Three weeks ago, the House of Lords assisted suicide Bill Select Committee set out to test whether the UK could introduce assisted suicide laws and maintain its conscience. By the final day, those weeks of evidence revealed a nightmare of dangerous consequences and an industry of suicide. However, this nightmare does not have to come true.
In the committee’s third and final week, in an apparent admission of a looming suicide industry in England and Wales, Health Minister Stephen Kinnock refused to rule out the possibility of private companies making a profit from assisted suicide. His statement was a revelation of the potential for monetised suicide within Britain’s care sector, a market that would surely target the most vulnerable.
