Assisted Suicide: Common Law and Ethics

The legalization of euthanasia as a means of relieving people of pain and giving them a chance to choose death with dignity has been an issue of multiple debates for an understandable reason. In the current legislation of the United Kingdom, euthanasia, or assisted suicide, is illegal.¹ However, the proposed legislation, which will allow euthanasia as one of the options that patients with terminal illnesses will be able to choose will entail an array of ethical complications, which will not necessarily contribute to ensuring death with dignity. Namely, due to the lack of opportunities for controlling doctors, who may abuse the power that will be given to them legally after the acceptance of the proposed regulation.

Supporting Euthanasia: Ethical Framework

In order to provide support for the introduction of the regulation in favor of euthanasia into the UK legal context, one may consider Deontology as one of the main theoretical frameworks. The Deontological ethics suggests that decisions must be made based on the In turn, with the introduction of the legal provisions for assisted suicide into the UK legal system, the opportunities for helping patients to keep their dignity and choose the death that will help them to maintain it will be presented.² Therefore, from the Deontological standpoint, the adoption of a regulation based on the idea of an assisted suicide is justified since it will serve a morally justifiable purpose.

Explanation of the Deontological Perspective

Delving into the key provisions of the specified approach, one should mention that it will ensure that the need for dignity in terminally ill patients will be met accordingly. Due to the loss of functions that patients with terminal diseases are likely to experience at some point in the development of their disorder, their agency may be impaired significantly, which will prevent them from voicing their will. Therefore subjecting patients with terminal illnesses to the life of suffering and the loss of basic functions without their ability to end their suffering is not only incongruent with the existing UK laws concerning personal dignity, but also highly inhumane.

Arguments against Euthanasia

However, the arguments against the adoption of assisted suicide regulations are also quite sensible, both from the perspective of ethical challenges and the current dents in the UK legal system. To examine the negative impact of the legislation, Utilitarianism will be used. According to the Utilitarian ethics, a solution that eventually maximizes utility should be preferred to other options.³ Although the idea of terminating one’s suffering could be seen as the Utilitarianism solution to the described problem, the ramifications of adopting the proposed regulation appear to be not entirely examined. For instance, since the actual process of euthanasia as it is experienced by a patient cannot possibly be embraced due to the absence of personal evidence, the possible side effects of an assisted suicide regulation may cause problems.

Namely, the fact that some healthcare experts may use the legal standards for the assisted suicide without due care and analysis needs to be addressed. Moreover, the fact that euthanasia may be used for criminal purposes needs to be listed at the top of the list of concerns. Given the lack of tools for controlling the decisions of healthcare providers in the existing UK legislation, multiple loopholes for abusing a euthanasia law will emerge. The described outcome will put multiple patients in danger since the assisted suicide regulation may be used for inheriting money, as well as other criminal acts.⁴ Therefore, until the UK legislation system has a secure standard for maintaining the safety of terminally ill patients’ dignity and right to free will, the adoption of the assisted suicide regulation will be inconsistent with the ethical standards of Utilitarianism.

Preferred Ethical Approach

To approach the described issue from a personal perspective, it will be necessary to establish that people inevitably personalize the idea of death since they recognize their own mortality. Therefore, the idea of an assisted suicide as a part of the UK legislation will be approached as if it could be relevant to me at some point in life. Given the specified perspective, the notion of euthanasia being embedded into the UK legislation seems very unsettling to me since it will have to coexist with the current imperfections in the UK law.

Statutory Position: Considerations

Although the idea of allowing patients to die with dignity is a solid argument in favour of euthanasia, the introduction of a legislation that allows the specified practice will be incongruent with the current control system, which does not allow supervising doctors’ decisions on the subject matter and preventing them from abusing their power. Therefore, the proposed regulation must be repealed due to the threats of unethical decision-making that it will cause in the UK healthcare context. Specifically, the absence of monitoring tools and the methods of preventing criminals from using the legislation in favour of the assisted suicide for personal gain suggests that the described change is not yet suitable for the UK legal system.

In order to prepare the platform for introducing the regulation in question into the UK law, one will need to create the authority that will monitor the decision-making process and the execution of the described provision. However, given the amount of bureaucracy that the specified measures will entail, the development of standards for the assisted suicide will most likely complicate the process of administering palliative care to terminally ill patients to an even greater degree. Therefore, from both ethical and legal standpoints, the promotion of the assisted suicide regulation does not appear to be a legitimate solution.

Bibliography

Dintcho AD, ‘Should Active Euthanasia Be Morally and Legally Permissible?’ (2020) 5(1) Sound Decisions: An Undergraduate Bioethics Journal 1.

Kettell S, ‘How, When, and Why Do Religious Actors Use Public Reason? The Case of Assisted Dying in Britain’ (2019) 12(2) Politics and Religion 385-408.

Owen K, ‘Taking Courage: Neonatal Euthanasia and Ethical Leadership’ (2020) 27(1) Nursing Ethics 321-325.

Pesut B and others, ‘Nursing and Euthanasia: A Narrative Review of the Nursing Ethics Literature’ (2020) 27(1) Nursing Ethics 152-167.

Footnotes

1. Steven Kettell, ‘How, When, and Why Do Religious Actors Use Public Reason? The Case of Assisted Dying in Britain’ (2019) 12(2) Politics and Religion 391.
2. Kianna Owen, ‘Taking Courage: Neonatal Euthanasia and Ethical Leadership’ (2020) 27(1) Nursing Ethics 322.
3. Arisa D. Dintcho, ‘Should Active Euthanasia Be Morally and Legally Permissible?’ (2020) 5(1) Sound Decisions: An Undergraduate Bioethics Journal 1.
4. Barbara Pesut and others, ‘Nursing and Euthanasia: A Narrative Review of the Nursing Ethics Literature’ (2020) 27(1) Nursing Ethics 158.