The vile assisted suicide Bill is on its last legs. Now let's kill it off
If you're still undecided about assisted suicide – or, as its supporters prefer to call it, 'assisted dying' – I invite you to consider the following quote. It comes from a newspaper interview conducted in 2017 with Henry Marsh, a leading brain surgeon and author of a bestselling medical memoir entitled Do No Harm. The interviewer, from The Sunday Times, asked Dr Marsh about his support for 'assisted dying'. And here's the most extraordinary section of his reply:
'So much of [the opposition to it] is all bloody Christians,' complained Marsh. 'They argue that grannies will be made to commit suicide. Even if a few grannies get bullied into it, isn't that a price worth paying for all the people who could die with dignity?'
Well. Quite a lot to take in there. But we might as well start at the beginning. Personally, I don't see why it should matter if opposition to assisted suicide comes from 'bloody Christians'. In any case, I would point out that opposition also comes from a great many people who are not 'bloody Christians'. I, for one, have never been religious, yet I oppose assisted suicide as strongly as anybody.
The part of that quote I particularly wish to focus on, however, is not the part about 'bloody Christians', it's the part about 'grannies'. Let's read it again, and take a moment to digest it: the assertion that, even if 'a few grannies' get 'bullied into' assisted suicide, it would be 'a price worth paying'.
Now, you might assume that I'm about to condemn Dr Marsh for the jaw-dropping crassness of those words. But actually I'm not. On the contrary, I wish to thank him most sincerely for his candour. Because let's face it: this is what the campaign for 'assisted dying' really amounts to. To support it, you have to believe that 'a few grannies' getting 'bullied into it' is 'a price worth paying' – even if you wouldn't dare to put it in such blunt terms.
I only wish that other supporters of assisted suicide – especially the MPs among them – could be as frank, open and honest as Marsh was in that 2017 interview. Not least because, if they were, the wider public would surely be so horrified, the Bill wouldn't stand a chance of becoming law.
Thankfully, though, it looks more and more as if the Bill is doomed anyway. As we report today, its future has been thrown into doubt after Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP trying to steer it through Parliament, backed down and agreed to delay implementing the law until 2029, after the next election. Civil servants responsible for drafting amendments are said to have told her that the Bill was 'unworkable'. And opponents have told The Telegraph that the delay was indeed an 'admission that the Bill does not work'.
This latest setback follows weeks of chaos, criticism and controversy. The committee of MPs overseeing the Bill removed what had previously been cited as a key judicial safeguard: the need for a High Court judge to approve each request. Meanwhile, eating disorder charities expressed their fear that anorexics would be able to choose 'assisted dying', after MPs refused to close a loophole in the Bill. And Reform UK's Lee Anderson, an MP who initially voted in favour, declared that he would now vote against ('This Bill becomes less credible by the day'). I very much doubt he's alone.
Despite all these woes, it seems that Ms Leadbeater remains determined to push on. Frankly, though, I think she's wasting her time. So let me put it to her in language she'll understand: I know it's hard to accept, Ms Leadbeater, but the truth is, your Bill is dying. It has no realistic prospect of recovery. And, in all honesty, its struggles have become painful to watch. So what point is there in prolonging its existence in this futile manner? Wouldn't it be more dignified to put the poor thing out of its misery?
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