Canon James Woodward, a member of the Falconer Commission on Assisted Dying, this week declined to support its conclusion that there is “a strong case for providing the choice of assisted dying for terminally ill people”.
The Church Times reports: The Commission, chaired by the former Lord Chancellor, was established in September 2010 “to consider whether the current legal and policy approach to assisted dying in England and Wales is fit for purpose”.
Its report, published yesterday (Jan 5), argues that the law should be changed to allow terminally ill people in the last year of their lives who are mentally sound to ask a doctor to prescribe a lethal dose. A second doctor would have to assess the candidate independently, and alternative treatments would have to be presented. Candidates would have to administer the lethal dose themselves.
The Revd Dr Woodward, a Canon of Windsor, was the sole dissenting voice on the Commission. He said last week that a visit to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland had been his Damascus-road experience. Writing in today’s Church Times, he says: “Fundamentally, we cannot demand freedom to choose at any cost. I understand that there are significant difficulties with the current law. Yet my visit to Switzerland . . . raised many more questions about the way a culture views life, death, and the freedom to choose.
“It left me feeling that, however complex this area of human life is, it cannot be dealt with through the law or medicine alone. We need a broader and wiser reflection on our experiences of death and dying.”
The Commission heard evidence from 40 witnesses and received submissions from 1200 individuals and institutions. It states that it “considers that the current legal status of assisted suicide is inadequate and incoherent”.