When Assisted Dying Is Legal
Assisted dying is controversial the world over but there are a handful of countries which allow it. Liz Carr visits all five in a new documentary series for radio.
All countries do it differently depending on legal history. In Europe four countries have legalised the medical practice of assisted dying; the country that we perhaps most associate it with in recent years is Switzerland.
Here, one of the organisations which “assists” is called Exit. Carr visits their offices and is allowed inside the room where people can take the medicine that will kill them.
She paints a picture of the space in words, explaining it’s smaller than she imagined: “It’s a cold room next to the kitchen and someone had died there the previous night. There was still an empty coffee cup on the bedside table and the dirty laundry on a chair.”
For the Swiss, it’s likely to be a volunteer who helps them to die rather than a medic. That’s because it’s an old law dating back to 1873 which allows someone to help a suicide if the assistant didn’t stand to gain from the death. It was updated in the 1970s to include medical assistance to those who are ill or dying, thanks to lobbying from Exit.
Allowing someone to die, or assisting them to do so, seems to go against what we’ve always been taught socially, ethically and via religion. But ideas about dignity and an end to suffering through a comfortable death have some popular appeal. Many believe that assisting someone to die if they are unable to do it for themselves could make us more human, not less.
The disabled Silent Witness actress and broadcaster Liz Carr admits on the programmes that she doesn’t agree with the idea and sides with disability campaigners who believe assisted death could be a “slippery slope” to easy euthanasia and a devaluing of life. She fears especially for disabled and vulnerable people but is taking this journey to try and understand the full picture.
In Switzerland, a volunteer for the Exit organisation, Giancarlo Zucco, explains his side of the story to Carr. He says: “I have a feeling of solidarity for people who suffer and also for animals. I am convinced that every one of us has the right to decide about his life and about his death – how and when he wants, or she wants, to die.”
Over 12 years, Zucco has assisted a lot of people towards death but is not sure of the exact figure. He says: “I don’t know because I never counted it. But out of a feeling I can say over 200, something like that.”
Zucco is keen to tell Carr that care is taken in the process and that only a third of the applications they receive, end in help from his organisation.
The five countries that Liz Carr visits in this two-part documentary, are: Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and two states in the US (Oregon and Washington state). Each has a different story of how assisted dying happens, and why.
In part one, Carr also travels to Belgium where she meets a doctor who admits to performing euthanasia before it was legal; and in Luxembourg, she finds out
why the law on assisted suicide nearly caused a constitutional crisis.
• When Assisted Death is Legal begins on the BBC World Service on Tuesday 19 Feb at the following times: 09:05, 13:05, 16:05, and 20:05 (GMT). Follow the link for other opportunities to listen. Part two airs the next day.
Same Difference 