When citizens can request to die in the morning and be gone by supper, surely that is a step too far?

Buy now and pay later, a night out over a good night’s sleep, high-calorie, MSG-loaded junk food over the healthier option, same-day expedited delivery.

But when citizens can request to die in the morning and be gone by supper, surely that is a step too far? The state has then made ending a life a service, available on demand.

Fanciful, some might say, but Canada is already there.

Ontario’s Medical Assistance in Dying Death Review Committee reported in their latest data that in 2023, 65 people had their lives ended on the same day they requested it. A further 154 died the next day.

It is easy to see these as just numbers, but they are human lives being foreshortened by bureaucracy.

Among them was “Mrs B”, a woman in her eighties. After surgery complications, she sought palliative care and desired to live, but hospice palliative care was denied, prompting her husband to renew her request for assisted death. Two practitioners approved it, despite one explicitly warning of “coercion or undue influence”. Mrs B was dead within hours.

One member of Ontario’s review committee, Dr Ramona Coelho, later said that the priority should have been palliative support. She was right, but in a system now structured to prioritise delivery over discernment, the machinery moved too fast.

Canada once required a ten-day waiting period between a request for assisted suicide or euthanasia and the act itself. Their parliament removed it in 2021 for those whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable”. No one defined what that meant. No clear limits remain. The result is legal provision of same-day suicides.

Some members of the Ontario review committee have expressed concerns that some people turn to euthanasia simply because it is easier to access than good-quality end-of-life care. The system provides death as a permanent solution to inadequate medical care, reversing healthcare's core principle of healing and comfort. That indignity is what makes Canada’s case a warning, particularly for Britain.

Under England and Wales's assisted suicide bill, which has now fallen and will not become law, an individual could have found themselves dead within just nine days of expressing their wish.

In the case of the Scotland Bill, this timeline was even shorter: just 48 hours. What pro-assisted suicide lobby groups present to the public and to parliamentarians as “compassion” and “choice” quickly devolves into a bureaucratic process of rubber-stamping approvals.

Indeed, Canada’s legislation is proof that once lawmakers grow comfortable with permitting assisted suicide and euthanasia, the regulations tend to become more lenient over time. They rarely become stricter, even when jurisdictions face evidence of dangers and instances of wrongful deaths surfacing.

Of course, despite being granted unprecedented time for a Private Members’ Bill, the England and Wales Bill has now fallen in the House of Lords at Committee Stage following the prorogation of Parliament and will not become law. The Scottish Bill floundered in March following a Stage 3 defeat by 69 votes to 57. However, on both sides of the border, pro-assisted suicide zealots have said they intend to revisit the issue in their respective new parliamentary sessions.

Meanwhile, the UK’s palliative care system is already on the brink. Marie Curie reports that 170,000 people in England die each year without proper care, as Bill campaigners prioritise offering suicide over support for the dying.

The fact that Canadians can transition from initial request to death within a single day is shocking, all while access to palliative care remains limited. This situation should raise serious concerns for Britain.

When the state can issue a death within a day but denies access to essential care, it betrays a perversely warped understanding of compassion, one which contributes to rather than alleviates suffering.

-----

Fleur Meston is a political commentator based in London

LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.

To contact us email opinion@lbc.co.uk