Warnings of assisted suicide ‘harm’ as MPs predict change to law

Campaigners have warned of “harm” and “profound injustices” following the publication of a Commons report that implies the law on assisted suicide is prone to change in parts of the UK soon. 

A report from the parliamentary Health and Social Care Committee says that UK ministers must consider the implications of legal divergence on the matter.

The report has been published as Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man prepare to think about fresh proposals geared toward legalising assisted suicide.

Jersey, a Crown Dependency with its own legislature and laws, has been tipped to develop into the primary place within the British Isles to legalise assisted suicide. 

Responding to the Commons report, Christian social policy charity CARE warned that legalising assisted suicide would “harm UK society as an entire”. 

CARE policy director, Louise Davies, said that the “cross-border effects” of adjusting the law in some parts of the UK “haven’t been considered”.

“A law change in Scotland, for instance, would create huge challenges for suicide prevention in England. Scotland may see an influx of individuals, compounding pressure on its NHS,” she said. 

Davies expressed scepticism about safeguarding guarantees, saying that they “at all times fail”.

“We consider that assisted suicide just isn’t something that ought to be countenanced in any area of the UK,” she said.

“Evidence from other jurisdictions paints a troubling picture. In Canada, for instance, marginalised people feel forced to finish their lives because they can’t access the services they should live. And this has develop into accepted.

“Assisted suicide laws within the UK would result in the identical profound injustices, and damage UK society as an entire.”

She added, “Safeguards at all times fail: doctors cannot detect the subtle signs of coercion, and will miss them altogether.

“The law could develop into more permissive over time: activists would demand assisted suicide for individuals who haven’t got a terminal illness before long. The current approach is best, and consistency is best. We would urge politicians to say no.”

Dr Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing, a campaign group against assisted suicide, expressed disappointment that MPs haven’t come down firmly against changing the law in light of great concerns, which include vulnerable people feeling pressured to finish their lives and restrictions being “swept away”.

“There are many problems with changing the law to legalise state sanctioned killing,” he said.

“As we saw within the Netherlands and Belgium, limits on who qualifies for an assisted death have been swept away. No longer is state-aided killing with death row drugs limited to those with lower than six months to live, but routinely includes disabled people, those with chronic non-terminal conditions and individuals with mental health problems, equivalent to patients with dementia, treatable depression, anorexia, even a victim of sexual abuse.”

He continued, “At a time when now we have seen how fragile our health care system is, how underfunding puts pressure on services, accessing specific treatments and when the UK’s amazing hospice movement faces a £100 million funding crisis, MPs could have decided to firmly close the door on assisted suicide and euthanasia, and say the present law which protects everyone, no matter whether or not they are young or old, able bodied or disabled should remain. They failed.”