Content area
Full Text
Abstract
Many people with life-limiting disease are vulnerable to emotional distress associated with physical, spiritual, psychological and social stressors. Psychological stress and affective disorders have the potential to influence decision making, particularly at the end of life. This article discusses the main reasons why assisted suicide and physician-assisted suicide (PAS) should remain illegal in the UK. In particular, it explores the problems associated with safeguarding 'vulnerable' patient groups and assessing mental capacity. The article also examines guidance for nurses regarding what to do if a patient asks for assistance to die or for information on assisted suicide and PAS.
Keywords
Decision-making process, depression, ethics, euthanasia, patient assessment, right to die
Review
All articles are subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software.
Online
Guidelines on writing for publication are available at www.nursing-standard.co.uk. For related articles visit the archive and search using the keywords above.
THE PAST DECADE has seen vigorous campaigning for the legalisation of what has been termed assisted dying by Dignity in Dying, the pro-euthanasia lobby group (House of Lords Select Committee on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill 2005, Dyer 2009). Parliament has so far proved resistant to changing the law to license doctors to prescribe drugs to terminally ill people with the intention of causing death.
Throughout this article, the terms assisted suicide, physician-assisted suicide (PAS) or desire for hastened death will be used. Assisted suicide refers to when a person is assisted by another person to commit suicide. PAS is where a doctor provides a person with a prescription for lethal medication, which is administered by the patient or a third party. Desire for hastened death is the unifying construct underlying suicidal thoughts and requests for assisted suicide and PAS (House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics 1994, Chochinov et al 1995, Breitbart et al 2000, van der Lee et al 2005, Royal College of Nursing (RCN) 2009a).
In 2009, the RCN changed its stance from being opposed to the legalisation of assisted suicide to one of neutrality (RCN 2009b). However, the law is not neutral on the subject: assisted suicide is illegal throughout the UK. Anyone who encourages or assists an act of suicide or attempted suicide commits a...