Ralf Hassenhütl

There was never the choice to die; there was only the choice to attempt suicide and risk the deleterious outcome of a failed suicide attempt. And not everyone even had the choice of attempting suicide (particularly many people with severe disabilities).

The Orwellian language of "vulnerable" and "at risk" (of being allowed to make their own choice" and breach of "right to life" is just revolting and insulting. Nobody's "right to life" is being violated by permitting them freedom of choice.

It's for you to decide whether you "should" or not; and that's the whole point. Allowing people to die by suicide isn't a prescription for suicide; any more than allowing people to get tattoos is a prescription for people to get them. Once one is dead, one no longer needs any choices. Choices are only instrumentally valuable to have because, generally speaking, one has a better chance of obtaining what is in one's best interests if that person is themselves able to steer the ship, so to speak. Choice is what allows you to protect yourself from harm. But once you are dead, you're permanently protected from harm, so won't lose anything from not having the power to guide yourself away from harm.

This bill seems destined to fail like all the previous ones. What needs to happen is for the population to become fed up of being infantilised and demand a stop to the nanny state suicide prevention strategy. But the current trend seems to be towards demand for more infantilisation. People seem to be reaching biological adulthood, but afraid of being free to make adult decisions for themselves; but none more so than having the freedom to choose whether they live or die.

Most of the time, the religious lobby are hiding behind the 'woke' arguments about disabled people feeling devalued. Which are the arguments that they developed to lend a veneer of respectability to their stance (because they knew that 'my religion forbids suicide' was no longer going to be a viable point of opposition), and also to appeal to the values of leftists. And they've done this with a phenomenal level of success and formed this anti-choice coalition with the 'woke' far left. So you'll usually see all opponents to assisted dying parroting the same arguments about disabled people being coerced into suicide, whether the pontificator is the Pontiff himself, or someone whose social media profile bears all the shibboleths of the identitarian left (e.g. 'FREE PALESTINE', the LGBT flag, the BLM symbol, and so on). So it's at least refreshing to see that for once, a pro life campaigner is being honest about their actual motivations.