Assisted Dying: The View from the United Kingdom

Abstract

Unlike some of its European neighbours, the law governing decisions at the end of life in the United Kingdom has not been subject to the vital, ongoing debates which have resulted in law reform in countries like the Netherlands and Belgium. Although there have been two major reports on assisted dying in the last 11 years, the law remains essentially static. However, this may yet change, following the House of Lords Select Committee Report on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill.1 Although it is probably unlikely that law reform is on the cards, the recommendation from the Select Committee that an early opportunity to debate this topic should be found may at least permit the issue of assisted dying to reach the Parliamentary agenda. At present, deliberate acts of euthanasia would be dealt with by the law of murder or manslaughter (culpable homicide in Scotland), while the provision of the wherewithal to commit suicide (often referred to as assisted suicide or physician assisted suicide) is criminalised by common law in Scotland and by the terms of the Suicide Act 1961 in England and Wales.2 Prosecution of such cases is, however, relatively rare as is conviction, and, in what might be seen as a tacit critique of current law, sentences are generally light, even – interestingly – when the act is carried out by a non-healthcare professional.3 Where doctors are involved, convictions are unlikely, although not impossible. For example, in the case of R v Carr,4 a doctor charged with attempted murder was acquitted after injecting a massive dose of phenobarbitone into a terminally ill