Mum who nearly ended her life after spinal injury speaks against assisted suicide

A woman who contemplated ending her own life after suffering a spinal injury has urged MSPs to vote against Liam McArthur’s assisted suicide Bill.

Speaking to The Scotsman, 44 year-old Michelle Anna Moffat warned that people with disabilities could coerce themselves into requesting assisted suicide if they “already feel like a burden a lot of the time”. The mother of four has gastroparesis, which requires a feeding tube to keep her alive.

The Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, which would allow those deemed to be terminally ill to receive assistance from a medic to kill themselves, passed Stage 1 by 70 votes to 56. Some MSPs have withdrawn their support due to safeguarding concerns; only four more need to follow suit for it to fall at next week’s final vote.

Self-coercion

Moffat explained: “When I was actually going to do this before, I didn’t think it was right to end my life, but I was in such a bad place mentally that I just didn’t foresee that my life could ever have any worth. So it’s not necessarily always coercion from outside. There’s self-coercion, and I don’t know how you’re meant to protect against that.”

“What’s very difficult to comprehend is you already feel like a burden a lot of the time – you’re having a bad day, you’re in pain, you’re dependent on people for things as it is. It might be inadvertent, but they are inadvertently opening a door whereby they are causing a lot of pressure [to be] put upon people.”

She emphasised: “So what they think might be getting done in the name of love could be absolutely destructive for so many people.”

‘Duty to die’

In a letter to The Herald, 83-year-old Dennis Canavan warned that some “very vulnerable” elderly people may also feel pressured into assisted suicide, and eventually a ‘right to die’ might become “a duty to die”.

He criticised assisted suicide activists for “hijacking the word ‘dignity’ in defence of their case”, given that he has lost four children, three from terminal illness — all of whom “died in dignity, thanks largely to the NHS and the hospice movement”.

Canavan emphasised: “Our priority should be much more investment in palliative care instead of assisting people to commit suicide.”

‘Lethal weapon’

According to a poll by Whitestone Insight, 68 per cent of Scots are concerned that domestic abuse victims could feel pressured into ending their lives by assisted suicide.

Almost six in ten (58 per cent) of all respondents raised concern that it would not always be possible to reliably identify domestic abuse in assisted suicide requests, with just 17 per cent disagreeing. Overall, more than twice as many respondents agreed as disagreed that MSPs should reject assisted suicide if it risked facilitating domestic abuse.

Dr Anni Donaldson, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde and an expert in domestic abuse, stated: “Assisted dying is likely to offer a new, potentially lethal weapon to abusive men with a terminally ill partner.”

“Regularly demeaned and told they are worthless and would be better off dead, their abusers’ words will weigh heavily on the minds of terminally ill women. The existence of assisted dying legislation is more likely to increase women’s vulnerability, and compound the risks she faces from her abusive partner.”