Andrew Marr: Should we make it much easier for people who are dying to end their lives?

3 October 2024, 18:21

By Andrew Marr

@AndrewMarr9

The biggest moral dilemma facing MPs this autumn - the matter of assisted dying.

Should we make it - much - easier for people who are dying to end their lives?

This moral dilemma is one MPs will face later this month because Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley and sister of Jo Cox, who was so appallingly murdered, has come top of the ballot for private members to introduce bills in the Commons and she has chosen choice at the end of life.

Now. on the one hand, think of all those who are, right now, suffering from agonising, incurable diseases, bone cancer, motor neurone disease, CPRS; or facing dementia and the loss of dignity, and are desperate to end it, still lucid, still clean? Isn’t it cruel to deny them that right?

But on the other hand, legalised euthanasia would mark a big shift in how we think about human life.

Traditionally, suicide is seen as something horrific, shameful, to be shunned.

What about the slippery slope? Moral pressure, subtle or otherwise, to leave life…  to take a burden off others or even for financial reasons.?

Many of us have been through periods of hopelessness and perhaps later feel lucky we weren’t able to easily end things on the darkest days.

Speaking for myself I feel agonised about this issue, torn completely down the middle.