Britain: Don't follow Canada's lead. Vote no to assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The federalist published an article by Mary Vought, a disability advocate in the UK titled: The UK Takes Another Step Toward State-Sponsored Euthanasia.

Mary, who opposes assisted suicide, refers to the recent second reading vote that supported Kim Leadbeater's bill, as giving Britain's parliament an opportunity to further debate the issue and defeat the bill.

Vought refers to comments by Kim Leadbeater, who said that the bill has the "strongest set of safeguards and protections in the world" as opening the door to legalization which, if legalized, will lead to expansions of the law. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition doesn't consider the Leadbeater bill as having the strongest safeguards in the world. Vought then refers to Canada's experience:

Indeed, that is exactly what has happened in other countries. Canada has vastly expanded its assisted suicide regime, loosening criteria to allow for same-day suicide and expanding the number of conditions that qualify. As a result, the number of assisted suicides in Canada rose by at least 13-fold from 2016 to 2022, and now numbers over 13,000 per year.

Beyond a move toward assisted suicide, Canada shares something else in common with Great Britain: a single-payer system of socialized medicine. Canadians have documented cases in which the health care bureaucracy has encouraged individuals to commit assisted suicide, presumably because such “resolutions” are far cheaper for the government-run health system than treating patients’ underlying conditions.

Vought then refers to the financial pressures that are faced by Britain's National Health Service (NHS) and challenges the concept of assisted suicide based on her reality as the mother of a daughter with cystic fibrosis and as a disability advocate and former member of the National Council on Disability. Vought writes:

The most vulnerable in our society — those who have no one to speak for them — are most at risk in this brave new world. We must reinforce the message that vulnerable people are valuable people and make a commitment to provide them with the health care and mental and psychological support they need, such that they never feel pressured to take their own lives.

I hope that members of Parliament will come to their senses and reject the assisted suicide measure before it makes it onto the statute books. For human life — any life and every life — is a terrible thing to waste.

• UK Assisted Suicide bill. A disability perspective (Link).
• Baroness Tanni Grey Thompson. Legalizing assisted suicide could cause a seismic shift (Link).