The decision of the House of Commons to rush through a highly flawed measure to unleash assisted suicide into the National Health Service was wrong. It will soak up substantial sums of money and time that are in short supply, while talk of offering patients in pain the freedom to kill themselves is deceitful if there is not the same freedom for them to choose effective end-of-life care within a struggling system.
MPs were also wrong to dismiss the arguments about dangers of coercion from doctors and disability campaigners, especially given dysfunctional care services.
This is the view of Wes Streeting, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who will be responsible for imposing assisted suicide on the NHS.
He has been on a personal journey on this issue: supporting reform a decade ago, then switching sides after seeing the immorality of such a measure when cancer and palliative care services are inadequate. He stated his admirably clear argument on Saturday with a Facebook post explaining how parliamentary colleagues made a mistake by backing euthanasia: “I can’t get past the concerns expressed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Physicians, the Association for Palliative Medicine and a wide range of charities representing under-privileged groups in our society about the risks that come with this Bill.”
Streeting is right to be concerned. This is a badly drafted bill dragged through the lobby with a slim majority after a stream of defections from MPs who initially backed it. Some were profoundly alarmed to see proposed safeguards shed; others left dismayed by the sickening arrogance of fanatical supporters – backed by their well-funded lobby group – who casually dismissed the voices of palliative care experts, psychiatrists and people with disabilities.
Serious concerns about botched legislation raised by civil liberty and domestic violence groups were shrugged aside, along with a grim warning from the Government’s suicide prevention adviser about the “far-reaching implications” of the state shifting to sanction self-inflicted death.
Instead, our elected representatives – members of a Westminster political elite that has proved itself pathetically inadequate at overseeing our nation’s public services – pushed through this dangerous piece of legislation as they spewed out platitudes of concern.
Its passing is a tribute to the campaigning skills of the indefatigable Dame Esther Rantzen, who two years ago revealed her stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis and that she was preparing for her last Christmas; happily, she is still here to see her latest triumph.
She does, however, demonstrate the unpredictability of medical diagnosis and treatment, which lies at the core of this bill permitting assisted death in a patient’s final six months. Average life expectancy for her condition is one year, although studies have indicated doctors’ predictions can be less accurate than tossing a coin.
Have no doubt that this rushed decision – if not thwarted by the House of Lords – will irrevocably change our country as it sends us hurtling down the lethal slippery slope seen elsewhere towards wider use of death on demand.
After all, why should state-sanctioned killing not be permitted for patients unable to administer their own death– arguing their emotionally powerful case for equality before courts or parliament – if it is allowed for terminally ill people able to kill themselves once the genie of euthanasia is unleashed in our overloaded health system? Then perhaps it gets legalised for children with terminal illnesses or people suffering the agony of serious mental illness, arguing their pain is insoluble. For as mercy killing is normalised in society, the net almost inevitably widens, as seen overseas.
These are issues I have investigated abroad, which informs my opposition, rather than any religious or moral objections. I have seen in countries such as Belgium, Canada and the Netherlands how medically assisted killing becomes so easily entwined after legalisation with issues such as costs and funding, availability of palliative services, waiting times for life-saving treatment and lack of care support for vulnerable citizens.
Foreign evidence suggests cancer will be the main cause of people seeking an assisted death. In England, about one third of cancer patients fail to receive first treatment within the 62-day target for what is laughably termed “urgent” referral in a nation with some of the worst cancer survival rates in the developed world. Yet they want to inject assisted suicide into the floundering NHS.
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Once again, we see how the road to hell is paved with good intentions by people blinkered by belief in their own virtue. Those suffering the consequences will be the most marginalised in our society, already failed too often by prejudice lurking in the shadows of parliament and public services.
Think of the bigotry exposed by those blanket “do not resuscitate” notices imposed on people with learning disabilities in the pandemic, and autistic people locked up for years in psychiatric units despite acceptance it is medically and morally wrong. And how female and elderly patients are routinely the victims of systemic medical malpractice. Or heed the words of Labour MP Rupa Huq, sister of a Blue Peter star, when she writes in a paper about NHS medical staff seeing her mother with accented English as an annoyance. “But not everyone has an MP and a TV presenter as advocates,” she said, rightly.
Politicians love to pose as compassionate and progressive. We saw this last week in both the assisted suicide debate and with the hasty decriminalisation of late-term abortion for all foetuses, something that was already permitted for minor disabilities.
Westminster seems far more focused on helping people to die instead of delivering the chance to ensure every British citizen can live their fullest possible life from birth to death.
Streeting is right in his analysis of assisted suicide, saying politics is about tough choices. So does he have the bottle to resign rather than work to put this catastrophic, costly and corrosive concept into dysfunctional health and care systems that are struggling badly?
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