Comfort in sadness

an article by Onora O’Neill published in RSA Journal (Summer 2013)

We should end our preoccupation with pushing through ‘assisted dying’ legislation and be more concerned with ensuring everyone has a contented and dignified old age


Every year, more than half a million people die in the UK. This means that the quality of end-of-life care that is available when people need it matters for a huge number of people at any given time and, in the end, for all of us. Yet a great deal of public discussion of end-of-life care in recent years has focused on a much smaller group of people – 600 to 1,200 a year on various estimates – who might choose to end their lives by asking for assisted dying, if it were made lawful.

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