January 18, 2024

Is it time to allow assisted dying?

56 minutes

Nearly a decade since MPs in Westminster voted against allowing terminally ill people to end their own life, assisted dying is climbing back up the political agenda. The Health and Social Care Committee is due to publish the first report of its kind on the subject after a year-long inquiry. Meanwhile, the Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer has said there are "grounds for changing the law”, UK medical bodies continue to drop their opposition to the idea, and polls suggest around two-thirds of the public are in favour.

Assisted dying raises profound moral questions which shake the core of our humanity. What does it mean to live – and to die – well? Is it more dignified to live with suffering or to die without it? If life is a sacred gift, and a marker of our equal dignity, should we, or anyone else, be able to control when it ends? If death is the most dignified response to suffering, how much suffering is too much, and who should decide?

Those who describe constant physical pain and a loss of bodily autonomy say that isn’t living at all. Should we be guided principally by compassion in these situations? Or does the good intention of irradicating suffering risk a chilling effect in which people are pressured into re-appraising whether their lives are worth living?

Is it time to allow assisted dying?

Panel: Mona Siddiqui, Inaya Folarin Iman, Matthew Taylor, Giles Fraser

Witnesses: Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, Professor Kevin Yuill, Zoe Hyatt Marley, Dr Miro Griffiths

Producer: Dan Tierney.

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