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Melhor Morrer?
Melhor Morrer? é um documentário que argumenta que o suicídio assistido coloca as vidas de pessoas com deficiência em risco.
Viajando para o Canadá, este documentário explora algumas das leis do suicídio assistido mais permissivas do mundo.
Aqui, veremos uma lei que pode acabar com a vida não apenas de doentes terminais mas também de pessoas com deficiência e daqueles a quem é oferecida a morte medicamente assistida como uma "saída" da privação social.
Ficha Técnica
Título Original Better Off Dead
18 out. 2025
Melhor Morrer? é um documentário que argumenta que o suicídio assistido coloca as vidas de pessoas com deficiência em risco.
Viajando para o Canadá, este documentário explora algumas das leis do suicídio assistido mais permissivas do mundo.
Aqui, veremos uma lei que pode acabar com a vida não apenas de doentes terminais mas também de pessoas com deficiência e daqueles a quem é oferecida a morte medicamente assistida como uma "saída" da privação social.
Ficha Técnica
Título Original Better Off Dead
18 out. 2025
Categoria
📚
AprendizadoTranscrição
00:00Se você é uma pessoa visibly disabled,
00:02a chance é que alguém,
00:04often a complete stranger,
00:06vai ter come up to você e disse algo assim,
00:08''Gosh, se eu fosse como você,
00:11eu não poderia ir embora, eu teria que ir embora.''
00:13Eu tive que ter sido feito em frente de pessoas,
00:16eu tive que ter sido feito em trabalho.
00:18Um amigo dizendo que se sua condição progressa
00:20até o ponto de você não can't kill você,
00:22você sabe que eu seria feliz para você.
00:24E esse não foi uma pessoa que eu estava muito perto de você.
00:26Se minha vida era como você, eu queria que eu me matasse.
00:29Ele realmente me disse que eu ia me matasse,
00:32porque, você sabe, eu ia ter que ser um descanso na sociedade.
00:35Olha, melhor off dead.
00:40Você provavelmente vai pensar que,
00:41como eu, eu vou campanhar para a escolha
00:44para pedir uma doença para me sair de minha miseria,
00:46se as coisas sejam tão mal.
00:48Você sabe, assistindo dying.
00:51Uma group de acadêmicos,
00:52marcar propósitos sobre assistindo dying.
00:54Nós temos que garantir que as pessoas
00:56possam ter assistindo a assistindo.
00:58Ela está considerando a opção de assistindo...
01:00Ela está considerando...
01:01Ela está considerando...
01:02Mas eu preferia chamar isso o que é.
01:04Assisted Suicida.
01:06Se você acha que isso é apenas sobre doença terminal,
01:09pense novamente.
01:11Isso é sobre a doença.
01:12E para mim, e outros,
01:14isso é terrível.
01:16Tem muitas doenças de doenças,
01:18que você pode ter.
01:21Não há uma jornada aqui.
01:22Não uma-tipada para a Suicida.
01:24Você vai comigo para a Suicida
01:26para Dignitas, se eu queria que isso?
01:28Eu nunca acreditava com isso.
01:30Eu estou muito claro o que meus views são
01:32sobre esse assunto.
01:33E eles vão permanecer o mesmo no final.
01:35Eu só sei isso porque estamos filmando isso no final.
01:37Música
01:39Música
01:40Música
01:41Música
01:43Música
01:44Música
02:10Música
02:12e os riscos vão ser fatal.
02:16Não assistive dying law pode ser 100% seguro.
02:19Imagine choosing death over homelessness.
02:22I was marking time.
02:23All because of the dangerous assumption
02:25that some of us are better off dead.
02:39Am I stuck properly?
02:41Yeah, it beautifully stuck.
02:43There we go.
02:44Would you do me?
02:45Of course I would.
02:46Great.
02:47It's just theoretical.
02:49I know, I know.
02:52You might know me as an actor, I wouldn't like to presume.
02:55I was for eight years in the BBC's forensic drama Silent Witness.
03:05It's an inspector C. Clarke.
03:07Injured in the line of duty.
03:09Larissa Mullery.
03:10Injured in the line of gestation.
03:15And now I find myself, yeah, in big shows.
03:19How did that happen?
03:20I don't know.
03:22I had no idea until my thirties that I was ever going to be an actor.
03:25Came late in line.
03:26I didn't get an excuse to dress up.
03:28And be in medieval times.
03:30Have a wooden wheelchair.
03:31I love all that stuff.
03:33So why leave the red carpet behind to come and make a documentary about not legalising assisted suicide?
03:40I want to talk it through with a friend of mine.
03:44Have I got that Claudia, that Winkleman fringe?
03:47Yeah.
03:48We both have.
03:49Now you look beautiful.
03:50Now you look beautiful.
03:51You.
03:52Lisa Hammond is one of my good friends.
03:55You might recognise her from the tally.
03:57Grange Hill.
03:58Vera.
03:59EastEnders.
04:01Where do we get most, form most of our opinions about the world?
04:04From what we consume.
04:05From the media.
04:07Everything from documentaries to sport to entertainment, reality TV.
04:12All of that.
04:13We are not represented.
04:16And if we are represented in those arenas, well, it's usually like charity.
04:22Yeah.
04:23Documentaries about looking for a cure.
04:26Looking for a cure.
04:27Getting better.
04:28Or inspiration porn, i.e. superhuman.
04:31Sure.
04:32Paralympics.
04:33Paralympics.
04:34Or you're suffering so badly, you're in terrible pain or you become disabled and you now want to kill yourself.
04:44Do, do, do.
04:45Sad music.
04:46Plinky, plonky.
04:47Always the journey always ends badly or well, depending on what you want, in Switzerland, a death clinic.
04:53And if you believe all that you see, why wouldn't you think you'd want to end it if that's the case?
05:00It's like me before you.
05:02Yeah, of course.
05:03Me before you.
05:04Attractive, young, rich, smart, young man.
05:10Yeah.
05:11Has an accident, becomes a wheelchair user, falls in love with his hapless carer.
05:17Of course, yeah.
05:18And then like in all good rom-coms, he goes off to dig and test to die.
05:22Yes, classic ending.
05:24The hashtag was live boldly because at the end, he's like, I don't want you to have to look after me.
05:30I don't want to keep going.
05:31I'm going to leave you some money and you go off and live a life.
05:35The message of the film, live boldly, go forward, unless you're disabled.
05:39Well, it's the first time, isn't it, that I think internationally.
05:43Everyone came out.
05:44Disabled people.
05:45And was like, this is not okay.
05:48We feel like you're saying that there were better dead than disabled.
05:51We want rights, not tragedy.
05:52Rights, not tragedy!
05:54Rights, not tragedy!
05:56Rights, not tragedy!
06:00It's the glorification of our choice to die.
06:04Definitely.
06:05It's the right thing to do for ourselves and our families and society.
06:08I didn't think I'd ever live on my own, have a partner, have a career, have mates, you know.
06:16Why would you think that's possible?
06:18Like, that's crazy.
06:19That's craziness.
06:20Why wouldn't you need and want to die in that case?
06:25It was the media portrayal of assisted suicide that ultimately confirmed to me that it is about disability.
06:37Almost 800 Britons are on a waiting list to die at Dignitas.
06:41There are some people who perhaps don't want to wait until the very end.
06:45She's a prisoner of her own body, serving a sentence that will only end with her death.
06:51My first BBC appearance was live on Newsnight back in 2008. Opposing assisted suicide, of course.
06:58If a non-disabled person wants to commit suicide, it's a tragedy. As soon as a disabled person does, you know, it's a release.
07:05Let me show you what I mean. If you saw someone on a bridge about to jump, would you stand by and let them do it?
07:14Would you support them in the name of choice and autonomy? No. You would probably intervene and suggest that they get help.
07:21But if it was a disabled person, would your response be the same? Or would you see their decision to end their life as understandable, even inevitable?
07:34Many of us feel that assisted suicide creates a two-tier system. Suicide prevention for some. Suicide approval for others.
07:46I've not always been disabled, but my experience of becoming so might help explain my views. Yes, it's that time in the documentary where I go to visit my mum.
07:58March 1981. You started back at school and you said that you didn't feel like a child like the rest of the class.
08:08Mm-hmm. At the age of seven, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition. It was serious. Rare.
08:15Like, winning the lottery, rare. And it completely changed my life.
08:21June 1982, you went well again, and you still got depressed. But the new school is better, as the girls don't make fun of you. Okay?
08:33I like that that's almost like a high point. Yeah. You know what I mean? I guess to that comparison, you know, I was there and I was not Queen B, but I was one of the popular kids kind of thing.
08:46And in the school plays. And then I become not that person. Yeah. I become the person that people are scared of, the other kids are frightened of.
08:53Kind of. I mean, I think that's hard. Oh, yeah. Your kind of status changes hugely.
08:59Absolutely. Yeah. November 1984. She is very lonely. She gets very down and often says she wants to die rather than carry on, as she can't see any good in the future for herself. And you're only 12 years old.
09:21I just didn't have any memory of actually saying that I had wanted to die. And a frightening thing for me would be if that was possible.
09:38Yeah. Because if you took those who love me away, or you took my career away from me, you took my care package away from me.
09:47Yeah. Life would be very different. It would be very different. But would you go with me to Switzerland to Dignitas if I had wanted that?
09:54I would never have agreed to that. Wouldn't you? No way.
09:58No. No, but mum, you've supported everything else. Yeah, but no. Not to compare. I'm not going to lose you. But whatever. No way. No.
10:11I wish I could travel back in time and tell younger me the truth. That life, an imperfect but pretty bloody good life, awaited me. I found my tribe, other disabled people, disability politics, a different way of viewing the world, and activism.
10:28I saw disability in a completely different way. I saw it as the barriers in society and not me as the problem. Changed my life. Absolutely.
10:49One of the people responsible for this is disability rights campaigner, Baroness Jane Campbell.
10:58Come in, Jane. Come in, Liz. Come see, we've got the mercy.
11:02How'd you just put a hand behind me?
11:04And where better to meet a member of the House of Lords and her husband than in their garage?
11:09I'm slightly underwhelmed.
11:12In case you're wondering, the garage also doubles as HQ for the campaign group I'm part of, Not Dead Yet.
11:22We want to keep the existing law, which sees assisted suicide as a criminal offence rather than a medical treatment.
11:29I've been a disability rights activist for disability equality since I was probably at school when I was at special school.
11:39So, yes. Sorry, Roger, did you go give me a section?
11:43Which is how I became aware of you, was as disability rights up there, kind of goddess, really.
11:53Oh!
11:54But I know more about assisted suicide.
11:58I can tell you, wherever it has been legalised, the criteria widens.
12:04So they begin by saying, oh, it's only people who are in the last few months of death.
12:11This isn't for people like you.
12:14But it is, because I've often been in that situation.
12:18Do you know, I was at a DNR when I went to hospital, to general hospital, with a routine chest infection.
12:27A DNR, or do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation, means if a patient's heart or breathing stops,
12:34their medical team will not try to restart it.
12:37Ultimately, it's a medical treatment decision.
12:39But ideally, doctors should consult a patient about their preference.
12:43Roger was told that it was in my best interests not to ventilate me or to resuscitate me.
12:51Well, what did they mean by that?
12:54I had a job.
12:56I had a family.
12:58I had responsibilities.
13:00When you found that out, because presumably you found it out before Jane, I'm guessing you were unconscious.
13:05Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it was a very worrying time.
13:09And, of course, when they tell you that your wife isn't worth saving, you initially think they have superior knowledge.
13:16They've seen a zillion people in this situation.
13:19They know what they're talking about.
13:21And it's only because you then think about it a bit more that you realise that they've gone for an option,
13:30but there are much better options.
13:32I mean, Jane's problem when she arrived at hospital was she was dehydrated.
13:37So perhaps if I hadn't been there and Jane hadn't been able to articulate for herself, then she wouldn't be here now.
13:46People look at us and think, oh, we're in need and care and we're weak and vulnerable.
13:52We are not.
13:53We are probably the toughest, toughest people out there because we have to problem solve every single day of our lives.
14:02I like to think we're the cockroaches.
14:04Yes.
14:05We'll be here forever.
14:06We will.
14:07Because we've sort of evolved.
14:08We have.
14:09Different ways of living.
14:10Yes.
14:11I mean, obviously, if you take electricity away, we're pretty fucked, but apart from that...
14:14Yeah.
14:15I think the noble baroness, Lady Campbell of Serbden, has been trying to get in for some time.
14:21I think the House would like to hear from her.
14:23Yes.
14:24I thank the noble minister, and I'm sorry I haven't got a louder voice.
14:30I've got no doubt that Jane's presence in the Lords, I mean her actual physical presence,
14:38has been crucial to defeating the many repeated attempts to legalise assisted suicide through Parliament.
14:45People are decent, kind, but they think that they're doing us a great favour by giving us this choice.
14:52But what they don't realise is how deadly that choice can be.
14:57I wonder if any other subject has been thrown back so many times.
15:03Well, I've been there 15 years, and I feel like I'm in Groundhog Day.
15:09Assisted dying is not supported by the very people it is intended to benefit.
15:17Is the noble board, the minister, aware that the campaign to legalise assisted suicide
15:23is not supported by one single organisation for people with progressive conditions?
15:30My Lords, this is a popular bill. There is no doubt about it.
15:35Because it is not the black bill. And I will not support it.
15:41In the past 20 years, there have been eight attempts to change the law,
15:45including one in the first 18 months of Covid.
15:48The last time there was a vote in the Commons in 2015, MPs voted 330 to 118
15:54against legalising assisted suicide.
15:57In the House of Lords, Lord Faulkner has sponsored four bills
16:10that would allow terminally ill people with less than six months to live
16:14to have medical assistance to die.
16:16He used to be a Lord Chancellor. He used to be a QC, now a KC.
16:23So I think that means he's going to be very good with words and arguments,
16:28very clever, very thoughtful.
16:32Yeah, I'm quite nervous to meet him, but I'm also really keen to hear his perspective on this.
16:40I think I'd better go.
16:44Let's start with then, you would like change, I don't want change.
16:50Yes, we have to do something about the law.
16:54Because if you want to take your own life because you are terminally ill,
16:59you've either got to do it yourself without any help,
17:03or you've got to go to Switzerland, do it earlier than you might otherwise have to,
17:10in alien surroundings, maybe without those that you love.
17:16And I am very in favour of changing the law to allow people who are terminally ill
17:22to be assisted by a doctor to take their own life.
17:25But only subject to safeguards, because for disabled people,
17:30one needs very much to ensure that there are appropriate safeguards.
17:34Is this about pain and suffering, or is it about control?
17:40Very often it is about control.
17:43It is very, very frequently not about the intensity of the pain.
17:49Should we be changing the law for those people?
17:52Without a doubt, yes.
17:54Because even with the best palliative care, there are a group of people
18:00who will always want to be in control of the process,
18:04and will want the process to come to an end.
18:07It's not about people who are suffering from any sort of condition
18:13that is not going to end their life within the next six months.
18:17Actually, ironically, where some people see this as giving them control and power,
18:24I see it as giving away control and power.
18:29I have faith in the NHS, but I equally know the realities of the system.
18:33Would I trust a law like that, where the consequences of getting it wrong,
18:38or the consequences of mistakes are so great, would I trust that to a government?
18:44Would I trust that to this government?
18:47No, but with respect, I think the reason I disagree with what you're saying
18:52is you're putting two things together there.
18:55Okay.
18:56I think you are right to identify massive inequalities
19:01in the way the healthcare system operates,
19:04and particularly how it operates in relation to, for example, elderly people,
19:09or, for example, disabled people.
19:11But does that make me think that there will be a, sort of,
19:15a huge number of these cases going through wrongly?
19:20Most certainly not.
19:24Even I have all the integrity in the world,
19:26and I hope you do in this matter, and I believe you,
19:30the other campaigning groups don't want it just for time of the old people.
19:35There are so many groups already pushing,
19:37and that's what makes me think it will change.
19:40It will come from the pressure.
19:42Once I think a legislature decides it's going to be terminal illness only,
19:47it will stick at that.
19:49But I could be wrong about that, but I don't think I am.
19:52The line in the sand for me is terminal illness,
19:55and it goes no further than that.
19:58But the thing about sand is that it shifts,
20:02and nowhere demonstrates this better than in Canada.
20:07I'm in Vancouver with my mum and my wife, Jo.
20:20I've been here on holiday before, but this trip's a bit different.
20:24I'm going down the slippery slope.
20:30Assisted suicide, when you're supplied with lethal medication to take yourself,
20:35and euthanasia, when a doctor does it for you,
20:38were both legalised in Canada in 2016.
20:42It's a government-funded scheme, delivered through its public health system,
20:46and is called Medical Assistance in Dying.
20:50But everyone in Canada knows it as made.
20:54In the beginning, yes, to qualify, you had to be terminally ill,
20:58with a reasonably foreseeable death.
21:00But that safeguard didn't last long.
21:06Now, normally, I hate this gratuitous shot in assisted suicide documentaries.
21:11A disabled person looking sorrowfully out of the window,
21:15the world outside, sombre music playing.
21:18But I couldn't resist.
21:22From my room, the building where we're going today, I could see it.
21:27And it's this just everyday building,
21:30and that's where the person I'm first meeting works.
21:39I'm off to see Ellen Wiebe, a doctor who's performed hundreds of euthanasias.
21:43I feel quite nervous.
21:47My head's full of, what shall I ask her, what do we talk about?
21:50And also, will I like her?
21:52Will I enjoy meeting her?
21:53You know, all those sort of confusing things.
21:56Don't eat anything, don't drink anything.
22:00Don't sign anything.
22:03But I also want to know things that I think you don't see and hear about normally.
22:09Somebody's died.
22:10There's been a death of someone.
22:12Whatever we feel about this subject.
22:14So, what?
22:16What is the room like when it's done?
22:18How does everyone else feel, and how does she feel?
22:24Hi.
22:27Hello.
22:28Hi, I'm Liz.
22:29Hi.
22:30Hi.
22:40Hello.
22:41Thank you for seeing me.
22:42Nice to meet you.
22:43You too.
22:44Should we do hands and whatever?
22:45Are we very formal, or do we not?
22:48I don't know.
22:49We don't need to be formal, but we also don't need to touch hands.
22:51Fine, good.
22:54So, you do this work actually here, sometimes?
22:57Most people want to die in their own homes, and so I would be in their home.
23:02And of course, many people are in hospital, in hospice, in care homes.
23:07And then there are people who don't feel comfortable dying at home.
23:10For example, they don't want their spouse to have to deal with their memory of them dying in their home.
23:18So, then they come here, and this is a recliner, and so people recline here.
23:26And they can snuggle up with their loved ones if they want.
23:31And so, it's a good place for some people.
23:43According to law, each MAID applicant must make a written request, signed by an independent witness,
23:49and have two independent medical assessments.
23:52So, this is the one that has to be signed in front of an independent witness.
23:58Okay. And who would that be if I...
24:00It has to be somebody who is not in the will and not a direct caregiver like me.
24:06Could you're a receptionist or...?
24:07Yes, because they're not directly involved in care.
24:10How many MAID deaths have you been involved with?
24:15Over 400.
24:16Okay. That sounds like a lot. Is that what you do now?
24:20No, no, I still run a contraception and abortion clinic, in addition to my MAID work.
24:26Would you ever say no?
24:29Of course, I have.
24:31Yes. I mean, we have a law, and I obey this law.
24:36And so, there are people who are not eligible under the law.
24:39Now, there are situations where I might find somebody not eligible or eligible
24:47when another person won't because of the way our law is written.
24:51In your experience, what do you think the number one reason that people want MAID?
25:00The reason, the number one reason is autonomy, control.
25:04And what?
25:06And everybody's different in what they think of as autonomy and control.
25:10Yeah.
25:11So, that would be about not wanting to lose that in their lives?
25:17Yes. Control. They desperately want control.
25:20Like, they want to say, it's now.
25:25And we say, okay, well, I can get back here at 7 o'clock. Is that okay?
25:30And they'll say yes.
25:31And they'll be so grateful that they can skip the last two days of their life.
25:37And I look at it and think, what you really needed was some more drugs.
25:42But you want my drugs? I'll give them to you.
25:46Apart from the fact I don't have the desire, I think probably I would be eligible under the Canadian law.
25:55Well, you'd have to be suffering unbearably, and you'd have to convince me that you were suffering unbearably.
26:01And from what you've said, I know you're not going to do anything here and there.
26:06I know, it's good.
26:07Yeah, I'm not scared.
26:08But I guess what I'm saying is there could be somebody next to me with exactly the same condition.
26:16Yes.
26:17Who doesn't want to go on anymore.
26:19I've certainly met people who are no more disabled than I am, saying that life is not acceptable in this state.
26:27And I would say, hmm, you and I are different.
26:31But not different in the sense of wanting to have some control.
26:36So, Liz, right now you love life and you want to live.
26:41But there's lots of nasty illnesses you might get.
26:45Yeah.
26:48And if you got terminal cancer and you were having to deal with chemotherapy and radiation,
26:55wouldn't you be thrilled that if you had the choice to say, I'll go this far and no further?
27:02For me, I'm concerned that giving the option and the right to a group of people puts another group of people at risk.
27:12But I don't feel that you see that as a worry.
27:16What you're saying is to protect what you consider vulnerable people, you are condemning others to unbearable suffering.
27:30Unbearable suffering.
27:32And I am so glad, so glad that I'm a Canadian and that we have this law so that people can choose that or not choose that.
27:45But to say that somebody has to suffer like that is simply cruel.
27:52Do you love your job?
27:54I love my job.
27:55You know, I've always loved being a doctor.
27:58But, and I delivered over a thousand babies and I took care of, you know, families.
28:04But this is the very best work I've ever done in the last seven years.
28:08And people ask me why.
28:12And I think, well, doctors like grateful patients.
28:19And nobody is more grateful than my patients now and their families.
28:25Psst.
28:26Nice check.
28:27Let's get out of here.
28:28In the first year, over a thousand Canadians ended their life using MAID.
28:46Only six years later, the annual figure had leapt to over 13,000.
28:58Incidentally, the Canadian Medical Association has published an analysis showing how MAID could possibly save its public healthcare system hundreds of millions of dollars.
29:08So, I'm here to make a documentary.
29:13Yeah.
29:14And it's on MAID.
29:18Interesting.
29:19Yeah.
29:20Yeah.
29:21It's not a comedy.
29:22No.
29:23No.
29:24Maybe it would be funny if the pace of expansion wasn't quite so scary.
29:29There are now two pathways, or tracks as they're officially called, to access medical assistance in dying.
29:36Made for timely ill people is track one.
29:39This is now a fast track, allowing people to be assessed and euthanized all within 24 hours.
29:45But since 2021, there's a new pathway, track two.
29:50This extends the law to those with a medical condition who are suffering unbearably, but whose death is not reasonably foreseeable.
29:57The assessment period for this track is 90 days.
30:02So, track two makes MAID accessible to disabled people who aren't terminal.
30:09Both tracks have the safeguard of a sign-off by two medical professionals, but it's become clear that there can be significant loopholes.
30:20This is one of my favorites.
30:22Wow, you look alike.
30:25Alicia Duncan's mum, Donna, was involved in a minor car accident, resulting in concussion.
30:31During the months that followed, Donna's health declined, but the exact cause remained a mystery.
30:37My mum speculated that she had something called central sensitivity syndrome, that the car accident had triggered.
30:44What we didn't know is that she was restricting her diet.
30:48She would say that it would hurt to eat solid food, so she was pureeing everything, having soups.
30:55She was very paranoid.
30:57She worried that if she left the house, she might be shot by a sniper at any moment.
31:01And I think that's when we really started becoming extremely concerned that this might be a mental health issue.
31:08And this was completely uncharacteristic to your mum?
31:14Completely uncharacteristic.
31:16My mum was a highly educated psychiatric nurse.
31:23How did MAID enter the equation?
31:26I received a text message from my mum's common-law partner.
31:31He wanted us to know that my mum was in the beginning stages of looking into MAID.
31:38We just thought there was no way.
31:41There was no way she would be approved.
31:43And my sister went to go see her and asked, how did the assessment go?
31:48And she said, do you want to know?
31:49And my sister said, yes.
31:51And she said, I've been approved.
31:54So we had less than 48 hours notice that my mum was going to die.
32:03For Donna's own safety, her daughters gathered enough evidence to have their mum taken into custody under the Mental Health Act.
32:11I pled with a doctor because, of course, my mum was a psychiatric nurse who knew all of the right things to say.
32:18At the end of the 48-hour hold, they did another assessment.
32:25We received a text message from my mum's partner that evening that my mum was dead and her body had been taken to a crematorium.
32:37Donna was approved for Track 1 of MAID, the fast track, on the basis that her condition was terminal.
32:48But her daughter disputes this.
32:50My mum wasn't terminal and she wasn't facing imminent death.
32:56However, if you're depressed and you starve yourself to the point that you are malnourished, they can bump you up to Track 1 and you can die right away.
33:05But if you were behaving like that, wouldn't that suggest there was mental health issues going on?
33:11It would, but if you've starved yourself, that's physical.
33:19My mum had been approved by the head of the MAID program and a nurse practitioner.
33:26The second assessment, it was done over the phone. You never saw my mum.
33:30They had no relationship with your mum?
33:32None.
33:33They were not her daughters?
33:34No.
33:35And her general practitioner, who had been her GP for 20 years, would not approve her to die.
33:44I don't know how you move on from that.
33:52And I feel guilt for not fighting harder, for not, I don't know, kidnapping her and taking her into the world.
34:05It wasn't keeping her safe, you know?
34:21Look at that.
34:22Oh, wow. Look at that.
34:23I want to take a picture for Jo.
34:25I can't do it properly, so I need you to do a selfie.
34:28A selfie? I've never done a selfie.
34:31Yeah.
34:32So, look to the left, press to the right, try and smile.
34:36The miracles you want me to perform.
34:38OK, go for it.
34:39Right.
34:40Smile.
34:41Smile.
34:42I'm glad you're here, really.
34:43I'm glad I'm here, love.
34:44Eh?
34:45Ah-ha.
34:46Medical assistance in dying has become such a normal part of the Canadian healthcare system, that as well as there being a 24-hour suicide prevention hotline, there's now a 24-hour MAID hotline, too.
35:06Thank you for calling.
35:07The Ontario Medical Assistance and Dying Care Coordination Service is designed to provide information about end-of-life options in Ontario, and as well, referrals for medical assistance in dying.
35:21If you would like to speak with an advisor to access the service, or get more information, please press 1.
35:28But stories have started to emerge, suggesting MAID is being chosen for reasons that have nothing to do with health.
35:36Hello.
35:37Hello.
35:38Amir.
35:39Hi, I'm Liz.
35:40It's very nice to meet you.
35:41Nice to meet you.
35:42Amir Farsud is a disabled man who was struggling to survive on state benefits.
35:51For the last almost eight years, I've had the misfortune of being on Ontario Disability Support Programme, which gives a maximum of just over $1,300 to a child.
36:05Weekly, monthly?
36:06Monthly.
36:07Okay.
36:08Just as a frame of reference, the average one-bedroom apartment in this province costs almost twice what a person on ODSP makes.
36:20This all started when the place where I was living in was put up for sale.
36:26I would no longer be able to live there.
36:29Literally after, like, four months of looking, there was no place.
36:33There did not exist a place that I could afford to live in.
36:37At which point, I decided, okay, I'm not going to be homeless.
36:41You'd been homeless before?
36:42I'd been homeless before.
36:45The winters here are harsh.
36:48Six, seven months of the year having sub-zero temperatures 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
36:55There's people that try to keep warm with makeshift fires and end up burning to death.
37:00There's people that freeze to death.
37:02The one thing I knew was that no matter what, homelessness was off the table.
37:09The options were miraculously find a spot, kill myself, or get made.
37:16And there was no fourth option.
37:18But I did tell my doctor right off the bat that while I qualify for medical reasons, the reason I'm asking you is my socioeconomic position at the moment.
37:30The doctor nonetheless approved Amir, and a track two have made, based on unbearable suffering.
37:36This means that after a 90-day assessment and waiting period, the applicant, Amir in this case, can be euthanized.
37:43By contrast, waiting lists for social housing in Ontario can be over a decade.
37:49And was basically just, you know, waiting for the 90 days to be up.
37:55I was going to say, did you have a date?
37:57Yes, I did.
37:58I was marking time.
37:59I was the condemned guy who's waiting for, you know, his hour.
38:04I got a call from a reporter in Toronto who said, you know, would you mind if I came up and interviewed you?
38:13Imagine choosing death over homelessness.
38:16That's what one St. Catherine's man is contemplating.
38:18Are you afraid to die?
38:20Who isn't?
38:21Yeah, I mean, it, it, uh, I am.
38:29Amir Farsud has applied for medically assisted dying, known as MAID.
38:34He lives in constant agony due to a back injury.
38:36A woman in Toronto saw the story, started this fundraising thing online for me.
38:41And in, in, in four days it raised 60,000 bucks and allowed me to, to pay off my debts and I could actually afford rent.
38:52If not for her, I would have died at the end of November last year.
38:57He would not be here, but for socioeconomic reasons, that's just...
39:02Yeah.
39:03Are you going to celebrate this year?
39:05My, my death-a-versary?
39:06Yeah.
39:07I'm thinking about having a few friends over and raising a glass and then saying, you know, it's, it's been a year since my death and I'm still here.
39:14You could say something like, I made it.
39:16Yes.
39:17Hey, that's good.
39:18I'm going to use that.
39:19For free, have it taken.
39:20All right, cool.
39:21I'm going to order a cake with, with, you know, the writing on it.
39:23Yeah, and it's a ring.
39:24Yeah.
39:25Maybe, I don't know.
39:26Oh God, you're good.
39:27Thanks.
39:28Amir could have been euthanized because he's disabled.
39:31Because he's disabled and poor.
39:33Not everyone can use MAID because they're suffering from poverty and other social ills.
39:38No.
39:39That's a privilege reserved only for those who are ill and disabled.
39:43In the future, MAID will be available for people with mental health conditions.
39:50And as if it couldn't get any worse, a parliamentary committee recommends extending the law to mature minors.
39:57That could mean children as young as 12, the age I was when I first said that I wanted to die.
40:03I'm feeling like, slightly like a children's TV presenter and wearing pink, all very cozy.
40:15The Medical Assistance in Dying Activity Book.
40:20This is for children who have a relative who is thinking about or who's going to use medical assistance in dying euthanasia.
40:30You know, it takes you through the process.
40:35The first medicine makes the person feel very relaxed and fall asleep.
40:40They may yawn or snore or mumble.
40:43The second causes a coma.
40:45A coma looks like sleep, but is much deeper than regular sleep.
40:49I'm not sure if that's consoling to a child or useful.
40:54I don't know.
40:55I don't know.
40:56Here's a list of some feelings.
40:59Perhaps I was most concerned about the one that says excited.
41:04These sort of things just, they give me like a shiver and a fear and an absolute please don't allow this in the UK.
41:18Canada is not the only country I'm crossing off my travel itinerary.
41:30Other countries where some form of assisted suicide and or euthanasia are legal include Belgium, Netherlands, New Zealand, most of Australia, 11 American states, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Colombia and Canada.
41:47But see, overall, it's still only available to a small percentage of the global population.
41:54However, in many of these countries, the law applies to disabled people.
41:59Great.
42:00It's not just me and a few friends who are worried about what would happen if we opened the door to assisted suicide here in the UK.
42:09Professor Catherine Sleeman is an expert in palliative and end-of-life care at King's College London.
42:16There are some specialties where doctors are, on the whole, supportive towards assisted dying.
42:23And there are other specialties where doctors are, on the whole, very much against.
42:27And palliative care is right at one end of that spectrum, followed by geriatrics.
42:31It's perhaps not surprising that the two types of specialists who are most opposed to assisted dying are those who spend their days working with the most vulnerable people in society.
42:44In your practice as a doctor, do people often ask and want to end their lives at that point?
42:54I have had occasional patients who've said to me, this is intolerable. Can't we do something to end things sooner?
43:04Yeah.
43:05And every time that's happened in the past, we have managed to make a plan to address some of those intolerable symptoms to make them tolerable again.
43:13I'm not going to claim that palliative care can always end all suffering.
43:17But what I would say is that perhaps a more important focus is the fact that too many people actually miss out on any palliative care at all.
43:27Yeah.
43:28But if there are limits to palliative care, is there then a place for what's called assisted dying?
43:36All arguments for assisted dying really based on autonomy. It's my right, my choice, my decision.
43:42And I listen to the stories of the people who have decided that that is what they want.
43:49And I, you know, they're very, very compelling and moving to listen to.
43:55But there's a difference between is assisted dying morally okay?
44:01Is it the right thing for that individual?
44:04And should we legalise this? Is it the right thing for our society?
44:08What has led you to that understanding, I guess?
44:14So I think the big concern for me is safety.
44:18It's ensuring that those who are perhaps more vulnerable in our society to being coerced into an assisted death are protected from that.
44:30And I suppose my background in palliative medicine exposes me to people who I think are vulnerable to that.
44:37Coercion does happen, definitely.
44:39A classic example would be talking with someone about going to a care home.
44:43Patients will say to me, well, I don't want to go to a care home really, but I know my family want me to do it and I know it will be easier for them.
44:51So I think I'm going to say yes.
44:53Now that example doesn't intrinsically worry us, but substitute the words go to a care home with have an assisted death.
45:00And I think it's a completely different picture.
45:03So it's about coercion.
45:05It's about vulnerable people being pressurised into having assisted deaths primarily.
45:12That's the greatest harm.
45:15The most catastrophic risk, I would say, of changing the law.
45:21What makes you think it could create more harm?
45:23No assisted dying law can be 100% safe.
45:26That means that there will be people who slip through the net.
45:29The question therefore is, well, how safe is safe enough?
45:32What margin of error would we as a society find acceptable?
45:36So to put some numbers to it, would we accept the death of one person who didn't want to die in order to allow the establishment?
45:41in order to allow the assisted death of one who did?
45:43Or maybe that ratio is 1 to 10 or maybe it's 1 to 100.
45:47Those are the questions we need to be really grappling with as a society because there's a lot of talk about safeguards.
45:54And the implicit implication is that safeguards will make this law 100% safe, but they won't.
46:02They can't.
46:03So the question we should be asking is, okay, how safe is safe enough for us?
46:11Of course, not all disabled people agree with me on this subject.
46:20Melanie Reid is a journalist who often uses her column in The Times to push for a change in the law.
46:29Hello, Liz.
46:30Thanks for this.
46:31Come on in. I'm so sorry about the weather. Come on in.
46:34Melanie became disabled after a horse riding accident over a decade ago.
46:41Before my accident happened, I was arrogant about my health and I had this assumption that I would cruise into old age.
46:49My parents both lived till they were 88 and it was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to have, you know, long working life and be fit and healthy and everything's going to be fine.
46:58And so when my accident happened, it was a crashing fall psychologically as well as physically.
47:07I was plummeted overnight from when I was 52. I was fit and healthy and I was sort of catapulted into extreme disability.
47:19I get that. You've just joined the most unfun, unsexy, tragic gang in the world. And no wonder people want to die at that point.
47:29I can see that if you feel you are intrinsically vulnerable, that you belong to a minority who do not fit the world that is created by our laws and general society, that it would be much easier to be labelled as a burden.
47:48And I can indeed see where your side of the argument comes from. Where I come from on the debate is the sense that I have a human right to decide what happens to my body and I would like to have it.
48:08And I rather, I rather sort of resent the fact that it is almost like one small group imposing its values upon a larger group.
48:20Well, I would see the small group as those wanting medically assisted suicide. There's two lines here. For some people, if they ever got in that position, it acts as an insurance policy.
48:34It's helpful to know it's there in case. And many people won't even use it, but they want to know it's a possibility.
48:41And then there's another group of people for whom the fact that it's a possibility is frightening.
48:49Because if you're to some levels disabled or come under the criteria, you qualify all the time.
49:00You're not going to qualify in 20 years' time or if you get ill. You qualify now.
49:05And so when days get bad, or all your care package is pulled, or you're having a rubbish time, then it sits there.
49:15It's like a permanent sword of Damocles.
49:18But would you not like to be able to offer people like me, if it could be done, some kind of insurance policy?
49:27I think the law is about protection. Even protecting us from ourselves.
49:34I met Lord Faulkner. He said if the law comes in, it will absolutely just be for terminally ill people.
49:45I would prefer it to be slightly wider than that. Because what about someone like me, who isn't terminally ill, but for whom life could be unbearable in other ways?
50:00And I would like to end it. Why should my right to do that be denied? Why do I have to wait until I have something terminal, until I have that right?
50:14Change the law and it still won't work unless we change the law to be for a much bigger group of people.
50:26And let's be aware of what that means. Maybe it's going to be like Canada. That is terrifying.
50:33I'm back home with my activist mates.
50:39We're living the lives that many pushing for assisted suicide fear.
50:45But guess what? With the right support, we also represent what is possible when disability is not viewed as a reason to kill yourself.
50:52Society are terrified of becoming us. Definitely.
50:59That's the thing. I mean, I get strangers coming to me and saying, I feel so sorry. Why are you in the chair?
51:07Why are you sorry? I don't know what you're going on about wheelchairs. That's the one thing that makes me independent.
51:14I think what strikes me is that a lot of people in favour of assisted suicide, one of their arguments is this sense of a loss of autonomy.
51:23And they list all of the things that, you know, you can no longer do.
51:26But what they don't realise is that losing your independence and losing your ability to physically do things you could previously do doesn't have to mean a loss of autonomy.
51:35You know, no man is an island. We're not. And we can't actually be independent in everything we do.
51:40Yeah, there's loads of things that I can no longer do. If I can't wipe my own backside, then I can have somebody else do it.
51:46And the result is the same. And I can get on with my life.
51:49In the documentaries that are a pro-assisted suicide, there's usually semi-naked people being bathed, sitting on a shower chair or in a bath.
52:01This sign of indignity.
52:03And yet, while someone's giving me a wash, I'm usually doing my work emails in the morning, getting ahead on them.
52:07Yeah.
52:08Because you can do two things at once.
52:09Well, indeed.
52:10Which I can't do, because I have to wipe my own bum.
52:13I almost feel sorry for you somehow, to be honest.
52:18But that's the funny...
52:19I'm so glad, Jamie, you mentioned about having your backside wiped.
52:23I can't remember the last time I could reach my own bum.
52:26I do get it, but I don't get it as well.
52:29Because to want to kill yourself over who wipes your backside...
52:35Yeah.
52:36It's a terror of, like, this loss of dignity or this loss of...
52:38I know, and that's it, isn't it?
52:40I'm quite happy, like, chatting to people half-naked during my morning wash.
52:43Because actually, I've learned that that has nothing to do with my inherent dignity as a person.
52:48And knowing that makes me feel so much freer and safer.
52:51Because my dignity is something inside me.
52:54And I wish that more people could have the security and the safety of knowing that.
52:59What concerns me is that it will be a state's worth saying,
53:06well, this is a cheaper alternative to giving you these packages and giving you the support,
53:11because you're too expensive to treat.
53:13Until we can really say that every single disabled person has access to all of the high quality medical treatment,
53:19all of the high quality care they need, that there are no barriers to make life any harder for disabled people than anyone else,
53:26then fundamentally we're creating a group of people and saying,
53:29well, you're suffering, so if you want to end your life, you can.
53:32But we're also making that group of people suffer and want to end their lives.
53:38I think one of the comeback arguments is, reasonably, we can't put in all that support for everybody.
53:46But what kind of rule of nature is it that we can't give people what they need?
53:50It's entirely a human and a political decision.
53:53And assisted suicide is literally just the easy out.
53:56It's literally that rather than investing in the services people need, we can just give them a way out.
54:06This feels like a good point to end the documentary.
54:09I've explained my views, but there's something else I need to talk about first.
54:14Recent events have proven that me and the other disabled people who oppose assisted suicide are right to be worried.
54:22Very worried.
54:25I believe that COVID has shown the extent that some of us are viewed as less important, less valuable, disposable.
54:32It felt as though as a country, we were divided into people who were worth saving and those of us labeled as having underlying health conditions who weren't.
54:42It seemed that older, ill and disabled people became collateral damage.
54:46In the first two years, 58% of those that died were disabled people.
54:51Blanket do not resuscitate orders were being sent to care homes or to the more vulnerable disabled people in the community.
54:59As an older disabled woman with high care needs, I was eight times more likely to die during COVID.
55:09And yet I was more likely to be denied treatment.
55:12I'm not sure, really don't think that if that's how we view different groups of people, older people, disabled people, ill people,
55:21should we be giving more power to end that group of people's lives?
55:40Explore how different countries view different forms of assisted dying with an interactive map produced by the Open University.
55:47Go to the website on screen and follow the links to the Open University.
56:17www. Glo寺esignium.com
56:22Welcome to the Open University.
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