Death: Is it your right to choose?

I was deeply affected by a recent visit to an exhibition centred around a re-creation of a room at the Dignitas flat near Zurich, Switzerland. This powerful and emotive installation is part of an exploration on the theme of assisted dying ‘Death: is it your right to choose?’ from 23rd January until March 2016 at the Bristol Museum. I went to view this exhibition prior to attending the talk and panel debate on Assisted Dying that same evening.

This exhibition complements Death: the Human Experience exhibition which I previously attended and wrote about.

As it stands, the current law on assisted dying in the UK is that to assist someone to take their own life remains illegal.

So what is Dignitas? It is a not-for-profit organisation founded on the principle ‘To live with dignity – to die with dignity.’ They believe that everyone has the right to make their own decisions about how they want to die. One of the things they do is offer people the opportunity to end their own life. And people, if they are well and able enough, will travel from abroad to check in and receive the ‘medication’ to end their life on the premises. There were testimonies from individuals who had travelled from the UK and other countries to Zurich.

For me, the most moving part of this installation was hearing audios of the last hour and indeed, last few moments, of the individual, their relatives, and staff at Dignitas. There were written scripts available in the installation too. I recommend visiting the exhibition for an insight into the current debate and to ask yourself whether the UK should be considering the alternative in the light of Dignitas’s 30 years’ experience of meeting end of life needs.

The Assisted Dying Panel debate was later that evening at the museum. The debate or discussion was:

Should people have the right to decide how and when they die?

A panel of experts discussed the ethics and legalities of assisted dying and the speakers included:

• Richard Huxtable. Chair. (Professor of Medical Law and Ethics, University of Bristol)
• Lesley Close (accompanied brother John to Dignitas in 2003)
• Silvan Luley (Dignitas)
• Katherine Sleeman (Clinical Lecturer in Palliative care, Kings College, London)
• Havi Carel (Professor of Philosophy, University of Bristol)
• John Troyer (Director Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath)

The debate was heavily oversubscribed, indicating the passion and determination felt by many, on all sides of the debate, for a review of the law. Initially the number attending was set for 80, however the numbers allowed kept getting extended as people were queuing up to get in, the final figure was in the region of 320, and I just about managed to get back in myself.

The discussion started with the Chair giving a definition, and the issues:

‘Assisted dying is the intention of ending of a life of suffering on request with the help of an assistant’.

So the crux of the debate/ discussion was of assisted dying (AD) and does the United Kingdom keep Assisted dying as

A) Keep unlawful
B) Make lawful
C) Keep unlawful but apply law compassionately

Three times throughout the evening a live poll was utilised to establish the audience views.

Should assisted dying be legal in the UK?

Options:
Agree
Disagree
Unsure

Interestingly enough, the opinions of the audience changed over the course of the evening after arguments were made for or against, and the complexities surrounding these issues, emphasising for me that there’s no clear consensus.

For the first poll the audience response was:
62% agreed 11% disagreed and 28% were unsure

In the second survey
79% agreed, 8% Disagreed and 13& were unsure

For the final survey
55% agreed, 29% disagreed and 16% were unsure.

Recently the government debated and declined passing any law in the UK that would allow UK-based services for assisted dying, for the time being. However, the exhibition, the panel and the audience’s responses I found reassuring, it felt that death and dying and assisted dying are being openly considered, coming into the consciousness of people and I feel that something very slowly is shifting in society and I welcome that some people are beginning to talk about death in a good way.