Should MPs legalise assisted dying? Our panel responds
Today Westminster begins its scrutiny of a bill that could for ever change the way we live or die in England and Wales
Christiaan Barnard, the surgeon who performed the world’s first heart transplant, vividly skewered the notion of patients “freely” choosing to have such dangerous, experimental surgery. They were, he wrote, like someone chased by a lion to the bank of a river filled with crocodiles, who decides to hurl themselves into the water: “For a dying man, it is not a difficult decision because he knows he is at the end … But you would never accept the odds if there were no lion.” Barnard captures a fundamental flaw in libertarianism that is horribly pertinent, whether we like it or not, to Kim Leadbeater’s choice at the end of life bill. The freedom to choose, so superficially seductive, can disguise all manner of coercion.
Rachel Clarke is a palliative care doctor and the author of Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic
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By Rachel Clarke, Lucy Webster, Gaby Hinsliff, Maureen Anderson, Charlie Corke and Nims Obunge
Should MPs legalise assisted dying? Our panel responds to Continue reading...
NHS Forums - For NHS Staff | Patient Forums
Today Westminster begins its scrutiny of a bill that could for ever change the way we live or die in England and Wales
Christiaan Barnard, the surgeon who performed the world’s first heart transplant, vividly skewered the notion of patients “freely” choosing to have such dangerous, experimental surgery. They were, he wrote, like someone chased by a lion to the bank of a river filled with crocodiles, who decides to hurl themselves into the water: “For a dying man, it is not a difficult decision because he knows he is at the end … But you would never accept the odds if there were no lion.” Barnard captures a fundamental flaw in libertarianism that is horribly pertinent, whether we like it or not, to Kim Leadbeater’s choice at the end of life bill. The freedom to choose, so superficially seductive, can disguise all manner of coercion.
Rachel Clarke is a palliative care doctor and the author of Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic
Continue reading...
By Rachel Clarke, Lucy Webster, Gaby Hinsliff, Maureen Anderson, Charlie Corke and Nims Obunge
Should MPs legalise assisted dying? Our panel responds to Continue reading...
NHS Forums - For NHS Staff | Patient Forums
