Assisted Dying and Human Rights
Although suicide is not illegal in the UK under the Suicide Act 1961 [1], assisting someone to commit suicide is illegal:
Criminal liability for complicity in another’s suicide.
2.-(1) A person who aids, abets, counsels or procures the suicide of another, or an attempt by another to commit suicide, shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years.
There was a debate in Parliament on the subject of assisted dying on 4 July 2019 [2]. But nothing changed as a result except perhaps some attitudes.
The right to life is contained in all declarations and laws referring to human rights, but the right to a dignified and pain-free death is never mentioned. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says:
Article 3.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
But death and dying are not mentioned in the Declaration.
The European Court of Human Rights has considered several cases dealing with the End of Life on several occasions [3], usually referring to Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights [4] which says:
Article 2 – Right to life
1 Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.
2 Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary:
a in defence of any person from unlawful violence;
b in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained;
c in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection.
For example, in the case of Pretty v. the United Kingdom [5] in 2002 in which the applicant wished to be able to control how and when she died, the Court held that there had been no violation of Article 2 (right to life) of the Convention, finding that the right to life could not, without a distortion of language, be interpreted as conferring the diametrically opposite right, namely a right to die.
The Court also held that there had been no violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the Convention. Even if it could not but be sympathetic to the applicant’s apprehension that without the possibility of ending her life
she faced the prospect of a distressing death, nonetheless, the positive obligation on the part of the State which had been invoked would require that the State sanction actions intended to terminate life, an obligation that could not be derived from Article 3.
The Court lastly held that there had been no violation of Articles 8 (right to respect for private life), 9 (freedom of conscience) and 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the Convention.
The UK Human Rights of 1998 [6] Article 2 is an exact copy of the European Convention on Human Rights [4] Article 2 as previously quoted.
A number of groups exist in the UK to campaign for a change in the law, for example Dignity in Dying, and Humanists UK also support these attempts.
Others, such as Care Not Killing which promotes palliative care, says any change to the law puts vulnerable people under increased pressure to end their lives. Chief executive Dr Gordon MacDonald has said “no major disability rights organisation or doctors’ group” supported changing law and there was “no safe system of assisted suicide and euthanasia anywhere in the world”.
It is unlikely that the governments of Belgium, Colombia, Luxembourg, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands or the US states of Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Hawaii, Vermont, Montana, Washington, D.C. Maine or New Jersey or California would agree [7].
References
[1] Suicide Act 1961
[2] House of Commons Debate on Assisted Dying
[3] End of life and the European Convention on Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights Fact Sheet
January 2019
Summarises several judgements of the Court
[4] European Convention on Human Rights
[5] Pretty v. the United Kingdom
The judgement of the European Court of Human Rights Fact Sheet for this case in 2002
[7] Wikipedia on legality of euthanasia
More Information
Assisted suicide and human rights in the UK
Martin Curtice and Charlotte Field
The Psychiatrist, Volume 34, Issue 5
Currently known as: BJPsych Bulletin Title history
May 2010 , pp. 187-190
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1192/pb.bp.108.024059
Published online: 02 January 2018