Questioning the role of Psychology and the Assisted Dying Bill

Psychologists should have something to offer on the subject of legal safeguards: the process by which they operate and the risks of them failing. In general terms, the risks of the Assisted Dying Bill are not difficult to see.

Failure in the process – The courts and medical services are overwhelmed with large backlogs of work. What would the balance be, between assisted suicide cases and treating the sick or providing criminal/civil justice? Will the right amount of time be available to allow good decisions to be made?

Avoidance – Some judges and physicians might avoid participation, for reasons of overload or conscience.

Bias – For the above reasons, participation in assisted suicide decisions, and the actual decisions made, could be subject to bias. At one extreme, some judges and physicians could refuse completely to agree to a person's death, even if it is what the person wants. There can be few – if any – judges in the UK who have ever given a sentence of death. 

While assisted suicide is not the same as judicial execution, it could feel the same to someone signing an order. At another extreme, some judges and physicians might take the view that the person in question has the absolute right to decide, whatever the circumstances, and agree to a suicide at every opportunity. 

This could involve bias in the difficult decisions over whether a person (a) has the mental capacity to make the decision, which could involve assessment by psychologists, and (b) has a maximum life expectancy of six months. In the long run, it could become known who is biased in one direction or another, thus distorting choices of who to involve in a decision.

Pressure – Sick people could be pressured to request assisted suicide, and to present their condition in a way that supports the case. Added to professional bias, wrong decisions could result.

Error – Two physicians (and/or those who provide them with information) could make the same error. A judge might have insufficient time and/or information to reach a sound decision in accordance with whatever the law might require.

From a BPS perspective, in considering the above (and any other aspect of assisted suicide) it will be important to show a clear and unbiased professional approach. The political language of 'assisted dying' is intended to bias thinking on the topic. The Bill does not address the broad subject of dying: it is specifically about suicide. 

If the BPS appears to be adopting a particular prior opinion on the subject, its voice will be weakened. The recent article in The Psychologist (Jan/Feb 2025, pp6-7) was one-sided in the words written and in the picture shown – even casually and disrespectfully claiming support from God! It might have been in response to a 10-year-old article, but the arguments in that earlier article were not repeated – only the opposing view.

Gary J Raw
DPhil CPsychol AFBPsS

Psychologists are about hope. There is an underlying belief that the horrors do not have the last word.

This belief permeates the Hospice movement.

In suggesting that there is a role, for psychologists [in The Psychologist, January 2025), following enactment of the Assisted Dying Bill, the profession is invited to make a volte-face, to collude in the hopelessness in which a client may be enveloped. 

As such, this Bill should, less euphemistically, be termed the Assisted Suicide Bill. It provides, in principle, a quick fix for social and/or psychological problems. No jurisdiction has been able to offer credible guarantees, for the protection of the vulnerable dying person. 

The involvement of two doctors and a judge in the decision-making offers the dying person no guarantee that they will, first be offered the best psychological/social/ medical support. Autonomous decision-making is a fiction unless the person is appropriately resourced.

Dr Mike Scott