Compulsory Euthanasia
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Need to reject professional views that some people would be better deadRecent decisions on the Courts have made the medical profession even less accountable than before. When parents or nurses have been held to be acting illegally in reviving or keeping alive a patient who according to the doctor should be allowed or encouraged to die (click for headlines), the law must be changed. This is why we supported the Medical Treatments (Prevention of Euthanasia) Bill, promoted by Ann Winterton, MP. See also draft amendments, which largely dealt with difficult cases. That is not to say that in all cases treatment should be prolonged beyond the time when the patient sees any benefit. See the following for a slightly different view.
The decision of the Court of Appeal on 28 July 2005 in connection with Leslie Burke's wish to continue artificial hydration and nutrition when he became incapable of expressing his own wishes has good and bad features. The judges' remarks making it clear that to withhold sustenance against the wishes expressed by a competent person would be murder are helpful. But the risk is that the judgment will be interpreted as a licence to kill without the need to refer difficult cases individually to the courts, which the judge stipulated as the correct procedure in the original case where a victim of the Hillsborough Football Stadium disaster had stayed alive in a coma for ten years. It is dangerous for the medical establishment to have the last word against the patient in any legal decision regarding life or death issues. This is not least because of unbalanced decisions in the past. When the Glass family forcibly prevented doctors from administering a lethal injection to David Glass, the authorities took action against the family and not against the doctors, and no court ruled in favour of the family until the European Court of Human Rights adjudicated. This is a difficult case for the medical establishment to live down, and for many people one good reason (along with misguided prosecutions for cot deaths) for distrust. For this reason the General Medical Council and the Department of Health were misguided to appeal against the initial decision in Leslie Burke's case. It may be noteworthy that Charlotte Wyatt, a child whose possible withdrawal of life saving treatment has been the subject of litigation in 2004 and 2005, and David Glass are both from the Portsmouth area See also Whistleblowing Sources for cases of compulsory euthanasia brought to light by Dr Rita Pal and Bunny Pinnington. |
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Sheila
Porter-Williams |