A Flicker of Good News on Assisted Suicide

The rejection by the British House of Commons of a bill to legalize assisted suicide is a flicker of good news amid a gathering twilight for the culture of life across the West. Thirteen American states have legalized euthanasia. Canada, too, sanctions the procedure, as do Austria, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Switzerland, and, as of August, France. “We are plunging into the abyss,” is how the French novelist Michel Houellebecq characterizes the turn toward legal suicide.“An extraordinary result,” is how the BBC’s Harry Farley characterized the outcome in the Commons, where “there were gasps” from assisted suicide backers after the vote, 286 to 270, was reported. The opposition of Prime Minister Andy Burnham could have played a role in the defeat, per the BBC. While Prime Minister Keir Starmer favored the bill, Mr. Burnham said “the funding of palliative care and social care” should precede legalizing euthanasia.Of assisted suicide, Mr. Burnham reckons “it is very challenging to introduce that wider debate in a context of people not receiving that care and having the peace of mind about that care.” This isn’t necessarily the full-throated defense of the value of human life that one would like to hear from Britain’s premier. Yet Mr. Burnham deserves some credit to the extent that he influenced his party’s MPs to step back from the push to legalize state-sanctioned suicide. Mr. Burnham’s appraisal, too, offers a counterpoint to the views of pro-euthanasia advocates who seem to valorize assisted suicide as a kind of triumph of the human spirit. During the debate at Paris, Le Monde published an editorial describing “the right to choose one’s death” as “the final freedom.” A pro-euthanasia activist, Jonathan Dennis, says legalizing assisted suicide means “putting the sick person back at the centre of the decision.”Of this line of thinking, Monsieur Houellebecq says “I don’t think human history has ever known such arrogance.” British critics of the assisted suicide bill had cautioned that the measure lacked guardrails and could, the BBC reported, “put vulnerable people in harm’s way.” Catholic bishops in England warned that legalizing suicide put the disabled at risk of getting “disillusioned with their lives to the extent that they see death as preferable.”In Canada, a report by Ontario’s chief coroner offers a glimpse at how state-sanctioned suicide works in practice. Feature the case of an unnamed woman in her 80s, called Mrs. B. She faced what the coroner calls “a challenging medical trajectory” after heart surgery and “elected for a palliative approach to care.” Mrs. B decided against the option of assisted suicide, the coroner said, “citing personal and religious values and beliefs.”Shortly afterward, though, Mrs. B appeared at an emergency room. “Her spouse was noted to be experiencing caregiver burnout,” the coroner said. Mrs. B sought to be admitted for hospice care, but was denied. Mrs. B. contacted Ontario’s Medical Assistance in Dying service “requesting an urgent assessment,” per the coroner. She was “found eligible for MAiD” by an assessor, the coroner said, and the procedure ending her life “was completed later that evening.”Mrs. B was one of 100,000 Canadians who have ended their lives since assisted suicide was legalized there. Such stories promise to become routine across the West if legal euthanasia spreads further. Can this be deemed compassion? Liverpool’s archbishop, John Sherrington, has an answer: “The true measure of a compassionate society is its willingness to support people through difficult circumstances rather than encouraging them to end their lives.”

A Flicker of Good News on Assisted Suicide

A Flicker of Good News on Assisted Suicide

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