No such thing as a “little” euthanasia. As figures from Holland & Canada show – it becomes a runaway train – with the numbers of fatalities rising exponentially. Government must be honest and explain the direction of travel. Its a fiction that “safeguards” will stop it happening here. Not something to “rush through” Parliament
Holland: In 2002, there were 1,882 cases. In 2012 there were 4,188 cases. In 2023, there were 9,068 cases (5.4% of all deaths).
Canada: 2016, there were 1,015 cases. Just one year later in 2017, there were 2,833 cases. In 2022, there were 13,241 cases (4.1% of all deaths).
Canada began with a “little” euthanasia and have subsequently let it grow like topsy by 30% a year – with a shocking proposed extension to people with mental illness. And the “right to die” becomes a duty to die as others tell you that your life isnt worth living. Wes Streeting MP, the Health Secretary, has warned that we aren’t in a position to ensure that “people aren’t coerced into exercising any right to die”.
This week in “The Telegraph” Allister Heath succinctly summed up the position in Canada:
Euthanasia is a one way ticket with no return. Last year there were 581,363 deaths registered in England and Wales – and the deceased didn’t need doctors to kill them with lethal injections. Hard cases always make bad laws.
The challenge is to provide more palliative care, more hospice care at home, and an ethos which upholds human dignity and the sanctity of life.
Replacing care with kill may cost the NHS less but will endanger the lives of disabled people and vulnerable people.
Telling medics to “give a drug that is deadly”, with the intention of ending life is a breach of the Hippocratic Oath and irretrievably alters the relationship between doctors and their patients.
The Government has been quoted as wanting to “rush through” this new law.
At best this will be a law of ill considered, unintended, consequences. At worst it will be a law that will usher in a fundamental social change which will endanger vulnerable lives and irredeemably our personal and collective relationships.
