This article originally appeared on the Washington Examiner’s website on Dec. 6, 2024. You can read the original here.

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Do we have a right to die? Support for assisted suicide is increasingly popular, and Britain is one step closer to legalizing it. Lawmakers last week voted to advance the Terminally Ill Adults bill, which is expected to pass.

Praise for such legislation is concerning for several reasons, particularly the alarming speed at which these bills have been adopted worldwide over the last 25 years. In 1997, only Switzerland allowed legal assisted dying. Today, at least 10 countries have enacted permissive laws, and many more are considering them.

Currently, in Britain, helping someone end their life is punishable by up to 14 years in prison. At face value, it can seem compassionate to allow a terminally ill patient in pain to end their life. However, this choice’s ethical and philosophical implications are profound.

With a legal option to die, that choice is normalized. In the face of burdening family members, running up medical costs, and dried-up hope, some individuals will see death as the better option. The mere availability of assisted suicide can distort a patient’s perspective, leading them away from seeing life as valuable, even in the face of frailty, pain, hardship, or disability.

It also distorts the public perception of human dignity, allowing us subconsciously to grade the worthiness of one human life as more valuable than another. Already in Britain, people eliminate imperfect human life in the womb, aborting at least 90% of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome. Assisted dying is yet another expression of a eugenics-like mindset about who is deemed worthy of life.

Furthermore, “terminally ill” is a squishy term that can mean weeks, months, or years left to live — and leaves no room for miracles or medical breakthroughs. Even without such outcomes, legalizing suicide implies that dignity requires living independently and free from pain.

It also inches us toward a world where healthcare profiteers may consider the cost-effectiveness of patient elimination rather than spending thousands of dollars to keep patients alive.

These laws also create troubling incentives for insurance companies to design policies that prioritize cost-saving measures over comprehensive patient care. Those with chronic conditions that require long-term care may be offered reduced coverage for advanced treatments, limited access to cutting-edge options, or delays in care approval. When faced with these obstacles to receiving treatment, patients may feel pressured, financially or emotionally, to choose death as the more “affordable” option.

Setting profit motives against the value of human life is not pretty. Necessarily, we begin to see the old, sick, and weak as inefficient, burdensome, and better off dead (for their own good, we will tell ourselves).

Unfortunately, what is considered “terminal” today is also up for interpretation. In Belgium and the Netherlands, individuals with “unbearable” psychiatric conditions may qualify for medical euthanasia if clinicians determine their condition to be “untreatable.”

In Canada, a woman applied for medical assistance in dying because she couldn’t get the medical support she needed to live comfortably. That support does exist, but Canada would not provide it for her. In Australia, lawyers aim to determine how depressed a person must be to qualify for legally assisted suicide.

There have also been conversations in Canada about how to enact MAID for children. The logic of the assisted suicide argument will inevitably lead proponents to say that no one deserves to suffer, including disabled or ill children.

Even if death is not imminent, should someone with a grave disability be forced to spend their life in pain? Technically, aren’t we all terminal?

As usual, those without access to good medical care and social or familial support will be most vulnerable to these arguments. In countries such as Canada, Britain, and Australia, where socialized medicine reigns, and care is often delayed, getting the medical care you need can be more difficult.

The physical and mental toll of long-term pain can lead a person to consider any possible end to his suffering. With systematic delays and a lack of timely, personalized care, a patient may feel endless suffering and hopelessness. Decisions made under such strain aren’t healthy.

You see, assisted suicide laws may begin with the gravely ill and terminally dying, but their scope inevitably expands to include those who simply wish to die, not just those facing an unavoidable death.

These laws are also morally questionable because they often leave the patient to determine whether or not they are “terminal.” In other words, if there is lifesaving treatment available and someone refuses it, they can still choose suicide, and the courts protect that decision. Courts, not doctors, are really in charge here.

The option of suicide undermines trust in the doctor-patient relationship, creating a possibly manipulative environment where a patient may choose death after being told there is no hope. Family members may also persuade someone that death is a more dignified choice rather than encouraging them to live even in the face of immense hardship.

Rejecting extensive intervention to save someone’s life is different than intentionally taking their life, and that distinction is vital here. Dying is a part of life. Suicide, for any reason, is not the answer. In an increasingly antinatalist, eugenics-geared world, more death is the last thing Britain or any other country needs.