CHARLIE EVANS, Chair of Mid & West Wales Conservatives, shares his personal view of the Assisted Dying Bill.
“You lye, you are not sure; for I say, Woman, ’tis impossible to be sure of anything but Death and Taxes”, said Toby Guzzle, a character in Christopher Bullock’s 18th-century comedic play The Cobbler of Preston. This sentiment was later popularised by figures such as Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln. While often used as a wry observation, the phrase takes on a deeper meaning when considering the interplay between taxes and death.
Will taxes be used in the future to support an individual’s choice to die before natural causes take their course? Historically, taxes have indirectly contributed to death—through funding wars or enabling policies with harmful externalities. However, this week, Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom will vote on whether to take the first steps toward legalising assisted dying. If passed, this would mark a more direct connection between taxpayer funding and the end of life, raising profound ethical and societal questions.
The vote is set to go down to the wire, reflecting the complex web of issues that surround this issue. On the one hand, people have seen loved ones deal with unbearable pain before dying- and perhaps protracted and incredibly distressing- why should the state get in the way of such a personal choice, people argue. On the other hand, people argue that the state, as beleaguered, bloated and dysfunctional as it is, especially when relating to health and social care, should be nowhere near administering lethal drugs.
The debate is complex and nuanced, and all parliamentarians, I’m sure, are engaging with this exercise in good faith. However,
this is why MPs should oppose assisted dying later this week.
THE MOST VULNERABLE
A society’s mark of how civilised it is is how it treats its most vulnerable. Pensioners. Disabled people. People living with life-limiting or terminal illnesses. Whilst visibility and acceptance of people living with serious illnesses or disability have improved, there is still an economic school of thought which shapes our view of the world that sees human beings as principal units of production rather than people of inherent dignity and worth. The former defines human worth through economic productivity and output. The latter is an ideal that I believe we have lost, that all are born and created equal.
We have come to measure people based on quality-of-life indicators rather than valuing each life and doing our collective utmost to preserve it. We have come to know the cost of everything but the value of nothing.
The vast majority of groups that represent older people and people with disabilities are strongly opposed to the Assisted Dying Bill. These groups are often unheard of among the cacophony of commercial and vested interests or majority public opinion. Their voices are again being drowned out, whether willingly or unconsciously, with the balance of power shifting further from them. Parliamentarians should be duty-bound to listen.
A BROKEN HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE SYSTEM
Practically, assisted death’s backers couldn’t pick a worse time. A health system on its knees. Bed blocking in healthcare. Ambulances clogging up hospital car parks. Social care is overburdened. The Bill’s proponents argue this has strict parameters in place. But this is only the starting point.
With a health and social care system under immense pressure, when does the freedom to choose become a duty to die? An expectation that you ‘do your bit’ for the NHS? With a health and social care system and a workforce experiencing burnout and enormous work pressures, added to the very human problem of making errors of judgment, how more susceptible will this problem become? Is there a risk the NHS becomes as much a death service as it is a health service? So even if the argument for this is strong, the timing couldn’t be worse.
END-OF-LIFE CARE
Modern medicine has been extraordinary at not just keeping people alive but enabling people with life-limiting illnesses to live joyful lives. Often, prognoses of under six months are wrong, and people go on to live for many years later, as explained by Professor Mark Taubert of Velindre NHS Trust. And he argues that incidences of people dying in excruciating pain are mercifully increasingly less frequent. This is also against a backdrop where investment in palliative care could be so much better.
What this decision does is take resources away from palliative care – there’s no extra cash- and into administering lethal drugs. A decision that would move away from the preservation of human life and into prescribing death. This may be good for economic growth, but isn’t human life far more valuable than such crude metrics?
REAL-WORLD EXAMPLES
Proponents often cite Oregon as a success story, but troubling cases from the Netherlands and Canada reveal the dangers of a slippery slope. In the Netherlands, euthanasia laws expanded beyond terminal illnesses to include mental health issues. For example, Aurelia Brouwers, a 29-year-old woman with psychiatric conditions but no terminal illness, was euthanised despite objections from mental health professionals.
In Canada, inadequate safeguards have led to alarming cases, such as a disabled veteran being offered assisted dying instead of help with a wheelchair lift and a man euthanised due to frustration with his living conditions. In Belgium, Tine Nys, euthanised for “psychological suffering” after a breakup, highlighted systemic failures when her family revealed inadequate mental health evaluations.
These cases demonstrate how assisted dying can quickly shift from a compassionate option to a dangerous norm, risking harm to the vulnerable.
The Bill is argued to have limited scope. But its practical outworkings are anything but. Not only will it be added to, but its current form will also mean people with a terminal illness diagnosed with less than 6 months to live choosing to die when the reality may have been different.
MPs have a significant choice to make this Friday. The stakes are very high. But opponents need to make the case clearly this week. Too often, we are known for what we are against rather than what we are for. Well, this is what we are for: the celebration of human life over death and a society that says regardless of your life’s circumstances, you are heard, valued and loved.
You are not defined by economic contribution or by the burden on public services but by the fact that you are alive. That’s worth celebrating.
