Baroness Meacher’s bill went through the House of Lords last week. It allows doctors to assist in the deaths of terminally ill patients. The way it works is for doctors to prescribe a lethal cocktail of drugs, which the patient can collect and personally administer at any time.
Assisted death is legal in some US states but does not always result in a pain free death. Most people would prefer a doctor administered lethal shot of morphine to allow the patient to ‘slip away’ under medical supervision. Taking a cocktail of drugs can in some cases take hours to deliver the end result and, in some cases, patients suffer seizures and ‘regurgitations’.
Assisted dying has however popular support, a recent YouGov poll showed that three quarters of Britons favour a change in the law. However, previous attempts by the Lords to reform the law have got stuck in the Commons.
The reason why it gets stuck is because it is a complex issue…
I am in the business of ‘death and taxes’ not to say I have witnessed first-hand the pain and suffering many people have to endure in the lead up to death, but I have probably a better understanding than most about these two certainties death and taxes.
When people get ill, they often become vulnerable and dependent on others. For many they feel – or are made to feel, - a ‘burden’ on their loved ones – who at this stage of their lives are often less loving than they were when their ill relative was well.
The bill provides for an assessment by two independent doctors to confirm the diagnosis, the patient’s mental competence and that the decision was not influenced by anyone else. It is this second limb that I have the most concern about.
Statistics from the US State of Oregon bear this out. 50% of those who chose ‘assisted suicide’ cited being a ‘burden’ on others as a reason. Many cite wanting ‘to do what is expected of them’ and they feel – or are made to feel – that they are being ‘selfish’ by staying alive.
One of my clients many years ago, was a leading lawyer in Australia who married one of her clients who was some twenty years older than her. Before getting married she asked him to undergo health checks and DNA samples, she said she wanted to have the ‘best years of her life’
Soon after they married, her husband was diagnosed with Diabetes and MS, within a year he could not travel easily and had difficulty going up and down the stairs especially steep stairs such as in the theatre.
She said to me in a quiet conversation ‘I did not leave my career to become a nurse’. Despite these bitter words she did look after him until his death some ten years later.
Another conversation I had with a client who was similarly married to a partner much older than herself, she said ‘What I worry most, is for my husband to fall seriously ill, - I have told him I will send him off to Switzerland, I am not a carer, and he knows that. ‘I am not after his money, because he does not have any’. My client is not an unkind woman, simply stating what she sees as a fact.
I have seen many other normally kind people become bitter and cruel towards their sick relative. It is true the work involved with caring for the sick and elderly can be relentless and unremitting, preventing them from taking holidays meeting with friends, trips to the theatre or a concert and it is easy for bitterness to creep in – but there is another side to sickness – which is that of greed.
One client of mine was young, and wealthy. She had a grasping partner who comforted and cared for her while she was sick – but it came at a price. He made her feel loved but led her to believe that while ill she could not look after her finances. Bit by bit she transferred her wealth to him – and when she died her estate was insolvent.
This is not at all unusual, especially when there are many children from multiple relationships. This is the ‘wicked stepmother’ syndrome, and it is not a fairy tale. It seems that most mothers of the last brood of kids have an overwhelming urge to benefit their offspring at the expense of the older children – and will use all manner of tactics which are littered in novels about the rich and famous.
‘It is not fair to treat all your children equally, the older children can look after themselves’.
‘The older children need to be provided for by their mother – after all you gave her enough in your divorce’ and on it goes.
Private client professional lawyers must try to persuade clients to decide what to do while of sound mind and not dependent on others. But even the most experienced lawyer may find they are no match for a determined and greedy new wife with children of her own to provide for.
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