The Assisted Dying Act should not have been adopted

We are parliamentarians from different parties and with different political beliefs. But go ahead the issue of assisted suicide we share the same position: we will vote in Parliament against its legalization.

We understand why some people disagree with us. No one should die an undignified death, and we have all had family members die inconvenience. But the bill published this week has problems in terms of principle and detail.

Supporters argue that we all have the right to autonomy over our bodies and, in certain circumstances, we should have the freedom to decide how and when we die. But no choice we make affects only ourselves – not even something as intimate as death.

Legalizing assisted suicide would change our relationship with the medical profession. Although no physician would be required to perform assisted suicide, under this bill physicians would not be prohibited from suggesting assisted suicide to patients who have not indicated it as an option. It also does not allow them to refrain from discussing assisted suicide or referring patients to doctors who consent to such an activity.

More fundamentally, assisted suicide would transform our relationship with the vulnerable, infirm and elderly. The mere existence of the choice to die would change our relationships, even with those we love. And the pressure to decide about death does not necessarily have to come from relatives, but from within. Imagine a grandparent with a terminal illness who is faced with the cost of a nursing home compared to the cost of eliminating his grandson’s student debt. The right to die can become a duty to die.

In Oregon, assisted suicide is legal, and its model is cited by activists here. There, a much higher percentage of people requesting assisted suicide do so because they feel they are a “burden” to the family, rather than because they feel unbearable pain.

In the Netherlands, where assisted suicide is responsible for one in twenty deaths, among the applications processed was an application from a teenager suffering from depression. In Canada, a disabled man who feared eviction from public housing was given permission by doctors to die. A Paralympian was offered euthanasia equipment while looking for a wheelchair lift to her home.

Campaigners say they are proposing safeguards to prevent the legal scope of assisted suicide in the UK expanding in this way. But no one believes that the scope won’t expand and that the logical end point – a grim utilitarian approach that values ​​human life – is the same.

The bill obliges the Minister of Health to ensure the availability of suicide assistance to those who successfully request it. There will be no equivalent obligation to provide palliative care to patients at the end of life. Wes Streeting, who announced he would vote against the billstated that “if Parliament decides on assisted dying, it will have made a choice that this is an area where investment should be prioritized.” This choice, in his opinion, “will take place at the expense of other choices.” We need to find ways to improve the financing and availability of palliative care, rather than risk reducing it.

The proposed safeguards raise more questions than they answer. Many of them are so ambiguous or open to loopholes that they are functionally meaningless. For example, patients may consent to proxy-assisted suicide by citing “the reason for physical improvement, inability to read, or any other reason.” The case is worryingly open and coroners are not required to investigate deaths by assisted suicide.

While two different doctors must approve a patient’s request for assisted suicide – and supposedly increase decision-making independence – the first doctor chooses the second, and if the second refuses to sign the agreement, the first can choose another who agrees. There also appears to be no prohibition on patients whose applications have been rejected from submitting further applications until they find doctors willing to grant approval.

The bill also proposes that applications be approved by the High Court. There are eighteen Supreme Court justices in the Family Division, so given the likely demand, this seems an unrealistic suggestion. There is also a significant chance that demand will increase over time, increasing the burden. In Canada, assisted suicide cases have increased in just six years and now account for 4.1% of all deaths. Denials have become relatively rarer, from eight percent of all applications in 2019 to 3.5 percent in 2022. We can expect the same here if the law changes.

We agree that too many people die in pain. Our society does not protect the most vulnerable as it should. But legalizing assisted suicide is not the solution: we need to give patients a better death and better care.

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