Assisted dying legislation: Unintended consequences.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Times, which has supported assisted suicide in the past, published their view on the proposed assisted dying bill in the UK on October 4, 2024. Here is what they wrote:

The trajectory of how the law has changed in other countries is a warning to the UK

The strongest argument in support of legalising assisted dying in the UK is that it is about choice. Its proponents make a persuasive case that individuals enduring severe pain or multiple indignities from a terminal illness should have the option to end their life at a time of their choosing. Instead of compelling an ill person to go through a gruelling, unpredictable run-up to a natural death, medical intervention can pull death back within the realm of personal control. Who would, or should, deny another that option in extremis?

This is the reasoning advanced by Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley, whose bill to introduce a legal assisted dying process for the terminally ill will be tabled this month. MPs will be given a free vote on what is regarded as a matter of conscience. Yet supporters of change believe their cause is gaining irreversible momentum: polls suggest that it is now a closer possibility that at any time in our history. Personal pleas command public sympathy. The presenter and campaigner Esther Rantzen, who has terminal lung cancer, ­eloquently argues that she would rather experience a medically induced death at home surrounded by family than be forced to travel solo to Dignitas, the Swiss organisation that offers physician-assisted suicide to those who wish to die. The logic of individual choice is powerful, so long as it stands alone. But the truth is that the “right to die”, when that killing is sanctioned by the state, does not stand alone: it becomes part of a web of other difficult choices and questions, which extend beyond any individual to alter the whole of society.

The consequences of such a change would be far reaching. Among those affected are UK doctors and nurses, whose role would change from preservers of life to ­— in this instance — purveyors of death, a fundamental shift that many would find unconscionable. Others include individuals who require assistance in order to live a dignified and bearable life, like those who are disabled, or elderly and infirm: many share the concerns of Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, the Paralympic athlete and disability campaigner, that if such legislation expanded they could come under insidious pressure to end their lives rather than be a “burden” to family and society.

Ms Leadbeater has argued that such fears of a “slippery slope” regarding this legislation are ill-founded. This is wrong: in fact such fears have an increasingly clear basis in reality. In Canada, which introduced assisted dying for the terminally ill in 2016, legislation was subsequently extended to those whose illness or disability is incurable or causes unbearable suffering, and later to those in severe mental distress — although the last proviso will not be enacted until 2027. In the Netherlands last May, Zoraya ter Beek, a physically healthy ­29-year-old woman, was legally euthanised on the grounds of mental suffering.

If this legislation is indeed solely intended to address the understandable terrors of the terminally ill, then a different route is available, as the health secretary Wes Streeting has suggested. It is to improve specialist palliative care for all to a standard of excellence currently experienced only by some. That might also involve clarification for doctors on higher permitted levels of pain relief in such specific circumstances. This would be a far wiser and more humane move than stumbling into legislation which has already revealed a deeply disturbing tendency to exceed its original remit.

Previous articles on this topic:

• The UK will debate assisted suicide bill this year (Link).