The Ad That Radicalised Me

Britain's Assisted Dying Debate

This is one of a series of posters that adorn the walls of Westminster Underground station, through which many MPs and aides travel to work. On Friday, MPs will be voting on whether or not to legalise assisted dying. The posters, funded by a campaign group called Dignity In Dying, present a series of individuals happily contemplating the prospect of ending their own lives. The vibe is feel-good, joyful and glossy, somewhere between a cosmetics brand and Kamala Harris ‘24. I think they are the creepiest ads I’ve ever seen.

When this bill was introduced a couple of months ago, I didn’t have much of an opinion on the issue. I’d read that things were getting pretty weird in Canada and the Netherlands, so I was wary. But the case for legalising euthanasia is undeniably powerful. Many people have experienced at first or second-hand situations in which the end of a person’s life becomes unbearable for the person themselves and for their loved ones. It seems only humane to give suffering people, in certain very limited situations - this bill applies only to terminally ill adults with six months or fewer to live - control over how to end their lives.

As the public debate unfolded, however, and opponents of the bill asked awkward questions of it, it became apparent to me that its supporters didn’t have convincing answers. Most pertinently, they couldn’t explain how weak and vulnerable people won’t be persuaded that it’s their duty to do the right thing, by a conspiracy, articulated or otherwise, of over-stretched healthcare staff and exhausted relatives. All the supporters have offered is an insistence on the primacy of individual choice, emotional stories, and aspersions on their opponents. The first two are important to consider, but you surely have to go further than this when it comes to such a momentous change.

If the pro-bill arguments are thin it’s not just because they haven’t nailed the legislative details, but because they haven’t been forced to think the issue through before. For instance, they too easily dismiss the concern that this bill puts us on a “slippery slope” to more state-sanctioned killing. They appeal to the legislative process, as if that is what counts. Regardless of parliamentary process, if you don’t like the vision of the future a certain law implies, it’s perfectly OK - it’s necessary - to say no, we’re not going one more inch down that slick path.

Those who don’t think that slippery slopes exist, or who believe that everything branded “progress” is automatically good, might review the seemingly unobjectionable Gender Recognition Act of 2004 and ask themselves how we ended up, in 2024, with the highest judges in the land ponderously debating the definition of a woman. More immediately, they could ask whether passing this bill makes it more or less likely that future legislators will come round to the philosopher A.C. Grayling’s view that the six month period should be extended or abolished - so that, for instance, depressed people can be helped to end their own lives. Grayling might be out of line with the bill’s sponsors on the detail, but he is perfectly in line with them on the principle.

It’s jarring to see an MP post a quote like this: “If you don’t like the idea of assisted dying, don’t seek medical assistance to arrange your own death. If liberal democracy means anything it is this: that every individual should be free to live their life in the way they want”. No, liberal democracy does not mean everything in society is like shopping - if you don’t like it here, go down the street. Contrary to this almost Randian faith in the maximisation of individual freedom, democracy entails recognising that our personal choices are always enmeshed in networks of social connection and obligation, whether we want them to be or not, and that lawmakers have to consider societies as systems, not just groups of individuals. (In other circumstances, many of the same MPs recognise these truths to a fault. You can advertise euthanasia on the Tube, but not cheese).

Obligation to protect the vulnerable weighs against individual freedom. In this particular contest I want the law firmly and unequivocally on the side of life over death. In theory at least, liberal democracies, unlike brutal autocracies or theocratic death-cults, place the highest value on human life. I can’t believe that supporters of the bill think it’s a good idea to use the analogy of pets being put out of their misery. Doing so suggests that they don’t view human life as special at all.

Questions of process to one side, the bedrock principle is that I don’t ever want to live under a state that facilitates the death of its own citizens. No, I don’t want to open that question up at all. Similarly, I’d be opposed to capital punishment even if we could be sure there will be no false convictions, which we obviously can’t (although in both cases, the problems with the process derive from the flawed principle).

We should all admit there are no solutions here, only trade-offs, and the trade-offs are awful, because the facts of death and illness and suffering are awful. Opposing the bill means accepting that some people will suffer for months more than they otherwise would, no matter how good their palliative care is. That brutal truth must be admitted and confronted, at least confronted as much those of us who aren’t actually undergoing the suffering can do. To be clear, I don’t think suffering is ennobling or inevitable. I think we should use all the resources and technologies at our disposal to reduce it. But death isn’t just another form of medication.

I haven’t heard the bill’s opponents deny the fact of suffering, however. I have heard the bill’s supporters deny or avoid the trade-off they are proposing. They pretend there will be no cases of coercion, when of course there will be, human nature and the state of our public services being what they are. The most honest argument for the bill - even if it’s not one I buy - is a utilitarian one: that the injustice and cruelty thus perpetrated will be outweighed by the suffering prevented.

But it’s always hard to make utilitarian arguments persuasive because they seem so mechanical and inhuman. Unthinking emotionalism and the avoidance of uncomfortable truths make for better rhetoric, which is why this bill may well pass on Friday. Although I was already leaning against it, intellectually, it was those grotesque ads which really crystallised how I have come to feel about assisted dying. State-managed death is being wrapped up as self-fulfilment. I don’t feel good about that. I feel sick.

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