Activists ‘terrified’ as MPs debate legalising assisted suicide while government proposes PIP cuts

Disabled activists protesting outside parliament have spoken of their horror at the government releasing new plans to cut disability benefits on the same day MPs were debating the idea of legalising assisted suicide.

There are fears that yet more cuts to the support disabled people rely on to live independently will only exert more pressure on them to take their own lives if assisted suicide is eventually legalised.

Activists from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) joined Not Dead Yet UK, which leads disabled people’s opposition to legalisation in the UK, across the road from parliament on Monday, just yards from a larger rival action by those pushing for legalisation.

Actor, writer and comedian Liz Carr (pictured), whose documentary highlighting the dangers of legalisation will be broadcast on BBC1 later this month*, was one of the disabled activists raising concerns about the apparent political momentum enjoyed by those seeking new laws.

That momentum includes the announcement by Labour leader Keir Starmer last month that he was in favour of a change in the law in England and Wales, and that he would make parliamentary time for legislation to be debated – albeit with a free vote for MPs – if his party wins the next general election.

On Monday, as the two rival rallies took place across the road, MPs debated a petition that called for a parliamentary vote on the issue (see separate story).

Carr told Disability News Service (DNS) she was terrified by the government’s latest personal independence payment (PIP) proposals.

She said: “I don’t even think the other side will make the connection over how terrifying that feels to disabled people yet again.

“We know disabled people have killed themselves because of DWP reforms in the past.

“That’s what terrifies me: the kind of thing happening in Canada where people for socio-economic reasons are choosing to end their lives through euthanasia.”

She said she was “fed up” with the continuing complaints from those supporting legislation that parliament was not listening to them.

In February, a cross-party committee of MPs rejected attempts by a minority of its members to try to use a new report to push the government towards legalising assisted suicide in England and Wales.

Even after the committee’s report and eight failed attempts to persuade parliament to legalise assisted suicide over the last two decades, she said supporters of legalisation were still complaining that MPs and peers were “not listening”.

She said: “No, they are not giving you the answer you want.

“On the same day that we are listening about PIP reform and about disabled people being labelled as scroungers, it’s more important than ever to say let’s give disabled people support in life and choice over their life.”

She added: “This is about everybody, actually, it’s about all marginalised people, not just disabled people.”

She later told other protesters opposing legalisation: “I know it’s hard being a small group of people, but I absolutely believe that if the public in general could hear our side then I think they would be far less likely to support assisted suicide.”

Andy Greene, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, said the decision to publish the PIP proposals on the same day as the assisted suicide debate was “not so subtle”.

He told DNS: “We are an easy target in terms of political targeting. We are the go-to group for cuts to services, for cuts to income, for building a narrative around, because we are seen as an easy target.

“It’s a message and not so subtle a message to the public and to disabled people about where the direction of travel is.”

He said he believed the momentum towards legislation appeared to be “unstoppable, inevitable” which had left him “genuinely horrified”.

He said he had seen the “slippery slope” in other countries where assisted suicide has been legalised and has gradually been extended to more and more groups of disabled people.

He said: “That’s inevitable once it comes in. The catchment broadens and broadens and broadens every time, without fail.”

He said he had wanted to be at the protest “because it’s important disabled people are represented in this debate.

“We are the people who have the most at stake here and, as history has shown us, we have the most to lose.

“You feed the worst in people when you legislate for this.”

Nick Saunders, a member of the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network (DAN), said: “We want help to live, not to die. It’s a matter of life and death, nothing more, nothing less.

“We fought for public transport, for independent living; now we are fighting for our own lives.”

Paula Peters, another member of DPAC’s national steering group, said the government’s move to publish its plans for further cuts to support on the day of the assisted suicide debate made her want to “throw rocks” at parliament, and had caused her “anger and huge anxiety”.

She said it would “ramp up” disabled people’s feelings that they were “a burden on society”.

She said: “To launch a consultation on PIP the day of the assisted dying debate is rubbing salt in the wounds.”

She added: “Disabled people will feel they are better off dead because they can’t afford to live.”

Peters said disabled people “need assistance to live, not to die”, including properly-funded social care and palliative care systems.

Nikki Kenward, campaign director of The Distant Voices, a user-led campaign group which opposes euthanasia and assisted suicide, told DNS she was “very concerned” at the momentum behind legalisation and now believed it would happen.

She said safeguards had failed in prisons, schools, children’s homes and within the police, so there was no reason why any safeguards would work with assisted suicide laws.

Another disabled campaigner, Nan Whitehouse, aged 91, told DNS that the idea of legalising assisted suicide was “very, very dangerous”.

She said: “Once you decide that human life is disposable, there is no halting it.”

*Better Off Dead? will air on BBC One and iPlayer on Tuesday 14 May at 9pm

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