It’s the question of safeguards over Assisted Dying that are the real problem. Not having the option of an early death as a reasoned voluntary choice

It’s over a decade since I last wrote about the need for Assisted Dying to be legalised.

I don’t even want to look into the number of terminally ill and people who have faced life changing challenges in that time, who have not been able to choose an early exit, just in the UK.

If we can step outside of what should be the irrational fear of having no choice, We can be sure that if we were facing that very same situation ourselves, we would want the option of a painless exit at a time and place of our own choosing, surrounded by the people we love.

Sadly, as with so many of the realities of life that cause so much pain and distress because of others standing in the way, the penny doesn’t drop on issues like this unless you’ve known some one very close who has gone through it, or you’ve ‘had a whiff of the box’ yourself and have found out.

What makes the whole debate all the more frustrating is the reality that very few of us would disagree that it is not the principle of Assisted Dying or Assisted Suicide that are really what the rejections are really about.

The problem, as it was when I last wrote about it, and for as long and wherever this debate raises its head, is that there is no, or rather there appears to be no foolproof method of ensuring that Assisted Dying is and can only ever be 100% voluntary.

Indeed, few would disagree that the circumstances and legal framework should never exist that could mean that anybody – and particularly older people, the infirm, disabled of those who are vulnerable in any way, could ever be compelled to make such a choice, for the benefit of others, rather than only themselves.

Regrettably, it is a sign of the times that so many of us have sympathy for the suggestion that there is no way to create adequate protections and safeguards that cannot be manipulated in some way. Because we live in times where morality and ethics have been deliberately confused with regulation, laws and rules that may be ‘legal’, but are no longer fit for purpose within a legal system that isn’t serving us with the unquestionable impartially that it should.

However, such arguments and positions do miss the obvious point that saying no to legalising Assisted Dying without even contributing to the search for a workable solution, because of what might happen, should not be nearly as compelling as the fact we are failing people who are already living with the personal hell of this experience and are crying out for our humanity and help.

Whilst it can only be good that Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is heading for a vote, the truth is that whilst the intention cannot be questioned, this whole question should always have been a government driven process rather than being left to be a private members bill, because the leaders wont lead when anything this controversial is in the public policy mix.

Had this Bill had effective cabinet level or prime ministerial leadership and the departmental resources that really should be applied to any matter with implications of this kind, the breadth and depth of the practical options and the governance that would support a successful outcome could really have been exhausted in a comprehensive process and debate.

Instead, we run the risk that either the Bill will fall and the question will not again return until at least the next Parliament.

If it should succeed, there will also be the risk that the necessary safeguards will not be in place and that cases will follow where questions could be raised over whether people are or have been effectively bullied into choosing an early death. Worse, that the gates are opened to wider forms of abuse that we should not even have to consider being possible in what we believe to be the civilised 21^st century society we are in.

Assisted Dying is an ethical, moral issue and cause that sits way beyond party politics. Because the outcome has the ability to affect each and every one of us in exactly the same way.

As such, it is deserving of being considered, researched and thought through with the significance that it truly deserves.