All That the Recent High-profile Cases Prove is That the Law Regarding Assisted Suicide is Farcical Marcel Berlins: It is ludicrous that every case of assisted suicide will have to be looked at individually only after the death has taken place
In the last six weeks we've had three separate high-profile cases of "assisted suicide". Far from providing any useful guidance as to how the law should proceed to handle the issue, they have, in some ways, resulted in more confusion and misunderstanding. Debbie Purdy asked the high court to declare that her husband would not be prosecuted if he accompanied her to the Dignitas institute in Switzerland when she decided she wanted to cease living. Request refused. Daniel James had his parents with him when he chose to die there. Craig Ewart was filmed in his moment of death, his wife with him as he bit into the capsule that ended his life. Keir Starmer, the new director of public prosecutions (DPP), made the sensible decision not to prosecute the parents of Daniel James for assisting his suicide, not for want of evidence against them (there was enough to convict) but because it would be against the public interest. The trouble was that much of the media enlarged his ruling into a general statement that relatives, such as Mr and Mrs James, would not be prosecuted. Starmer was compelled to make it clear that his decision was taken on the "very specific and unique" facts of that case and did not necessarily open the door to other relatives who accompanied their terminally ill loved ones to Switzerland. But was the James case so unique? What did they do - or not do - that was so different from other relatives in their position? What did they do that would have been different from what Debbie Purdy's husband intended doing? The court had refused to give him an assurance that he wouldn't be prosecuted. It was a correct decision - granting advance immunity from prosecution is not something courts ought to do - but not helpful. The outcome of James and Purdy is that every case will have to be looked at individually by the DPP - but only after the death has taken place. Parents and spouses can get no guidance beforehand about whether they will fall into the James category - not in the public interest to prosecute - or whether the DPP will find that some action or other taken by a relative renders them liable to prosecution. This is a ludicrous, ultimately farcical way to decide the fate of newly bereaved parents and partners. The cry arises again: "Let parliament decide." Here's the depressing bit. There's virtually no chance of that. The government shows little sign of wanting to pursue a measure of such controversy. The prime minister is against it. It is not enough for supporters of the legalization of assisted suicide to argue that 80% of the population favors it, as polls say. The 20% opposed is committed and powerful, as was shown when Lord Joffe's private members' bill on the subject was destroyed in 2005. A private members' bill in the Commons would receive a similar mauling. Everyone, on both sides of the argument, agrees that the present situation is hugely unsatisfactory. Nothing will happen to change it. Last week an eminent professor of black holes (the ones in our galaxy) came on to Radio 4's Today program to launch a new black hole (or possibly the discovery of an old one that was even blacker than it had previously been thought). I don't fully, or indeed at all, understand black holes, but I do believe in them. I believe that they exist. But the prof, in an aside, went on to state a fact - as distinct from a supposition or an "I think that" or "It's likely that" - that has perturbed me for decades. It is the fact that I've most disbelieved, ever, in my whole life. Note that I don't use the word "alleged" or put the word fact in quotation marks. I accept that it is a fact, but I just do not and cannot believe it. I've tried, very hard, for many years. There are many other facts I don't believe, but none with the passion I don't believe this one. It was stated by the professor not just with authority and certainty, but as if it was as sure as the existence of the earth itself. There are, he proclaimed, more stars in our galaxy than there are grains of sand in all the beaches of the whole world. It just can't be true. Think how many grains of sand there are in a handful. Then look at the beach you're on and try to multiply your handful by many thousands - no, millions. Then think of all the beaches on all the shores of all the continents. More stars than that? It may be a fact, but it's nonsense, isn't it? I do not wish to make light of the American forces' habit of torturing prisoners by playing unbearably loud pop music at them; the same song over and over. Torture by noise, whether musically based or not, can be just as just as harmful and distressing as other forms of the evil practice. But my immediate thought, I confess, was that it wasn't necessary to play the music at such great volume. Mere repetition may be enough. My source is Billy Wilder's much underrated 1962 cold-war comedy One, Two, Three (starring James Cagney) in which East German agents torture Horst Buchholz by subjecting him to the constant playing of Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini. This week Marcel read JK Galbraith's The Great Crash, 1929: "Written in 1954, and frightening not because circumstances are similar but because people haven't changed. The greedy but incompetent still screw the poor saps who trust them." He tried to watch the key football match Lyon v Marseille: "But the television told me I don't subscribe to that channel."
© Guardian News & Media 2008Published: 12/16/2008
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