New bid to legalise assisted suicide ‘threatens disabled people’s lives.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Not Dead Yet UK rally

An article by John Pring for the Disability New Service on May 27, 2021 reports that disability activists are saying that the new bill to legalize assisted suicide in the UK is a threat to their “lives, independence and peace of mind”. The latest assisted suicide bill is sponsored by former social worker Baroness Meacher, who is also the chair of the campaigning organisation Dignity in Dying, formerly known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society.

Pring reports that Not Dead Yet UK (NDY UK), which leads disabled people’s opposition to legalisation of assisted suicide in the UK, said that a change in the law would be “a threat to disabled people’s lives, independence and peace of mind”.

NDY UK said many disabled people had lost access to health and social care during the pandemic, making it even harder to secure the support they needed to live “active, independent lives” and bringing into “sharp focus” the value society places on them.

Pring also reported a NDY UK spokesperson as saying:

“For essential support to become merely the alternative option to assisted suicide terrifies us.

“That is why no organisation of terminally ill or disabled people has sought a change in the law.

“We need help to live – not to die. That means investment in palliative care, pragmatic solutions to social care provision and continued financial support for our world-class NHS.

“These are the issues our parliamentarians should be concentrating on, rather than the Pandora’s Box of assisted suicide which might help the few, but at the expense of the many.”

Baroness Meacher's assisted suicide bill is expected to be debated in the British House of Lords in September.