We are walking on dangerous territory with the passing of the UK’s Assisted Dying Bill because it poses a serious threat to the safety and rights of society’s most vulnerable individuals. Legalizing assisted dying even with safeguards leads to a dangerous risk normalizing the idea that some lives are no longer worth living particularly the lives of the elderly, disabled, and chronically ill. These people are already at heightened risk of inadequate care and will experience feelings of being a burden to their loved ones, one example being my grandparents. How would your grandparents feel ?? Having to constantly rely on someone. Introducing the legal option of assisted death may strengthen these feelings then leading to them more likely to choose death from despair and pressure. No set of legal safeguards can fully protect against coercion or the influence of psychological pressure.
Furthermore, the idea that the bill is strictly limited to terminally ill adults fails to acknowledge how similar laws in other countries have expanded over time. In places like Canada and the Netherlands the initial restrictions have gradually loosened to include those with non-terminal conditions or mental health issues. Does anyone not see a problem here ?? We are walking on a very slippery slope.
To Add On,
Passing the bill would undermine efforts to improve palliative care in the UK which right now to this day still remains underfunded. Instead of investing in the compassionate care that addresses physical pain or psychological suffering that any loved one would want their families to have when it comes to a time where death is imminent, individuals would instead choose this irrational way of dying. This would be a failure of public policy and healthcare ethics especially in such a developed country such as the United Kingdom.
People need to understand that by legalizing assisted dying it brings risks that destroy the social commitment to care for people in their most vulnerable moments. There would be no clear line between palliative care and abandonment, doctors would not be viewed as healers but as the supervisors to death. Rather than offering a dignified end that so many people think it would, it would instead change society’s values to devalue life. The United Kingdom must stop.
Xin Yu 21/06/2025