British Section of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life

The Daily Mail on 2 June 2003 reported "A law giving relatives the power to decide whether a person lives or dies was unveiled yesterday.

"The new 'power of lasting attorney' will enable people to sign over the right to make medical decisions to someone else" in the event of their becoming incapacitated. "Living Wills" of all sorts would be legally binding. If the person had made no prior arrangement, a 'deputy' could be appointed by a new "Court of Protection". As now, patients or their deputies can refuse or consent to life-ending treatment, but not insist on getting it.

Disability Awareness in Action's spokesman Tara Flood was quoted as saying advance directives were an idea that was dressed with 'a great deal of misinformation'. She warned that few people realised in advance the implications of asking doctors to withhold food and drink from someone. "It's a very frightening prospect," she added.

"Lord Filkin, minister at the new Dept of Constitutional Affairs, which published the proposals, said up to two million adults in Britain who became mentally incapacitated at some point would be affected by the Bill."

The Bill is now before a Scrutiny Committee of Peers and MP's which must report by October. Submissions from the public had to be sent in before September 1st.

Richard Gordon QC finds that the new draft Mental Incapacity Bill is an improvement on the original one, which rather gave the game away by providing for organ donation by incapacitated persons - not obviously in their best interests. However, it is still incompatible with Articles 2 (right to life), 6 (access to a Court) and 14 (discrimination in the enjoyment of Convention rights). See www.donoharm.org.uk/alert//mentalincapacity for the full text.

Under the Human Rights Act, all new laws in U.K. must comply with the European Convention on Human Rights.

"It'll be too late for you if he's wrong," writes Wesley Smith on the U.S. scene.

"To put it bluntly, even if you want to live, even if you want medical treatment to enable you to fight for your life, you may be told that the hospital reserves the right to refuse service. Welcome to the 'world of futile care theory,' one of the hottest and most dangerous topics in contemporary bioethics. While you may never have heard of it, stories about the spread of futile-care theory are rife throughout medical and bioethics literature, reported and argued about in such influential publications as the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Hastings Center Report."

"... Despite being a bombshell story, this growing threat has mostly been ignored by the popular media ..."

"... An article in the Fall 2000 Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics explicitly advised hospital bioethicists to put [futile care] protocols in place as a way to prepare for the litigation bioethicists presumed would be filed by people furious at having wanted medical care refused. As the authors of the Cambridge Quarterly article opined, 'Hospitals are likely to find the legal system willing (and even eager) to defer to well-defined and procedurally scrupulous processes for internal resolution of futility disputes.' 24 out of 26 surveyed hospitals in California now have such policies in place and of these, only seven left the final decision to the patient or family."

"The early bioethics movement deserves great thanks for pointing out that patient autonomy means the right to say no to unwanted interventions."

"But that was before the bioethics movement largely abandoned the sanctity of life ethic for an express or implicit utilitarianism that views the value of human life through a disturbing prism of 'quality'. That was before most bioethicists came to believe that healthcare rationing should be imposed."

Two bioethicists, Catherine Mikus and Rev. Peter Clark, have written that "In judging futility, physicians must distinguish between an effect (which is limited to a part of the patient's body) and a benefit (which appreciably improves the patient as a whole.)" St. Louis Review, 14 Dec. 2001.

Wesley Smith commented: "Treatments withheld under this policy might include antibiotics to treat infection, medicines for fever reduction, tube feeding and hydration, kidney dialysis or ventilator support.'" He continued: "Persons could dehydrate or die of an infection when water or antibiotics are withheld. But for Clark and Mikus, to intervene medically in such cases is only to prolong a seemingly meaningless life.'

"Once medical futility becomes the standard in health care, a poor prognosis, which can be erroneous and is seldom precise, will become a death sentence."

"Furore as patients are deprived of food - claim"

"Julia Quenzler, a spokeswoman for SOS-NHS Patients in Danger, claimed the group has evidence that dozens of patients with years of life left in them had been deliberately deprived of food and water by hospital staff in order to free up NHS resources," the Catholic Times reported on 3 Aug 03, following a claim in a Dutch medical journal that families and friends of cancer patients who died by euthanasia experienced fewer symptoms of grief and post traumatic stress.

"British Medical Association guidelines say doctors may authorise withdrawal of nutrition and hydration by tube for stroke victims and the confused elderly, even when they are not terminally ill."

Mrs. Quenzler, who claims her mother was a victim of death by dehydration, said the study was 'meaningless' as it ignored the relatives and friends of the thousands of Dutch and British people who had been 'helped to die' without their knowledge or agreement.' She added, 'They are the ones that suffer. These are the people the study should be concentrating on. They are the ones who are damaged and harmed for many years and will never be able to come to terns with the idea that their loved ones had been killed, because the system is stacked against them in getting to the truth or punishing doctors who kill....... "This is going on everywhere. I know of hundreds of cases." Many have been reported in national newspapers.

"Mother to challenge ventilator decision"

Clare Dyer, Legal correspondent of the Guardian, reported on 12 July 03:

"The mother of a disabled 10-year old girl won the right yesterday to mount a high court challenge to a hospital's alleged 'unlawful refusal' to resuscitate her daughter when she experienced severe breathing difficulties." The Disability Rights Commission is expected to intervene to make submissions. The little girl's life was saved at her mother's insistence, eventually at another hospital.

The similar case of David Glass, rescued by relatives who were later imprisoned, is still being considered by the European Court.

The Patients' Protection Bill sponsored in the House of Lords by Baroness Knight of Collingtree, DBE and supported by QCs Lord Carlile and Lord Brennan, has been blacked out by the media, with the honourable exception of the British Medical Journal. The Bill's Third Reading debate will be on 12th September. The Bill seeks to prevent withdrawal or withholding of tube feeding or hydration from patients if this is done with the object of causing death (as with Tony Bland).

Mrs. Joan Atkinson, who told the story of her mother's death on 11 Feb 03 in a BBC radio "File on Four" programme about deliberate dehydration of patients and inappropriate drug dosage, provided peers speaking in the debate with a report which had just then been headlined in her local paper, the East Anglian Daily Press (6 March 2003).

"A shepherd has been sentenced to six months in prison for what trading standards officials have described as the worst ever case of animal neglect in Suffolk........." He "caused unnecessary suffering to dozens of sheep on his land by not providing enough water, food and shelter......"

Government hostility to the Knight Bill, which would frustrate the main purpose of its own Mental Incapacity Bill, has been expressed through innocent allies such as Hospice doctors who have no experience of causing death and cannot believe it happens. Refusal to face facts, and acceptance of official euphemisms, can cost a very large number of lives.

The machinery has been set up, as at Wannsee in 1942 with "Evacuation to the East" : Court decisions, BMA and GMC guidelines, courses for nurses. It will need a very determined effort to throw a spanner in the works. For a start, letters should be written to the Press in support of the Patients' Protection Bill. Letters explaining what the MIB would actually mean are much needed also. SPUC has produced a good briefing. People First, which acts as an advocate for people with learning difficulties. has issued a postcard for M.P.s protesting against the Bill.

The Disability Rights Commission, which opposed the Joffe "Assisted Dying Bill", published the result of a web poll in January. Of those who responded to the survey, 82 per cent said disabled people need a stronger right to live. They wanted better protection from discrimination like the use of "Do Not Resuscitate" notices or the withdrawal of treatment (Luton News Gazette, 22 Jan. 03).

The poll found that 63 per cent thought there should be new laws to make euthanasia or assisted suicide possible. Yet when asked which was more important, the right to live or the right to die, 56 per cent felt the former was a greater priority".

"Doctors are hardening their stance against euthanasia with 57 per cent opposed to legalising the practice, a Hospital Doctor survey has shown" (13 March 03).

"The results of the survey, held in association with the Nuffield Trust and completed by more than 3,000 doctors, compared with 54 per cent in a similar survey Hospital Doctor conducted nine years ago. Only 38 per cent thought the law should be changed. Nine years ago, that figure was 44 per cent." Contact email: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Another survey was carried out by Opinion Research Business in May. Of the 986 doctors answering the survey, 74 per cent said they would not carry out euthanasia if it became law. 56 per cent believed it would be impossible to set safe bounds to euthanasia, while 66 per cent thought the pressure would decrease if more money was allocated to palliative care. (Catholic Times, 18 May 03)

"The latest Gallup poll, which measured Americans' views on 'morally acceptable' and 'morally wrong' conduct indicates that support for assisted suicide is ebbing" (Wesley Smith, National Review Online, 20 May 03). "According to a report in the Chicago Sunday Times, doctor assisted suicide is losing moral support - from moral to immoral, with 49 per cent of those polled now viewing PAS as 'wrong' and only 45 per cent considering it 'acceptable.'"

The Hemlock Society is thinking of changing its name.