The rapid increase in the number of euthanasia and assisted suicide regimes may, in part at least, point to a failure by families and other support networks to show vulnerable people they are truly loved and valued.

Advocates for euthanasia and assisted dying often cite the stories of those who experienced or witnessed others experiencing the debilitating symptoms of life-limiting diseases like cancer or motor neurone disease. They speak of the loss of mobility, or intolerable pain as reasons why people choose to take their own lives. 

Reading between the lines, the motive for some making this choice may be wanting to exert control over a situation that is, to a large degree, beyond human control. Some even readily admit that this is the reason behind their choice. Yet for others, choosing to deliberately end their lives may be a sign that they were failed by those who had the greatest responsibility for ensuring their wellbeing.

A cry for help

In her article on assisted suicide, Canada’s Assisted Suicide Regime Is the West’s Cry for Help, Kathryn Lopez draws attention to the underlying reasons for the expansion of euthanasia laws in the West. She notes the experience of one patient who had requested assisted suicide until he realised that it was the feeling of being abandoned by his family that was making his feel that way. Once the realisation was made, the idea of killing himself no longer held any attraction.

Lopez also writes of an order of religious nuns who nurse patients at the end of their lives. She says the nuns have found that their loving attention and literal end-of-life “care” means that their vulnerable patients never request to be euthanised.

That the burgeoning euthanasia industry reflects a failure to care for the vulnerable is reflected in statements by medical professionals. One of those is Dr Bojana Beovic, president of the Medical Chamber of Slovenia. Assisted suicide was recently legalised in Slovenia following a referendum and was opposed by Dr. Beovic. She notes that this kind of law ignores the reasons why vulnerable people choose assisted suicide, offering them death instead of assistance with solving their problems. She says, 

“Their life is coming to an end, they are elderly, they do not feel they are useful in society, and the best thing is that they leave this world and their family members. The law is formed in a way that there is no method that is acceptable to the patient himself for relieving his troubles and improving his state”.

Alarming abuses and statistics

Questions about family support and safeguarding measures become more urgent when current statistics are analysed. In jurisdictions where assisted suicide is legal, those statistics are alarming. For example, in New Zealand, assisted suicides and euthanasia have seen a 37% increase over the past year, and now account for 1.25% of all deaths. Notably, fewer doctors are willing to provide assisted suicide and euthanasia, with the number falling by twenty over the past two years. Could it be that doctors realise they are not acting in their patients’ best interests by suggesting they kill themselves?

In the Netherlands, a staggering 10,000 people per year are being put to death by euthanasia or assisted suicide. This includes children under the age of 18 and even babies under 12 months. Psychiatric patients are increasingly requesting assisted suicide and non-terminal, elderly subjects have become common.

Yet even the Netherlands lags behind Canada in terms of sheer numbers, with 15,000 deaths being recorded there in 2023. Kathryn Lopez cites terrifying examples of Canadians who have been put to death for merely experiencing mental illness or homelessness, with even deafness being grounds for Medical Assistance in Dying  (MAID). This prompts us to question why families and friends are not ensuring that their loved ones are being protected from overzealous or unscrupulous advocates of euthanasia and assisted suicide. As well as reducing the desire for an early death, close interpersonal relationships should provide a built-in safeguard for vulnerable people.

This becomes even more important as the evidence of systemic failures in safeguarding against abuses grows. A Freedom of Information investigation in British Columbia recently revealed that the oversight unit of its MAID programme is recording a huge number of mistakes and safety violations.  This includes a rate of error among assessments for assisted suicide at almost 5%, meaning that in one year around 135 people who failed to meet the criteria were put to death. Also recorded in its files are thousands of paperwork errors and a significant conflict of interest involving a senior MAID administrator.

Left behind

It is not always the patients who choose assisted dying that are the victims in this scenario. Just as with a non-medical suicide, loved ones are often left behind to deal with the aftermath. 

A recent tragic story exemplifies the trauma suffered by those who aren’t aware of their loved ones’ intention to take their own lives. A British woman who committed assisted suicide at a Swiss clinic had told her family she was going on holiday. Even her partner was unaware of her intention. The family was notified after the fact by a text message notifying them that their mother’s ashes would be sent to them by post. The family is concerned that the woman may not have been in her right mind when she made the decision and is seeking action against the assisted suicide provider.

Under proposed assisted dying legislation in the UK, there is no obligation for families to be involved in their loved one’s decision. Speaking about the case, a spokesman for UK Right to Life noted that, “It is precisely those in the best position to provide support in living, the family, who are not required to be involved at any stage and who may only find out about the death of a loved one after it has already happened”.

Even among those who approve of assisted suicide, there lurks the suspicion that the needs of their loved ones were not being met. Family members left behind allude to unknown levels of pain or unnoticed feelings of loneliness or of being a burden. These are serious regrets for people to harbour after an irreversible decision like assisted suicide.

We must learn from abortion

Kathryn Lopez points to a normalisation on the part of medical authorities who want to make suggesting an early death for a loved one as mainstream as the choice to abort one’s own child. Indeed, as with abortion, the media is also playing a large role in pushing the pro-euthanasia narrative. Yet, as with abortion, cracks in the system are already evident, as is the deep regret of those who failed to protect their loved ones in their time of greatest need. 

It is to be hoped that this latest attempt at playing God will be halted before it plays out to the same extent as has abortion, which has ravaged society by its cruel disregard for human life. The antidote to both these scourges is a return to a truly sacrificial love which sees through temporary crises to the hope of a better life beyond.

by Kathy Clubb