Societies that legalise assisted suicide are sanctioning the destruction of lives, according to a humanist academic and author.
Dr Kevin Yuill, author of ‘The Liberal, Humanist Case Against Assisted Suicide’, was responding to the news that Guernsey will hold a vote on whether or not to legalise the practice.
If the motion passes in May, guidelines will be drawn up to determine when it should be permitted.
‘Wrong’
But Dr Yuill is warning against the dangers of legalised assisted suicide.
“We should not as a society sanction the destruction of the lives of others”.
He added, “it is wrong to take a life simply because it is wretched”.
The senior lecturer in American History at the University of Sunderland also took aim at groups like Dignity in Dying, formerly known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, who have sought to ‘rebrand’ assisted suicide to make it more palatable to the public.
‘No line’
He added, “can we please call someone purposefully ingesting poison suicide rather than the euphemistic ‘assisted dying’?”
Dr Yuill went on: “The truth is that no line that can be drawn has any moral or ethical basis.
“If we allow assisted suicide for some, we are really not that far away from the situation in the Netherlands, where 29-year-old Aurelia Brouwers, who suffered from severe mental but no physical disease, drank poison under the supervision of a doctor.”
‘Open to abuse’
Dr Peter Saunders, of Care Not Killing, has also urged Guernsey not to legalise assisted suicide arguing it would place an intolerable burden on vulnerable people.
“The bottom line is… if you change the law to allow it, you inevitably end up putting pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives out of fear of being a financial or emotional burden upon others,” he commented.
“These proposals are deeply flawed and, as we have seen in the tiny number of countries that have introduced similar laws, are open to abuse and incremental extension”, he added.
Assisted suicide remains illegal in the UK. A Bill to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales was soundly defeated in the House of Commons in 2015 by 330 votes to 118.
