- If assisted suicide is made legal, it becomes impossible to guard fully against coercion. A recent poll reported in The Telegraph found that more people (46% to 36%) thought assisted suicide could not be introduced safely in the UK than thought it could be.
- Given the financial, emotional and time costs that are involved with caring for elderly and sick loved ones, if assisted suicide becomes an option, there is a danger that elderly people will feel a ‘duty to die’ even when they do not wish to do so.
- Complex family dynamics could lead to sometimes undetectable and subtle pressure being placed on vulnerable people to choose assisted suicide if it is an option.
- In the UK, over 400,000 older people are affected by domestic abuse in England and Wales each year; legalising assisted suicide would present a grave danger of vulnerable people being pressured into an assisted death.
- Some commentators are already supporting the notion of a ‘duty to die’. Writing about assisted suicide in The Times in March 2024, the journalist Matthew Parris wrote “‘Your time is up’… may one day be the kind of unspoken hint that everybody understands. And that’s a good thing.”
- A 2017 study found that MAID in Canada could save the Government as much as $138.8 million annually, creating an incentive for Health Services to promote it as an option.
- In Canada, over 35% of individuals who died by medical assistance in 2022 reported being motivated by being a “perceived burden on family, friends or caregivers”.
- In Oregon, 48% of those who have received an assisted death reported concerns over being a burden on others, whereas only 28% have been concerned about pain. In the first year after assisted suicide was legalised, only 13% cited fear of being a burden as a motivation, suggesting that over time assisted suicide laws may lead to an environment where more people feel an obligation to die.
- If assisted suicide is legalised, there is a danger that vulnerable, disabled and elderly people will feel obliged to consider it so as not to burden their loved ones. A poll in Canada in 2023 found that 27% of Canadians thought assisted dying should be available for the poor, 28% for the homeless and half for people with disabilities.
- Veterans seeking help for post-traumatic stress and Paralympians in Canada have been proactively offered an assisted death against their will.
- A 2023 Kingston University study found 39 cases of assisted suicide/euthanasia in the Netherlands that involved people with learning disabilities, autism or both; in eight cases, the reasons were exclusively related to the learning disability/autism, with people feeling unable to cope with the world/struggling to make friendships.
- There have been dozens of cases of ‘couple euthanasia’ in the Netherlands over the last year; this practice presents a risk of coercion if one partner wants to die and does not wish for the other to live without them.
- Allowing healthcare professionals to assist with a patient’s death fundamentally changes the relationship between healthcare professionals and their patients.
Key information
Critical appealto protect vulnerable lives
Help stop three major anti-life threats.
The Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill can still be defeated at Third Reading, but only with your help.