Legalising euthanasia will only worsen current provision of care for terminally ill

Baroness Finlay

Crossbench peer Baroness Finlay writes in The House:

Baroness Meacher's Assisted Dying Bill is the fourth attempt to legalise giving lethal drugs to terminally ill people to end their lives. The fundamental and practical flaws in the bill are clearly exposed by the range of amendments that have been put down. It is therefore surprising, and worrying, that proponents of what is being euphemistically called "assisted dying" have put forward an almost identical bill each time and have not addressed the concerns raised by the House on earlier occasions.

The bill would do nothing to plug deficits in care. It risks being seen and used as a cheap solution for human suffering. Every day, patients are failing to get the specialist palliative care they need, with patchy availability through reliance on voluntary sector funding.

Introducing legislation for "assisted dying," far from improving current provision of care for the terminally ill, would make the situation worse.

The experience of those countries that have gone down the "assisted dying" road shows the development of palliative care is impeded where such legislation is in place.

Canadian doctor Leonie Herx, writing in The Telegraph in October 2021 about her country's experience, said: "The impact on palliative medicine has been enormous. Hospices that do not offer assisted death face closure and loss of government funding… Administering death is cheaper and easier than providing good care."

To read on see: www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/assisted-dying-will-only-worsen-the-current-provision-of-care-for-the-terminally-ill