I was interested to read of the proposed role of the GP in the End Of Life Assistance Bill ("We should be mature about when to leave the world", The Herald, September 30.) "A GP," writes Colette Douglas Home, "would be legally permitted to write a prescription for the drugs that would end a life.
The doctor would then withdraw from the process."
Every time a GP writes a prescription, or initiates any form of therapy, they ask themselves four questions: Does this action respect my patient's autonomy? Is it beneficent? Is it non-maleficent? Is it just? If the GP can answer these four questions in the affirmative, why would they then wish to leave the patient's bedside?
Colette Douglas Home seems to sense, or at least she implies, the participation by the GP in the process is unseemly. I, for one, would not feel I had the wisdom and omniscience to make such a judgment on the value of my patient's life.
Medical ethicists are fond of conjuring thought experiments that highlight moral dilemmas. Such a thought experiment is this: your loved one is trapped in a burning car with no possibility of escape. You have a rifle and the power instantly to end her suffering. What do you do? Well, I don't know the answer to that, but it seems to me society should not construct law on the basis of rare occurrences.
We should be more ambitious. We need to find a cure for motor neurone disease; we need to find a way of repairing a transected spinal cord; we need continually to improve our palliative care so the end of life need not be the terrifying prospect it has become for so many people.
Dr Hamish Maclaren,
1 Grays Loan,
Thornhill,
Stirling.
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