Why Wales must reject assisted dying

Rhys Mills 

It is important for me to be upfront at the start. I am not a medical expert. I am not an expert in palliative care.

I’ve spent the last few months trying to write this using my experience as a community champion, in the hope that this will contribute to one of the most important debates facing us as a nation.

In community centres, hospital waiting rooms, and neighbours’ kitchens, I have witnessed the best of our society’s compassion and the worst of its failings. I have sat with elderly residents who fear they’ve become a burden, listened to disabled friends voice anxiety about being “better off dead” in others’ eyes, and spoken with people in chronic pain or poverty who feel abandoned.

These are the experiences that fuel my alarm at the current Assisted Dying Bill being considered. This bill, which would legalise medically assisted death for the terminally ill, is portrayed by its supporters as a compassionate choice. But from where I stand, alongside the vulnerable members of our community, it looks less like compassion and more like a dangerous abandonment.

In the rush to legalise assisted dying, the vulnerable have become expendable. We must not let glossy slogans about “dignity in dying” blind us to the grave risks. We must come together as a nation and reject the Assisted Dying Bill.

In what follows, I will explain why legalising assisted suicide would disproportionately endanger our most vulnerable citizens: the elderly, the disabled, those living in poverty, and people with chronic mental or physical illness. True compassion means investing in care and safeguards, not offering a quicker death.

The Vulnerable

Proponents of assisted dying emphasise personal choice. But in reality, not everyone would truly have a free choice under such a law, especially not those who are already marginalised or vulnerable. Elderly people, disabled individuals, the chronically ill, and those in despair could be subtly (or not so subtly) steered toward ending their lives.

As a councillor, I see how easily choice can be distorted by circumstance.
Many seniors already worry about burdening their families. If assisted dying is legal, some may feel an unspoken expectation to “do the right thing” and shorten their lives.

Imagine a grandmother with a terminal diagnosis, choosing death not because she truly wants to die, but because she thinks it will spare her children a burden. It’s a tragically plausible scenario. In one case, an older woman sought an assisted death specifically to avoid being a burden, never giving her family the chance to say that caring for her was an act of love. No law should ever make our elders feel that their final duty is to die early.

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, the celebrated Paralympian and wheelchair user, has warned that changing the law could leave disabled people feeling they have no choice but to end their lives. What she means is that if assisted suicide is an option, a person with disabilities might sooner feel expected to justify their continued existence or face suggestions that “you could always choose assisted death.”

Value

Grey-Thompson stresses that our current law, which bans assisted dying, actually protects disabled people by affirming that every life has value. The law as it stands is a safeguard, and removing it would fundamentally alter the relationship between disabled individuals and society. We
must not send a message that society is willing to help you die instead of help you live.

As Plaid Cymru MS Delyth Jewell warned, every precedent shows that no safeguard is sacrosanct, a message no civilised society should promote. Canada offers a stark warning. Since legalising assisted dying, there have been disturbing cases of people choosing death not because of unbearable pain, but because
of poverty, isolation, and lack of support.

One woman with a chronic condition applied for assisted death because she couldn’t find adequate housing. Another sought it because she couldn’t live on her disability payments. They didn’t want to die they wanted help. When none came, death was made easier to access than dignity.

Is this what we want for Wales, a situation where, when social services fail, we offer a lethal injection? As a society, our response to suffering should be “How can we help you live?” not “Here’s how you can die.”

The Assisted Dying Bill ostensibly applies only to the terminally ill, but it pointedly does not exclude people who also have mental illnesses or psychological suffering alongside a terminal condition. Having depression, dementia, or other mental health challenges would not preclude someone from seeking a medically assisted death under the proposed law.

Depressed

That means a patient could be both clinically depressed and terminally ill and still be considered for assisted suicide. Yet we know depression can impair
judgement, and suicidal feelings can cloud one’s desire to live.

Normally, if a 19-year-old cancer patient expresses a wish to die, we’d surround him with psychiatric care and support. Under this bill, in contrast, a depressed 19-year-old diagnosed with terminal cancer can kill himself with medical assistance, and his parents only find out afterwards.

As The Observer pointed out, this is not just a chilling hypothetical. It highlights how quickly normalising death as a solution can undermine our entire approach to suicide prevention. How do we tell young people struggling with mental illness that their lives matter and suicide is not the answer, if at the same time we authorise doctors to facilitate suicide for others in despair?

Assisted dying would carve out a cruel double standard: some people’s suicides are to be prevented at all costs, while others are given official approval. The risk of normalising death as a treatment for suffering is real and extremely dangerous.

Battle

There is a deeper question that sits beneath this debate. What kind of country do we want to be? Do we want to tell people battling terminal illness, disability, or poverty that the most we can offer is an early death? Or do we want to invest in services that affirm their worth, ease their pain, and surround them with care until the end comes naturally?

Modern medicine means pain can be managed in nearly every case. Hospice care and palliative services already deliver good, peaceful deaths every day. But they are overstretched, underfunded, and geographically inconsistent. In Wales, access to palliative care is a postcode lottery. The moral response isn’t to legalise assisted suicide. It’s to build up a national palliative care system that makes sure no one has to choose between suffering and death.

If the campaigners for assisted dying poured their efforts into demanding investment in hospices, training for end of life carers, mental health support, and help for families, imagine the difference that would make. Dignity in dying isn’t just about control over how you die it’s about having a death that reflects the value of your life.

Flawed

Kim Leadbeater’s Private Member’s Bill, now making its way through Westminster, is flawed in design and dangerous in implication. The initial promise of judicial oversight has already been watered down. Provisions allowing for real investigation of coercion have been stripped away.

It permits proactive suggestions of assisted dying to patients approaching 18. And it fails to require that families even be informed before an assisted
death is approved. These are not safeguards they are loopholes.

The bill sets a precedent that will be difficult to contain. International examples show that wherever assisted dying is introduced, eligibility expands, oversight weakens, and vulnerable groups suffer. In attempting to legislate for compassion, it risks building a cold, bureaucratic system that ends lives without fully examining why those lives are in despair.

Vote of Conscience

Wales has already spoken once on this issue. In the last Senedd session, Members were granted a free vote on a motion regarding assisted dying. It was defeated. That should carry weight. It showed that our elected representatives, given the chance to reflect on the evidence and the ethical implications, chose to protect the vulnerable.

As this issue resurfaces, we must allow the Senedd to have the final say for Wales. This is not a matter that should be decided over our heads at Westminster. Health is devolved. So too must be this moral and legislative question. And when the time comes, Members must again be free to vote with their conscience not with the whip. Not along party lines. But as human beings tasked with protecting those who cannot protect themselves.

If we legislate to end lives, we cannot undo it. We cannot bring people back. But we can still invest in life. We can still choose care over killing. That is the choice I urge our nation to make.

I have pained over writing this since the Senedd debate. This is the 150th edit or more I am sure there will be other views and perspectives, and they deserve to be heard. But this conversation needs to start now and not be swept aside by the constant churn of a headline-driven news cycle. It is too important, too human, and too urgent to be left for another time.