Wes Streeting, the Secretary of State for Health & Social Care, worries that legalising assisted suicide in the UK will cause patients to “take their own life thinking they were a burden on others”.
The Labour MP for Ilford North said he wasn’t against assisted suicide “in principle”, but he added: “I do not think that palliative care, end-of-life care in this country is in a condition yet where we are giving people the freedom to choose, without being coerced by the lack of support available.”
Mr Streeting was speaking at the FT Weekend Festival in London on Saturday when he indicated that he was “deeply uncomfortable” was the prospect of an assisted suicide law in the UK.
“I am not sure as a country we have the right end-of-life care available to enable a real choice on assisted dying”, he continued. “How do you make sure that people aren’t coerced into exercising their right to die, if it were available? I don’t just mean direct coercion and inducement…
“How do you put the right protections and safeguards?”
The Health Secretary was also concerned about “the burden of guilt – what one might feel about being a burden on their families, even if their families didn’t even remotely feel like they were a burden.
“I wouldn’t want someone to take their own life thinking they were a burden on others.”
An assisted suicide bill proposed for England and Wales by Lord Falconer is being considered by the House of Lords. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has promised a free vote on assisted suicide at some point during his Labour Government.
A draft for a similar bill in Scotland is more advanced. The Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, proposed by Liam McArthur MSP, is now at Stage 1.
Assisted suicide is “inherently unsafe”
Daniel Frampton, SPUC’s Editorial Officer, said: “Assisted suicide laws are inherently unsafe, especially for patients who feel they are not receiving adequate care, as we have already seen in Canada and elsewhere.
“The horrifying case of Dan Quayle, from British Columbia, who waited ten weeks for cancer treatment before turning to assisted suicide, which was granted to him in just two days, shows where such laws lead.
“This week it was also reported that a British couple have signed-up for assisted suicide in Switzerland because ‘the chances of getting prompt NHS treatment for the ailments of old age seem pretty remote’.
“As more horror stories comes out of about assisted suicide, the more people see what it really means for vulnerable people, from cancer patients to the disabled, from the elderly to veterans suffering from PTSD. The cold ethic of assisted suicide ultimately treats human beings as problems to be done away with rather than as patients deserving compassion and care.
“It would be an act of madness to legalise assisted suicide in the UK just as serious doubts about it are finally entering mainstream debate.”
Increasing concern about assisted suicide
Last week, a palliative care expert stated that assisted suicide laws are “not just fundamentally flawed – but downright dangerous”. Dr Amy Profitt was particularly concerned that it would also “mean that the NHS cuts back on cash for palliative care”.
A Marie Curie study carried out by researchers from Cambridge and King’s College London recently found that nearly half (49%) of bereaved respondents were unhappy with the end-of-life care that a family member received, and one in eight made an official complaint, pointing to a “crisis” in palliative care.
A 2020 paper by respected bioethicist Dr Greg Pike warned that “a society that enshrines the value of death as a solution to suffering, and even the sorrows and distresses of life, will be one that simply cannot allow people to make their own choices…
“Being convinced that one is making a free choice when in fact it is coerced is one of the more effective means of enslavement to an idea. There is no need for overt pressure when one thinks the choice is one’s own alone.”