Assisted Suicide and Domestic Abuse.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article by Jess Asato (MP) and Cherryl Henry-Leach that was published by PoliticsHome concerns the UK Assisted Dying bill that is sponsored by Kim Leadbeater (MP) and the lack of protection, in the bill, for victims of Domestic Abuse.

Jess Asato is the Labour MP for Lowestoft and Cherryl Henry-Leach is CEO of the charity Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse (STADA). The writers explain their concern:

Jess Asato Labour MP

The bill as it stands does not adequately protect victims of domestic abuse. It needs more protections to prevent MPs from creating a new and legal way for perpetrators to abuse — and, ultimately, kill — their victims.

The Bill Committee did accept amendments that would require the medical practitioners and panel members involved in the assisted dying process to have undertaken training to help them identify domestic abuse. However, this does not go far enough, and the broader issue of how this bill will impact the lives of domestic abuse victims has been under-discussed.

Asato and Henry-Leach continue:

New data out this week from the National Police Chiefs Council shows that suicide following domestic abuse has overtaken homicide as the primary cause of domestic abuse-related deaths. We know from research by the women’s organisation The Other Half that 88 per cent of unlawful assisted suicides in the UK currently are perpetrated by men against women. These deaths are all too often romanticised as ‘mercy killings’, but given one woman is killed every week by their male partner and one in four women experience domestic abuse more generally, many of these suicides are likely in fact manifestations of abuse and control.

Asato and Henry-Leach explain that health care professionals often miss signs of domestic abuse:

We also know from years of working with Domestic Homicide Reviews that professionals across public services, particularly in health, often miss the signs of domestic abuse, sometimes with fatal consequences. Investment in policy and practice is needed urgently to resolve this. Research by Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse with Macmillan Cancer Support indicates that many domestic abuse survivors disclose their abuse in healthcare settings, yet these disclosures frequently go unrecognised or unacted upon by medical practitioners. Research from the Pathfinder project found that 80 per cent of women in violent relationships seek help from health services, usually from GPs, at least once, but the response is often inadequate, with many survivors not receiving the support they need, leaving them vulnerable to continued abuse.

The writers explain that assisted suicide enables abuse to lead to death:

This bill gives those most at-risk of abuse the means to end their lives, at a time when we do not have systems in place to identify their abuse and support them to live well. Older people, disabled people, severely ill people — these are some of the most vulnerable to abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour.

The writers conclude that:

We believe that one wrongful death is one death too many, but as this Bill progresses through Parliament, it is the responsibility of MPs to ensure that this Bill’s new assisted dying process leads to the fewest number of wrongful deaths possible.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition completely agree with Jess Asato (MP) and Cherryl Henry-Leach. They are correct that Domestic Abuse is more intensely carried out upon people when they are at the most vulnerable time of their life.

The founding Euthanasia Prevention Coalition VP, Jean Echlin, was a renowned palliative care nurse, but she was also a victim of domestic abuse. We have also written about elder abuse as it relates to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The argument was clearly made by Asato and Henry-Leach and applies to every jurisdiction that is debating the legalization of euthanasia and/or assisted suicide.

Articles on similar topics:

• Homicide or Mercy Killing? (Link) 
• Euthanasia and assisted suicide - Ugly issue back again (Link). 
• A dance of death (Link).
  
• Death with Dignity or Obsenity? (Link).