A lady who wrote to a financial advice column detailing her financial struggles in accessing healthcare has been told about how easy it is to access assisted suicide, which would mean she “wouldn’t need to worry”.
Writing to MarketWatch’s financial advice column, a woman in her sixties detailed how she was concerned about being unable to access Medicaid, a government health insurance programme in the United States, unless she sells off her assets. “It also goes against my principles to dispose of my assets just so the government will support me”, she said.
As age and life experiences have left her physically disabled, the woman details how she has to “keep bugging people whose job it is to assist the elderly and disabled” for assistance in doing things. She wonders whether she should “move to a state that legally allows what I consider socially approved euthanasia”.
The advice columnist highlighted how easy it would be for her to end her life by assisted suicide, and that this could be her solution, pointing out how “11 states and Washington, D.C. offer medical aid in dying for those who suffer from chronic pain or who are terminally ill”. The columnist shares how the lady “wouldn’t need to worry about the financial, emotional or physical costs” of having to move to a different state where this is available, since Oregon and Vermont allow assisted suicide for non-residents as of 2023.
Assisted suicide for financial reasons and feeling like a burden
As evidenced in places where assisted suicide or euthanasia is already legal, many people who end their lives by assisted suicide attribute feeling like a burden as one of their concerns at the end of their lives. For those who have ended their lives in the most recent year for which data is available, 45.3% cited being a burden in Canada, 42% did so in Oregon, 51% in Washington, and 35.2% did so in Western Australia.
In Oregon, one of the states recommended by the advice columnist for assisted suicide, 6% of people who ended their lives by assisted suicide or euthanasia there cited the financial implications of treatment as one of the key reasons given for ending their lives. In the last year reported in Washington, the number sat at 10%.
Concerns that this would likely happen in England and Wales if assisted suicide is legalised
There is currently a campaign to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales through the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which recently had its Second Reading in the House of Lords. Many parliamentarians have highlighted the grave concerns about how many people could likely choose to end their lives because they may feel like a burden on their family, friends, or the wider health and care services.
The former Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron MP, said “[T]here is the risk of self-coercion. Many of us will have heard older relatives utter words similar to, ‘I am a burden to you. You would be better off without me.’ We all know reasonably instinctively that people will present it as making a sovereign choice, but it will be a choice born out of coercion”.
Danny Kruger MP said that the proposed legislation portrays it as “absolutely fine” if “you feel worthless or a burden to others, if the NHS will not offer you the treatment you need, if the local authority will not make the adjustments you need to your home, if you have to wait too long for a hospital appointment, or if you want to die because you think the system has failed you”.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “To offer someone struggling with their finances the option of assisted suicide and assure them that it is more easily available than they imagined is a gross dereliction of duty. Sadly, we know only too well that for some people, financial considerations are a reason to opt for assisted suicide and euthanasia. There is no good reason to think that such a tragic state of affairs will not also happen here if the assisted suicide Bill becomes law”.
“Vulnerable people in our society need our unwavering protection and the best quality care, not a pathway to assisted suicide. Evidence from abroad shows that, if this legislation becomes law, large numbers of vulnerable people nearing the end of life would be pressured or coerced into ending their lives. The House of Lords must reject the Bill to ensure this doesn’t happen”.
