Suicide Killing Of Human Life as Human Right - The Continuing Devolution of Assisted Suicide Law in the United Kingdom

William Wagner, Thomas M. Cooley Law School

Abstract

SUICIDE KILLING OF HUMAN LIFE AS A HUMAN RIGHT

The Continuing Devolution of Assisted Suicide Law

in the United Kingdom

PROF. WILLIAM WAGNER, PROF. JOHN KANE, AND STEPHEN P. KALLMAN

ABSTRACT

Since the beginning of time, divine, natural, and positive law traditions of the United Kingdom reflected an inviolable standard that people should not assist in the killing of human life. This article reviews and analyzes the ancient inviolable benchmark, explaining why the common and statutory law of Britain historically reflected its moral reference point to prohibit assisted suicide. We then proceed to analyze a contemporary jurisprudential shift in Britain’s assisted suicide policy, studying the swing from the inviolable to the relative, from “natural law” to “legal positivism”. We begin by reviewing current U.K. statutory law prohibiting assisted suicide. We then review recent pro-suicide parliamentary proposals and subsequent action by five Law Lords recognising suicide as a human right. Finally we analyse contemporary government actions concerning assisted suicide in the United Kingdom. This critical review reveals a disquieting philosophical shift, accompanied by a deteriorating respect for the value of human life. Finally, we review, therefore, the implications for a nation that accompany such a shift in worldviews. Our review concludes that such a jurisprudential shift, historically leads to profoundly frightening consequences.