November 18, 2024. The main image shows the two sisters.
By Harry Mottram: It could be argued that the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016 set in motion a series of events that has led to Parliament currently debating The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 2024-25 better known as the assisted dying bill. Jo Cox was the Member of Parliament for Batley and Spen in West Yorkshire. She was shot and stabbed to death outside the library in Birstall by a 52-year-old man who was obsessed with the extreme policies of the Nazis. In the brutal world of politics it wasn’t long before a byelection was called since the constituency no longer had an MP. The upshot was that Jo Cox’s sister Kim Leadbeater was selected to stand as the Labour candidate in the election and she was duly elected and then re-elected in subsequent elections.
Parliament has a convention for backbench MPs to put forward so-called private members bills – that are usually non-political and should attract support from all parties. It is a lottery as to which one is chosen but this autumn Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill was first out of the hat. As such it stands a very good chance of being passed into law – albeit with amendments. And clearly the ruling party – the Labour government of Kier Starmer – will have a say on the details.
It is a debate that has continued over the years with a number of arguments for and against its introduction. In David Williamson’s book Bath Between the Wars, he recalls a meeting of Bath’s Health Committee in 1922 in which the issue of euthanasia is raised. Oldfield Labour Councillor A.E. Cook spoke of how a working-class man dying from cancer was not accepted into hospital but would lie in bed at home in pain when ‘…it would be a great blessing if he could be saved this suffering…’. His care being managed by his wife ‘night and day’. The publication of the speech in the Bath Chronicle newspaper provoked much sympathy but also hostile reaction as is noted in David Williamson’s book. The full extract is here:
CANCER AND EUTHANESIA: A DEBATE IN BATH’S HEALTH COMMITTEE, 1922
After the City’s Medical Officer of Health had presented his annual report to the Health Committee on 18 September 1922, the perennial question of cancer arose, which led A.E. Cook, the Labour Councillor for Oldfield, to give notice that he would move a motion at its next meeting in October urging the Government to legalise euthanasia provided that each case was initially approved by a medical tribunal. His passionate speech was quoted in the Chronicle:
He could only regard the matter from the working class standpoint. He had heard the friends of people who were down with cancer say, ‘It’s a pity the Lord doesn’t smile on them and take them away’. He had known people afflicted, pray to die, and yet they had to linger in agony …What cancer in the working man’s home means, only those who have experienced can realise. No hospital will take these cases, and supposing the man is the one afflicted, they probably get him upstairs, and the wife has to look after him day and night. With him in constant pain it is a terrible picture, and it would be a great blessing if he could be saved this suffering … .
Cook’s emotional speech was received ‘without comment’ by the Health Committee, but it was quoted in the Bath press and resonated across the British Isles and beyond, and he was deluged with a large number of letters commenting on his motion. The great majority were in varying degrees sympathetic, except for one letter posted in S.W. London, which asked ‘how are you sure that what some doctors diagnose as cancer is cancer? There are tumours which are not and cannot be known to be malignant till removed’. The correspondent ended with a thunderous salvo:
Such a proposition as yours is in itself so ignorant, unthinking, and conducive to such evil and wrong doing that it is you who ought to be put in a lethal chamber as a danger to others (25).
One letter from Co. Dublin, which was written by somebody who had spent over 20 years in Bath, enthusiastically endorsed Cook’s proposal and felt pride in having been a Bathonian where such ‘progressive men’ were on the Council. Another correspondent from Gloucester urged Cook to keep up his campaign, which if successful, ‘will give occasion for the blessing of the innumerable sufferers of cancer and their friends …’ . However, running through some of the letters was also a note of caution and an awareness of how euthanasia and eugenics could combine to produce what some twenty later was to occur in the Nazi gas chambers. A letter from Chelsea pointed out the obvious danger in legalising ‘lethal chambers’ as some people would want to put ‘extremists there’ and others would also want ‘that class, who insist upon breeding most undesirable stock, who eventually fill the prisons, etc…’ liquidated.
When the motion was debated on 16 October, Councillor Cook dealt with the argument that life is sacred head on and pointed out that ‘on the battlefield millions of lives were destroyed on the alter of patriotism and that on the industrial battlefield they had millions of workers ‘going to their graves years before they ought to go’. In a lengthy discussion the Health Committee reviewed the whole question. Alderman Dr. Preston King agreed that the ministry of Health needed to engage more urgently with patients suffering from incurable cancer and recommended setting up what were in effect hospices. He pointed out how undesirable and paradoxical it would be, if the London press announced, ‘that Bath, a health resort, was going in for killing people’. In a disturbing aside he confessed that he himself had once been ‘in favour of euthanasia and had advocated ‘a lethal chamber for certain so-called human beings’. In the end Cook withdrew his motion and agreed to support efforts by the Health Committee to persuade the Ministry of Health to develop a more compassionate and effective way of dealing with terminally ill cancer patients.
This extract comes from David G. Williamson’s book, Bath between the Wars, which is available from local bookshops or directly from the Hobnob Press, Gloucester.
The BBC rather helpfully have drawn up the main arguments which I repeat here:
Arguments for euthanasia
Some arguments in favour of euthanasia include:
Human beings should have the right to be able to decide when and how they die (self-determination).
Euthanasia enables a person to die with dignity and in control of their situation.
Death is a private matter and the state should not interfere with the individual’s right to die.
It is expensive to keep people alive when there is no cure for their illness. Euthanasia would release precious resources to treat people who could live.
Family and friends would be spared the pain of seeing their loved one suffer a long-drawn-out death.
Society permits animals to be put down as an act of kindness when they are suffering, the same treatment should be available to humans.
Arguments against euthanasia
Some non-religious arguments against euthanasia include:
Euthanasia would weaken society’s respect for the value and importance of human life.
Proper palliative care is available which reduces or removes the need for people to be in pain.
It would lead to worse care for the terminally ill.
It would put too much power in the hands of doctors, and damage the trust between patient and doctor.
Some people may feel pressured to request euthanasia by family, friends or doctors when it isn’t what they really want.
It would undermine the commitment of doctors and nurses to save lives.
It would discourage the search for new cures and treatments for the terminally ill.
Some people unexpectedly recover.
Some people may change their mind about euthanasia and be unable to tell anyone.
Voluntary euthanasia could be the first step on a slippery slope that leads to involuntary euthanasia, where those who are undesirable or seen as a problem could be killed.
For more details on the bill visit https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10123/
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