We remove the taboo on assisted dying at our peril

Oct 14, 2024 by

by Sebastian Milbank, Telegraph:

Legalising euthanasia is the thin end of the wedge, as other countries are already finding out.

On Monday, in a remote forest on the Swiss-German border, a surreal scene played out. A gleaming blue and white capsule, stands poised and waiting, looking like a rocket about to take off. A 64 year old woman is sealed within the device, gazing out from behind a transparent window. She presses a button within the machine, and it gradually fills with nitrogen gas. Her breathing slows, her eyes close. She is dead.

The woman, still unnamed, is the first person to die via the “Sarco suicide pod”. A photographer was on hand to capture the moment, and two people who assisted in the death have been arrested by the Swiss police.

But what they have been arrested for is not so clear. In Switzerland, assisting a suicide is not a crime. Already, people come from across the world to end their lives with the assistance of Swiss clinics, including hundreds of British nationals. By some estimates, someone in Britain goes to die in Switzerland every week.

Support for legalising euthanasia in the UK is high. According to a 2020 YouGov poll, as much as 61 per cent of the population support legalisation. However, as Monday’s news illustrates, our debate has lagged far behind the global pace of technological and social change.

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