MPs who vote for ‘assisted dying’ will have blood on their hands
It’s such a clever little euphemism, “assisted dying”. Makes the whole thing sound so kind and helpful, doesn’t it? Much nicer and less bleak than “assisted suicide”. Or, for that matter, “exciting and perfectly legal opportunity to bump off the silly old bat, save on her expensive care home fees and collect your inheritance early”.
Yes, “assisted dying” is certainly a far more palatable term than either of those alternatives. Unfortunately, however, it’s also a lot less honest. Which is a serious problem. Because, as a result of campaigners, commentators and MPs constantly using this soft, gentle euphemism, an alarmingly large number of people don’t know what it really means. Many assume that it means palliative care, for example, or the right to refuse life-prolonging treatment (a right that patients already have).
Polling makes this problem all too horribly clear. On Sunday, a national newspaper devoted its front page to a poll which supposedly showed that almost two thirds of the British public want MPs to legalise “assisted dying”, when the issue comes to a Commons vote on Friday.
Yet a subsequent poll, published on Tuesday, presented a very different picture. Once it was explained to respondents what “assisted dying” entails, support for it plummeted – to a mere 11 per cent. But if so many people don’t actually know what “assisted dying” entails, how can it be said that the public wants it legalised?
Supporters of “assisted dying”, however, persist in making this dubious claim nonetheless. Still, we shouldn’t be surprised. Because much of their campaigning has been at best naive – and at worst, grossly misleading.
Take the revolting advert that has been plastered across the London Underground by Dignity in Dying, a lobby group that demands legalisation. It shows a healthy looking blonde woman dancing joyfully round her kitchen – as if assisted suicide were some lovely treat she just can’t wait to try.
Then there’s the blithe insistence by campaigners that the proposed new law does not represent a “slippery slope”, because “assisted dying” would solely be for patients who are terminally ill, and have been told by two doctors that they’ve got less than six months to live. This claim ignores two crucial points.
First, studies have shown that, when it comes to remaining life expectancy, doctors’ predictions are very far from infallible. And second, legalising “assisted dying” has indeed proven to be a “slippery slope” in other countries. Take the Netherlands, where a physically healthy 29-year-old woman was granted an assisted suicide merely because she was depressed. And in the US state of Oregon, assisted suicides have been granted to people with anorexia, arthritis and even a hernia.
All of which shows why MPs shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking that, if they vote in favour of “assisted dying”, they’re just giving the public what it wants, or are simply being “compassionate”. Because if, once this bill becomes law, stories emerge of vulnerable elderly or disabled people being successfully pressured into suicide, these MPs will get the blame. Amid public horror and fury, they’ll be told that they’ve got blood on their hands. Are MPs really willing to take that risk?
Then again, perhaps this whole, hideous debate is academic. After all, “assisted dying” would be the responsibility of the NHS. And we all know what the NHS is like. The waiting list will be so long, you’ll already have died by then anyway.