Henry Marsh: ‘Assisted dying is a treatment for suffering. Why make it different?’

Medicine is about prolonging life and giving health, but it is also about the relief of suffering. The law in the UK already allows us to refuse treatment, even if this will result in our death. Furthermore, suicide is not against the law, so you need convincing arguments to explain why it should be illegal to help somebody do something that is not illegal. The law at present – absurdly – makes no distinction between encouraging suicide and assisting it when it is a considered and ­reasonable request in the face of great suffering.

The main argument against AD justifies the very real suffering of many people dying badly in this country on the hypothetical grounds of the possible coercion of “vulnerable” people, whoever they might be. And yet, as one of the judges who has been involved in granting AD in Australia has observed, coercion in his experience simply does not occur. With suitable safeguards, the risk of it happening is remote.

It is a myth that there would be no demand or need for AD if everybody received good palliative care, although obviously AD needs to be practised in the context of good palliative care. Indeed, with proper safeguards, if it became apparent that many people were asking for AD because they had not received good palliative care, it would provide a compelling argument for more investment in palliative care.

Good medicine is all about evidence. Any new treatment (and AD is a treatment for suffering) needs to be carried out with careful safeguards and the transparent collection of data, which is then analysed and the law modified if necessary. This happens with all new drugs and therapies – why should AD be different?

Henry Marsh is a neurosurgeon. His latest book, And Finally: Matters of Life and Death, is published by Vintage

Photograph by Carl Court/Getty