We welcome the detailed report from the Commons Health and Social Care Committee, which catalogues the risks of legalising assisted suicide or euthanasia, nevertheless given the evidence the MPs heard is disappointing that they’ve not come down firmly against changing the law.
The committee recognises in regards to the huge problems in patients accessing good quality palliative care [Conclusions 13-15]. It heard in regards to the struggle many face with getting the appropriate social care and the way disabled people, the vulnerable and elderly find it tough to pay their bills or suffer from isolation and feel like they’ve turn out to be a burden. Indeed, one expert told the Committee in regards to the clear evidence of the pressure on individuals who were seen as not ‘a useful member of society” [Par 140] and that this pressure might be nonintentional. This is precisely what we see in places like Oregon, where a majority ending their lives cite burden on their families as a reason for ending their lives or Canada where 1,700 people cited loneliness as a reason for allowing the state to kill them.
The Committee also heard the in regards to the difficulty to ‘to accurately assess capability, and safeguard the person, in every case’ [Conclusion 7] and acknowledged that a small variety of places have only recently modified their laws to permit state sanctioned killing of the terminally ailing, vulnerable and elderly. And that over time deaths from assisted suicide or euthanasia increase [Conclusion 12].
There are many problems with changing the law to legalise state sanctioned killing. 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, corresponding to patients with dementia, treatable depression, anorexia even a victim of sexual abuse.
We were upset that the Committee, failed to choose up that those countries which have modified the law, have celebrated savings they’ve made, or did not increase spending in palliative care at an analogous rate to neighbouring jurisdictions [Conclusion 7] or that changing the law is increasingly linked to a rise in suicides rates in the final population, based on extensive data from the US and Europe.
The Mathews et al Study, a peer reviewed study from 2020, interviewed palliative care physicians and nurses who practiced in healthcare settings where patients could access Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in Southern Ontario. This report concluded the negative impact that MAID has on palliative care in Canada, while studies from the UK’s Anscombe Institute show the growing body of evidence linking increases in suicide to legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia:”
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.
Dr Gordon Macdonald is head of Care Not Killing, a gaggle of organisations campaigning against the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide. To donate to the Stepping Up, Speaking Out campaign, visit https://www.carenotkilling.org.uk/donate/
