Assisted suicide, if legalised, will save the British state almost £60 million annually after ten years, a “brutal” impact assessment predicts ahead of an expected vote on legislation in Parliament next week.
Last Friday, Whitehall published an impact assessment of MP Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill. SPUC slammed the “brutal arithmetic” of the 149-page document as “a chilling insight into the cold utilitarian ethic of assisted suicide that prioritises savings over the care and well-being of vulnerable patients”.
The report predicted that annual savings from “unutilised healthcare” because of patients opting for assisted suicide would rise to almost £60 million ten years after coming into effect. In its first year, up to £10 million would be saved.
Year 1 would see as many as 1,311 people apply for assisted suicide, the assessment estimated, potentially rising to 7,598 after ten years.
Assisted suicide, if legalised, would also save on payouts for state pension by up to £18.3 million annually after ten years.
Canadian deaths from Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) have surged since it was legalised in 2016. There were over 15,000 assisted suicides in Canada in 2023. Almost half of the people killed by assisted suicide that year cited being a “burden” as a reason to die.
Last year, a “cost analysis of medical assistance in dying in Canada” estimated that MAiD would save the Canadian state between $34.7 and $136.8 million every year.
While the Canadian study claimed it was “not suggesting medical assistance in dying as a measure to cut costs,” it did “suggest that the savings will almost certainly exceed the costs associated with offering medical assistance in dying to patients… [and would] release funds to be reinvested elsewhere”.
Palliative care doctors in the UK have warned that assisted suicide will be used as a cost-cutting measure, saving the NHS money by pushing patients into early graves rather than investing in treatment and end-of-life care.
“It hasn’t gone unnoticed that assisted dying is financially a cheaper solution than providing holistic care to those who are dying”, the “next generation of palliative consultants” said last year in an open letter addressed to Kim Leadbeater.
Last year, SPUC Editorial Officer Daniel Frampton warned in a blog post that the proposed assisted suicide bill for England and Wales would lead to the “abandonment of senior citizens considered to be a drain on state resources…
“Whatever the true motivation actually is, such policies appear more and more like a fatally practical form of triage by a heartless bureaucracy attempting to plug a fiscal black hole.”
MPs are set to debate and vote on Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on 16 May.
SPUC is urging its supporters and all concerned citizens to lobby their MPs with all haste to warn against the mortal threat posed by assisted suicide.
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