Scottish Catholic Observer

Two of the UK’s top legal and medical experts have warned that suicide drugs could be available over the counter in chemists if assisted suicide is legalised, a move which the Catholic Church opposes.

Lord Carlile QC and Baroness Finlay (above) have published a report, commissioned by the think-tank Living and Dying Well, warning that weakening the law could open the way for nurses and pharmacists to prescribe drugs to help people kill themselves and also said that legalising assisted suicide could lead to state agencies being set up to decide whether or not people should be helped to die.

“There is no reason why, if assisted dying were ever to be legalised, lethal drugs could not be prescribed by a physician, nurse or pharmacist, acting outside the parameters of health care,” the report states.

The report adds that that prescriptions might be written by those ‘under contract to an official assessment agency.’

“Embedding ‘assisted dying’ in health care could easily encourage patients who are less than wholehearted about the project to suppose that it is like any other medical treatment, that it is being offered for their good and that, notwithstanding any reservations they may feel about it, it is probably for the best—otherwise why would any doctor agree to proceed with it?” the report warns.

The report says that assisted suicide rules currently being pushed by campaigners would lead to ‘doctor shopping,’ where patients wanting to die would go from doctor to doctor in a bit to find one willing to help.

It also warns that if doctors were given legal powers to provide drugs to help patients die, such powers would also be extended to nurses and pharmacists.

Lord Carlile, the government-appointed independent assessor of terror legislation, and Baroness Finlay, professor of palliative care at Cardiff University, are co-chairs of Living and Dying Well.