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Rapid response BMJ 2019
Abstract
Rapid Response:
Re: Demedicalisation: radically reframing the assisted dying debate—an essay by Lucy Thomas
Dear Editor
As a supporter of assisted dying (AD), I found Lucy Thomas’ interesting and innovative perspective challenging. By emphasising physicians’ role as gatekeepers to the ‘straightforward medical solution’, she forces us to question what special right we have to agree or disagree with a patient’s request. Moreover, she worries that unconscious bias will gradually manifest as discrimination against those with disabilities. The most disturbing prophecy is that AD will, through legalisation, become routine, ‘normalised’, and ‘devoid of any social or ethical implications’. I too worry about that the NHS, for all its strengths, will sully AD with the administrative inefficiencies that most patients and clinicians will have experienced. Taking things further still, Dr Thomas wonders if the NHS will try to quantify this ‘procedure’ in terms of QALYs. That worries me too. Do we really want a NICE committee to sit around a table and discuss the economic argument for AD?
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