
Our desire is to obtain legal recognition for the principle that in cases of advanced and inevitably fatal disease . . . the sufferer, after legal inquiry and after due observance of all safeguards, shall have the right to demand and be entitled to receive release.” So began a 1936 debate on the first bill seeking to legalize doctor-assisted death in Britain, eighty-eight years before Parliament advanced Kim Leadbeater’s “assisted dying” bill on November 29.
Though almost a century apart, there are striking parallels between the 1936 debate on assisted death (or “release,” as the bill called it) and the contemporary one. Both involve bills brought by Labour parliamentarians. Both focus on people with “incurable” conditions seeking to end their lives with the assistance of doctors. And both involve objections to and concerns over the coercion of vulnerable people, and the infeasibility of “safeguards.”
Those arguing for and against assisted death in each era also looked similar. In the 1930s, church leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, were among the staunchest opponents. The same holds true today. In the thirties, celebrities such as the writer H. G. Wells were among the loudest proponents of assisted death. Today, British TV celebrities Esther Rantzen and Prue Leith (of Great British Bake Off fame) are among leading supporters of the bill.
There are big differences, of course. Most notable is the overtly eugenicist motives behind early attempts to change the law. The 1936 bill was produced by the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (VES), which would later change its name to “Dignity in Dying.” VES founder Killick Millard believed that “feeble-minded and mentally deficient” people should be sterilized. He and his allies had no qualms about euthanizing “unproductive” citizens who had become a “burden.”
During the 1936 debate, Lord Arthur Ponsonby of Shulbrede cited Enlightenment thinker David Hume: “Suppose that it is no longer in my power to promote the interests of society; suppose that I am a burden to it; suppose that my life hinders some person from being much more useful to society. In such cases, my resignation of life must not only be innocent but laudable.”
Most modern proponents of assisted suicide distance themselves from this argument. However, statements by some campaigners suggest they aren’t over-bothered by the prospect of people feeling societal pressure to end their lives. In the minutes after MPs voted to progress Leadbeater’s bill in November, ITV News captured an astonishing reaction from Rantzen.
Speaking to her daughter on the phone outside Parliament, Rantzen, who has cancer, quipped that she will have to “stay alive a bit longer” to see if the bill will become law. Her daughter replied, “You don’t have to stay alive for politics, but you do have to stay alive for your family.” To this, Rantzen joked: “That’s coercion you see, that’s what people are frightened of,” causing her daughter, and the ITV presenter, to chuckle. It was a callous response to fears MPs raised earlier in the day.
Supporters of assisted suicide didn’t deal with concerns about coercion much better inside Parliament. Early in the debate, Richard Burgon worried that prohibitive care costs could push people to opt for assisted death. He asked what “reassurances” elderly people would be given in order not to think, “I’m a burden. I have been given six months to live. If I end my life now, I can save my family between £25,000 and £55,000.”
Leadbeater dismissed this point entirely, claiming, “We have no idea whether that person would take action,” and that “coercion tends to happen the other way”—as in, families try to prevent loved ones from ending their lives. The response was wholly inappropriate given the dire state of social care in the U.K. and well-publicized evidence from Oregon showing that nearly 50 percent of those who apply for assisted suicide cite fears of being a burden on others.
Asked about the same issue, Liam McArthur, the politician behind a bill in the Scottish Parliament, was similarly dismissive. He told the Sunday Mail that feeling like a burden is “invariably a secondary concern to the one of loss of agency and independence and the ability to do the things that make life worth living.” The quote betrays both an indifference to people feeling a “duty to die” and a troubling belief that life becomes dispensable when it’s not felt to be worth living anymore. What would Scottish suicide prevention charities make of this statement?
Whilst few modern proponents of doctor-assisted death would argue that sick people should “make way” when their lives become a draw on others’ resources, they don’t appear to believe this—inevitable—outcome should prevent the practice from being legalized. This troubling attitude goes against the U.K.’s historically Christian approach to dying people, including the belief that every person has intrinsic value, and every life ought to be equally cherished and protected.
Every single one of us has been or will be a “burden” on others. When we are young, we depend upon the care and provision of our parents. When we grow ill, or elderly, we require support from our family and friends. This is not a bad thing; to be human is to be dependent. When it comes to helping those with terminal illness, properly resourced palliative care is highly effective at mitigating suffering and ensures that every patient hears a loving message: “It’s good that you’re alive.”
U.K. politicians must ask themselves what kind of society they want to create: One where an individualistic “right to die” sees vulnerable and marginalized Britons confronted with the option of suicide and pressured to pursue it; or a society where suicide is never viewed as a fitting response to suffering, where every citizen is recognized to have intrinsic and equal value, safeguarded from harm, and offered compassionate, life-affirming support.
As the Canadian ethicist Ewan Goligher noted: “A nation’s laws are a teacher.” Legalizing assisted suicide teaches society to doubt human value and to see it as merely extrinsic and conditional. Prohibiting it reflects the true depth of human dignity.
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