The right to die?

 “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Those sound like rights worth having. “The right to die” is the only right we will end up with unless we fight back.

Do we want to live in a country where elderly, sick or disabled people are made to feel worthless and then offered the ‘right to die’?

Imagine this.

Someone goes into hospital with a serious illness. They declare that they would rather be dead. To accelerate the process, they stop eating.

Would you give them the “right to die”?

A month later the same person is sitting opposite me, eating, drinking and ridiculing the government. They have re-engaged with life.

Would you reconsider their “right to die”?

A disabled teacher once made this plea to a conference I attended, “The media are only interested in those who want to kill disabled people because that is a good story. They are not interested in those of us stubborn enough to want to live.”

The case for “mercy killing” or “assisted suicide” is that it should not be treated the same as cold-blooded killing for gain. It never is. Juries and judges have every right to deal sympathetically with such cases if they are genuine.

If someone faces a choice of a painful death or an end to that pain, it would make sense for society to invest in palliative care rather than leaving them no choice but mercy killing. As it is, hospices which care for the terminally ill are generally charities without serious state funding.

What is anathema is a change in the law, which is being sought by campaigners, which would make the lives of people with illnesses and disabilities worth less than those with healthy bodies. Being healthy can be a very temporary state by the way.

According to Age UK, “Do Not Resuscitate” agreements have been forced on vulnerable adults during the pandemic. Give the government the power of life and death over the disabled and sooner or later they will use it “in the public good” or “to save public money”.

We cannot be confident that the opposition would oppose them either.

It is not beyond our capability to create a society which people would not want to escape from but rather enjoy “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

 

 

The euthanasia machine, on display at the Science Museum, would allow all those old, sick and disabled people to quietly exercise their "right to die" so their place can be taken by (temporarily) healthy people.