Statement on the VES by ALERT

The Voluntary Euthanasia Society should be congratulated on its plan to change its name to "Dignity in Dying" (Daily Mail 31.10.05). Its director is quoted as saying "Some of our members have always felt uncomfortable with the current name." How true that is. Barbara Smoker, a former chairman of the VES, wrote in their newsletter in
September 1991 "As for the voluntary element this is of course fundamental in the case of adult patients who are capable of communication, but in many other cases it cannot apply, though admittedly it may be tactically right for the VES to ignore such cases."

By its recent support for the Mental Capacity Act, the VES parted company with "the voluntary element." The Act, among other things, allows someone with lasting power of Attorney, who may be heir to the patient's property, to forbid tube feeding and hydration if the patient needs it in order to survive.