Ann Farmer: Letter opposing assisted suicide bill to her elected representative (UK).

Dear...

Ann Farmer

As a disabled constituent I am writing once again to urge you to vote against Kim Leadbeater’s Bill on ‘assisted dying’, due its second reading on 29th November 2024. 

Almost every day we read news reports of the terrible effects of legalizing assisted suicide/euthanasia, as with this report from Canada on the Canadian public’s concerns about their Medical Assistance in Dying law, now spiralling out of control in ways not foreseen when it was passed just a few years ago (Article Link) and a warning from the UK about how ‘assisted dying’ would fit neatly into our own creaking health system: even though most doctors would be against direct killing, vulnerable patients would be placed on a ‘death pathway’ from which there is no return. (Article Link).

With more and more senior Labour figures coming out against the Leadbeater Bill, (Article Link) it is still uncertain whether it will succeed, since many new Labour MPs may vote for it regardless of the warnings, for ideological reasons.

It might be said that ‘the right to die’ is a good idea, but a terrible reality, however proponents seem not to be swayed by the practical difficulties and sinister ramifications seen in every jurisdiction where ‘assisted dying’ has been legalized, only to turn into euthanasia, encompassing more and more categories of cases originally claimed to be firmly ruled out. One thing is certain – if it does pass into law, the sick/elderly/disabled will not be heard to complain, as they will be too afraid that someone will suggest they ask for ‘assisted dying’.

This Bill is a disaster waiting to happen, and we cannot wait to ‘see how things turn out’; we have already seen the effects in other societies, where it inevitably produces a colder culture, with caring replaced by killing. Once again, I would seriously urge you to vote against this Bill.

With all thanks and best wishes,

Ann Farmer
Woodford Green
Essex.

Letter opposing UK assisted suicide bill.

People who oppose assisted suicide in the UK need to write letters to their representatives. 

Letter from Ann Farmer to UK political representatives.

I am writing to you once again regarding news reports about the proposed Private Members’ Bill submitted by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater to legalise ‘assisted dying’, aka assisted suicide. 

As a disabled person I am very concerned about this Bill, not only for myself but for vulnerable groups, particularly the elderly, sick and disabled, especially given severe pressure on the NHS, which Sir Keir Starmer has referred to as ‘broken’, as well as a recent Marie Curie report exposing significant shortcomings in palliative and end-of-life care in this country. 

The risks of legalizing assisted suicide were highlighted by the actor and disability rights campaigner Liz Carr in her recent BBC One documentary ‘Better Off Dead?’ (youtube link) which I encourage you to watch if you have not already done so. It warns of the dangers of such legislation for the disabled and poor, dangers highlighted in a recent article by Sir Stephen Timms MP.  Such warnings are based on the reality in countries that have legalized ‘assisted dying’, only to see a steady relaxation of the law; indeed, it is now clear that the allegedly strict safeguards accompanying such laws are considered necessary to calm public fears, enabling the passage of the law, which is then broadened in scope.

Furthermore, despite campaigners’ claims that ‘assisted dying’ enjoys public support, a recent opinion poll found that this issue ranked 22nd out of a list of 23 possible priorities for the new Government. 

The same poll also highlighted public concerns over the practicalities of legalizing assisted suicide, with over half of respondents revealing fears that there are too many complicating factors to make assisted suicide a practical and safe option.

Although a recent ‘Citizens’ Jury’ supported legalising assisted suicide, doubts were cast on the impartiality of the Jury’s findings after revelations that Danielle Hamm, the Director of the organisation commissioning the project, was previously the head of ‘Compassion in Dying’, sister charity to assisted suicide pressure group Dignity in Dying. In addition, the project was funded by a charity that had previously given a significant grant “towards work on legalising assisted dying”, while a majority of Jury members seem to have held settled views in support of legalising euthanasia as well as assisted suicide, with more members also favouring ‘assisted dying’ for under-18s and the non-terminally ill.

Clearly, Citizens’ Juries do not reliably reflect public opinion.  In contrast, whenever Parliament has studied these issues in depth, objectively considering the risks, it has decisively rejected legalization, as with the last such Bill in 2015, when more Labour MPs and more Conservative MPs voted against legalization than in favour, while only three Liberal Democrat MPs supported it.

I would be grateful for your reassurance that you will oppose rushing through such dangerous and complex legislation into law and will do whatever you can to ensure Parliament focuses instead on measures to provide authentic end-of-life care to all who need it.

Thank you for your consideration and for all your efforts, and I look forward to receiving your response.

Yours sincerely, 

Ann Farmer
Woodford Green
Essex IG8 7NQ.

Letter to British Parliamentarians opposing euthanasia.

This letter was sent to elected representatives in the British Parliament and shared.

Ann Farmer

Dear ... 

As your constituent I am writing to draw your attention to the above debate, in the hope that you will be able to attend and speak against attempts to legalise assisted suicide/euthanasia, now going under the euphemism 'assisted dying'.

Given the appalling outcomes reported from those jurisdictions that have gone down this route, most notoriously Canada, where 'strict safeguards' have been swiftly dismantled to allow death for disability and also poverty, https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-call-to-defeat-new-hampshire-assisted.html it is vital that we do not follow them down this slippery slope.

Significantly, advocates of 'assisted dying' neglect to mention that this issue has been thoroughly debated and decisively rejected by Parliament in the past few years, on the very valid ground that there is no safe way of killing.

I trust you will attend, or alternatively make the case for 'assisted living' for all, rather than the money-saving expedient of euthanomics.

With all best wishes,

Ann Farmer
Woodford Green
Essex

Assisted suicide debate: these sick people cost a lot so it’s time to move them on

This article was published by Mercatornet on February 8, 2024.

Ann Farmer

By Ann Farmer, a writer in the UK.

Matthew Parris, a former member of Parliament, is one of the UK’s leading commentators. It has been said that his columns in the London Times and The Spectator are “essential reading by many in Westminster”.

So when he talks complete rubbish about “assisted dying”, it’s important to put him right.

In a recent article in The Spectator, Parris claimed that “assisted dying is inevitable” although this campaign faces opposition “from religious people who often hide their personal investment in their faith and attach themselves instead to secular and medical claims, aware that ‘God’ does not, these days, clinch a public debate.”

I won’t hide the fact that I have religious convictions, but I speak as someone who has lived with the misery of chronic illness for decades. It’s not the wrath of God that I fear, but the penny-pinching of gods in the National Health Service.

I have Ehler’s Danlos Syndrome (problems with collagen, loose joints), Sjörgren’s, PoTS, dysautonomia and gastroparesis. Together these affect balance, gait, muscle strength, energy production, stamina, digestion, lungs and skin (although thankfully a few bouts of skin cancer have responded to treatment).

I call it SSS – Several Syndromes Syndrome. In Belgium it is called “polypathology” and it is an accepted reason for requesting euthanasia. When it first came on with full force, over 20 years ago, it felt like going suddenly from middle age to old age. Now I have to use walking sticks, a wheelchair and mobility scooter, but I seldom go out and need a long period of recuperation when I do.

These add up to a permanent disability. There is no cure.

But in my experience, doctors did not care. I encountered a signal lack of interest and downright rudeness – one doctor even shouted at me that “they found nothing wrong with you in the tests”. Another asked me: “Why are you walking like that?”

Recently it was quietly decided that people with hypermobility but without constantly dislocating joints do not need specialist care. It took me ten years to get a diagnosis, at my own initiative, after changing doctors several times. Eventually I self-referred to an NHS specialist I read about in the newspaper and after a battery of tests and a miraculous coincidence, finally I got a diagnosis, or rather diagnoses.

Since then I have met with good, caring doctors, but there are no guarantees – doctors are human too.

Even before the Covid pandemic overloaded the health service, I became horribly aware of how convenient some medicos would find it if patients like me simply gave up and went away – preferably permanently. Legalising assisted dying would be the last piece in the puzzle of treating the long-term sick/disabled/elderly – all of whom could all be classed as terminally ill.

If they couldn’t patch us up, they could despatch us. If they couldn’t help us out, they could help us on our way out. It’s a little problem called human nature, common to us all, which means that we cannot trust humans to “safely kill” the weak and helpless.

Matthew Parris is admirably candid about me, or people like me. We should die.

“As to adding pressure upon the terminally ill to lift the burden they’re placing on others… well, let me bite the bullet. In time, I think that the spread and acceptance of assisted dying may indeed do that. And let me bite deeper into the bullet. I think this would be a good thing.”

He explains just how good a thing it is:

“With advances in medical science, humans will get older and older, spending longer and longer as invalids, and with more and more of the last years of their lives in a condition that brings little pleasure and increasing pain. The option to foreshorten this will have to be more easily available and social mores will change to accommodate it.”

Well, thank you, Matthew Parris! Presumably I should book in at a Swiss assisted suicide clinic for next week.

Parris may well have some idea about the reality of living with chronic illness, but it does not show. The instinct to live is very strong, unless people are mentally unwell, in which case we try to prevent their suicides – despite the fact that they might be facing a long life of mental “misery”. And once assisted dying is legalised, logic dictates that, as in Canada (although the next step down the slippery slope has been paused for a while) they will be the next in line for this “benefit”.  

Parris fails to mention any obligation on the rest of society to improve conditions for the aged and infirm and fails to acknowledge that our health service was meant to serve all who need it or might need it in future, funded by everyone. It was not established for the well and wealthy but for the sick and poor.