Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 75(1) February 2025
Assisted Suicide
Dr Stuart Blackie FRCpath
The UK is currently experiencing a significant campaign by advocates of assisted suicide. This has gained momentum following Dame Esther Rantzen’s announcement that she has joined Dignitas, the assisted suicide facility in Switzerland. It is ironic that she became a television ‘celebrity’ via her series of programmes “That’s Life”!
The Voluntary Euthanasia Society (now renamed Dignity in Dying) are aiming to change the law by passing legislation through the House of Commons. Already there is a “domino strategy” in place to put pressure on legislators to change the law nationally in the House of Commons with consultations in Tynwald in the Isle of Man, The States Assembly in Jersey and in Scotland where it is supported by Sir Graeme Catto, former president/chairman of the General Medical Council (and patron and chair of Dignity in Dying). And as the 1967 Abortion Act shows, they only need to succeed once.
Medicine is about the sick and vulnerable and not primarily for the advantage of the healthy and mentally well. The proposed changes, dressed up and wrapped in the cloak of ‘compassion’, are aimed at individuals but their impact is much more extensive and challenges our very understanding of the value and dignity of human life. We must not allow the vulnerable, the dying and the disabled to be seen as a burden on others.
If I were to write to an MP who supports assisted suicide, possibly all that I could expect is to receive in reply is a standard letter, drafted but a junior secretary, to tell me that the matter is receiving attention but that, of course, adequate legal safeguards will be put in place. This is the literary equivalent of a pitying smile and a placatory and gently reassuring pat on the head.
There are grave concerns about the dangers of coercion if assisted suicide is legalised. In Canada and Oregon, a significant percentage of individuals who died by medical assistance reported being motivated by being “perceived burden on family, friends or caregivers.” Once assisted dying is legalised, there is a risk that vulnerable, disabled and elderly people will feel obliged to consider it so as not to burden their loved ones, for the avoidance of pain, or for the sake of an inheritance.
It is conceivable that the state may take it upon itself to decide that it is in your best interests to be put out of your misery. It is possible that the whole system could be inverted and anyone considered as a possible candidate for assisted suicide may have to prove their worth to avoid this fate. Indeed, it could be made compulsory “to protect the NHS”.
There has been a rapid expansion in eligibility criteria for assisted suicide and euthanasia in jurisdictions where it has been permitted. For instance, in Canada, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) was legalised in 2016 for the terminally ill, but the requirements for death to be ‘reasonably foreseeable’ was removed in 2021. Canada is also considering extending MAID to include people with mental illness and minors. This expansion is almost inevitable under human rights challenges, as permitting assisted dying for one group of people, but not for others, cold be considered discriminatory. In the Netherlands, conditions such as tinnitus have been considered grounds for euthanasia. Legislation in Oregon, USA has been used to permit assisted suicide for conditions including anorexia, diabetes, hernias and arthritis. I doubt that many people think of these as terminal illnesses.
It would be cynical to point out that the establishment would stand to gain the proceeds of any inheritance tax, properties and other assets earlier as a result of their “demise”. In addition, if the average annual pension for a single pensioner amounts in the region of £13,000, it means that, for every 100,000 pensioners using the "assisted dying service", there would be an annual "saving" of £1,300,000,000 (£1.3 Billion) for the Exchequer.
Maybe it is because the medical profession and society in general has eschewed its Judeo-Christian heritage that. in recent years, the concept of clinical freedom has been abolished. To fill the inevitable and resultant moral and ethical vacuum, it has been necessary to replace it by regulation and legislation. The number of documents issued regarding ‘guidance’, ‘best practice;’ and exterior inspections has proliferated. This applies to all areas – health and safety, ‘safeguarding’ governance, ‘inclusion’, risk assessments, etc. This has led to an expensive burgeoning bureaucracy, meaningless Mission Statements and guidelines which restrict judgement and innovation and assist lawyers to confront any ‘deviant’.
It was G K Chesterton who once wrote that “if men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they will be governed by the ten thousand commandments.”
A precedent was set by the 1967 Abortion Act. Initially, the idea then was that destroying a child in the womb should be restricted to cases of tragic necessity. But it rapidly became something available on-demand. Nowadays, the period in a child’s life when he in most at risk and in danger is in the first nine months after conception. By definition, a safe abortion is one in which the prime aim is that only one person is killed!
The legal ability to procure an abortion has become considered to be almost a fundamental human right. Abortion is considered more sacrosanct than free speech. Anyone who disagrees with this comes up against the Cancel Culture. I predict that it is almost inevitable that assisted suicide could be treated in a parallel fashion.
Even now, the General Medical Council, the organization that regulates the medical profession throughout the United Kingdom, decrees that if a doctor is, in all conscience, not willing to perform an abortion (i.e. to be a hit-man), then he is obliged to nominate another ‘hit man’. Personally, I think it is up to the party issuing the contract to do that. I can foresee a similar edict following the legalisation of assisted suicide.
It is interesting to note that to be appointed Minister of Health requires no medical knowledge or expertise. However, doubts about their suitability for their position in high office are immediately raised if the previous voting record of the Minister concerned has not thrown their full weight behind the abortion industry. Would similar criteria be applied if assisted suicide were to be legalised?
Truth cannot contradict truth. In the search for morality, and doing “the right thing”, perhaps we need to delineate with increasing clarity the respective fields of competence, methods and value of the conclusions of science and Judeo-Christian theology on which are society was, until recently, based according to their respective nature and it is the one answer that is being deliberately excluded by secular society.
Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see their value.
Legalising assisted suicide fundamentally changes the relationship between all healthcare professionals, including both medical and nursing staff, and their patients. Carers may now be looked upon as potential killers. In different ways, all members of the human race face suffering but our shared esponsibility in response is to ‘cure if possible’ but ‘always to care’. Incurable does not mean un-care-able.
I hope that that assisted suicide and abortion will soon be regarded as something that belongs to a tragic era that is now coming to an end. I wonder if future generations will look upon us with the same feeling of horror that we look upon the slave traders. Will statues will be pulled down and buildings renamed?
I like the quote of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “The simple step of a simple courageous man is not to take part in a lie, not to support deceit. Let the lie come into the world - even dominate the world but not through me.”
As a final observation: Evil is Live spelled backwards. This may be the last chance to halt the movement from “That’s Life!” to “That’s Death!”