Wherever assisted suicide is legalized, that suffering becomes even more acute, as family members face the specter of a state hellbent on affirming suicidal ideation and facilitating the lethal injection to accomplish the deed while they are forced to stand helplessly and hopelessly by.

In the United Kingdom, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s trainwreck assisted suicide committee is making daily headlines as the pro-euthanasia majority votes down safeguard after safeguard. Safeguards have been rejected for those with disabilities; for those with suicidal ideation; for the homeless; even for those who may not be able to fully give consent (a safeguard mandating that the victim must have capacity “beyond a reasonable doubt” was rejected 15-8).

Euthanasia activists promised that the path to a lethal injection would be narrow with high guardrails and intermittent checkpoints. Leadbeater’s committee is creating a virtually unpoliced four-lane highway with no speed limit.

Euthanasia activists claim to be championing “mercy” in the form of the alleviation of suffering by doctor-assisted suicide. This view, of course, is premised on a resolute rejection of the claims of religion, but also an insistence on seeing people as atomized individuals without loved ones to whom that suffering will very often be transferred when the patient is put down by medical practitioners. What happens when someone wants to die, but their loved ones believe other options are available? How can someone experiencing acute mental illness or despair have the capacity for consent?

Kim Leadbeater does not want us to consider these questions, but there are many examples of how these horrifying fights play out. Earlier this month, a 23-year-old Spanish woman, who became paraplegic due injuries she incurred during a suicide attempt in 2022, went to court to assert her right to assisted suicide against the wishes of her desperate father. According to the BBC, it is the first case of its kind—but it will most certainly not be the last. She was scheduled to be killed in August, but her father successfully delayed the final act with legal objections, backed by the Christian Lawyers (Abogados Cristianos) group.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide were legalized in Spain in 2021 for people with severe, chronic, or debilitating conditions and chronic diseases, provided they are competent to make the decision. The young woman’s father asserts that his daughter has a personality disorder which impacts her judgement and is highlighting “the obligation of the state to protect the lives of people, especially the most vulnerable, as is the case with a young person with mental health problems.” He also stated that his daughter has responded well to rehabilitation treatment and that she has changed her mind about receiving euthanasia several times.

The regional government of Catalonia, on the other hand, is backing the 23-year-old’s request to die, and a local euthanasia panel voted unanimously in favor in July 2024.

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