BRITISH ISLES – The Story of Assisted Dying in Jersey
27 November 2019
Guest article by Michael Talibard*
End of Life Choices Jersey is a campaign group started by Tanya Tupper and her mother Roberta, who was a member of Dignitas – To live with dignity – To die with dignity. Sadly, Roberta never managed to make her intended journey to Switzerland, but died in Jersey earlier this year.
Jersey is not within the UK: it is a Crown Dependency, which means that aside from defence and foreign policy, our government takes its own decisions. Therefore, it is entirely possible for Jersey to pass assisted dying legislation without waiting for the UK—and that is what we are campaigning for.
Our first big effort was a petition to the States of Jersey (i.e. our legislature/government); this gathered 1861 signatures, more than enough to trigger a “Ministerial Response” in October 2018. In this, our Health Minister committed himself to research the whole issue, including other jurisdictions, and to consider whether Jersey should enact legislation. A year has passed since he embarked on this, without much sign of progress.
In October 2018, we organised a local screening of the moving documentary Endgame about patient Omid and others, by Andi Reiss, who came over for the event. It was well received and reported in our media.
Meanwhile, our researches in 2018 suggested that we have on our side a majority of Members of the States, and even also of our Council of Ministers, though crucially not it seems the Health Minister.
In November 2018, we brought over from the UK Phil Cheatle of My Death My Decision, who addressed and inspired a small but significant gathering of States members. The nearest thing we have in Jersey to an opposition is Scrutiny panels, and in March 2019 we met with the Health Scrutiny Panel, who expressed a considerable degree of support.
Our next move was to commission two professional opinion polls, one of the general public, which came out in July 2019, the other of the island’s doctors in September. The public survey drew responses from 1420 islanders—a higher proportion of our population than polls usually get to work with. Because there can never be a simple yes/no in this area, we outlined 4 different patient scenarios, across which results varied—but not that much: between 86.5% and 92% of respondents said that assisted dying would be acceptable to some extent.
A similar set of questions went to the island’s doctors, and around half of them responded. Here support for assisted dying, though still the majority view, was lower than in the general public: in fact, there was a degree of polarisation. We asked the doctors whether, given legislation to remove any legal or professional risk, they would be willing to assist such patients to die. 42% said they would do so sometimes or always, and a further 20% occasionally, but that left 38% who would never so assist.
We are very encouraged by these results. Support among the general public is overwhelming. As for the doctors, the majority are with us, and it is quite unnecessary for all doctors to be involved: they need only refer people on, since it would always be a specialism dealing with small numbers of patients.
Next came our public debate. We hired the Jersey Arts Centre theatre, which was filled to capacity for a debate between Silvan Luley (Dignitas) and Gavin Ashenden (a clergyman and newspaper columnist well-known locally). The debate was conducted in an intelligent and civilised manner, and was generally accounted a great success, and fully reported in local media. Silvan’s arguments were well received, and the vote was 166 in favour, with only 35 against and 27 abstentions.
While he was in the island, Silvan also had very useful meetings both with key civil servants from our Health Dept., and with our Chief Medical Officer, who undertook to help us gather as many doctors as possible for a future meeting with Dignitas. Admittedly, doctors do face obstacles, from professional bodies and with insurance, but our strategy is to legislate first, and then to tackle any remaining problems.
So… let the story develop!
* Michael Talibard is a member of EoLC (End of Life Choices) Jersey, a campaign group promoting the right to die
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References:
End of Life Choices Jersey on Facebook
Research Report for End of Life Choices Jersey
Doctors Research Report for End of Life Choices Jersey
