Jersey’s law passes final stages
Debates, amendments, votes and decisions
Sorry! But the topic has reared its head again!
After years of debate and evolving proposals, The National Assembly in France has voted to create a right to assisted dying subject to strict conditions. France is the latest country to vote for legalising the practice, and their decision comes just days after Jersey’s law passed its final stages.
With more and more democracies deciding in favour of terminally ill people having choice in the timing and manner of their deaths, what should the UK do, do you think? Similar lengthy debates have been going on here for years, and an amended version of the Bill is due to return to Parliament in London in September. Will it succeed where earlier versions failed? Who knows?
My novel on the subject, Right to Die, came out in 2008, and I’ve repeatedly written about it on this blog ever since, as it has hit the headlines again and again. Feelings still run high. It’s not going away. How can this emotive issue be resolved to respect legitimate but widely-divergent sensitivities and viewpoints and beliefs and experiences, and safeguard some of the most vulnerable in our society?
Can we learn from other countries? Well, given that the Netherlands have been practising assisted dying for over 24 years now, perhaps watching how those precious boundaries are eroded is part of what is tying the hands of our own law-makers. There will always be powerful detractors, but the voices of those living the nightmare of terminal illness are powerful too. And their experiences can’t be undone. Or postponed.