is acted on.

Maybe there could be some form of disclaimer for such cases. No patient who seeks such advice would surely object to that.
Jenifer Gough, Barry

Doctors should not be involved under current legislation. A doctor's prime directive is to the health and survival of their patient, no matter their personal feelings about the quality of life of that person.

What is needed is to rescind the 'assisted suicide' law, to make it safe and unambiguous for people with little or no quality of life, or an incurable, degenerative illness, to seek assistance from doctors in ending their lives.

Life, itself, should not be sacred, quality of life should!
Glenn Willis, Lyme Regis

Debbie Purdy has potentially done us all a disservice - for the old and vulnerable the mental step from the right to die to a duty to die is very small. There is already evidence of widespread 'elder abuse' so any further moves to facilitate assisted suicide will only make that worse. Long live the current law.
Peter Farley, Sutton Coldfield

While I am delighted that some clarification is coming to this discussion, shouldn't we be able to hope for more?

Debbie Purdy simply wishes to exercise her right to choose a path for her life and have her husband by her side when this happens. Like many other terminally ill sufferers, she is making a lucid and considered choice based on principals of free will and personal liberty. Principals we use to justify many aspects of our society. Yet when these are applied to something as contentious as allowing someone to end their life with dignity, everyone baulks. If we're brave enough to allow ourselves to choose how we live shouldn't we keep that attitude right to the end, however that comes?
Tom Whitford, Welwyn Garden City

I think this needs to be debated. If I had a terminal illness I would seriously consider ending my life. Why is it OK to dope someone up to the eyeballs on morphine and have them lie there for months?

It is illogical and inhumane. I consider myself capable of making such decisions. I feel sorry for elderly couples who find themselves in this situation. Too much meddling from religious zealots.
John, London

Doctors are involved due to the nature of their job. Personally I feel that if someone wants to take their own life because of a terminal illness then they should be free to do what they wish.

The problem with the UK is a small amount of people making the rules and laws for others. Obviously there are issues concerning whether someone has been forced into this decision etc but in reality it wouldn't be that hard to differentiate between pressure and ones conscious thought to take their own life. The drug companies effectively lose millions with people taking their own life as they are not using their products to extend it with all the nasty side effects.

There should be more emphasis on natural combatants against side effects, one being cannabis in its many forms but unfortunately we are governed by people who seek to control all even the terminally ill due to the amount of money that can be gained via taxation.

I had to watch my father take in the region of 100 pills a day to battle his cancer, the irony being that half of those were to counter the side effects of the others. We need to be far more open-minded in our approach to illness and not be so pig-headed when it comes to blatant facts regarding certain untaxable measures that people could be using.

I know this view will not be accepted by a lot of people which is fair enough as we all have our opinion. It certainly makes a difference when you watch someone whittle away over the period of 14 years.
Mark, Cambridge

It's a slippery slope. The state condoning mercy killing. The liberal state cannot intervene in this like it is impractical to convict people of attempted suicide. If you think you might want to kill yourself rather than face pain better do it while you can.

If you are nihilistic enough to kill yourself then doing it a few years early is not a philosophical or intellectual problem. Indeed doing it whilst in pain might be seen as illogical since how many of us are actually logical in extreme pain. If you are unlucky or unable to foresee the circumstances (like a car accident etc) then I don't have an answer - it may just be tough.

Once the state condones mercy killing the economic killing of the unproductive is only a short step behind. States have engaged in this in the last 100 years indeed. When you are old and frail and the child you raised turns its back on you for financial reasons - how do you feel - would not assisted suicide just be a proxy murder?
James Gell, Brentwood

Doctors should be able to provide honest reports on someone's medical and mental state without fear - regardless of the purpose to which these reports are later put.

They should not be penalised for providing factual information at the patient's request, or for recommending other sources of information.

The law should only come into play if doctors are actively assisting suicide - such as by prescribing or administering fatal doses, or if they suggest or recommend committing suicide to a patient who is undecided.

There is a big difference between telling a vulnerable patient that their life is worthless and they should off themselves, and providing sympathetic advice on how to contact Dignitas to a terminal patient who has expressed a wish to be euthanised, and asked for information.
Deborah, Amersham

The bigger picture needs to be looked at here, rather than the easy answer of travelling to Switzerland, where, if you did your research, it IS NOT LEGAL and is only possible through a loophole which they are trying to close. There is no specific clinic, the group usually rent out a flat until they are found out, which causes many problems to it's residents and landlord. So wouldn't it be better to figure out a solution where these unfortunate people can have their case heard to die here, with proper care, and comfort in their last hours.
Chris, Ruislip

If a doctor is asked for a medical report by a patient it should be given and no questions asked and certainly no question of investigation or prosecution of the doctor. It is up to the terminally ill patient to decide how to end his/her own life. It seems to me to be inhumane to keep a person alive to the bitter, and perhaps, undignified end against that person's wishes. You wouldn't do it to an animal! I feel very strongly about this subject.
Betty Averley-Isaacson, NSW, Australia

Certainly, the Medical Council needs to be on complete caution mode when considering such a delicate circumstance. Under the instance of a terminally ill geriatric scenario, where the subject is suffering from metastatic cancer, aged 85 years plus, with symptomatic therapeutics to reduce pain, is it peaceful for the concerned subject to not take a decision to free him/herself from the confines of the body? Especially when despite all modern medication, the concerned is labelled as 'terminally ill', and the visiting the doctor and family members can only sympathise with the patient who keeps glancing at the calendar.

Having said that, there is the dreaded thought of the possible dimension of corruption. However, I believe that quality of health is paramount, and possibly in the next decade of Medical advancements the Department of Health may take stringent steps via Quality and Control to measure an appropriate step.
Deepta Chakravartty, Glasgow

The hypocratic oath, which doctors used to swear by, says "first do no harm" but doctors dropped this moral code years ago, now they happily prescribe drugs whose side effects kill tens of thousands of people each year. I would hardly effect their current body count. This is just another way to diminish the respect for human life. the law is working well, lets just leave things as they are.
Graham, Colchester

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