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The criterion for those eligible for assisted suicide keeps expanding.
The most chilling detail in "Better Off Dead?" a new BBC documentary by the English actress and comedian Liz Carr, is an automated telephone message.
Carr, who has been disabled since childhood and uses a wheelchair, made the film as Parliament debates whether to make it legal for doctors to help end the lives of people who are terminally ill and who say they wish to die. Similar legislation is being pushed in Massachusetts, where a bill permitting doctors to prescribe suicide drugs to patients with less than six months to live is now before the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
The film lasts just 58 minutes but it powerfully refutes the claim that authorizing medical professionals to facilitate the deaths of people with a fatal illness or disability is either enlightened or safe.
To show what legalization would mean in practice, Carr traveled to Canada, where "medical assistance in dying," or MAID, was legalized in 2016. Like many countries, Canada has 24/7 suicide hotlines to prevent troubled people from acting on their suicidal urges. But it also has a hotline to expedite deaths. Dial the number and you get this message:
"Thank you for calling. The Ontario Medical Assistance in Dying Care Coordination Service is designed to provide information about end of life options in Ontario and referrals for Medical Assistance in Dying. If you would like to speak with an adviser to access the service or get more information, please press 1."
What was once a trope of dystopian science fiction — government bureaucracies making it easy for despairing people to cut their lives short — is now Canada's reality. That should be of interest in Massachusetts and the United Kingdom, where advocates for physician-assisted suicide keep insisting it will be restricted to adults of sound mind whose conditions are fatal.
In her documentary, Carr interviews one of those advocates, Lord Charles Falconer, who dismisses concerns that the criteria for assisted dying will inevitably be expanded. "Once a legislature decides it's going to be terminal illness only, it will stick at that," he says firmly. "The line in the sand for me is terminal illness. It goes no further than that."
But the thing about sand, as Carr observes tartly, is that it shifts.
It certainly shifted in Canada. When MAID took effect in 2016, its boundaries were clear: Only mentally competent adults dying of a terminal condition could be approved for euthanasia. That year, 1,018 Canadians made use of the law to end their lives.
English actress, comedian, and disability rights activist Liz Carr
Yet soon the law was expanded to include anyone with a "grievous and irremediable medical condition," whether fatal or not. The number of MAID deaths skyrocketed. There were well over 13,000 in 2022. And under a new legal provision scheduled to take effect in 2027, Canadians suffering from mental illness, even if they're physically healthy, will have the right to be "assisted" to their deaths. That is already happening in the Netherlands, one of the few other countries where physician-assisted suicide is lawful. The Telegraph reported last week on the soaring number of Dutch residents who have been euthanized because of a psychiatric disorder. Those choosing to have their lives ended in this way have been as young as 16.
Among the most eloquent opponents of assisted-suicide laws are disabled activists who fear that once people are allowed to seek a doctor's help in ending their life, many will be coerced into doing so. That coercion might come from family members unwilling to bear the strain of long-term medical care when assisted suicide is a cheap alternative. It might come from insurance companies refusing to reimburse the cost of lifesaving treatments once legalization lets them offer aid in dying as a covered benefit instead. It may come from physicians, many of whom, recent research shows, underestimate the quality of life of individuals with significant disabilities.
Popular culture and the news media often portray assisted suicide as dignified, compassionate, even heroic. Carr was galvanized into action by the 2016 Hollywood romance "Me Before You," in which an athlete paralyzed in an accident chooses to cut life short through assisted suicide and not burden the woman he loves. The film's promotional hashtag was #LiveBoldly.
With assisted suicide increasingly glorified like this, it's no wonder public opinion now supports it. In a new UMass Amherst/WCVB poll, 67 percent of respondents said they favor legalizing medical aid in dying for terminally ill patients. At a State House rally last week, lawmakers expressed confidence that doctors in Massachusetts will soon be allowed to prescribe death. Anyone who imagines that would be a good thing ought to take an hour to watch "Better Off Dead?"
This op-ed originally appeared in The Boston Globe
Intractable, constant pain can lead one to the wish to end it all. However, we are not the creators of ourselves, and only He who gave us a living soul may take it from us with the fervent belief that He will return it to us at a future time. No doctor in good conscience can assume that role.
Those who wish to end their lives have the absolute right to do so - for any reason, or no reason at all. And if they need assistance to do that, there should be a way to accomplish that - preferably with the help of a compassionate physician. The moralistic claptrap offered by opponents of assisted suicide is specious nonsense. While there is nothing wrong with considering the alternatives before taking one's life, there is also nothing wrong with opting for suicide.
Ben who told you that? What gives them the right to do that? Maybe they have the right to end other people's lives as well? Or perhaps we are not the owners or creators of our own lives and have no right to end them?
One of my in laws committed suicide in a particularly horrible way. Although he had pulmonary problems, I suspect they were manageable. I can tell you that he left 3 angry children behind and at least one bitter grandchild. I usually keep quiet about this event, but I am speaking out today because he did NOT have the right to take his life as he did. Not at all.
I’m surprised that this article doesn’t mention a middle option: removal of life support and opting to stop treatments such as chemotherapy. Rather than killing someone, the patient just dies a natural death, as has been the case for millennia, and is still the case for those outside the developed West.
In February of this year a young woman named Brooke Ellison passed away. I suspect it was due to complications from quadriplegia. If anyone wants to read about a much more life affirming family, please check out Brooke's story.
That´s harrowing, and it all starts from not living a meaningful life, not having clarity about life and fulfillment and what´s our task and mission in life and believing in a life model so empty and elitist that all those who don´t fit into this model think that their lives are worthless
Suicide may seem like a way out, but it doesn't truly solve anything. A person's consciousness persists even after death, leading to reincarnation where they must start over and face the same tests and challenges. This time, however, they carry the extra karmic burden of having taken their own life. The notion of 'poof' and everything is over and forgotten is a myth; it's more like triggering an even more painful version of Groundhog Day.