People often find it difficult to talk plainly about assisted suicide and euthanasia (ASE). ‘Assisted dying’, ‘physician-assisted death’ and even ‘euthanasia’ (from the Greek for ‘good death’) are all euphemisms to describe what is really intentional medical homicide, via the prescription of lethal drugs.
Last week in the Guardian, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater referred to the debate as one about ‘the rights and protections available to those in the last months of their lives’. Words like ‘safety’, ‘choice’ and ‘protection’ abound in the debate. Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, assures us that: ‘Safety is woven into the fabric of proposals for law change, introducing practical measures to assess eligibility, ensure rigorous medical oversight and robustly monitor every part of the process.’