For Immediate Release Monday 8 May 2006

Assisted suicide bill violates the fundamental principle of "first do no harm"

Doctors will become gatekeepers to assisted suicide (also called assisted dying) and will violate the principle of

“first do no harm”

if a bill before parliament this month is passed into law, argues an editorial in the May issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Professor Baroness Finlay, professor of palliative medicine at Cardiff University and President Elect of the Royal Society of Medicine, warns that Lord Joffe’s bill on Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill blurs the line of medical ethics and the law, despite the recommendations of the select committee inquiry into the subject.

“The bill before Parliament fundamentally changes the way doctors practice medicine and the way that those with distress are managed,”

said Ilora Finlay.

“The select committee made 10 important recommendations…but the proponents of the latest bill have chosen to ignore six of these, claiming there are stringent safeguards in the new bill,”

she writes.

Baroness Finlay argues that the ADTI bill claims to be modelled on Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act (ODDA) but in fact has stark differences.

“Unlike the ODDA, this bill would authorize doctors not only to prescribe lethal drugs but also in ‘appropriate’ cases to set up an intravenous line,”

  she writes .

“The select committee recommended that the doctor’s duties must be clear; yet ADTI is inexplicit about the actions that would be lawful for a doctor to take, posing problems for doctors as to whether they were operating within the law or crossing the line.”

The editorial also outlines the experience of Dutch doctors who perform euthanasia.

“After performing euthanasia, 42% of Dutch doctors report feelings of discomfort, and 43% later sought support in coping…The attending physician found it necessary to intervene by administering a lethal drug in 18% of assisted suicides,”

she says.

Baroness Finlay argues that unless the medical principle of ‘first do no harm’ is mirrored in present law it will be blurred by the ambiguity of the ADTI bill.

“If this bill were to be passed into law, the 'bright line' separating what doctors may and may not do would become a blurred one, inconsistently applied as between one doctor and another, and easily crossed”

.

The ADTI bill, which is presently before Parliament, will be debated in the House of Lords on Friday 12th May.

[ends]

‘First do no harm’ – a clear line in law and medical ethics [PDF 73k]

‘First do no harm’ – a clear line in law and medical ethics is published in the May issue (Vol. 99) of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

JRSM is the flagship journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. It has been published continuously since 1809. Its Editor is Dr Kamran Abbasi. www.jrsm.org