320: ‘Death on demand’ | Danny Kruger on assisted dying

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🗓️ 28 November 2024

⏱️ 9 minutes

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This is the audio from a video we have just published on our YouTube channel – an interview with Danny Kruger. To make sure you never miss great content like this, subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/@spiked

There is no ‘safe’ way to legalise assisted dying, warns Conservative MP Danny Kruger on spiked today ahead of Friday’s House of Commons vote. Talking to Fraser Myers, he argues that a ‘right to die’ would force the NHS to offer ‘death on demand’. For all the talk of the ‘safeguards’ in the proposed bill, the experience of countries like Canada shows that mission creep is inevitable. There, assisted dying is routinely offered to those who don’t ask for it, and as a substitute for proper care. He urges his fellow MPs to reject this dangerous bill.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Fraser Myers, Deputy Editor of Spiked, and I'm delighted to be joined in conversation with Danny Kruger, Conservative MP for East Wiltshire and prominent advocate against assisted dying. Danny, welcome.
0:14.2	Pleasure. Hello, Fraser. We've got the assisted dying bill coming up on Friday. We can talk a little bit about the details a bit later, but why in
0:23.7	principle do you think it's important that this bill is rejected? What's really at stake here?
0:29.6	Well, thanks. Yes. I mean, there are a whole series of practical objections to the bill, which,
0:33.8	you know, we should get into. I think for most colleagues, those are going to be the significant ones,
0:38.3	because you might accept, in principle, the case for a change in the law.
0:43.1	And there are many, I think, very decent reasons why people might think that.
0:47.1	But I do object to the bill on more general grounds as well.
0:52.8	I think that it's impossible to phrase a law like
0:56.8	this that won't have mission creep, the expansion of its scope inherent in it. And even if it
1:03.7	doesn't expand much, the changes that it will bring about in our society, I think, are pretty
1:09.7	significant. Because once you've
1:12.2	decided that some people will be better off dead, and we can all imagine circumstances in which
1:18.6	we could think that of somebody or of ourselves, nevertheless for the state to create a class of
1:23.8	people who it's prepared to give an assisted death to, but use language isn't too
1:32.1	inflammatory, but you know what I'm talking about. Then that changes the whole relationship
1:37.3	between the ill, the frail, the elderly and doctors.
1:49.4	And I think it introduces into our culture a very dangerous idea.
1:55.4	So leaving aside the inherent mission creep of the bill,
2:00.2	leaving aside the direct threat that I think it poses to people who are vulnerable,
2:02.0	particularly disabled people, but people who are vulnerable, particularly disabled people,
2:08.1	but people who are lonely or potentially subject to coercion by others, or those who just feel that they're a burden and the best thing for their families and for the healthcare system to be
	...

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