In whose interests? The prohibition of assisted suicide in the United Kingdom

This chapter will argue that the core justification for the United Kingdom’s ‘blanket ban’ on assisted suicide—namely that it is necessary in order to protect ‘the vulnerable’—has tended to obscure two other important sets of interests. First, it has served to marginalize the interests of patients who are not vulnerable, and who have been used to exercising considerable control over their lives. There is evidence from countries which have legalized assisted dying that it is this non-vulnerable group of patients who are its principal users. Second, the core justification for the ‘blanket ban’ has deflected attention away from the interests of the medical profession itself, which in the United Kingdom has a long tradition of organized and powerful opposition to assisted suicide.