Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Assisted dying is a slippery slope

(Credit: Getty images)

What are your thoughts on assisted dying and assisted suicide? That’s the question asked by a Health and Social Care Committee consultation, closing today, that could shape changes to the law on euthanasia. Having had intimate experience of what can happen when a vulnerable person feels themselves to be a burden, I’m against.

My mother had Parkinson’s, and once she burst out to me that: ‘You’d have so much more time and money if it weren’t for me’. It would be the easiest thing in the world to push someone in that condition towards feeling that it would be better for everyone if she were given a dignified death. Actually my mother did have a dignified death, at home, even though, by then, she had to have everything done for her.

The other reason to avoid assisted suicide is that we’ve already seen how it turns out

The notion that families must always have the best interests of their vulnerable relatives at heart is risible.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in