Suicide law reform, far from painless
Just watched a Channel 4 News piece on the latest twist in Debbie Purdy's campaign in relation to assisted suicide. (Not actually on assisted suicide as such, or even directly on assisting travel for that purpose, but on requiring the the CPS to publish some sort of decision-to-prosecute policy on the matter.) After the report there was a 'three-way' with Purdy herself, beatifically beaming over her small victory, and Keir Starmer, DPP (i.e. head of said CPS), doing a reasonable job of sounding gracious and sensible, and well, reasonably reasonable.
It does sound as if the CPS is basically being "invited" to create de facto "sub-created" law, here. This would ordinarily seem a terrible basis on which to proceed -- thin end of a very large "custom and practice" wedge that ends withsomething like Orson Scott Card's notorious "(re)criminalise homosexuality, but as an act of compassion, prosecute only whimsically" rant (reference to which keeps disappearing from Wikipedia). But in this case it does seem as if primary legislation is conspicuously failing to appear, so the judiciary can perhaps be forgiven for adopting an "... if you want something done..." approach, pending the legislature "growing a pair".
My longer-term concern is whether this is inching towards some sort of "British solution to a British problem": are we going to end up with an established practice of simply "exporting" our sufficiently determined, sufficiently resourced and sufficiently articulate suicides? Plenty of people -- me included -- have poured plenty of scorn on the RoI for pulling that one (in relation to abortion), and it would seem a far from ideal final model. Still, gradualism may have to suffice, as is so often the case.
It does sound as if the CPS is basically being "invited" to create de facto "sub-created" law, here. This would ordinarily seem a terrible basis on which to proceed -- thin end of a very large "custom and practice" wedge that ends withsomething like Orson Scott Card's notorious "(re)criminalise homosexuality, but as an act of compassion, prosecute only whimsically" rant (reference to which keeps disappearing from Wikipedia). But in this case it does seem as if primary legislation is conspicuously failing to appear, so the judiciary can perhaps be forgiven for adopting an "... if you want something done..." approach, pending the legislature "growing a pair".
My longer-term concern is whether this is inching towards some sort of "British solution to a British problem": are we going to end up with an established practice of simply "exporting" our sufficiently determined, sufficiently resourced and sufficiently articulate suicides? Plenty of people -- me included -- have poured plenty of scorn on the RoI for pulling that one (in relation to abortion), and it would seem a far from ideal final model. Still, gradualism may have to suffice, as is so often the case.