The Law and "Assisted Suicide" - and the Safety of Grannies

I haven't thought about this matter deeply enough to know how one might draw up a foolproof law on this controversial issue, but I did take note of Anne Widdecombe's soundbite:

"If assisted suicide was put into law no granny would be safe"

and of this February 2002 interview, when she said more or less the same thing:

Do you think that there will ever be a law allowing euthanasia in the United Kingdom?

"I think there is a serious danger. I very much hope we will not do that because our consistent experience of laws is they grow legs and they walk and run away.... I think if you introduce the euthanasia law in this country, however tightly you drew it, however good your intentions might be, in 10 years time no granny would be safe."

I'm not a fan of most of her views, and nor is this blogger

"Meanwhile Ann Widdecombe, whose views on assisted suicide are well known, had a headlined comment " If assisted suicide was put into law no granny would be safe" [Financial Times Magazine 10/11 March]. This reaches a new low in emotive distortion of the truth. She does not have a shred of evidence for that assertion. On the contrary all the evidence from countries, where the law is more sensible and compassionate than Widdecombe would allow, shows that her scaremongering is the opposite of the reality. The time is long overdue for the Law to recognise the consequences of advances in medicine over the last 50yrs and come up with a realistic mechanism giving freedom of choice to all."

I don't actually know what to think, but my instinct tells me that it's not just some grannies who might not feel safe. Update, see shocking video of care home assault case, BBC.

I've been re-reading George Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier" (1937) and, in particular, his description of the appalling lodging house run by a couple called the Brookers, and of their two elderly permanent lodgers.

"The Brookers had insured the lives of both old-age pensioners with one of the tanner-a-week companies. It was said that they were overheard anxiously asking the insurance-tout "how long people lived when they'd got  cancer."

"The thing that really tormented them was the thought of the two old-age pensioners living in the house, usurping floor-space, devouring food and paying only ten shillings a week...in their eyes the two old men were a kind of dreadful parasite who had fastened on them and were living on their charity...they really hated the bedridden one, Hooker by name...What tales I heard about old Hooker...his endless ingratitude and, above all, the selfish obstinacy with which he refused to die! The Brookers were quite openly pining for him to die. When that happened they could at least draw the insurance money."

Is there a moral here? It couldn't happen nowadays, could it?

With what one reads every day about the treatment meted out to elderly people in some UK "care homes", or even in their own homes, one should perhaps take time to reflect on Anne Widdecombe's 'emotive' warning.

What control does anyone have when overworked nursing or medical staff can decide whether or when it's "appropriate" to try to prolong the life of - let alone resuscitate- elderly hospital patients?

I don't think that elderly people are treated like this in Greece, or on Corfu, in spite of the country's economic problems.

Hooker, Death Valley Blues