Assisted dying: time to end the taboo?

Is assisted dying an idea whose time has finally come, asked Laura Hughes in the Financial Times. Across the UK, there is growing momentum behind efforts to change the law. Politicians in Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man are all considering legislation to permit assisted dying for the terminally ill. Keir Starmer has promised MPs a free vote on the issue if Labour wins power. And a poll last month showed that 75% of Britons are in favour. In France, President Macron has said that his government will draft a law creating a “right to die” for adults with incurable diseases. If the law is passed, France will join Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several US states in giving terminally ill people the right to die.

“Let’s acknowledge and confront the strongest argument against assisted dying,” said Matthew Parris in The Times: as it becomes legal, and is normalised as a “socially responsible” act, the pressure would grow on the terminally ill to hasten their own deaths so as not to be a burden. “I believe this will indeed come to pass. And I would welcome it.” This may sound “brutal”, but our society is rapidly ageing, with an ever-smaller working age population. We need to face the fundamental question: “How are our economies going to pay for the ruinously expensive overhang that dare not speak its name: old age and infirmity?” To protect its future, “a healthy society must adapt its norms, its cultural taboos”. Well, at least such arguments say “the quiet part out loud”, said Kevin Yuill on Spiked. They expose the “cold, utilitarian ethos” that has always underpinned arguments for assisted suicide; namely that humanity can be divided into those whose deaths should be prevented, and those whose suicides should be encouraged and helped along.

Proponents typically make their case on grounds of individual autonomy, said Sonia Sodha in The Observer: people should be able to do what they want to alleviate their own suffering. In practice, though, humans are not “autonomous islands”. They are social animals, and society is riven by prejudice and exploitation: a third of female suicides may be linked to abuse by partners. The risk of people being coerced into assisted dying is just too great. It’s a justifiable concern that a right to die could become a “duty to die”, said the FT. But remember that “forcing those desperate to die to stay alive is also a form of coercion”. It must be possible to draw up careful, transparent legislation with iron-clad safeguards and exclusions. It’s “time for politicians to catch up with their public and allow the terminally ill to choose a better death”.