Death doesn't become you: assisted dying is just killing people
This isn’t about slippery slopes, the difficulty of defining the boundary between a killing we allow and a killing we don’t, it is about the morals and behaviour of actual people
Britain is about to consider the matter of so-called assisted dying. In simple terms this is where somebody who wishes to die enlists another person to undertake the actual killing. It is very popular largely because of repeted media stories about terrible cases of suffering that feel wrong. Apparently this is all about ‘dignity’ rather than the convenience of opting to kill people rather than improve the effectiveness, quality and availability of palliative medicine. Such an approach would, of course, never be abused.
I’m reposting a blogpost I wrote on the subject ten years ago. The post links to an earlier article on the subject.
“My Mum has just gone into a nursing home. It hasn't been an easy time for my Dad and I feel slightly guilty that, for reasons of distance and business, I haven't been there as much as perhaps I should. But this isn't about me visiting my angst on you, dear reader, but rather about what it costs. Not because I think that johnny taxpayer should pick up the tab willy-nilly but rather to demonstrate the financial advantages - for families and the government - of people dying more quickly.
The fees at Mum's home run to about £1000 per week, which my maths tells me is £52,000 per year. And this is a hell of a lot of money. More, I suspect, than my dad ever earned in a year and comfortably more than the average earnings of people today (my Dad retired in 1997). Again, let's be clear that I do think our savings and assets are best directed to our own interests and this includes providing care - I really do not feel that I have any right to demand that young people with big mortgages and families to raise, pay more tax so I can inherit Mum and Dad's house.
But this cost - £26,000 in a six month period - is one very good reason to question the seemingly inexorable move to what is called 'assisted dying'. Now when I read the advertisements placed by Dignity in Dying I am, like you will be, touched by the stories there of people's last days and how a quick exit would have saved them suffering. I don't doubt the sincerity of the people involved - knowing their beloved brother, wife or mother was dying they sought only to make what was left of their life less painful. And they think that helping these people to die would have been a release from that pain.
It's hard not to find the case compelling. So to help you understand my doubts, let me tell you something else about my Mum. Something I wrote some while ago in a little article called, "Death doesn't become us":
My Mum spent 25 years and more working with old people in and around Penge – delivering meals-on-wheels, driving the mini-buses and running Penge & Anerley Age Concern’s lunch club and day centre on Melvin Road. In this time she saw every sort of folk – from Mr Squirrel who worried that he couldn’t (at 96) dig the garden as in times past to Dr Arnott, communist party member, academic historian and employer of a maid.
Every day, my Mum would tell us, one or more of the people she saw would proclaim – in that depression of loneliness so common among the old and infirm – “I’m just a burden, I’d be better off dead”, or some similar formula of despair. Mum’s response would be to tell them not to be so silly, have a cup of tea and a chat.
But Mum’s view – informed by bitter experience – was that not all the relatives and carers took the same view as she did.
And this last sentence captures my concerns. You and I may be good, honest folk who wouldn't dream of having granny bumped off so we could inherit earlier. But can you be certain that others have our scruples? That there is no circumstance where 'six months to live' is liberally interpreted:
...where a depressed, slightly confused, sad old person signs to say they want to die, where the bureaucracy takes this as consent and Auntie Sissie or Grandpa Geoff is shipped safely across the Styx leaving his worldly goods behind for the inheritors to enjoy.
I know there will be safeguards. I'm sure people have considered how they would mitigate the possibility of the six months rule being abused. But I am less sure. My Mum told too many stories of rapacious and uncaring relatives, of useless solicitors and deadening, rule-bound social workers or doctors for me to be so sure that, despite the agony of those stories in Dignity in Dying's advertisement, we can go to a place where we deem it acceptable to kill another human being.”
This isn’t about slippery slopes, the difficulty of defining the boundary between a killing we allow and a killing we don’t, it is about the morals and behaviour of actual people. The sort of families who refuse a lien on a ‘family’ home for the provision of domicilary care because it would reduce their inheritance (and believe me such people exist) won’t be averse to the careful gaslighting of grannie, already frail and poorly, into believing a quiet ‘dignified’ death would be the best option.
One of the most important reasons to opposed assisted suicide. My fear is that the high cost of elderly care is an unconscious reason why some people support its legalisation.
Wouldn't it be better to go back to looking after granny at home?
I have a terminal illness and will die soon. Probably not six months. Maybe nine. I’m lucky that my death, when it comes, probably will not be painful. It will be a gradual slowing down followed by a coma that will last a few weeks and then the end.
In the likely circumstances ahead of me, I would not choose assisted dying. But if my prognosis included six months of unbearable pain, I would. If it included six months of my wife cleaning me and rolling me over to prevent bed sores, I would. I enjoyed a month of cleaning and rolling when my girlfriend died but six seems like a lot and I expect people would start to offload their former loved ones onto the state. I expect that unethical people would hasten their former loved one’s death.
People will make unethical choices whatever the law says. Allowing assisted dying makes more unethical choices possible but it saves a host of terminally ill patients from a world of pain and lost dignity. I think that's a good trade.
I wrote more about this here:
https://raggedclown.substack.com/p/can-we-talk-about-assisted-dying
I think some of the countries that have assisted dying have the balance wrong and allow too many of the abuses that you warn against. Canada, for example, or Belgium. Oregon, however, has an extensive suite of safeguards to minimise the likelihood that unscrupulous heirs will hurry the process. I’d hazard a guess that your scheming inheritors have very few advantages under Oregon’s system.
One final point, a patient who is suffering unbearable pain now can catch the train to Switzerland. But if her husband takes the train with her, he will be arrested for manslaughter. That doesn't seem right. If she is unable to take the train alone, she is out of luck.