Beware assisted suicide – it’s all about the money

The Rev Dr Patrick Pullicino, the former NHS consultant neurologist who in 2012 blew the whistle on the abuses of the Liverpool Care Pathway, fears the financial motives that will soon turn doctor-assisted death into an obligation

The main stated reason for assisted suicide is for a comfortable pain-free death. However intractable, pain is actually a rare reason to use “assisted dying” in the countries in which it is legislated. The key reason people chose it is because they feel a burden on society and they feel that are doing something good for others by taking this burden away. It is a terrible option to give the elderly or the disabled as they are often lonely and in reality need to be at the centre of society not at its fringes. Marginalisation of these groups is the major driver for wanting to introduce assisted suicide.

Evidence from places that started assisted suicide show that once started it spreads quickly and it cannot be contained. Any control is lost. Part of the reason for this is that the option for assisted suicide quickly becomes an obligation. The most worrying part of introducing assisted dying however is hidden financial motives. In the Liverpool Care Pathway, it became quickly clear that financial savings was the major motivation for hospitals and government to push a system that shortened life. Care of the elderly and the disabled is very expensive and death that anticipates these expenses is bound to save money. It can never be a justification for introduction of assisted suicide but once introduced and public bodies start to see savings, then they will exert immoral pressure to extend assisted dying whatever the objections that arise.

Assisted suicide legislation is a major attack on equality. Firstly the elderly being isolated are likely to be pushed to use it more. The disabled certainly would be very disadvantaged. It is a major affront to the religious principles of those religions that hold life sacred and are by creed against this. It would be an equality disaster. We have the experience of other places like Oregon and Holland to tell us a) how assisted dying preferentially affects the vulnerable, b) gradually increases in numbers, c) pulls in more and more vulnerable groups like children. With this experience there is no conceivable rational reason to go down this path which is terribly self-destructive for a society.

The medical profession should never be involved in killing. This undermines the whole medical profession and causes patients to lose trust in doctors. It is against medical ethics and will begin to affect the decisions of doctors in other areas. It would be like a cancer growing in the medical establishment and should be resisted with all possible force. Assisted suicide is not the answer to medical illnesses. There is no evidence-based scientific medical reason to support assisted suicide as it not a medical procedure by definition. As a physician I know that there are many disease that were terminal but have now become treatable. It undermines the whole of medical science to kill instead of to try to cure. Doctors end up being involved in killing. The whole medical framework and trust in doctors suffers irreversibly,

The legislation is definitely not required. It will harm society in many ways. It is much better to set up a pain control unit with experts in pain management than to give this option to people.  Using assisted suicide to solve problems of loneliness in aging, is a societal way of getting rid of a problem by brushing it under the carpet. In a healthy vibrant society, any issue like loneliness or feeling a burden to society should be addressed directly and corrected by enabling the elderly and disabled and putting them at the centre of society. This enriches society not impoverishes it like assisted suicide would.

(Photo by Simon Caldwell)

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