Leading medical ethicist welcomes new guidelines on assisted suicide

Leading medical ethicist welcomes new guidelines on assisted suicide

23 September 2009

New guidelines on assisted suicide in England and Wales provide a “helpful and balanced policy”, says St George’s medical ethicist Dr Daniel Sokol.

The new guidance, issued on 23 September 2009 by Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer, aims to clarify the law on assisted suicide in England and Wales.

The guidance does not represent a change in the law and offers no guarantees against prosecution. Rather, it spells out the range of factors that will be taken into account when deciding on cases. These include whether there was a financial motive, and looking into how the decision to die was made.

"I expected platitudes, and I was wrong. Keir Starmer QC has produced a helpful and balanced policy that acknowledges the difficulty of the issue and the nuances of each individual case,” explains Dr Daniel Sokol

It is illegal to help someone commit suicide and carries a jail term of up to 14 years.

However, more than 100 Britons with terminal or incurable illnesses have gone to the Swiss centre Dignitas to die. Several of the cases have been looked into by police, but none has led to a prosecution because the authorities have the power to use their discretion.

“Doubtless some will still complain that the guidance is too vague, but they should remember the words of Aristotle: ‘it is the sign of an educated person not to seek more precision than the subject allows.’ We must accept that decisions to prosecute or not will ultimately involve an element of judgement on the part of the prosecutors," concludes Dr Sokol.