Michael Dobbs: Bill for the dying is a matter of human dignity

Today's Supreme Court judgment on assisted dying highlights a dilemma affecting the way we live, and the way some of us will die. It’s a subject that the House of Lords returns to in a few weeks’ time, debating the Assisted Dying Bill, which would allow those who are terminally ill and close to death to ask for medical assistance to end their own lives.

It will create an outpouring of clichés and criticism. “Leave well alone!” we will be told. It’s the British way to muddle through.

But what a pernicious muddle it is. Currently, the law makes it a criminal offence for anyone to help another kill him or herself. A wife or a husband who helps their spouse bring an end to their suffering runs the risk of prosecution. There are many good reasons to be cautious about changing the law, but the current state of affairs is as unfair as it is absurd.

Some will be against any change as a matter of religious principle. But I have never seen God as being cruel, inflicting needless pain. And if God doesn’t own our lives in that sense, neither does the state, least of all an unelected official like the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Many opponents argue that if we pass this Bill we will soon be killing children or disabled people, and putting pressure on elderly relatives to kill themselves. But the new law doesn’t cover children or the disabled.

It would apply only to those who have been medically certified to be within six months of death. There is a careful process of medical and psychological assessment, plus a cooling-off period, and in reality the time frame would be less than six months.

Are we really to believe that grasping relatives will run the risk of prosecution by pressurising granny to kill herself, when in any case she has only weeks to live?

I, for one, will not go to Dignitas. It’s a prefabricated metal shack on an industrial estate in Switzerland. If it comes to it, if life and pain have become too desperate and I am close to death, I would so very much prefer to be able to say my goodbyes, to make my peace, to decide for myself when the moment had come and to be surrounded by the love of those who are most important to me. I believe that is my right, my choice, not that of the State. It’s a matter of fundamental human dignity.

Absurdly, it is the present law that imposes unnecessary suffering. That’s why so many doctors have risked their careers and liberty quietly assisting patients in great suffering to find an early, painless release. It’s also why opinion polls suggest there is huge public support for a change in the law.

I watched my mother die. She was sustained to a point of such pain that, when I rushed back from abroad and I walked past her hospital bed, I no longer recognised her. I know what that terrible realisation meant for me; I can only imagine what suffering it caused her.