- The whole idea of “assisted dying” relies on equal choice but that’s nowhere near the truth for many of us.
- By the very legal definition, everyone directly concerned will be a disabled person (<6 months to live with a (terminal) health condition).
- But is the track record of the medics, the policymakers, and the various Government agencies safe enough when it comes to our life-or-death decisions? I suggest not.
Just take the NHS. It’s been recognised that those of us with visual or hearing impairments have worse health outcomes than others. Its simple stuff. The health sector is still poor at accessible communications 14 years after the Equality Act. If we can’t trust them with something so straightforward, will they do better with assisted dying?
“Do Not Resuscitate” (DNR) creeps unknown into some of our medical records. Covid proved the point when many discovered that fatal acronym on their hospital notes. It was a lesson as to how medics and “exigencies of circumstances” can run rough-shod over our right to life.
Other policymakers risk the same when we aren’t represented and don’t have a voice. Instead, we are constantly reminded of how much we cost the country.
It wasn’t for nothing that the United Nation’s Committee on the Convention on the rights of Persons with Disabilities condemned the UK track record just a few months ago. They describe the appalling shortfalls, lives of poverty without the help we need and worse. The “negative stereotypes and stigma attached to us colour attitudes and decisions so that we aren’t treated the same but, often, very much worse.
- Before we debate the idea of “assisted dying”, we need society, decision-makers, and health professionals to give equal value to the lives of every one of us. There’s a long way to go yet.