The family of a paralysed right-to-die campaigner who was refused permission to have a doctor kill him has said he would be “absolutely fuming” that the right-to-die laws have not changed in the 12 years since his death.
Tony Nicklinson’s daughter, Lauren Peters, said he would also be frustrated that the assisted dying bill, which covers England and Wales and is due to be published this week, is unlikely to propose legalising assisted dying for people like him who are not terminally ill.
Nicklinson died in 2012 shortly after the high court refused his application to be allowed to die with a doctor’s help. He had been paralysed by a catastrophic stroke while on a business trip, could only move his head and eyes and could not speak. His family said it was “the closest thing you’ll ever get to being buried alive”. Ten years ago the supreme court upheld the high court’s decision.
In weighing the case, the senior justices said a key question was whether allowing assisted dying would leave people vulnerable to coercion, and “how much risk to the vulnerable is acceptable in order to facilitate suicide by others who are free of such pressure or more resistant to it”. They found that this was a question “more suitable for parliament”.
Peters told the PA Media news agency: “How much more suffering does there need to be for people to sit up and realise that there is a need for this, there is public support for this?
“Dad would be livid, absolutely livid, and he’d make sure everyone knew about it as well.”
Peters has signed a call from the My Death, My Decision campaign group for the bill to include people “suffering unbearably” as well as those who are terminally ill and have six months to live. The bill is expected to only propose the right to assisted dying for the latter group.
The letter urged the inclusion of “adults of sound mind who are suffering unbearably from an incurable physical condition and have a clear, settled wish to die”.
Peters said any system would need to be “incredibly heavily regulated” but said: “I like to think there are people in this country intelligent enough to devise a system to support people like Dad while protecting those who need protecting. It works in other countries. It can work here.”
Campaigners have strongly opposed changes to the laws. The archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, has said legalising assisted dying could result in those who are near to death feeling pressed to end their lives to relieve family members of a “perceived burden of care”, to avoid pain or “for the sake of inheritance”.
Alistair Thompson, a spokesperson for the campaign group Care Not Killing, warned that limited legalisation could be followed by more and more conditions becoming eligible.
“In the Netherlands and Belgium, laws sold to the public as being for terminally mentally competent adults are now being used to end the lives of people with eating disorders and other mental health problems,” he said. “The situation in Canada, which only changed their law in 2016, is also troubling. There we have seen people with depression, anxiety and PTSD being euthanised and those wanting social care, including disabled veterans, being offered an ‘assisted death’ instead of the help they need.”
