Our politicians will have to think seriously about the unintended effects that legalising ‘State-assisted dying’ will have on the health service. There is a danger of it corrupting the whole practice of medicine.

CORRUPTING THE HEALTH SERVICE
Legal euthanasia makes killing the norm, not the exception.

After euthanasia was legalised in the Netherlands, the attitude of Dutch physicians towards pain treatments that shortened life changed. Continuous Deep Sedations, in which a patient is sedated for the final phase of life without hydration or food, rose from 5.6 per cent of all deaths in 2001 to over 22% of all deaths now. Dutch euthanasia deaths are now at roughly 6,500 per year, more than 4% of all deaths in Holland. Combining these figures means that over a quarter of all deaths in Holland are now medically induced. The whole culture of medicine has been changed. State killing has become the norm.

HOSPICES COULD BE FORCED TO CLOSE DUE TO FUNDING BEING AXED.
Some care providers in Canada are already seeing their funding threatened because they are unwilling to refer patients for euthanasia.

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION RIGHTS WILL COME UNDER ATTACK.
Canadian healthcare professionals who wish to conscientiously object to being involved in the process have seen their rights eroded. To understand how conscientious objections rights in Scotland will come under attack from a change in the law, you just have to read the euthanasia lobby groups’ stated intentions.

Sarah Wootton, the Chief Executive of Dignity in Dying, has written, “Every interaction with a clinician should prompt a review of people’s end-of-life wishes. Of course, some people may not want to discuss this subject, and the consequences of that should be explained and ultimately respected, but not providing the option to plan ahead should be viewed as clinical negligence, in the same way that withholding pain relief would be!”

Please protect the NHS from harmful and corrupting influences, protect the conscientious objection rights of healthcare professionals, properly fund palliative care and oppose ‘State-assisted dying’.