GCSE
HUMANITIES
Unit 1
Humanities Core
June 2016
Preliminary Material
Sources Booklet for Unit 1
To be opened and issued to candidates no sooner than Monday 1 February 2016
NOTICE TO CANDIDATES
You have been given one copy of this Sources Booklet for use during your preparation for the
examination. You may annotate this copy as you wish but you are not allowed to take it into the
examination.
You will be provided with a clean copy of the Sources Booklet, along with the question paper, for use
in the examination.
You are advised to study this Sources Booklet and the issues raised in it.
Your teacher is encouraged to teach lessons based on the Sources Booklet and to give
assistance and advice as required.
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Culture and Beliefs
Source A
Assisted dying: the key issues.
The Assisted Dying Bill has been debated in the House
of Lords. If the Bill passes all the stages, then the Bill
will become law.
What does “assisted dying” mean?
The Assisted Dying Bill would allow doctors to give
patients a special drug to help them die. This would be
for patients with less than six months to live.
Assisted dying would allow a terminally ill, mentally competent adult to ask the doctor to give them a
drug to end their lives. A person may wish to have their life ended to avoid the pain, loss of dignity
and suffering that can be part of being terminally ill.
Two independent doctors would have to agree that the patient had understood all the facts and had
made the decision to die. The doctors would then give the patient the drugs and the patient would
end their life. The patient would take the drugs when they chose to end their life.
What is the current law in the UK?
Euthanasia and assisted suicide are illegal in English law.
The Suicide Act 1961 makes it illegal to encourage or assist a suicide or a suicide attempt in
England and Wales. Anyone doing so could face up to 14 years in prison. The law is almost the
same in Northern Ireland. There is no specific law on assisted suicide in Scotland and so people
are not sure if assisted suicide is illegal in Scotland. In Scotland someone could be prosecuted
under homicide legislation and this might be a murder charge.
Some people say the UK law should not be changed, because killing a person is always a crime.
What is the law in other countries?
In the Netherlands, both euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal, providing it is performed by a
doctor who follows strict regulations.
In Belgium, the Euthanasia Act 2002 allows only doctors to perform euthanasia. There is no special
law about assisted suicide.
In Oregon, a state in the USA, the first Death with Dignity Act was passed in 1994. The Act allows
doctors to give lethal medication, but the patient must take the drug themselves.
In Switzerland an individual helping another person’s suicide is only illegal if the person has a
selfish or illegal motive, such as gaining money. Almost all assisted suicides in Switzerland happen
through ‘not-for-profit right-to-die organisations’ such as Dignitas, EXIT ADMD and EXIT Deutsche
Schweiz (EDS).
Some people say that what happens in other countries means the law in the UK should be changed
so the UK is the same as other countries.
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Source B
The right-to-die: for and against assisted suicide.
Campaigners recently lost their latest appeal
over the right-to-die. The family of the late Tony
Nicklinson, who had locked-in syndrome, had
hoped to change the law on suicide so that a
doctor could help chronically ill or disabled people
to die.
What are the arguments for and against assisted
suicide for disabled people? Here are some of the
arguments given by people involved in the debate.
First: Baroness Jane Campbell disagrees
with assisted suicide. She is a disability rights
campaigner and founder of Not Dead Yet UK,
a network of disabled people in the UK who are
against the legalised killing of disabled people.
Here is what she says.
The family of locked-in syndrome sufferer
Tony Nicklinson launched a legal bid after his
death to continue his right-to-die campaign.
“Campaigners for a change in the law on assisted suicide say it is about choice, giving people with
chronic illness or disability the same “right” to end their lives as healthy people. When any other
person wants to end their life, we do not help them. We help people with suicidal thoughts look for
positives in their lives. I believe chronically ill and disabled people deserve that “right”, to be helped
by us all to live their lives.
I am a severely disabled person, I fear a change in the law
to permit assisted dying. People arguing for a change do
not give any guidance about who might get help and who
might not get help to die. I have suffered illnesses that have
brought me close to death and I am sure to do so again. Will
the doctors who cared for me so expertly in the past, now be
ready to offer an assisted death?
Many disabled people know for themselves how society
fears illness and disability. Most people are worried about
needing to rely on others for help. Many have seen lovedones, particularly parents, become frail when their health
gets worse. The main reason given for wishing to die is not
wanting to become a burden, whether their family would see
it that way or not. The easy solution of an assisted death can
seem attractive.
It is because many people think assisted death is a good
thing that we must continue to be against it. Some people
think terminally ill patients and people with chronic illness and
disability would be better off dead. This is a very negative
view.
Baroness Jane Campbell
We would not give up on a suicidal person if they were in good health, so we should not give up on
a terminally ill or disabled person wanting an assisted death.”
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Second: John Grantham is in favour of assisted dying. His partner Paul Hartland committed
suicide after living with motor neurone disease. Motor neurone disease is a devastating and
incurable illness. The disease eventually causes paralysis and the person is left helpless. Here,
John explains why he would like a change in the law.
“My partner, Paul, ended his life in March 2013. He was 35 years old and was suffering from motor
neurone disease.
Soon after his diagnosis Paul became terrified of being trapped
inside a non-functioning body and made it very clear that he
would refuse medical treatment to help him breathe when that
time came.”
John says that they initially discussed travelling to Dignitas.
Dignitas is an organisation based in Switzerland, a country
where assisted suicide is allowed. Their headquarters is in
Zurich, where the private Dignitas Clinic has helped over a
thousand patients, of many nationalities, to die.
“Paul joined the Dignitas organisation and started donating
money to them. However he didn’t want to die in a foreign
country.
Paul committed suicide while he was still physically able. He
was weeks if not days away from being unable to feed himself.
I helped him to the lavatory and did everything for him. But
feeding himself was important, because it meant he could still
administer a fatal dose by mouth. This is what he did. He
had bought drugs online from China. The drugs cost a lot of
money. He deserved a better end.
Assisted Suicide Bill Supporter
I never got to say goodbye to him. He died alone. He never got to say things to me, his parents or
his friends, which I know he would have wanted to say.
It is important to note that at the time of his death there was much that he was still enjoying. He did
not take his life because he was depressed. His choices were to kill himself whilst he still could or
to carry on living and have months, possibly years, trapped inside his body. The only other choice
would have been to ask his family or friends to end his suffering. He chose not to ask them to do
this.
He always said the greatest burden was knowing he had to end his own life without help and getting
the timing right. If assisted suicide had been legal, I am sure Paul would have waited longer if he
could have chosen the time to die, when he was no longer taking pleasure from living.
Assisted suicide is not about ending lives early, it is about giving people choices and I believe many
people would live longer and enjoy life more if they knew that their wishes could happen, when no
longer physically able to commit suicide themselves.”
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Environmental Issues
Source C
Water – a natural resource.
Why do we need to think about waste?
In the UK the average person uses 149 litres of water a day. Since
1930 the volume of water a person uses each day has increased by
1 per cent each year. If you add in the water needed to produce the
food you eat and products you use, you actually use 3400 litres per
day. This is known as ‘embedded water’. This is a lot of water. The
UK has less available water per person than most other European
countries. If you live in the South East of England the volume of water
used is very worrying because this part of the country has the least
water and the most people.
The Water Supply Regulations 2000 control drinking water in the UK.
These regulations control the following ‘elements’ contained in drinking water:
• the type of micro-organisms present in the supply
• the chemicals in the water
• the metals (eg lead) in the water
• the look and taste of the water.
One problem is, having made sure our water is of a high standard, we then flush 30 per cent of the
water down the toilet. We use around 30 per cent of it for washing clothes, washing dishes and
gardening and only 4 per cent for drinking. Some people say this wastes a lot of the pure water
supply in the UK.
One source said “In the future the use of water is going to keep on rising because of the predicted
population increase and we may also use water for many new things.”
Typical domestic water usage in the UK
Drinking
4%
Other
5%
Outdoors
7%
Washing up
8%
Personal washing
(showers)
12%
Clothes
washing
13%
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Toilet flushing
30%
Personal washing
(baths and taps)
21%
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Source D
Water around the world: Used well, or wasted?
The amount of water used per person in each country is very different. The bar chart shows the
total amount of water used per person in some countries.
Graph to show average water use per person per day
Mozambique
Ethiopia
Cambodia
Nigeria
Bangladesh
India
UK
Country
Brazil
Germany
France
Spain
Japan
Italy
Australia
USA
0
100
200
300
Litres
400
500
600
The graph shows that people in richer countries such as the United States, a More Economically
Developed Country or MEDC, use far more water than those in poorer countries such as
Bangladesh, a Less Economically Developed Country or LEDC.
The amount of water used in the world every day is very different. Households, farming and industry
all need water. This graph seems to show that people who live in rich countries waste water.
What is the water used for?
What the water is used for depends on the country using the water. The pie charts opposite show
the difference in water usage in two countries.
Bangladesh is a poor country and people will use most of their water in agriculture (farming) and not
much in industry or for domestic use. In Bangladesh farming is a large part of its economy so a large
percentage of available water is used in watering crops (called irrigation). Some people say this
shows water is being used for essential things, like growing food and is not wasted unnecessarily.
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The UK is a richer country and uses more water for domestic reasons. Richer countries also tend
to use a higher percentage for industrial use. Some people say richer countries waste a lot of water
on non-essentials such as dishwashers and car washing.
The percentage share of total water usage in a LEDC and a MEDC:
Bangladesh
Domestic Industry
0.7%
3.2%
UK
Agriculture
2.9%
Domestic
21.7%
Agriculture
96.1%
Industry
75.4%
Different ways water is used
Agriculture
•In MEDCs irrigation is mechanised. Sprinklers or timed irrigation feeds are used. Where largescale agriculture is common, lots of water can be released at the touch of a button.
•In LEDCs methods are more traditional. Ancient irrigation channels can lose water through
evaporation and leakage. Some people say this shows LEDCs can waste water.
Industrial use
•Industries in MEDCs can often be on a large-scale and need a lot of water.
•LEDCs have smaller scale cottage industries, often based in the home or village. They demand
less water in the production of items. However, as more multinational companies re-locate
in LEDCs there will be a need for more water. For example in India, Coca-Cola uses over a
million litres of water a day to produce its drinks.
Domestic water use
•In MEDCs there are a lot of household and domestic facilities using water. For example most
houses have showers, baths, washing machines and some have swimming pools. One person
said “Don’t forget, using more water doesn’t mean we waste water. Having flushing toilets,
baths and showers means personal hygiene is good and diseases are not spread as easily.”
•In LEDCs many people do not have access to piped water. Water may be brought to the home
from a well or stream, which is often a long distance away, so water is used more carefully.
As a country becomes wealthier, there will be an increase in its demand for water. A higher level
of industrialisation and a higher standard of living creates a demand for more domestic goods, such
as washing machines and dishwashers. With greater wealth there is also a demand for more baths
and showers and even golf courses, public parks and swimming pools.
END OF SOURCES
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