A patron of a pro-assisted suicide lobby group backing the assisted suicide Bill set to be debated in Parliament next week, has said that people with depression and with disabilities should be legally offered assistance in suicide.
Author and philosopher AC Grayling, a patron of Dignity in Dying a major pro-assisted suicide lobby group backing Kim Leadbeater MP’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill which is set to be voted on a week, suggested that assisted suicide should be available for people who are “wheelchair bound” and those who are “clinically depressed”.
He made his comments on a podcast in 2021 during a discussion on Baroness Meacher’s Assisted Dying Bill (2021). He said “If as an act of compassion you wanted to help somebody escape suffering, then why only in the last six months of a terminal illness? Why not for somebody who simply cannot come to terms with being wheelchair bound let us say? Or who is clinically depressed and is never going to be independent of medications for the rest of their lives?”.
“[T]here is no ground for restricting the kind of suffering that society is going to allow people to escape”.
He added that he supported assisted suicide for “any reason” and asked how many of the “tens of thousands… [who] commit suicide every year” are making things “worse for everybody… because it’s not done in a clean, quiet, helpful, sympathetic way?”.
Baroness Meacher, who was also on the podcast as Honorary President of Dignity in Dying, dismissed the idea that a High Court judge should approve every death, commenting that “you can overdo” safeguards.
Baroness Meacher’s failed assisted suicide Bill included the provision for cases to be approved by a senior judge.
When asked about the requirement that each case be approved by a High Court judge by the interviewer, Baroness Meacher said “It’s just another safeguard. I’m not sure that we need it personally, and it would be a matter for Parliament whether they want to pull that out or keep it”.
“There’s so many safeguards…you can overdo it and make the thing pretty unusable” she added.
Parliamentarians who oppose a law change told The Telegraph of their alarm at hearing two of the most prominent supporters of the Bill making such comments. Former Paralympian Baroness Grey-Thompson said the comments demonstrated that the proposed law puts disabled people “at risk”.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “All you need to know about where assisted suicide legislation is going is to look to its most prominent supporters. They are clear that they want a far more expansive law than the current Bill would allow. Disability groups are right to be concerned about this dangerous legislation”.
