Dignity in Dying (originally The Voluntary Euthanasia Legalisation Society) is a United Kingdom nationwide campaigning organisation. It is funded by voluntary contributions from members of the public, and as of December 2010, it claimed to have 25,000 actively subscribing supporters. The organisation declares it is independent of any political, religious or other affiliations, and has the stated primary aim of campaigning for individuals to have greater choice and more control over end-of-life decisions, so as to alleviate any suffering they may be undergoing as they near the end of their life.
Dignity in Dying campaigns for the greater choice, control and access to a full range of medical and palliative services at the end-of-life, including providing terminally ill adults with the option of a painless, assisted death, within strict legal safeguards. It declares that its campaign looks to bring about a generally more compassionate approach to the end-of-life.
Dignity in Dying points out that in the 2010 British Social Attitudes survey 82% of the general public believed that a doctor should probably or definitely be allowed to end the life of a patient who is suffering from a painful incurable disease at the patient's request.British Social Attitudes survey: 2009-10 This was further analysed to show 71% of religious people and 92% of non-religious people supported this statement.
Alongside its campaigning work, Dignity in Dying, through its partner charity Compassion in Dying, is also an information source on end-of-life issues and a provider of advance decisions.
History Origins In 1931 Dr Charles Killick Millard, the Medical Officer of Health for Leicester from 1901 to 1935, gave the Presidential address at the Annual General Meeting of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. In the address, he advocated the "Legalisation of Voluntary Euthanasia", which prompted considerable debate in Britain involving doctors, clerics and the wider public. Millard's proposal was that in the case of terminal illnesses the law should be changed "to substitute for the slow and painful death a quick and painless one".
The organisation was set up in December 1935 under the name of The Voluntary Euthanasia Legalisation Society (VELS). The initial meeting that set the society up was held at the headquarters of the British Medical Association free of charge, despite the BMA not supporting the aims of the society. During the debate, the meeting was disrupted by 40 members of a Catholic youth association.
The foundation of the society followed an offer of £10,000 from Mr. O. W. Greene, a terminally-ill man in London. The initial offer was retracted and no posthumous endowment was left to the Society after Greene learned that the prospective Society would only be supporting legalisation of euthanasia for those with incurable conditions. The first chairman was C. J. Bond, a consulting surgeon at the Leicester Royal Infirmary; Millard was made the first honorary secretary.Leicester Literary & Philosophical Society, Presidents Gallery: Charles Killick Millard MD DSc (1870 - 1952) Other members of the executive committee were drawn from Bond and Millard's social milieu in Leicester, including Astley V. Clarke from the Leicester Royal Infirmary; Rev Dr R. F. Rattray, a Unitarian minister and principal of University College, Leicester; Canon F. R. C. Payne of Leicester Cathedral; Rev A. S. Hurn; Frederick Attenborough, also a former principal of University College, Leicester; and H. T. Cooper, the Honorary Solicitor of the Committee.
The society did not attempt to build a popular movement at first but attempted to build, according to Kemp, "a network of distinguished sympathisers able to influence policy at high levels". The society had a Consultative Medical Council and a Literary Group, and were endorsed by a variety of authors, progressive reformers, feminists and supporters of the Fabian Society. Early supporters included Henry Havelock Ellis, Vera Brittain, Cicely Hamilton, Laurence Housman, H. G. Wells, Harold Laski, George Bernard Shaw, Eleanor Rathbone MP, G. M. Trevelyan, W. Arbuthnot Lane, and a variety of peers including Lord Woolton of Liverpool (Conservative) and Lord Moynihan who had been the president of the Royal College of Surgeons.
The first attempt to pass legislation to make euthanasia legal in Britain was the Voluntary Euthanasia (Legalisation) Bill 1936 introduced to the House of Lords by Arthur Ponsonby.Earl of Listowel, Foreword to A. B. Downing, Barbara Smoker, Voluntary Euthanasia: Experts Debate the Right to Die, , p. 5–7. The debate was not split along party political grounds and the Government considered it "outside the proper range of Government intervention and to be one which should be left to the conscience of the individual members of the House". The Hunterian Society held a debate on 16 November 1936 to debate whether "the practice of voluntary euthanasia would be unjustifiable", and the Bill was opposed by the British Medical Association.
1950s to 1980s On 28 November 1950, the next attempt was made by Lord Chorley of Kendal, a vice-president of the society, who brought a pro-voluntary euthanasia motion before the House of Lords. The motion was so widely condemned it was withdrawn without a division. According to N. D. A. Kemp, the attempt was an "ignominious failure", as were similar attempts to produce more liberal legislation generally on abortion, homosexuality and divorce.
Following the death of the honorary secretary Killick Millard and the resignation of Lord Denman, the president of the society, and the deaths of two prominent supporters of the society, E.W. Barnes and Dr N.I. Spriggs, a new honorary secretary was found in R. S. W. Pollard who moved the society to be based in London from Leicester. The society also changed tactics: moving away from courting the medical and legal elites to trying to build up a mass movement to exert "grass-roots pressure" and efforts were made to bring up the topic in civic society groups like Rotary Clubs, local newspaper editorials etc.
From 1955 onwards, the 'Legalization' was dropped from the name along with the 'Voluntary' to make it the Euthanasia Society (although some sources place it at 1960). The Euthanasia Society placed adverts on the London Underground and on mainline railway services in the south of England, with the wording "The Euthanasia Society Believes that incurable sufferers should have the right to choose a Merciful Death". In 1960, the chairman, C. K. MacDonald died and was replaced by Leonard Colebrook. He was replaced temporarily by Maurice Millard. In 1962, he was replaced by the Unitarian minister Rev A. B. Downing, and in 1964, C. R. Sweetingham was made secretary. Prominent people who supported the society during the 1960s included the legal academic and president of the Law Reform Association Glanville Williams. Williams gave a paper entitled 'Voluntary euthanasia – the next step' at the Annual General Meeting of the society in 1955. Williams' ethical justification of euthanasia argued against the principle of double effect and for a utilitarian approach to the questions in medical ethics including both voluntary euthanasia and abortion. His proposal would have allowed a physician to put as a defence to a homicide, assault or bodily harm charge that the person was incurably and fatally ill if the doctor was acting in good faith. These proposals mirror those of James Rachels discussed below.
According to Kemp, the public association of euthanasia with eugenics and Nazi atrocities marred attempts in the 1950s to promote voluntary euthanasia, but such setbacks were short-lived. The next legislative attempt was started in 1967 with a bill drafted by Mary Rose Barrington, a member of the executive committee of the Euthanasia Society and barrister. Attempts were made to find an MP willing to introduce it to the Commons but eventually it was introduced to the Lords in 1969 by Lord Raglan, a member of the National Secular Society.
The word 'Voluntary' was reinstated to the name in 1969 to become the Voluntary Euthanasia Society.A. B. Downing, Barbara Smoker, Voluntary Euthanasia: Experts Debate the Right to Die, , p. 255–259. It was also known as Exit (not to be confused with Exit International) from 1979 but this was reverted in 1982. During the period it was known as 'Exit', the secretary of the society, Nicholas Reed, was convicted of conspiracy to variously aid and abet or counsel a number of suicides. He was jailed for two and a half years, although this was reduced to 18 months on appeal. Reed had supported Mark Lyons, a seventy-year-old man who provided pills and alcohol to several sick people. Lyons was given a two-year suspended sentence.BBC On This Day, 1981: Euthanasia chief jailed over suicides The society had voted in 1979 to publish a "Guide to Self-Deliverance", a booklet which described suicide methods. This was challenged by the Attorney General in 1982 under s2 of the Suicide Act 1961, and after a brief attempt to fight back against this, the distribution of the booklet was suspended in 1983.
After the name was changed back following the conviction of Reed and Lyons, Lord Jenkins of Putney introduced an amendment to the Suicide Act to introduce a defence for those who acted "on behalf of the person who committed suicide and in so acting behaved reasonably and with compassion and in good faith" but this was defeated 48 votes to 15.
In 1988, the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, as it was then, attempted to place a full-page newspaper advertisement in the Evening Standard showing twenty-four young men with advanced emphysema with the words "A day in the life of an emphysema sufferer" and accompanied by "We believe that he should have the right to choose a peaceful and dignified death." The British Medical Association contacted the Advertising Standards Authority to block publication of the ad, and a representative of the British Lung Foundation condemned the advert, saying that "fears of patients with lung disease should not be exploited in this way."
1990s
In 1990, the group campaigned for the early release of Anthony Cocker, who was convicted of murder after killing his wife Esther after she begged him to end her suffering from multiple sclerosis.
In 1992, the society supported Dr Nigel Cox, who was prosecuted and convicted for murder for shortening the life of a patient at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital.
Post 2000
Dignity in Dying was the new name endorsed by members at the annual general meeting in 2005. Its current chair of the governing board is Sir Graeme Catto and its chief executive is Sarah Wootton. The name change was done to "get away from the suggestion that you can only achieve dignity in dying with euthanasia".
Dignity in Dying has a range of patrons, including people who have been associated with high-profile cases connected with Dignity in Dying's campaigns, such as Lesley Close (sister of John Close), Brian Pretty (husband of Diane Pretty) and Heather Pratten. Other patrons include prominent individuals from the worlds of business, politics, the arts and religion, such as Terry Pratchett, Jonathan Miller, Patricia Hewitt, Zoë Wanamaker, Simon Weston, Anthony Grayling and Matthew Wright.
In 2005, legislative attempts were made by Lord Joffe who joined the society in the 1970s. The first bill was introduced in the 2003 session, and the Bill has been reintroduced repeatedly since. The Joffe Bill led to the formation of the anti-euthanasia group Care Not Killing.