A leading UK bioethics centre has slammed a recent Whitehall impact assessment of assisted suicide, calling it a “truly sinister document…that sets no value on protecting life”.
A Whitehall cost analysis of MP Kim Leadbeater’s draft assisted suicide bill recently concluded that it would save the NHS money by expediting the deaths of patients said to have six months left to live.
SPUC slammed the impact assessment as “brutal arithmetic that lacks compassion and humanity”.
Also responding to the Whitehall report, the Oxford-based Anscombe Bioethics Centre slammed its “truly sinister” conclusion that assisted suicide would save money.
“This effectively sets no value on protecting life but measures the impact of policy only by financial costs and cost reductions”, the Centre said.
“The costs reductions it identifies are not because people could live without the proposed spending or could live with cheaper alternatives, but are because they are dead.
“Dead people do not utilise healthcare or receive care from local authorities, or benefits from the state.
“The implementation of the Bill would cost millions, but over time it could pay for itself by ending people’s lives.”
Last year, a “cost analysis of medical assistance in dying in Canada” estimated that assisted suicide could save the Canadian state between $34.7 and $136.8 million every year.
While the Canadian study said 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”.
A House of Commons debate and second vote on Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is set to take place on 13 June.
Professor David Albert Jones, the director of Anscombe Bioethics Centre, said: “It is deeply concerning that the Government could frame the intentional ending of patients’ lives as a way to save money…
“This impact assessment shows vividly the threat that this Bill poses to vulnerable people.”
The Anscombe Bioethics Centre also warned that the impact assessment had likely underestimated the number of people who’d die through assisted suicide after basing much of its analysis on the United States.
“The United Kingdom is closer to these Anglophone Commonwealth countries in its healthcare systems and societal norms than it is to the United States”, the Centre said. “On the model of these countries, the potential numbers seeking death under the Bill could be far higher than is estimated.”
The Whitehall assessment predicted that Year 1 would see up to 1,311 people apply for assisted suicide, potentially rising to 7,598 after ten years.
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