There has been a number of high profile assisted suicide cases reported in the press recently.
As always in cases like those presented of late, there is no easy way to give a real worthwhile and valuable opinion of what is right and what is not unless you’re in the situation yourself.
The law is still the law and assisted suicide isn’t allowed in the UK. The lawmakers believe that there would be too much assisted suicide help for people who relations want to be rid of, rather than all genuine cases. Whether this is true or not, we might never know.
On the other hand there’s no doubt that some of those cases highlighted recently show people who no longer wish to live in great pain and be a burden on those who care for them.
Assisted suicide is allowed in a few countries, but some who did allow it have now changed back.
For detail of what you can do and where, go here:
http://www.assistedsuicide.org/suicide_laws.html
The law does have some current answers to help you prepare for dealing with long term illness, once you’ve lost your capacity to make your own decisions.
Essentially we have ‘Power of Attorney’ (Welfare version) where you can nominate someone to make decisions for you concerning how you are to be looked after once you are facing a terminal condition, while you are, of course, not able to decide yourself.
Powers of Attorney do have many other uses, health wise and financial, but we’re not looking at those here.
They provide you with the facility to give the decision to refuse consent to life-sustaining treatment to another person or people. However, and this is a most important point; they do not give you the right to an assisted suicide under UK law.
A living will was previously used by people to make that same life-sustaining treatment decision and some people still use them because they don’t need to ask anyone to give their permission or make the decision on behalf of them, if the day should ever arrive.
The differences between a Living Will (often called an Advance Directive or an Advance Statement) and a (Lasting) Power of Attorney (Welfare) is that with the former you’ve made the decision in advance and no-one is in place to change your decision, with the latter you’ve also made your decision in advance, but it’ll be down to your nominated attorney (person, not necessarily a lawyer) to action the document for you and make decisions based upon current law and medical advances available.
More importantly (perhaps) is the fact that Living Wills are not legally valid, although they are acted upon by doctors while LPAs are legally valid.
Living Wills are actioned by you; LPAs need actioning by someone other than you.
Advice from LSUK – keep within the law, do what you have to do; ensure your Power of Attorney and/or Living Will are up to date.
Filed under: Legal Advice
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