Stop rushing to kill. And stop letting advocates pretend otherwise in their sea of euphemisms and other distractions on this most painfully intimate issue.
There is some other news going on in England today, but don’t let an op-ed in today’s London Times on assisted suicide get lost in the shuffle.
Naz Shah, a Muslim member of Parliament, calls the assisted-suicide legislation that is making a reappearance there “the most consequential life-and-death law in a generation” and worries it’s going to become law without proper debate or “scrutiny.”
Here is some of what she writes:
My fear is simple: that abused, disabled and vulnerable women — already made to feel like a burden by those who control them — will be coerced into early deaths. . . .
During the committee stage, I argued that eating disorders, which have some of the highest mortality rates of any psychiatric disorder and disproportionately affect young women, should never qualify someone for assisted dying.
And here’s the real deal with eating disorders and assisted suicide:
An eating disorder such as bulimia may not stop a person eating and drinking, but it can still make them seriously ill by damaging their organs and putting serious strain on their heart.
Supporters say that adults of sound mind deserve autonomy over their own deaths. I don’t dismiss that argument. But autonomy isn’t exercised in a vacuum.
It’s exercised in a society where disabled people are constantly made to feel like burdens on the state, where women in abusive relationships are isolated and gaslit for years, where our social care system is falling apart.
Don’t believe people telling you this is not a threat.
Shah also makes this important point:
The bill’s wording suggests doctors can raise assisted dying with patients. Palliative care professionals have warned me that a vulnerable patient won’t hear that as a neutral option — they’ll hear it as a suggestion from someone powerful, someone they’re afraid to contradict. Are we really going to be the parliament that dismisses the experts who deal with dying patients every single day?
This is — maddeningly — such a familiar story. This is how the culture of death becomes the air we breathe.
A woman feels pressured to abort her unborn baby. She gets help to make another choice, but every single doctor appointment can be a continuing danger to the child’s life.
That’s right. The doctor is pushing death. And even if he isn’t actively doing so, just by continuing to note it’s an option is additional pressure.
(And on the pushing death point: I’ve had the general situation described to me as a “search and destroy” mission, at its worst. And I wish the worst weren’t so common, but in places like, say, New York, it is the norm.)
Why would we advocate for — or fall into, skipping over debate — more death, more pressure to encourage people to give up on life? And, yes, at the same time when in other contexts we put resources toward saving people’s lives — specifically, trying to keep people from suicide? The best anti-suicide campaign isn’t going to work if the law is saying it’s sometimes the smart or merciful or healthy thing to do — and according to the doctors!
British doctor-assisted suicide: Don’t do it.
Just look to Canada if you need some real-life, real-world, real-time cautions.
And as Shah points out, there’s a lot on politicians’ plates across the pond there. How about taking suicide off the table? Stop rushing to kill — which is what we are talking about. And stop letting advocates pretend otherwise in their sea of euphemisms and other distractions on this most painfully intimate issue.