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Guernsey Deputy touts financial gains from assisted suicide

Lester Queripel, a Deputy in the States of Guernsey, has said that assisted suicide should be considered as a cost-saving measure, as the States try to save millions of pounds.

Queripel, Vice-President of the States’ Assembly & Constitution Committee, has made headlines for telling the Health & Social Care Committee that the question of legalising assisted suicide should be revisited as the States face financial difficulties.

The Deputy for St Peter Port North argued to the committee that “considerable savings could be realised if assisted dying was to be introduced here in the island”.

Earlier this year, Government accounts revealed that Guernsey has a £135 million deficit. Towards the end of August, Queripel suggested that savings could be made from ending the lives of Guernseymen through assisted suicide. “Many people don’t want to keep on living and I think we need to put a figure on that”, he declared.

Firm rebuke from Health & Social Care Committee President

In written questions to the Health & Social Care Committee (HSC), Deputy Queripel asked how many people in the last five years had been kept alive against their wishes, and how much this had cost in terms of medication, hospital treatment, and staffing hours.

The President of the Health & Social Care (HSC) Committee, Deputy Al Brouard, stated that such figures were not available and chastised Deputy Queripel for his choice of language.

“From a HSC perspective, consideration of assisted dying should be from the core principles of health, dignity and pain management”, he said.

“HSC considers that discussing such an important and emotive subject through an economic or financial lens is inappropriate. The committee does not support the terminology being used in this question”.

Assisted suicide in Guernsey

The last attempt to legalise assisted suicide in Guernsey was in May 2018. The proposed Bill was rejected by a vote of 24 to 14. If it had passed, Guernsey would have become the first place in the British Isles to legalise assisted suicide and euthanasia for terminal illness.

Deputy Queripel is not the first person to argue for assisted suicide on the grounds of financial gains. In 2020, a paper was published in the Journal of Clinical Ethics that laid out the cost-saving potential of assisted suicide.

In the same year, the Parliamentary Budget Officer for the Canadian Parliament produced a report that stated that the Government was saving $86.9 million through assisted suicide and euthanasia and would make a further $62 million of savings if the law was expanded.

Shockingly, a 2023 survey of 1,000 Canadians showed that 27% of them supported legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia for poverty.

Right To Life UK spokesperson, Catherine Robinson, said “The chilling logic of assisted suicide is on full display in Deputy Queripel’s statements. People who are sick and suffering should not be reduced to a cost saving on a spreadsheet. Each person has an intrinsic value that cannot be reduced to a price tag”. 

“A society that wants to reduce its financial burdens by ending the lives of its citizens is one to be greatly feared. The people of Guernsey must reject any attempts to legalise assisted suicide and, in doing so, protect the most vulnerable”.

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.

Dear reader,

As you already likely know, the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill sadly passed Second Reading at the end of last month.

While it is very disappointing that the Bill passed Second Reading, an analysis published in The Independent shows that at least 36 MPs who supported the Bill did so only to allow further debate or because they had concerns that meant they won’t commit to supporting the Bill at Third Reading. Since then, our Public Affairs team has identified a number of other MPs who share these reservations.

With the vote passing by a margin of 55, just 28 MPs switching their stance to oppose the Bill would ensure it is defeated at Third Reading, so there is a clear path towards this Bill being defeated. We can still win this.

The assisted suicide lobby are fully aware that support for the Bill is very fragile. They will fight fiercely to prevent 28 MPs from switching their votes to oppose the Bill.

For the sake of the hundreds of thousands of vulnerable lives that will be put at risk, we must win the vote and defeat this dangerous Bill.

WE NEED YOUR HELP

Our campaign in the run-up to Second Reading was the biggest and most expensive we have ever run and so it has made a significant dent in our limited financial resources.

We are now working on an even bigger campaign to defeat this dangerous Bill at Third Reading.

To ensure we effectively defeat this extreme assisted suicide Bill, we are aiming to raise at least £100,000 by midnight this Sunday (15 December 2024).

Every donation, no matter the size, will mean YOU can make a crucial difference in saving vulnerable lives from this extreme law change.

Will you make a donation now to help protect vulnerable lives from this major threat?

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.