“The trend is undeniable,” says Sisco van Veen, a Dutch psychiatrist. “The trend is upward.” But as bills on assisted dying progress in Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man, and with Sir Keir Starmer promising his MPs a free vote on the matter if Labour wins the next election, we report today on a story that should make all of us at least pause for thought.
Jolanda Fun, a physically healthy 33-year-old, plans to die on her 34th birthday at the end of this month. She is autistic and has an eating disorder, recurrent depression and mild learning difficulties. Fun says life has been a struggle. She lives in the Netherlands, which in 2002 became the first country to legalise euthanasia. She has found the necessary three specialist doctors who agree she is eligible. Fun will join the growing number of people there choosing to die for psychiatric reasons. Van Veen’s comment refers to the fact that in 2010 there were just two. Last year there were 138.
This, of course, does not negate the argument for assisted dying. Indeed we have argued that under certain, tightly controlled, conditions it ought to be an option for the terminally ill. But Fun’s case draws attention to the complex moral and practical problems surrounding it. One common concern is that legalising it could make elderly people feel under pressure to end their lives. The liberal Dutch system, and the rise in psychiatric assisted deaths, shows how the liberalisation of laws can evolve. The US state of Oregon, which stipulates that a person must have less than six months to live, provides a model worth analysing. If legislators in the UK are to begin down this path, they should feel under no pressure to rush.
