Choose Life Programme.

Suicide is one of the principal causes of death for young people in industrialized countries, including Scotland. An advertisement will be aired in prime time television highlighting the need for everyone to support individuals contemplating suicide. The ad mentions that help might be as close as your nearest cabbie or your hairdresser and goes on to propose that people from all walks of life can be trained in providing help to potentially suicidal people. The ad is part of the Scottish Government’s Choose Life Programme, which is a 10 year plan aimed at reducing suicides in Scotland by 20% by 2013.
Rev. Ian Galloway, Convener of the church and Society Council mentioned in his blog that suicide is everyon'es business and that the Choose Life programme with its emphasis on early intervention and provision of initial help by trained members of the public was to be commended. It should be noted however, he continued, that there are many potential reasons for young people to become suicidal and that the advice of trained professionals and counselling staff carries the weight of evidence-based research.

The opinion polls on Assisted Suicide

Dr Calum MacKellar, Director of Research at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics has written a letter to The Herald, explaining the danger that leading opinion polls can have in swaying public opinion in Scotland in favour of the assisted suicide bill proposed by Margo MacDonald. According to Dr. MacKellar, the results of the polls are contradictory and do not consitute a basis for ammendment of legislation. Follow this link to read the full letter.

The Royal Dutch Medical Association against Assisted Suicide Amendment

The Royal Dutch Medical Association has expressed its reservation over the proposed amendement to current legislation on assisted suicide in The Netherlands. A campaign group claims to have collected enough signatures to force the proposal to be discussed in parliament. The proposal consists of "training non-doctors to administer a lethal potion to people over the age of 70 who "consider their lives complete" and want to die. The assistants would need to be certified and make sure that patients were not acting on a whim or due to a temporary depression, but from a heartfelt and enduring desire to die".
Currently, two medical doctors need to certify that a patient is suffering unbearably and has no hope of recovery before a lethal injection can be applied. The Royal Medical Association feels that the proposed amendment would reduce the direct involvement of medical doctors on the decision-making processes and has therefore expressed its reservations.

Statistics on Assisted Suicide

Simon Rogers from the Guardian has published statistics on the number of people that have carried out assisted suicide in a notable clinic in Switzerland. According to the data, since 1998, more UK citizens have used the clinic than Swiss nationals. Overall,German nationals are the most frequent users of the clinic. It would be interesting to reseearch the reasons behind this heavy use and whether they are tied in to provision of palliative care facilities.

According to the EAPC Task Force on the Development of Palliative Care in Europe, in 2006,

There is no national data about the palliative care workforce in Germany. It is estimated, however, that each palliative care unit has at least one full-time physician who is trained in palliative care. Inpatient hospices usually have no in-house doctor but work together with local GPs, of whom an increasing number have participated in a palliative care training course

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Summary of the DPP Guidelines

The following summary of the DPP Guildes was provided by Care not Killing.

DPP REVISED PROSECUTION GUIDELINES

These guidelines are a considerable improvement over the interim version because:

- They no longer suggest that a more lenient view will be taken of assisting the suicide of sick or disabled people than of assisting the suicide of others;

- They no longer give special protection to spouses and family members as assisters of suicide.

- They also make clear that assistance given by a doctor or nurse to a patient under their care would be regarded as an aggravating factor.

These are all very important and welcomed changes.

The new guidelines also make clear that the law has not changed and that anyone who assists a suicide must expect to be prosecuted unless there are clear and compelling reasons to suggest otherwise. The guidelines will give no immunity from prosecution. We welcome this reaffirmation.

Everything depends on how the CPS operates the guidelines in practice. There must be transparency over prosecution decisions. We will be watching carefully to monitor practice.

Other Messages

On the concept of publishing prosecution guidelines:

The remit given to the DPP by the Law Lords - that he should make clear his prosecution policy for assisted suicide - is inherently unsound. To tell us how far we can go in breaking the criminal law without being prosecuted risks encouraging law-breaking up to the limits suggested. It poses very real dangers to public safety.

The CPS does not tell us how much we can steal before being charged with theft or how much injury we can inflict without being charged with assault. Assisted suicide should be treated in the same way.


On the revised guidelines generally:

The law has not changed. Assisting another person’s suicide remains a criminal offence.

We are pleased to see that the DPP has emphasised that nothing in these guidelines should be interpreted as implying that a prosecution will not take place if certain boxes are ticked. Anyone minded to assist another person’s suicide should pay heed to that before embarking on such a course of action. We are also pleased to see that the DPP has emphasised that a prosecution can be expected to take place unless there are clear and compelling circumstances to suggest that that should not happen.

Recent prosecutions (eg the Gilderdale case) have shown that the Crown Prosecution Service will not hesitate to prosecute where necessary.


On the revised guidelines more specifically:

The DPP has taken on board many of the concerns that we expressed in relation to his interim guidelines. The revised guidelines are not perfect – for example, it is not clear how it is to be established that a suspect was “motivated wholly by compassion” . But they are a considerable improvement on what went before. Much will depend on how the new guidelines are put into practice. There needs to be complete transparency of prosecution decisions if public confidence is to be maintained that vulnerable people are not being put at risk.

Should you wish to see the full documentation available on the CPS website:
1. DPP Final Guidelines: Please follow this link.
2. Detailed summary of responses to the consultation: Please follow this link.
3. The Code for crown prosecutors: Please follow this link.

Snapshot on Public Opinion on Assisted Suicide

Keir Stamer, QC Director of Public Prosecution published a policy on assisted suicide on the 25th of February. Nearly 5000 responses were received by the Crown Prosecution Service following a consultation started in September. The report on the consultation exercise is available here. In the words of Mr. Stamer, "The policy is now more focused on the motivation of the suspect rather than the characteristics of the victim. The policy does not change the law on assisted suicide. It does not open the door for euthanasia. It does not override the will of Parliament. What it does is to provide a clear framework for prosecutors to decide which cases should proceed to court and which should not". The full policy is available here.

Briefing paper on End of Life Assistance Bill

The Scottish Churches Parliamentary Office, SCPO has provided a very interesting briefing paper on the End of Life Assistance Bill. It provides wonderfully clear background reading on the Bill. Please follow this link to read the full text.