A new poll [1] highlights significant public concerns about the potential legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide in the UK. It also highlights contradictory attitudes. There is broad support for allowing the procedures but nervousness about how it may work out.
While a majority may support “assisted dying” in principle, many feel that the complexities and risks involved make it unsafe for implementation in Britain. A substantial 60pc worry that pro-euthanasia legalisation would alter the doctor-patient relationship, and 56pc fear it could normalise suicide.
Concerns also include the possibility of pressuring vulnerable people, especially under the strain of NHS budgets, to choose death. 43pc fear it could incentivise health professionals to encourage some patients to take their lives.
The poll found that most people supported legalising euthanasia or assisted suicide (see note below) but believed it would backfire in practice. (Curiously, the poll found that the 18-24 age cohort is the only in which the majority of respondents does not support a change in the legislation.)
Moreover, 70pc of respondents believe that countries like Canada and the Netherlands have “gone too far” with similar laws.
In both of these countries some of the worst fears of euthanasia critics have been confirmed (see here [2] and here [3]) and these fears are confirmed by a new report about Canada titled “From exceptional to routine [4]”.
This study shows that “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAiD) was introduced in 2015 as a rare option and it is now the fifth cause of death in Canada.
While the number of denied requests continue to decrease every year, approved cases went from 1,028 in 2016, the first year of operation, to 13,241 in 2022. This represents a thirteenfold increase. No other country has seen such a dramatic rate of growth.
Unlike other jurisdictions, the criminal prohibition in Canada on euthanasia and assisted suicide was overturned not through new legislation but through the courts. It was originally intended for exceptional cases and then, in a few years, most of the initial safeguards have been removed by judges or by legislators.
For instance, there was a minimum ten-day assessment period for MAiD but a government bill removed it in 2021. The median time between written request and death in 2022 was only eleven days, and it is possible for requests to be assessed and provided in a single day.
Moreover, the previous requirement that the patient give final consent before administration of death is now no longer mandatory.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide became initially available to persons whose death was “reasonably foreseeable” and later it was extended to anyone considering that their physical suffering, from a disability for example, is intolerable to them.
One of the few restrictions still in place is again under attack. Currently, people suffering solely from mental disorders are not eligible for MAiD but a very recent case [5] aims at removing this safeguard as it is considered discriminatory.
If it is offered to those who are in physical pain, why not to those who are in mental pain, argue the pro-euthanasia campaigners.
The growing acceptance and expansion of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada, including the potential for its use solely in cases of mental illness, raises alarms about the inevitable slippery slope such legalisation would create. Something worth considering before any attempt to change the law, here or in the UK.
(Note: Assisted suicide is when a person gives themselves the lethal substance after a doctor prescribes it for them. Euthanasia is when a doctor or other person injects or otherwise administers the poison).