Jack Rankin is the MP for Windsor.
Shall we have a citizens’ assembly to decide the thorny issue of assisted dying? On this important but emotive issue, my answer very simply is no – for several reasons.
The Welsh Senned has categorically rejected assisted dying/assisted suicide (AD/AS) – so there have since been calls for a citizens assembly or citizens jury to look into the question of AD/AS.
John Harris in the Guardian, has said: “It is time we had a 21st-century system of collective decision-making”; the CEO of Involve, a political participation charity”, has declared: “Let citizens’ assemblies break the political deadlock on issues like assisted dying”.
When one gets an answer that isn’t the one you wanted, it’s clearly an appealing thought to find someone else to give you the answer you were hoping for all along!
Proponents argue citizens assemblies could circumvent the arcane parliamentary system that baulks against change and become a means to get us to stop talking and start acting. Here is a way that ordinary members of the public can get their views heard! Citizens’ initiatives bring together representative individuals, delve deeply into a complex ethical and moral issue, and attempt to build a consensus and practical way forward.
We are told that they have worked well when discussing the subject of assisted dying in France (a citizens’ assembly of 185 randomly-selected citizens) and Jersey (a citizens’ jury of 23 people), for example.
However these are never citizens’ initiatives, but instead originate in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other interested parties. That’s potentially even worse than the continuous pervasive erosion of parliamentary sovereignty we see from the explosion and mission creep of numerous quangos and dynamic judicial law.
There is always an agenda from the outset. On the issue of AD/AS, citizens assemblies and juries are always hopelessly one-sided. Even the call for the formation of a citizens’ jury on AD/AS implies that there is something wrong with the status quo, that politicians have failed to act, to do something.
The French citizens’ assembly on assisted dying is a case in point. It began with a loaded question: “Is the framework for end-of-life care suitable for the various situations encountered, or should any changes be introduced?”
Few think end-of-life care is adequate anywhere (which is why I support Rachel Maskell’s call for a Commission for Palliative and End Of Life Care) but resolving that need not imply legalising AD/AS. This is not an episode of Yes, Minister where ‘Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, we must do this’.
The “governance committee” organized the French Citizens Assembly on assisted dying, fixing the methodological framework, selection criteria, and program of the assembly. Assembly members were subject to lectures from experts and ‘breakout groups’ of 30 members. As anyone who has been “invited” to participate in the similarly-constructed corporate awayday will know, they are designed to create consensus behind a particular agenda.
The recent Nuffield Citizens’ Jury on assisted dying, consisting of 28 people selected in the UK, is another demonstration of the principle of ‘nudge-theory’ – that people can be nudged into behaving just as you want them to. The Nuffield Citizens Jury emerged from eight weeks of deliberation with suspiciously similar results to polls sponsored by Dignity in Dying. In the latter, 75 per cent supported AD/AS; in the Citizens’ Jury, 71 per cent.
This may not be too surprising. The Citizens’ Jury project was funded by a six-figure grant from the A B Charitable Trust. The A B Charitable Trust previously gave a grant to Humanists UK “towards work on legalising assisted dying”. Not only that, Danielle Hamm, the director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, was previously director for Compassion in Dying, the sister organization to Dignity in Dying.
But an in-depth poll conducted by Whitestone Insight indicates that the public are far more ambivalent than heads of NGOs and charities. Minorities on either side of the question take a strong position on the subject; the vast majority of people did not. As Professor Bobby Duffy of King’s College London, who conducted a poll with very similar results this autumn, said:
“While minorities of the public have very strong views in support or opposition, the majority are somewhat in the middle, either not having any opinion or only tending to support or oppose – views could shift quickly.”
Rather than be led by unaccountable, agenda-driven citizens assemblies, we should be confident that our representative democracy is right for this decision. We need our elected representatives to exercise moral leadership in this country. We are all human and both sides feel deeply the awful stories of people suffering at the end of life, but our immediate emotional responses should be challenged by coolly considering the broader issues.
Most of all, we – unlike those participants in Citizens’ Assemblies and Juries – are accountable for our actions to the electorate. We cannot evade responsibility for our decisions, like those who run NGOs and charities. The weight of such a decision sits squarely on our shoulders.
This issue is, rightly, up to us. Different parliamentarians maintain different perspectives on this matter but ultimately politicians must decide.
