Disabled will feel forced to end their lives by assisted dying if benefits are cut.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Tanni Grey-Thompson

Greg Heffer, the political correspondent for the Daily Mail online reported on March 14 that Tanni Grey-Thompson, an eleven time paralympic gold medal winning athlete and member of the British House of Lords stated that:

Disabled people will feel forced to end their lives under assisted dying laws if benefit cuts make their lives 'intolerable'

Heffer reported that while:

A committee of MPs are currently continuing their line-by-line scrutiny of the (assisted dying) Bill before it returns to the House of Commons for further debate and a vote.

At the same time, the Government is next week expected to unveil plans for £5billion of welfare cuts - despite a mounting revolt among Labour MPs and some ministers.

Baroness Grey-Thompson, a crossbench peer, expressed her fears about the combined impact of slashing benefits and assisted dying legislation. Heffer reported:

'If you are disabled and terminally ill and your benefits are cut, making life intolerable, it's obvious more people will feel forced down this route to end their lives early,' she told Times Radio.

'And when you understand that we live in a relatively able society, there will be people who sit on the panel who will decide that a disabled person has nothing to offer society and will allow them to end their lives.'

While Chancellor Rachel Reeves argues that the British welfare system is broken, Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP leading a rebellion against cuts to welfare, also expressed fears about people with disabilities feeling pressure to end their lives.

Heffer reported that Sarah Olney, a Liberal Democrat MP who sits on the committee that is scrutinising the assisted dying legislation, warned cuts to welfare and a new law on assisted dying risked a 'perfect storm' for the disabled. Olney stated:

'Of course it's a concern that if some of those people are now facing cuts to their everyday living costs … that might well contribute to their feelings that they might be a financial burden on their relatives and that will influence them in terms of how they feel about assisted dying.

'It's absolutely a concern of the committee that people might be seeking an assisted death for that reason and this news about potential cuts to welfare can only … intensify that feeling for some people.'

Similar to what is happening in Canada, people with disabilities who have found themselves unable to afford the basic cost of living are dying by euthanasia. Legalizing assisted death opens the door to people who are living with social and financial pressures to simply exist, are often requesting euthanasia.

The same could happen in Britain. 

More articles on this topic:

• Canadian Human Rights Commission concerned about euthanasia (Link).
• Canada's euthanasia deaths continue to rise (Link).
• Canadian woman does not qualify for care but qualifies for euthanasia (Link).
• Vancouver man dies by euthanasia while on a psychiatric day pass (Link).
• Discrimination driven deaths (Link).
• Heart wrenching lessons from Canada's euthanasia regime (Link).
• Euthanasia is being used to kill people in poverty, isolation and social suffering (Link).