Disabled actor and activist Liz Carr has described her hopes that her BBC1 documentary about assisted suicide will finally explain the dangers of legalisation to a mainstream audience.
Better Off Dead?, to be broadcast on Tuesday (14 May) at 9pm, sees Carr travel to Canada to examine the impact of some of the most permissive assisted suicide laws in the world, but she also interviews two key campaigners who support legalisation in the UK.
She told Disability News Service (DNS) that she believed her documentary (pictured) was particularly important in the context of years of austerity cuts, and the rates of suicides already linked to austerity and the actions of the Department for Work and Pensions.
Legalising assisted suicide, she said, would be even more dangerous at a time when “we are absolutely removing our welfare state, and we are dismantling our incredible NHS”.
Last week, at a protest outside the Houses of Parliament, she told DNS she was terrified by the government’s latest proposals to cut spending on personal independence payment.
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.”
In Canada, she interviewed Amir Farsoud, a disabled man from Ontario, who requested an assisted suicide because his landlord was planning to sell off his apartment building, and he was terrified at the prospect of being left homeless on the freezing streets.
He eventually changed his mind about seeking an assisted suicide after a crowd-funding effort raised tens of thousands of dollars to support him.
He told Carr – best known for her role in BBC drama Silent Witness, but also a prominent member of the disabled people’s movement – that it was easier and quicker in Canada to apply for medical assistance in dying (assisted suicide) than disability benefits.
Carr also told journalists and other guests at an event previewing her documentary that it was “quite frightening” to have the Labour party led by someone, Keir Starmer, who is in favour of assisted suicide.
She said: “I’ve always been a little bit worried about Starmer getting in power, because he introduced the guidelines [on prosecuting cases of assisted suicide, in 2010] when he was director of public prosecutions.
“I’ve known he’s been pro, we all have, for over 10 years.”
She said this was “quite frightening” and “makes it difficult for voters like me to know what to do for the next election”.
Asked if she had a message for Starmer, she said: “I would say, please watch the documentary.
“I want you to talk to those who have concerns. Don’t sideline us as being marginalized and religious. There are a lot of people who are really concerned.”
She also spoke of the “chilling” attitude of Canadian doctor Dr Ellen Wiebe – who is herself disabled – who has provided assisted suicide to hundreds of Canadians since it was legalised and is shown in the documentary telling Carr she was “so glad, so glad” that they had medical assistance in dying laws in Canada.
She told her: “I love my job. This is the very best work I have ever done.”
Wiebe is also shown saying that she had never had so many grateful patients, which Carr said was “one of the most terrifying things in the documentary”.
She said: “When she says that doctors like grateful patients, that is chilling to me.
“And as somebody that’s had a lot of involvement with, you know, medics, that really frightens me.”
Carr told the audience at the preview event: “If we ask the question, ‘Do you want to stop dying people’s suffering?’ everybody has to say yes to that, or you’re a psychopath.
“We all, I believe, want everyone to have a good death, so the answer is how we do that.
“And the only difference between me and [those supporting legalisation] is how you do that. That’s the only difference.
“I don’t want people to suffer. I want people to have a good death. I just think people will suffer more if we introduce assisted suicide.”
And she said there was “an absolute PR machine that keeps [legalisation] in the news and tells us that we’re going to get a change in the law. It’s not if, it’s when.”
But she said there was “nothing inevitable about it, nothing at all… I still think it’s time for a conversation and it’s not inevitable.”
Carr said she did not understand why those fighting for legalisation did not put their resources into pushing for improved healthcare and palliative care, or “into giving people choice and control in their lives”.
She said: “Because choice isn’t choice when you’ve got no choice. It absolutely isn’t.
“And I meet people in my life who are suffering absolutely because they do not have choices in their life.”
One of the things she wanted to do with the documentary, she said, was to ensure that the disabled activists who are “a big part of my life” and “who have waited for this voice for years… feel heard and seen”.
A series of disabled actors, artists and activists opposed to legalisation are either seen on film or interviewed in the documentary, including Lisa Hammond, Ellen Clifford, Jamie Hale, Paula Peters, Eleanor Lisney, Penny Pepper and disabled peers Baroness [Jane] Campbell and Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson.
During the film, Carr also interviews some of those who have campaigned for legalisation in the UK, including Labour peer Lord Falconer, and disabled journalist Melanie Reid.
Reid tells her she has “a human right to decide what happens to my body”, while Lord Falconer says the need for legalisation is “about control… not about the intensity of the pain… there are a group of people who will always want to be in control”.
But Carr said that, while filming her interview with Reid at her home in Scotland, “actually, most of the time we shared the experiences of being two disabled women, living in contemporary society, and the struggles and the fights to get our care needs met”.
A note from the editor:
Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.
Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.
Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…
Title of assisted suicide bill is ‘misleading’ and ‘argumentative’, say disabled campaigners