And there’s more than a hint of the old eugenicist ethos in the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill currently wending its way through parliament. Like euthanasia’s historical advocates, the bill’s supporters use the language of compassion, and talk about allowing people suffering unbearably to end their lives. But buried deep in the bill’s impact-assessment reports, published just a few weeks ago, it was possible to see the eugenicist logic still at work. The first report said that the NHS could save up to £10million in ‘unutilised healthcare’ within the first year of the law coming into effect, and £59million over the next decade. Even more chillingly, the Equality Impact Assessment report insisted that, if the bill becomes law, it must protect equal opportunities, and allow those suffering from disabilities such as Down’s syndrome to access assisted suicide. The report even states that when mobility issues start to create more and more problems for disabled people, doctor-delivered euthanasia might be an appropriate course of action.
Today, Helene M would not be forcibly transported by Nazi officials to a room where she would be gassed to death. But if the assisted-dying lobby gets its way, her fate would be no less grim. She would be encouraged to follow her inclinations to die and deliver her father of her burdensome existence. She would be counselled to overcome the barriers people with disabilities face in arranging their assisted death. And all the while, euthanasia’s eugenicist cheerleaders would be shouting ‘you go, girl’ and celebrating her death as an expression of empowerment.
Assisted dying may have been dressed up as a liberal cause supported by good, compassionate people. But its roots in the eugenicist movement tell a different story. It remains what it always was – cruel and deeply anti-human.
Kevin Yuill is emeritus professor of history at the University of Sunderland and CEO of Humanists Against Assisted Suicide.
(1) See Death and Deliverance: ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany, 1900-1945, by Michael Burleigh, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp142-43
(2) The Third Reich at War, by Richard J Evans, Penguin, 2009, p86
(3) Cited in ‘Eugenic Thinking and the Cognitive Sciences’, by Robert A Wilson, Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science
(4) Cited in ‘Suicide versus Euthanasia in the American Press in the 1890s and 1900s: “A Man Should be Permitted to Go Out of This World Whenever He Sees Fit”’, by Kevin Yuill, Journal of Policy History, Vol 34, No2, 2022, pp213-244 & 226
(5) Cited in ‘Suicide versus Euthanasia in the American Press in the 1890s and 1900s: “A Man Should be Permitted to Go Out of This World Whenever He Sees Fit”’, by Kevin Yuill, Journal of Policy History, Vol 34, No2, 2022, p233
(6) ‘Moves to legalize “mercy-killings” sponsored’, Times-News, 17 January 1938
(7) See ‘Hitler Kills Germans, Too’, by Pat Frank, Southern Jewish Weekly, 16 May 1941
(8) The Third Reich at War, by Richard J Evans, Penguin, 2009, p98
(9) Cited in Assisted Suicide: The Liberal, Humanist Case Against Legalisation, by Kevin Yuill, Palgrave, 2013), p12
(10) Cited in Assisted Suicide: The Liberal, Humanist Case Against Legalisation, by Kevin Yuill, Palgrave, 2013), p14
