The Case Against Assisted Suicide
The debate about assisted suicide in the UK has been rumbling on for decades. There have been eight attempts in parliament to change the law in the last twenty years alone. The last time it was voted on in the Commons was in 2015 when the measure was defeated by 330 to 118.[1] However, a well-funded and highly motivated group of campaigners have ensured that, despite these defeats, the debate has remained alive. Now more than ever, it seems like the stars are aligning for pro-suicide campaigners as parliament could well be on the cusp of changing the law. Elsewhere, draft legislation is currently being considered by the Scottish Parliament,[2] while earlier this year, the law was changed in Jersey and the Isle of Man thus becoming the first parts of the British Isles to legalise assisted suicide.[3]
Having come top of the ballot for introducing Private Members’ Bills, the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater announced that she would use her bill to introduce legislation to legalise assisted suicide. This bill will be introduced on Wednesday 16th October and the vote will take place on the second reading on Friday 29th November, meaning that assisted suicide could be legal in the UK by Christmas. Keir Starmer, like many of his party colleagues, is personally a supporter of assisted suicide, having voted in favour in 2015 and has promised a free vote for MPs within this parliament.[4] Rishi Sunak, the outgoing Leader of the Opposition, declared during the election campaign that he was ‘not opposed in principle’ to a change in the law.[5] Likewise, in the last parliament nearly all Liberal Democrat MPs were in favour of change and the new cohort of Green MPs all campaigned on a manifesto promising to vote in favour of assisted suicide. This growing consensus within parliament, stretching from the individualist right to the progressive left, alongside the significant boost the campaign received when former journalist Dame Esther Rantzen movingly spoke of her desire to die late last year, indicates that the likelihood of assisted suicide becoming law in the UK is now higher than at any point this century.[6]
I am deeply alarmed by this and have felt compelled to lay out, in considerable detail, the case against such a change. This is a David and Goliath-style fight as the campaign for change is very highly motivated, well-funded, awash with celebrity endorsements, and in regular receipt of sympathetic media coverage. The opposition to this thus deserves a much more detailed treatment than it often receives. We must also be honest in the terms we use. Campaigners almost always use the phrase ‘assisted dying’ in the place of ‘assisted suicide’. This euphemistic language is of little help in a debate that requires utter clarity. In 2021, a Survation poll found that only 4 in 10 of those surveyed understood that ‘assisted dying’ meant providing lethal drugs to those with less than six months to live. The same proportion incorrectly believed it meant giving people who are dying the right to stop receiving treatment to extend their lives (which is already legal). 1 in 10 thought that it referred to the provision of hospice care.[7] This article therefore uses the term assisted suicide to mean the provision of lethal drugs for a person to end their own life. Any other term seeks either to confuse or to sanitise the harrowing reality of what is being proposed.
In arguing against assisted suicide, I am in no way discounting the virtuous motivations of many who campaign for change. Nor am I underestimating the suffering and pain with which many terminally ill people live. There are good people on both sides of this debate. However, given how sensitive and emotionally charged this matter is, I argue that we need to take a step back and see the bigger picture. Instead of being swayed by high-profile cases in the media like Dame Esther’s, we must seek out those voices that are rarely heard in this debate and instead of thinking that change is a moral fait acompli, we must consider the full range of potential impacts that assisted suicide would bring about. Like with the debate about the lockdowns during the COVID pandemic, what might appear at first glance to be an obvious solution will likely end up bringing about a whole host of unintended and hidden consequences that end up being pernicious in the long-term.
A common critique of the opponents of change by those who favour it is that their opposition is rooted in personal religious convictions that they have no right in imposing on the rest of society. To discount this, the majority of what follows is based in secular arguments. However, it is my faith that most strongly compels my views about life and death and therefore I include an addendum in which I explain the faith-based argument. Even then, I reject the oft-heard complaint that this issue – often likened to abortion and gay marriage – is a debate in which the church has no right participating in. A faith perspective on life and death, I argue, is a much more solid foundation than the nebulous and impressionistic appeals commonly heard to personal autonomy or human rights.
My five arguments concern (1) the slippery slope, (2) the rights of disabled people, (3) societal inequalities, (4) the existing crisis in healthcare, and (5) the broader place of suicide within society. I shall turn to each in order.
(1) The Slippery Slope
Where in many ethical debates the argument of a slippery slope is a fallacy, there is perhaps not an issue to which it is more readily applicable than assisted suicide. This is borne out in undisputable and ever-growing evidence from the jurisdictions around the world which have already legalised it. In this context, the oft-heard claims of proponents of change that any new legislation will be solely for the terminally ill, that there will be strong safeguards, and that, seemingly, Britain will not go the way of every other country that has changed the law, are strikingly naïve.
Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland (1941), 11 US states (the first was Oregon in 1997), the Netherlands (2001), Belgium (2002), Luxembourg (2009), Colombia (2014), Canada (2015), all Australian states (2019-23), Spain (2021), New Zealand (2021), Austria (2021), Ecuador (2024), and is awaiting implementation in Portugal. In almost every country where assisted suicide has been legalised, the parameters of eligibility have gradually widened, the numbers dying have increased exponentially, and the safeguards have been eroded. Nowhere is this in greater evidence than in Canada, which should act as a grave warning of what could happen in the UK if there is a change in the law. The Canadian parliament voted in 2015 to legalise both assisted suicide and euthanasia for the terminally ill. However, just six years later, in 2021, parliament confirmed an extension to the provision whereby those suffering from serious or chronic (though not terminal) conditions could also apply for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). Whereas in 2016, only 1,018 people died from assisted suicide and euthanasia, in 2022, the last year for which data are available, the number was 13,241. MAiD represented 4% of all Canadian deaths in 2022, in comparison to 3.3% in 2021, and 2.5% in 2020. Legislation to extend the provision to include mental illness is tabled for 2027 as well as plans to allow ‘mature minors’ (those as young as 12) to apply to die.[8] The Canadian Medical Association and the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer have both published analyses showing how MAiD is saving the Canadian taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars a year, something that the current government has boasted about. If the change in 2027 goes ahead, those with eating disorders, severe depression, and other readily curable illnesses will be able to die. Both the Netherlands and Belgium already allow access solely on mental health grounds and for children. I cannot see how anyone with knowledge of this seemingly unstoppable expansion could possibly consider that assisted suicide is a safe bet to legalise in the UK. And Canada is not alone; numbers have risen exponentially in both the Netherlands and Belgium and the legislators in Australia and New Zealand responsible for changing the law are already campaigning in both countries for a widening of eligibility beyond the terminally ill. Instead of clambering to ‘keep up with the rest of the world’ (as we are often told), we must view these countries as offering us a stark warning of our potential future.
The central argument of those who seek change is the need for personal autonomy and control. Humanists UK and many others argue that it is the right of the individual to govern decisions relating to their own body. The problem is that this argument, driven by ideology, cannot logically be limited to the terminally ill. The cry will eventually go up for the extension of autonomy to everyone else on the basis of their equal human rights. Indeed, many are already making the argument for extension. The campaign group My Death, My Decision calls on its website for ‘assisted dying that permits a medically assisted death to adults of sound mind who are terminally ill or intolerably suffering.’ Nor is it a hypothetical question of whether MPs will push for extensions down the line. It was reported that a group of 54 (mainly Labour) MPs is already calling for the bill to extend beyond the terminally ill to the ‘incurably suffering’.[9]
Every survey conducted into the reasons for seeking assisted suicide confirms that ‘control’ is the central motivating factor of those who desire it (rather than release from pain, for example).[10] However, the ideological drive for greater personal autonomy will inevitably endanger the lives of the most vulnerable in our society who do not enjoy the same social safeguards enjoyed by the mostly middle-class and able-bodied campaigners for change who intend (albeit unintentionally) to rip autonomy from them. Campaigners were dealt a blow earlier this year when the ECHR ruled that its provision for the ‘right to life’ could not simply be flipped to ensure a ‘right to die’. This came in response to the case of Karsai v Hungary which was referred to Strasbourg after Dániel Karsai, a man diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis challenged his country’s restrictions on assisted suicide. Campaigners who argue for the right to die thus do so in contravention of European legal precedent.[11] Further complication arises in the scope for interpretation of the wording of legislation. In Scotland, the draft bill before parliament includes a definition of terminal illness which could be seen to include things like type one diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. By contrast, the current law is clear; the state does not help people to kill themselves, no ifs, no buts. Once you surrender this, you are taking a leap into the dark and beginning on a journey that you can never turn back from. Given the considerable risks and the clearly stated desire of campaigners for autonomy for all, it is irresponsible to argue for legalisation on the basis of terminal illness alone with strict safeguards. This cannot be guaranteed however watertight the safeguards may at first appear.
(2) Disabled People
The actor and disability rights campaigner Liz Carr recently produced a fantastic BBC documentary, ‘Better Off Dead?’, investigating the potential impact of assisted suicide on those who live with disabilities.[12] I cannot recommend it enough – it should be mandatory viewing for anyone engaged in this debate. In it, Carr movingly recounts the numerous occasions when she has been told by members of the public that ‘if I were like you [in a wheelchair], I’d rather be dead.’ This is a commonly reported experience of visibly disabled people in the UK and is confirmed by another high-profile opponent of assisted suicide, the former Paralympian, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson.[13] Alarmingly, recent studies have also found that healthcare providers often mistakenly assume the quality of life of their disabled patients is poor, indicating a widely-held ableist perspective among medical professionals.[14] The position of disabled people in the UK today is one of woeful and inexcusable inequality. The barriers to inclusion in education, housing, transport, employment, and quite frankly, everything else, mean that life for many disabled people is made very difficult, and in some cases, unbearable. That is not to say that disabled people are themselves unable or that great progress has not been made, but in a society marred by inequality, assisted suicide will operate in a way that is fundamentally unequal. This is what Carr, Grey-Thompson, Baroness Jane Campbell, and many others fear. Indeed, no disability rights organisation in the UK supports a change to the law to allow assisted dying even though many campaigners seem to think (on their behalf) that the disabled could be some of its greatest beneficiaries. Strikingly, Vicky Foxcroft, the former Shadow Minister for Disabled People, who voted in 2015 in favour of assisted suicide, has since changed her mind given her experience of working with disability rights organisations.
In suggesting that debilitating physical suffering or disability make life unliveable is to argue that able-bodiedness is a prerequisite for a life of dignity and value. This message is regularly reinforced in popular culture. The 2016 film Me Before You was widely condemned by disability rights activists. It featured a young man disabled in an accident falling in love with his carer before going to Dignitas in Switzerland to kill himself, arguing that he did not want to be a burden to her. Such portrayals present disabled people as objects of our pity or problems to be solved. They are neither. In her documentary, Carr worries that because she has had bouts of severe ill-health throughout her life and has been in and out of hospital, she might easily have qualified at some stage as ‘terminally ill’. Those who live with considerable health problems often suffer from depression. Carr believes that had the safeguards currently in place not been there, she might have, tragically, at one of her lowest moments, decided to end her life. The temptation to give in, she argues, would be great. And in a society where fewer than 50% of those with disabilities who are able to work are in employment due to discrimination and where persistent underfunding in education and care have made life more difficult, it is not unreasonable to think that many would be tempted. This proposition is simply a disgrace and would be a grave betrayal of those campaigning for equality. In this way, assisted suicide would be to offer the easy way out – both to the disabled themselves and to society, which having failed to ensure equality for them, might come to see disabled people as a dispensable burden.
The recent Paralympic Games in Paris represented a major step-forward in many aspects of disabled inclusion in sport and showed just how ‘able’ disabled people can be when they receive the support they deserve. It might be worth stopping and thinking just how many competitors might have qualified for having a terminal illness or experiencing ‘unbearable suffering’ had the law been different. Indeed, in 2022, one Canadian Paralympian, Christine Gauthier, was offered MAiD instead of enduring the delay for a state-funded wheelchair lift to be installed in her home.[15] This shocking example stunned Canadians and revealed the ugly reality of assisted suicide laws perpetuating existing inequalities. In 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of people with disabilities expressed her extreme concern at the operation of the law in Canada.[16] Until disabled people have equal rights in the UK with the able-bodied, it is unconscionable to consider a change to the law that will see disabled people die as a direct result of inequality.
(3) Societal Inequality
During the Westminster Hall debates in response to a public petition in favour of assisted suicide in the run up to parliament’s dissolution before the general election this year, a repeated refrain was that the current prohibition on assisted suicide in the UK breeds inequality. Campaigners point out that only those who can afford the £10,000 or more needed to travel to Switzerland can end their lives. Those who cannot afford this, they say, have no other option but to commit suicide themselves.[17] I am afraid that I find this argument appalling. It treats suicide as if it is an inevitability and that our concern should be in equalising the playing field so that all can access it. Suicide is never inevitable. In fact, it is the reality of the inequalities in our society that increase the likelihood of people desiring assisted suicide. It should therefore be our aim to eradicate the inequalities that lead people to suicide not to eradicate the inequalities that make suicide harder for some people to attain. It has always been the case in the UK that the poorest in our society tend to be more likely to experience ill health, obesity, and chronic pain. Furthermore, the average life expectancy for ethnic minorities in the UK is lower than for white people, again illustrating the way in which inequality impacts health. The case of Amir Farsoud, a Canadian man who is disabled, an ethnic minority, and very poor, provides an alarming testimony of this reality. As a result of insufficient out-of-work disability benefits and due to unaffordable rents in Ontario, Farsoud became homeless in 2022. Due to chronic back pain, he was able to apply for MAiD on the basis of ‘unbearable suffering’ made worse by his homelessness. Astoundingly, he was accepted onto the MAiD programme and was put on a waiting list. A journalist picked up the story and it soon made national headlines. An online campaign raised $60,000 in just four days and enabled Farsoud to get back on the housing ladder and start his life again.[18] There was no need for him to die and he was only forced, out of desperation, onto a path towards assisted suicide because of the societal failings within which he had become ensnared. For all the Dame Esthers there will be countless more Amir Farsouds.
It is also the case that those who are most vulnerable are the most at risk from being coerced by family members into ending their lives. Those who do not enjoy the safety net of loving families will suffer most from a change to the law. Of course, the number who will be impacted by coercion will be very small. But, it is terribly naïve to discount the reality of coercion as many MPs did in the Westminster Hall debate. To vote in favour of a change in the law is to shrug our shoulders at the fact that it will lead to a small number of unjust deaths. I am not comfortable with this. However, much more broadly, the spectre of assisted suicide increases the scope for the elderly to fear that they are a burden on their families or on society. We risk imposing a frightful moral dilemma on frail and elderly people nearing the end of their lives by opening up the possibility that they can chose to die early in order to help out their loved ones. This will not lead straightforwardly to coercion, but it will be the way in which some will be led to feel as a result of covert pressure if the law is changed. Indeed, it was reported in Oregon in 2023 that nearly half of the applicants for assisted suicide had applied not because they wanted to die but because they felt that they were a burden.[19] Madeline Grant made a compelling case in a recent article in which she argued that Britain presents something of a ‘perfect storm’ – a toxic cultural relationship with the NHS (e.g. not wanting to burden it), an ageing population, rampant generational inequality, and many ‘asset-rich households’ whose inheritance is tied up in the family home.[20] The epidemic of loneliness experienced by elderly people will also likely lead others to want to die early. In this context, it is perhaps inevitable that some will choose to die. But all of this is the product of inbuilt societal inequalities and none of it is without potential solution. It would be irresponsible and unkind to burden the elderly with such distressing decisions by tempting them with the offer of assisted suicide. Far from solving societal inequalities, assisted suicide would only help to perpetuate them.
(4) The Existing Crisis in Healthcare
Our NHS is nearing the point of collapse. Healthcare providers are stretched to intolerable limits and health outcomes in this country are worsening rather than improving. In this context, the idea of legalising assisted suicide is deeply concerning. This is, bluntly speaking, because of the incentives that assisted dying would introduce for our struggling, cash-strapped health system. Nor is this hypothetical. During the COVID pandemic, the ‘do not resuscitate’ scandal saw an inappropriate and blanket application of this order for older and disabled patients as treatment was prioritised on the basis of age, health, and able-bodiedness. Furthermore, in prioritising COVID patients during the pandemic at the expense of all others, virtually closing down GPs surgeries, and cancelling millions of routine cancer check-ups and operations, we undeniably contributed to the alarming increase in excess deaths which we have seen since the pandemic. The leading clinical oncologist Professor Pat Price has called this a ‘cancer emergency’. The experience of the lockdown should caution anyone who believes that government always makes the right decisions about healthcare. In Canada, the government boasts about the savings it has made in the health budget through MAiD and patients are increasingly being offered MAiD rather than just requesting it. Recent examples include Allison Ducluzeau, a cancer patient who was offered assisted suicide ahead of chemotherapy[21] and Roger Foley who has several complex medical conditions including cerebellar ataxia, an incurable degenerative neurological disorder and has described both the appalling quality of treatment he receives due to insufficient care and the fact that he has been offered euthanasia multiple times instead.[22] Nor can we assume that such Canadian thinking will not be replicated here. Matthew Parris shocked many earlier this year when he wrote an article in The Times in which he said the quiet part about assisted suicide out loud. He wrote in response to claims that the elderly will worry about being a burden: ‘I believe this will indeed come to pass. And I would welcome it.’ He went on to say ‘I don’t apologise for the reductivist tone in which this column treats human beings as units’.[23] At a similar time, Luc Van Gorp, writing in a Belgian newspaper, advocated expanding euthanasia laws to help free up resources in order to tackle the Belgian social care crisis.[24]
Our focus instead should be on investing in making good deaths. A great deal of the suffering that is experienced by the terminally or chronically ill can be remedied through better palliative care. Indeed, pain should never be ‘unbearable’ given the advances that have been made in palliative care practices. Conversely, the great desire of many for assisted suicide is the direct result of a lack of suitable palliative and hospice care. There is a postcode lottery in the provision of such care. Hospice UK has estimated that since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 100,000 people have died at home without receiving the palliative or hospice care they needed.[25] A recent report projected that 92% of hospices will be in deficit this year and in a third of cases, will have deficits of more than £1 million. Much of the funding for hospice care comes from donations. The end-of-life charity Marie Curie found in a 2023 report that palliative care in Britain is no better today than it was 70 years ago.[26] This is unacceptable. But in choosing assisted suicide over properly funding palliative and hospice care, we take the easy way out rather than seeking to obviate the need or the desire for anyone to die in the first place. It is also highly likely that palliative care would suffer further if assisted suicide was legalised. Canada once again provides a difficult example in the case of Normand Meunier who was assisted to kill himself in March this year after receiving painful bed sores when in hospital in Quebec being treated for a respiratory virus. Because of a lack of available beds, Meunier was kept on a stretcher for 95 hours. A quadriplegic, he required a special mattress and regular turning to prevent sores. In a radio interview the day before he died, having been approved for MAiD, he said that he did not want to burden his family and would rather die than wait months for the painful sores to heal.[27] He should never have been kept on that stretcher and he should still be alive today.
Doctors and nurses are currently under intense pressure as a result of insufficient resources and demand far exceeding supply. In all of the countries in which assisted suicide has been legalised there is strong evidence for a negative impact on doctors. They are the ones tasked with assessing eligibility and of issuing the drugs for people to take their own lives. The campaign group Living and Dying Well found that between 30% and 50% of clinicians describe an emotional burden or discomfort resulting from participation in assisted suicide or euthanasia, and that 15% to 20% experience a lasting adverse psychological or emotional impact. It would also be to change fundamentally the doctor-patient relationship and the very principles of medical care in this country. If assisted suicide was part of the equation in a consultation, this would endanger the trust patients have in doctors. Given both the power imbalance and the patient’s assumption that the doctor will only suggest the best options for improving their health, it is reasonable to assume problems could arise. Evidence from Australia and New Zealand indicates that palliative care staff are now very careful not to explore the reasons for a patient’s distress if they declare an interest in assisted suicide. This is because doctors fear the potential legal consequences of doing so. This is having severely damaging effects on palliative care.[28] It is perhaps unsurprising that few medical professionals are clambering for a change in the law. In 2020, the British Medical Association surveyed its members and found that most GPs wanted it to remain opposed and that as high a figure as 76% of palliative care professionals were opposed.[29] Their concerns are also being directed by the growing evidence of the problems incurred by patients in ending their lives. A study recently reported in the British Medical Journal found that the means employed to induce unconsciousness in those set to have their suicides assisted are often inadequate. It stated that ‘For all these forms of assisted dying, there appears to be a relatively high incidence of vomiting (up to 10%), prolongation of death (up to 7 days), and reawakening from comas (up to 4%), constituting failure of unconsciousness. This raises a concern that some deaths may be inhumane’.[30]
A society that has consistently underfunded palliative care and undervalued the hospice system is not a society that we should trust to make decisions about who lives and who dies.
(5) The Place of Suicide in Broader Society
Every year on 10 September, we mark World Suicide Prevention Day and commit ourselves to raising awareness of the need to tackle the growing problem of suicide in our society, amidst a mental health epidemic, loneliness increasing, and the cost-of-living crisis and economic inequality making life increasingly difficult for many. Very simply, all of that work is put at risk when we simultaneously try to argue that suicide isn’t always bad by advocating for assisted suicide. It is frankly incoherent to argue on the one hand that suicide is bad and that on the other hand it might be good. Imagine somebody who is severely depressed attending a session with a therapist. Were we to legalise assisted suicide, the ability of that therapist to tackle their patient’s depression would be greatly affected as there would remain an incentive for the patient not to seek recovery but just to resign themselves to die. My generation (Gen-Z) has been affected by suicide in a way that no previous generation has encountered and the prospect of making it easier to kill yourself should make anyone who is mentally unwell, or who knows anyone suffering from a mental illness, deeply concerned. It is unsurprising that a recent poll showed that only 44% of 18-24 year-olds supported legalising assisted suicide, the lowest of any age-group.[31]
In the medium-to-long-term, legalising assisted suicide helps to normalise suicide throughout society. Instead of being a tragedy in all cases, it comes to be seen as a relief for many. This has a knock-on impact on how a society thinks about suicide. This is clearly shown in the Netherlands where suicide rates have risen exponentially in the 23 years since the change in the law. In 2021, 4.5% of Dutch deaths were from assisted suicide, rising to 5.1% in 2022, and 5.4% in 2023. The rates of non-assisted suicide have likewise risen considerably. For example, in 2007, 8.3 per 100,000 deaths were by suicide in comparison to 11.2, ten years later in 2017.[32] Countless other studies have disproven the oft-heard notion that legalising assisted suicide reduces the rate of unassisted suicide.[33] Rather, as suicide becomes increasingly normalised, so attitudes shift and make extensions to the eligibility for assisted suicide more likely to pass. Suicide is contagious. As a result, in 2023, the Danish ethics council, having examined evidence from Oregon, concluded that the existence of an offer of assisted suicide would decisively change ideas about death, old-age, and quality of life and that the only way to protect the lives of those most at risk and most vulnerable is ‘a ban without exception’.[34] This was the same conclusion as was reached by a House of Lords committee in 1994 which concluded that none of the arguments made by proponents of change were strong enough ‘to weaken society’s prohibition of intentional killing which is the cornerstone of law and of social relationships’.[35] The implications of such a change are almost too enormous for us to comprehend.
Addendum: Faith Is Important
The argument so far, though motivated by my Christian faith, has been entirely secular. This is not a case of religious zealots trying to impose their will on society. However, it is undeniably the case that as a Christian, I find a strong and compelling case against assisted suicide in my faith. This is not irrelevant and as I want to argue, can provide a far more solid basis than the vague appeals often made by humanists on both sides of this debate.
In emphasising life as an inalienable right and neglecting the idea of it being a gift from God, we have often thought very humanistically about life’s value. Our demand for individual autonomy represents a usurpation of our corporate life shared in the body of Christ, the Church. We are made for relationships of mutual support and self-giving love and it is our calling as Christians to recognise that our identities are made whole in and through Christ and not in our inherent individuality. Each of us is blessed with the precious gift of a life moulded in God’s own image. In our rich diversity we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ (Psalm 139.14) and share a common humanity, each member afforded an equal dignity and worth. It is this radical equality that provides such a striking rebuff to the many aforementioned instances of inequality. It is in recognising that each person, both able-bodied and disabled is a gift from God, that we discern the evil in our society that discriminates against the latter group. It is through an acknowledgement of the promise we share and the hope for the breaking in of the kingdom of God that we slowly and painfully learn to deal with and understand the suffering and death of the present age. It is in righteous anger that we protest against the insufficient provision of palliative care and the existence of unnecessary suffering. It is our response to the call to be imitators of Christ that we advocate for the needs of the most vulnerable and seek out and centre the voice of the voiceless.
The website of Humanists UK calls for the right of ‘each individual to live by their own personal values, and the freedom to make decisions about their own life so long as this does not result in harm to others.’ This anarchic vision represents the ultimate fallacy of contemporary secular liberalism. Almost always when the harm principle is invoked to justify something, harm is being done to another group in society – we just rarely see it. We live in an age where choice and autonomy are seen as the greatest virtues, often at the expense of any notion of social good. In an age of rampant individualism, we have deluded ourselves that there truly is ‘no such thing as society’. This is a vision shared between libertarian ‘conservatives’ concerned above all else with the free market and progressive individualists who have betrayed the proud communitarian tradition of the left. Both groups are among the loudest proponents of assisted suicide. It is in this context that the Christian message of unity in and through the love of God is more prophetic than ever before. Suicide tears at the fabric of the corporate wholeness we find in Christ. It limits the boundless grace of God in giving us life and calling us to live it to its fullest (John 10.10). It corrupts the wonderful truth that our worth is unconditional and not bounded by health, ability, or status. Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of the modern hospice movement and a woman of great faith, resolutely opposed euthanasia all her life. She expressed this reality beautifully when she said: ‘You matter because you are you, and you matter to the end of your life. We will do all we can not only to help you die peacefully, but also to live until you die.’
About the Author
George Palmer is a PhD candidate in ecclesiastical history at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, whose research focusses on the intersection of religion and politics in the United Kingdom and the crucial role of the Church in encouraging civic and moral responsibilities in the public square.
Notes
[10] See, for example, Oregon Health Authority, Oregon Death with Dignity Act: 2023 Data Summary (2024), which found that 91.6% of those accessing assisted dying cited desire for autonomy as their main reason.
[14] R. Sohn, ‘Large majority of doctors hold misconceptions about people with disabilities, survey finds’, Stat (2021).
[16] United Nations, Visit to Canada: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2019). It should also be noted that the UN Human Rights Committee has twice expressed concern with the operation of the Dutch law (2001, 2009).
[19] Oregon Health Authority, Oregon Death with Dignity Act: 2023 Data Summary (2024), which found that 43.3% of those who access assisted dying applied because of feeling like a ‘burden’. In neighbouring Washington, the number for 2022 was even higher at 59% (Washington State Department of Health, 2022 Death with Dignity Act Report [2023]).
[28] Sinead Donnelly, Peter Thirkell, John Kleinsman, and Wendi Wicks, ‘Assisted dying in Aotearoa New Zealand: a victory of politics over informed debate?’, in Julian C. Hughes & Ilora G. Finlay (eds), The Reality of Assisted Dying: Understanding the Debate (Maidenhead: McGraw Hill, 2024), pp. 59-64, at p. 63; Frank Brennan, Adrian Dabscheck, and Leeroy William, ‘The Australian perspective’, in Ibid., p. 67.
[33] T. Boer, ‘Does euthanasia have a dampening effect on suicide rates? Recent experiences from the Netherlands’, Journal of Ethics in Mental Health, 10 (2017), pp. 1-9; S. Girma & D. Paton, ‘Is assisted suicide a substitute for unassisted suicide?’, European Economic Review (2022), p. 145; A. M. Doherty, C. J. Axe, and D. A. Jones, ‘Investigating the relationship between euthanasia and/or assisted suicide and rates of non-assisted suicide: systematic review’, BJPsych Open (2022); D. A. Jones, ‘Did the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 [Australia] prevent ‘at least one suicide every week’?’, Journal of Ethics in Mental Health, 11 (2023), pp. 1-20.
[35] Quoted in Ilora G. Finlay & Julian C. Hughes, ‘Introduction’, in Hughes & Finlay (eds), The Reality of Assisted Dying, pp. 11-13, at p. 6.