Terminally ill people must have choice to end their lives, BMJ argues

Terminally unwell patients must be able to request a physician to aid them die, an editorial in the British Health care Journal argues. Photograph: Garo/Phanie/Rex Features

Terminally sick men and women should be ready to pick to end their lives, an post in a top healthcare journal says.

The assisted dying bill – which would allow terminally unwell patients to request for help to finish their lives subject to specified safeguards – is due to be debated in the Lords later this month.

And the bill, submitted by former lord chancellor Lord Falconer, need to become law, an editorial in the British Healthcare Journal (BMJ) argues.

Written by the editor-in-chief, Dr Fiona Godlee, and other senior executives at the journal, it states: “People need to be able to workout option more than their lives, which ought to include how and when they die, when death is imminent.

“Recognition of an individual’s appropriate to figure out his or her ideal interests lies at the heart of this journal’s method to advance the patient revolution in healthcare. It would be perverse to suspend our advocacy at the minute a person’s days had been numbered.”

The authors recognised that some physicians are unhappy about the element they would be asked to perform ought to the bill turn into law.

But they stressed the bill is about “assisted dying”, not “voluntary euthanasia”.

“The man or woman would administer the medicine themselves,” they explained. “This is what differentiates ‘assisted dying’ from ‘voluntary euthanasia’, exactly where the physician administers the lethal drug(s).”

Major medical doctors have spoken out against assisted dying. Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the council at the British Health care Association (BMA), stated: “There are strongly held views inside of the medical occupation on each sides of this complicated and emotive problem.

“The BMA remains firmly opposed to legalising assisted dying. This situation has been regularly debated at the BMA’s policy forming annual conference and recent calls for a alter in the law have persistently been rejected.

“The BMJ is a wholly owned subsidiary of the BMA, and really rightly has editorial independence. Its place on assisted dying is an editorial determination and does not reflect the views of the BMA or the health-related profession. Our target have to be on making certain every patient can access the extremely greatest of palliative care, which empowers patients to make selections in excess of their care.”

Terminally ill people must have choice to end their lives, BMJ argues