‘Assisted suicide is just like abortion’: Lauren Edwards’ advocacy for death by ‘choice’

Assisted suicide is like other “major social changes such as a woman’s right to choose”, Lauren Edwards, sponsor of the resurrected assisted suicide Bill, states in her latest opinion piece.

But choose what? We all know she means choosing death for their unborn babies. Abortion. The euphemistic language here is typical of those who advocate for evil. They use it because they know speaking the truth is distasteful, and does not fall kindly upon people’s ears.

She is right, though. Like abortion, assisted suicide – or the far more palatable ‘assisted dying’ as she would call it – is a debate of life and death, and she is campaigning for people to be able to choose death.

Just as unborn babies are the most vulnerable and voiceless members of our society, those people who will be helped to kill themselves by taking lethal drugs that are state-approved for personal use will be similarly vulnerable.

In their lowest moments, given a terminal diagnosis and facing the end of their lives, rather than hope and help, Edwards is campaigning for them to be offered a hastened death at the sanitised hand of our NHS.

Opponents of Edwards’ Bill have pointed to Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium as cautionary tales. In those jurisdictions, safeguards have been slowly worn away. Edwards may claim this won’t happen here, but evidence from almost everywhere else in the world proves that a widening of eligibility criteria is inevitable.

First it only applies to terminally ill adults, with a limited life expectancy. Then the time barrier is removed. Then those without terminal illnesses become eligible. Then those with mental illnesses. Then the age criteria is expanded, because it is argued that children should have the same right to die as adults. This is not scaremongering, it is fact. In multiple jurisdictions children have been euthanised at the request of parents.

All of this has been celebrated under the same banner: choice.

The ‘right to choose’ an illusion

To continue the comparison with abortion, Brits were told in the 1960s that if it became legal, it would be rare. Fast forward almost 60 years from legalisation, and the numbers of abortions taking place has grown from a few thousand a year to hundreds of thousands a year. One in three pregnancies now end in abortion in England and Wales. But activists remain unsatisfied, and are pushing to strip away the few safeguards that remain for the unborn.

In 2023, the latest figures available, 279,970 unborn children were aborted in England and Wales, an increase of 13 per cent from the previous year. How many will be killed by assisted suicide if it is legalised?

Government figures released at the end of August estimated that within ten years of legalisation, as many as 47,300 people may have chosen to take their own lives in this fashion. That is close to double the estimate it made in April. The higher estimate suggested 6,257 people might commit suicide via the NHS in that tenth year. If the trend continued, we could be looking at more than 13,700 people a year by 2050.

Let’s pray this Bill is defeated and we never have a reason to count them.

With both assisted suicide and abortion, the issue of choice is really an illusion. Unborn babies have no right to choose if they live or die, and inevitably, thousands of vulnerable people will also have no true choice as to whether they live or accept the offer of a premature death. People in abusive relationships may be told they are better off dead. Some people with disabilities are told that on a routine basis already. People with limited access to palliative care may feel it is their only option. Conscientious citizens may feel it is their duty to die to take strain off the NHS. And folks who do not want their family to see them weak or vulnerable, or who do not wish their inheritance to go towards nursing home fees, may also take that ‘choice’.

The reality is, for many with terminal illnesses, even the existence of a ‘choice’ to die could feel like a suggestion. The so-called right to die will be seen by many as a duty to die. It is a monstrous situation to deliberately place our elderly, sick, disabled and vulnerable in.

Our MPs must protect them.