At the same time the UK considers legalizing assisted suicide, the grim tone of a Parliamentary survey of persons with disabilities who are suffering through a cost-of-living crisis shows where the country could be headed. The tale already foretold by the example of Canada, and the rapid expansion of legalized euthanasia that now threatens those on the margins, offers a stern warning.
As part of the debate around a bill that would increase government subsidies for disabled people, the British Parliament released a survey to assess the current needs and issues of those with disabilities and their carers adversely affected by increased cost of living. In all, over 10,000 people responded to the survey, two-thirds of whom have disabilities.
The responses were heartbreaking and grim. “I’m freezing, I’m hungry and I don’t receive the amount of care I need to live a dignified, equitable life,” read one response, according to Disability News Service. “A shower is a treat for me now, that’s the stage I have got to. I have to spend about an hour in the shower as it takes me a long time to wash (even with support) so I have had to limit the amount of showers I have. I used to shower every other day, now it’s every 10 days on average. I’m smelly, I’m so cold, my pain levels have increased due to the cold so my mobility has reduced and I am stuck indoors, in bed, to try to stay warm.”
And another: “I survived childhood cancer to become a disabled adult. I had so many hopes for my life but now each day I regret not dying of cancer. My life is not dignified.”
“I became disabled with constant chronic lower back pain and neuropathy caused by my physically demanding work as a nurse, helping to care for the sick people in this country,” wrote another respondent. “During my work as a district nurse I witnessed older, sick and disabled people freezing and starving in their homes because of low income. I never dreamed that my reward for helping them would be to end up living in the same poverty.”
MP Marsha De Cordova acknowledged that the responses were dire. “In response to the ongoing cost of living emergency and energy crisis, 93% of respondents have had to limit their use of energy,” she said, according to the Northumberland Gazette. “76% are limiting their use of transport, and 60% have limited their use of specialist equipment. Over half have had to reduce their use of medication.”
The vulnerability of persons with disabilities, with the specter of legal assisted suicide on the horizon for the UK, has concerned disability groups looking to Canada, where the issue has already come to a head. On January 5th of this year, “53 disability and human rights organizations” penned an open letter to Justin Trudeau sounding the alarm about the expansion of euthanasia beyond those with terminal illnesses to those with mental illness and disability.
When assisted suicide became legal in Canada in 2016, the law required that death already be “reasonably foreseeable,” but as of 2023, that requirement has been removed and now assisted suicide will soon be available on the basis of mental health alone. Already Canada’s lenient euthanasia laws have resulted in a rate of assisted suicide that is 22 times higher than that in the U.S., as Live Action News noted.
“Canada shows that laws of this kind are inherently unsafe and unpredictable,” said Dr. Miro Griffiths, spokesperson for the Better Way campaign.
The prospect of legalized assisted suicide looms over the most vulnerable, according disability rights activist and British peer Jane Campbel. “[Assisted suicide] is very scary to disabled people in this country. We depend on our doctors, on our caregivers, to give us help and support to live. To have faith in our lives because that helps us to have hope and enables us to encounter and overcome the barriers we have in our lives,” she said, according to Live Action News.
In the meantime, ordinary Brits with disabilities need immediate help and an urgent message from their government that when the British people are suffering, they will receive real assistance – not be handed a way to end their lives.
