Sonia Sodha makes an excellent point about the assisted dying bill in saying, “I’m not sure we can prevent people choosing assisted suicide because they feel they are a burden or would rather pass money on to their kids than spend it on care.” (The assisted dying debate: Charles Falconer and the Observer’s Sonia Sodha tackle the issues, Focus) We couldn’t, and that deserves more attention.
Huge numbers of Britons would die voluntarily, refusing to be a trouble to others and to burden the state, if assisted dying became legal. We live in a society acutely aware of the pressures faced by the NHS, and the sense of being a burden would be felt the most keenly by the most helpless. If the assisted dying bill were to pass, they would know that all they had to do to end the feeling of guilt would be to die. The only sufficient safeguard for the vast majority of us is the law as it stands. It also motivates us to ask for better palliative solutions – and motivates the medical community to seek them.
Marina Bowder
Steventon, Abingdon, Oxfordshire
