Euthanasia and physician assisted suicide: do the moral arguments differ?
A discussion paper from the BMA’s Medical Ethics Department
April 1998
Legal position in the UK
Intentional killing, including at the individual's request, is a serious criminal offence currently carrying a mandatory life sentence. Various attempts have been made to introduce into Parliament draft legislation to permit voluntary euthanasia. The BMA has opposed these and, in its evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics, also declined to support any weakening of the mandatory life penalty upon conviction.
Suicide is not an offence. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, assisting suicide is a crime carrying a potential sentence of 14 years' imprisonment. It appears, however, that juries are reluctant to convict since many cases involve close relatives claiming to have acted in good faith to curtail suffering. No UK doctor has been convicted of assisting suicide although some admit to doing so.
Physician assisted suicide is no different in law to any other person helping another to commit suicide. A misconception has grown that physician assisted suicide is legal in Scotland. This arose from the fact that in Scotland there has not been any legislation on suicide and therefore the act of suicide was never illegal. In 1961, England and Wales passed the Suicide Act decriminalising suicide but at the same time enacting:
s2(1) A person who aids, abets, counsels or procures the suicide of another, or an attempt of another to commit suicide, shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years.
Like its counterpart in England and Wales, The Criminal Justice (N.I.) Act 1966, decriminalised suicide in Northern Ireland but specifically retained the offence of complicity in the suicide of another. The absence of any corresponding legal provision in Scotland has led some people to believe that assisting suicide is legal there. This is not the case. Whereas in England and Wales, those who assist another to commit or attempt suicide are usually prosecuted on a charge of manslaughter (although they could be prosecuted under the Suicide Act), in Scotland they are usually charged with culpable homicide for the same action.