LNAT model essay: assisted dying

A clear position defended against the objection most readers will raise first, with the limits of the claim stated rather than assumed. 515 words.

1. A mentally competent adult who is dying should have the legal right to help in ending their life, but only within strict limits. The question is less whether the right should exist than how it can be protected from abuse, and I will argue that careful safeguards make that possible.

   NoteThe answer comes in the first sentence and is narrowed straight away to competent, dying adults. The second sentence tells the reader where the real argument will be.

2. The strongest reason is that the person who bears the suffering should decide how it ends. We already accept that a competent patient may refuse treatment, even life-saving treatment, because their body and their life are their own. A dying patient who refuses a ventilator is allowed to die; a dying patient whose illness offers no such switch is told to wait. The difference between them is the illness, not the strength of their wish, and the law should not make a person's options depend on which disease they happen to have.

   NoteA principle, then an analogy the law already accepts, then the inconsistency it exposes. The reader is shown the reason working on a real comparison.

3. A second reason is that the present law is uncertain and unequal in practice. People with money can travel abroad to countries where assisted dying is legal, often earlier than they would otherwise choose, because they must still be well enough to make the journey. Relatives who help them may face a police investigation, even when prosecutors decide in the end not to charge. Those without the means to travel are left with fewer choices still. A law that only the wealthy can work around does not protect everyone equally; it moves the decision out of sight.

   NoteA second, independent reason, drawn from how the current rules work in practice. Two reasons of different kinds make the case harder to knock down with one objection.

4. The most serious objection is that a legal right to die could become a duty to die. An elderly or disabled person might feel that they are a burden, and choose death to spare their family or the health service. This objection deserves weight, because the people most at risk are often the least able to complain. Disability groups have raised exactly this fear, and it would be a poor argument that ignored them.

   NoteThe objection is put at its strongest and conceded where it is right. Readers trust an essay more when it states the other side fairly.

5. Yet the answer to pressure is scrutiny, not prohibition. A law could require two independent doctors to confirm the diagnosis and the patient's capacity, a waiting period between request and assistance, and a judge or panel to review each case. Several jurisdictions, including Oregon since 1997, have run such systems for decades and publish data on who uses them. Under a ban, by contrast, families still make desperate choices, but they make them in secret, where no one checks whether the dying person was pressured at all. A request made openly, to doctors who must ask about pressure and record the answers, is easier to protect than a decision made at home with no one watching.

   NoteThe reply meets the objection on its own ground. The safeguards are concrete, and the final sentence turns the objection back on the status quo.

6. No safeguard is perfect, and a society that allows assisted dying must keep checking that its rules work. If the published figures showed people choosing death because care was lacking, the answer would be to fix the care and tighten the rules. But a law that forbids every dying person from choosing, in order to protect some from a pressure that can be tested for, sacrifices the many to an imperfect protection of the few. The right should exist, and it should be hard to use.

   NoteThe conclusion admits a limit, weighs the two sides in one sentence and ends with a line that restates the answer.

What would make it stronger: Add one sentence on what should happen when a doctor doubts a patient's capacity: that is the case a sceptical reader will test the safeguards on.