A North American horror story has come to the UK, which may soon legalize assisted suicide. Two U.S. doctors suggested to a London committee of MPs that being a “burden” could be enough reason to die, and patient “autonomy” should be respected.
Members of the UK Parliament are currently hearing evidence for and against a proposed law that would grant assisted suicide to terminally ill adults who have been given just six months to live. While campaigners for such legislation frame it as merciful, evidence from North America shows that many patients “choose” death, not because they are in pain, but because they feel they are a burden on family and society.
Among the experts testifying before Members of Parliament this week were two American doctors advocating for assisted suicide: Dr. Ryan Spielvogel, senior medical director for aid in dying services in California, and Dr. Jessica Kaan, the medical director of End of Life in Washington State. At the hearing, both doctors appeared to imply that being a “burden”, while a “red flag”, didn’t necessarily discount applicants.
Dr Spielvogel is on record saying he considers assisted suicide a “gift”. This week, he told British MPs that it should be a “felony” for loved ones to “interfere with a patient’s right to make this choice”. He also lamented that California hadn’t already made it illegal. “I think that was a lost opportunity”, he said. Dr. Spielvogel has previously accused families of trying to “bully” loved ones out of opting for assisted suicide.
California is one of eleven U.S. states/jurisdictions where physician-assisted suicide is legal. In 2022, 853 people died in California after being prescribed “aid-in-dying” drugs, surging by 68% in twelve months after the mandatory waiting period was slashed from 15 days to 48 hours.
Veterans recommended assisted suicide
Meanwhile, in Canada, over 15,000 people died through Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in 2023. A total of 44,958 Canadians were killed by MAiD between 2016 and 2022: that is almost the same number of Canadian soldiers killed in the Second World War. The official MAiD death count (as of December 2023) stands at 60,301. These staggering death tolls should make even those in favour of assisted suicide pause for thought.
In theory, Canadian soldiers who survived D-Day may have been among those killed by MAiD. But it gets even worse: young soldiers with PTSD who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been targeted in recent years, being recommended assisted suicide over a Veterans Affairs hotline. While these might be isolated cases, they underscore a worrying slide towards viewing death as an alternative “cure” for mental illness, which is a curious form of suicide prevention. Considering the millions of veterans in Canada, the United States and the UK, and the high rate of suicide among ex-soldiers, assisted suicide could be a disaster waiting to happen in Britain and the USA, where Saving Private Ryan now takes on a whole new meaning.
This American horror story has so far been glossed over with appeals to compassion and mercy, ignoring stories like an official memo politely asking doctors in Quebec not to kill non-eligible patients after several potentially wrongful deaths. One doctor even boasted about how many patients she’s helped die. For safety’s sake, it would seem wise to at least question the motives of people so eager to help patients snuggle off that mortal coil.
Some Canadians are now being assisted to die in funeral homes, expediting the process from lethal dose to cold coffin in one fell swoop. One British mother only learned about the death of her son in 2023 after his assisted suicide at a Swiss clinic, which returned his ashes to the UK in the post. This ghoulishness might be coming to a state near you sooner than you think.
Who’s the burden?
Almost half of people killed by MAiD in 2023 cited being a burden on family, friends or caregivers as a reason to die, while social isolation and loneliness were also common factors. Similarly, 43.3% of people killed legally by assisted suicide in the state of Oregon in 2023 said they felt they were a burden on loved ones; 8.2% also said that the cost of their medical expenses was a concern. Meanwhile, “inadequate pain control, or concern about it” was ranked sixth at 34.3%. This exposes the reality of assisted suicide, which increasingly looks like a cheap method of disposal rather than a compassionate act of mercy.
The British Association for Palliative Medicine recently warned about the “lack of adequately funded specialist palliative care services”, and at a time when the UK’s ailing national health service can barely afford to make dying patients comfortable, assisted suicide appears to be seen as a cheaper alternative. Indeed, a Canadian “cost analysis” recently determined that MAiD could save the Canadian state between $34.7 and $136.8 million every year. More money to spend on DEI? At any rate, when ill, infirm and disabled people are subject to such cold utilitarian arithmetic, it seems more likely than not that many will feel they are a burden.
Yet Dr. Kaan believes that patients who think they are a “burden” and want to die should have their “autonomy” respected. It’s the same justification used for abortion: my body, my choice. But “choice” is more complicated than that; for example, one Canadian cancer patient, Dan Quayle, waited ten weeks for chemotherapy before turning in desperation to assisted suicide, which was granted to him in just two days. Another Canadian cancer patient was also offered this “choice”, twice, including one time over the phone, which left her “sobbing”.
Much like abortion, advocates frame assisted suicide as a matter of “choice” when they are the ones who burden vulnerable people with a terrible decision that no person should have to make – in some cases, this decision may seem more like an obligation to die, which is no choice at all.
The quiet disposal of people said to have outlived their usefulness is nothing new to society. The Japanese tradition of “ubasute” saw elderly grandmothers dumped in forests and on mountainsides, left to die from exposure and starvation. While the modern method of assisted suicide might be quicker, the ethic is much the same.
Patient hostages?
Is this mad rush into the grave a sort of Stockholm syndrome: captive patients, the victims of failing health services, made to believe that death is the best option for everyone involved, saving money and freeing up hospital beds for more deserving citizens? Even the phrase “assisted dying” is an attempt to sweeten the poison: much better than “assisted suicide”. The fix is in, the jury has been rigged, given over to doctors determined to put patients into the ground as fast as it can be arranged.
Last September, a 64-year-old woman (reportedly American) suffering from osteomyelitis was the first to be killed by the “Sarco Pod”, the invention of Dr. Philip Nitschke, otherwise known as “Dr. Death”. This small sarcophagus is designed to asphyxiate the occupant by flooding the tight chamber with nitrogen gas. Arrests followed the death in Swiss woodland, and an investigation is ongoing. Dr. Nitschke has advocated the use of his Sarco Pod worldwide, lobbying politicians while also hosting assisted suicide workshops online.
What’s most worrying here is that the motivation to look after people, to care for them and not usher them into the grave, is conspicuously absent. Instead of providing end-of-life care and social services and community to vulnerable citizens, advocates are turning to death as an answer to the undoubted challenges of life. Where will it end? History points to a series of ghastly conclusions. The West must wake up to the moral and ultimately mortal threat posed by assisted suicide before it becomes the go-to cure for depression, disability and even poverty, which already appears to be happening around the world, especially in Canada.
The UK Parliament is poised to vote on an assisted suicide law like California’s later this year. Pro-life organizations like The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) as well as disability groups and palliative care doctors are working hard to lobby politicians and warn against assisted suicide – though a first vote last November saw more MPs support the law than reject it. To make matters worse, UK doctors may be allowed to suggest assisted suicide as an “option” to patients, and it remains to be seen whether the proposed law allows it.
Certainly, Dr. Spielvogel would have you prosecuted for daring to tell a son, a wife, or a grandmother that you don’t want them to die. Knowing this, would you want any vulnerable loved one, perhaps even yourself, to be left alone with the likes of Dr. Spielvogel for even a minute? I think not.