There's a 'Very Clear Problem' With Assisted Suicide

Medically assisted dying can seem the "logical" and "compassionate" route when a terminally ill patient seems to have nothing but pain and suffering in their future, concedes journalist Louise Perry. But Perry, whose native UK recently saw its lawmakers greenlight plans to legalize assisted suicide, notes in her column for the New York Times that "every one" of the nations and US states in which medically assisted dying is permissible "has a total fertility rate below the replacement threshold." She adds: "I do not think this is a coincidence." To bolster her argument, Perry looks to the dystopian novel The Children of Men (made into a similarly named movie with Clive Owen), in which state-sanctioned mass suicides are forced upon the elderly and infirm, with Perry fearing that author PD James' "vision is already being realized" in the real world.

That's because, per Perry, when fertility rates drop, so do the numbers of younger workers that fund social safety nets that take care of a society's older members. And that, in turn, leads to a "very clear problem," she writes. "The state, with its almighty power, is tasked with both paying for the support of the old and disabled and regulating their dying. Encouraging citizens to [undergo an assisted suicide] may seem like a cost-saving measure at a time when the financial burden of their care has never been greater." Add to that mix the fact that some nations are easing their criteria to qualify for an assisted suicide, and Perry sees the potential for bad news for society's most vulnerable members. Some (perhaps) good news for the US, though: "For all of the problems with the American health care system, its largely privatized structure means that it is less vulnerable to these perverse incentives." More here.