New figures show legalising assisted suicide is not safe, with government preparing to cut billions from benefits
Disabled activists say vital new polling shows that it is not safe to legalise assisted suicide when the government is preparing to cut billions of pounds a year from spending on disability benefits.
The findings were released yesterday (Wednesday) on the day the government published its new universal credit and personal independence payment bill (see separate story), which will implement many of the cuts, and two days before MPs vote on Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s terminally ill adults (end of life) bill.
Tomorrow’s vote is thought to be the critical moment that will decide whether assisted suicide eventually becomes law in England and Wales, despite being widely and fiercely opposed by the disabled people’s movement.
In a final effort to persuade MPs of the dangers posed by legalisation, Not Dead Yet UK (NDY UK) yesterday released polling that showed two-thirds (65 per cent) of disabled people agree that if benefits are being cut, disabled people living in poverty may be likely to seek assisted suicide instead of struggling financially.
Three-fifths (59 per cent) of the more than 2,000 British adults who were polled by Whitestone Insight for NDY UK either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement.
Phil Friend, NDY UK convener, said: “This polling proves what we’ve been saying – you cannot safely introduce assisted suicide while so many disabled people live in poverty, and especially when the government is cutting some disabled people’s benefits.
“Our research shows 65 per cent of disabled people think those facing poverty and benefit cuts will be pushed toward assisted suicide.
“That’s coercion, not choice.
“The assisted dying (terminally ill adults) bill must be stopped.
“Parliament cannot pass this legislation while simultaneously dismantling some of the support systems that support disabled people.”
But there were also other worrying findings from the polling.
More than two-thirds (67 per cent) of disabled people polled agreed that some disabled people may feel a sense of responsibility to access an assisted death if they feel they are a burden on family, friends or society.
More than six in 10 (63 per cent) of all those polled agreed or strongly agreed with this statement.
And more than two-thirds of all those polled (67 per cent) agreed that parliament should prioritise improving access to care for disabled people before legalising assisted suicide.
Mike Smith, an NDY UK spokesperson and former disability commissioner for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: “Too many MPs are considering this legislation in the context of reducing some individual’s suffering at the end of life without having regard to the many thousands more whose lives will be threatened because of it.
“We have to consider not just the detail of the bill, but the environment and reality into which it will be introduced.”
Baroness [Jane] Campbell, founder of NDY UK, said: “Many of my parliamentary colleagues tell me their number one concern about legalising ‘assisted dying’ is the potential for coercion of vulnerable people by families or others, whether it’s conscious or unconscious, to seek an early death rather than become a burden or die in intolerable circumstances.
“Parliamentarians are right to be concerned.
“It is guaranteed that some people seeking an assistive death will die because they believe what society reinforces every day, that dying early is the only way to avoid such fears becoming a reality.
“Coercion is hard to detect, and the current bill offers no effective safeguards to prevent coerced applicants dying as a result.
“This is terrifying.”
Credit for this article goes to John Pring with the Disability News Service
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