• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Human Rights / Assisted dying bill: Disabled people have most to fear from ‘arm around the shoulder’

Assisted dying bill: Disabled people have most to fear from ‘arm around the shoulder’

By John Pring on 14th November 2014 Category: Human Rights, News Archive

Listen

newslatestIf assisted suicide was legalised, disabled people would have most to fear from the widespread public attitude that they were “better off dead”, according to a disabled peer.

Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson was speaking during the committee stage of the Labour peer Lord Falconer’s assisted dying bill, which resumed its progress through the House of Lords on 7 November.

The bill would make it legal for doctors to help end the lives of those they judged to be terminally-ill, if the individual requested such help.

The retired Paralympian, now a prominent disability rights campaigner and crossbench peer, was responding to concerns raised by another crossbench peer, Baroness Finlay, a professor of palliative medicine and the current British Medical Association president.

Baroness Finlay pointed out “just how vulnerable people are to suggestion [from their doctor or other clinician] and how easy it is for a consultation to steer down one road and in that process inadvertently forget the other therapeutic options that might be open, might need to be explored and might need a little bit of thinking outside the box”.

Baroness Grey-Thompson agreed and said she was particularly concerned about the “gentle suggestion that people should consider ending their lives – the arm around the shoulder”.

She said: “For me, this is about the constant drip-drip of, ‘You’re not worth it.’”

She told fellow peers about another opponent of the bill who “looked at me and sort of waved at the wheelchair and said, ‘Well, you must have considered killing yourself hundreds of times.’

“No, I have not, actually, and I think that it was a bit of a surprise to him.”

She added: “People do not realise that they are being demeaning. I think that they genuinely think that they are being empathetic, sympathetic and kind, but, actually, you are constantly being knocked down and told that you have no value and no worth.

“That is what is of much greater concern to me.”

She added: “It is the arm around the shoulder. It is that constantly being told, ‘You’d be better off dead.’ That is what disabled people face every single day.”

Baroness Grey-Thompson also raised concerns about how funding for health services had been cut in the US state of Oregon after it legalised assisted suicide.

She said: “In 1994, the Oregon medical assistance programme cut funding to 167 out of 700 health services.

“Four years later, assisted suicide started being referred to as a ‘treatment’.

“On the back of that, funding was cut to 150 services for disabled people.

“They started limiting funded doses of powerful pain medication and put barriers in the way of funding for anti-depressants.”

She told the debate that her fellow disabled crossbench peer Baroness [Jane] Campbell had not been able to attend the debate because of a chest infection.

She said: “She is watching at home on her ventilator. We all know what a chest infection does for her prognosis.

“It immediately switches her from being OK to fitting in with the category of having less than six months to live [the category of person that the bill would cover if it became law].”

She said: “That is not a situation that I am very comfortable with.”

10 November 2014 

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on RedditShare on LinkedIn

Tags: assisted dying bill assisted suicide Falconer Grey-Thompson House of Lords

A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Related

Disabled peers plan to ‘amend, amend, amend, amend, amend’ after assisted dying bill reaches Lords
26th June 2025
This bill opens the door to scandal, abuse and injustice, disabled activists say after assisted dying bill vote
26th June 2025
Absence of disabled people’s voices from assisted dying bill has been ‘astonishing’, says disabled MP
26th June 2025

Primary Sidebar

On the left of the image are multiple heads of different colours - white, aqua, red, light brown, and dark green - all grouped together, then the words ‘Campaign for Disability Justice. Sign up to support. #OpportunitySecurityRespect’
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Access

Latest Stories

Government ignores warnings of new DWP deaths, and UN intervention, as MPs pass universal credit cuts bill

Urgent letter from UN to Labour government warns: We think your cuts continue Tory attack on disability rights

Race against time to secure DWP deaths evidence before parliament passes new benefit cuts bill

‘Complete shift in thinking’ needed on education of disabled children, says ALLFIE

Minister ignored concerns from disabled advisers, months before publishing cuts bill

Frustration after government only issues partial ban on new floating bus stops

Report suggests five big ideas that could transform disabled people’s mobility

My new book shows exactly why we need the disability movement, says disabled author

‘Disastrous’ cuts bill that leaves legacy of distrust and distress ‘must be dropped’

Four disabled Labour MPs stand up to government over cuts to disability benefits

Advice and Information

Readspeaker
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Threads
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web