A great opinion piece by Jamie Hale begins with a photo of two women in wheelchairs, seated in front of several artful props that suggest a graveyard. The photo has a caption above and below: I can see no safeguards to prevent people being pressured into ending their lives. What we need is more support to live . . . ‘All I see is a system which divides lives, offering suicide prevention to some, and euthanasia to others.’ Campaigners against assisted suicide outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London.”
The article itself begins:
Opposition to assisted suicide – also called assisted dying – is characterised as being the preserve of the religious, stuffy and outdated, like religious opposition to gay marriage and abortion. In reality, some of the loudest voices opposing it are those of people with disabilities – because we have the most to fear. A poll done by Scope (a disability charity) showed that the majority of disabled people (64%) were concerned about moves to legalise assisted suicide.
Arguments around the legality of suicide and the right to refuse treatment are often conflated with assisted suicide. Suicide is legal, and there is already a right to refuse treatment. People with mental capacity can also create an advance directive to ensure their wish to refuse treatment is respected in future. This leaves people often able to die on their own terms. What assisted dying advocates are requesting is to create a system in which it is legally and morally permissible for people to engage in a deliberate action designed to end someone else’s life.
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Some 5% of people in Oregon dying by assisted suicide cited financial pressures as a cause. Meanwhile, the number citing being a “burden on family/friends/caregivers” increased from 13% in 1998 to 55% in 2017. This tallies with Scope’s research that the majority of people with disabilities are concerned that legalising assisted suicide might lead to disabled people choosing it in order not to be a burden on others.
To read the full article, go here.
Physician Assisted Suicide, PAS, is also very dangerous for the elderly who are disabled by way of old age and a target, like the disabled, for savings in hospital in-patient care.
It’s always about the money and PAS will and already has resulted in the murder of innocents whose Medicare/Medicaid insurance will no longer pay to keep them alive.