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Tallis in Wonderland

A Small Explosion From A (Relatively) Quiet Atheist

Raymond Tallis considers democracy and assisted dying.

The other week, at the Hay Festival in Wales, Leslie Close and I debated the pros and cons of Lord Falconer’s ‘Assisted Dying Bill’ with Richard Harries, ex-Bishop of Oxford. Leslie recently co-edited Assisted Dying – Who Makes the Final Decision? The Case for Greater Choice at the End of Life (2014) as part of her decade-long campaign to change British law, in fulfilment of a promise she made to her brother John, whom she accompanied on his final journey to the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland.

John was suffering from motor neurone disease. Paralysed, speechless, and unable to swallow, he had had enough. The fact that he, a mentally competent adult, in the end-stages of an illness whose symptoms were beyond the reach of palliative care, could not be assisted to die in his own home, despite his clear and settled wish, may seem extraordinary, even barbaric.

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