Exporting something…& it isn’t compassion!
(Click image for a PDF of the original report)
A report was published today by the “Assisted Dying Coalition” showing the same ol’, same ol’ misrepresentation of numbers we have grown to love about Dignity in Dying’s “opinion polls”! (as reported in Catholic Arena recently.)
The Coalition is 6 groups in favour of Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia:
End of Life Choices, Jersey;
Friends at the End (FATE) Scotland;
Humanist Society, Scotland;
Humanists, UK;
My Death, My Decision.
My Death, My Decision, Isle of Man.
(Note: addition of MDMD Isle of Man after publication, 18# March 2024.)
These groups frequently have members who are in more than one group at a time! (Curiously, Dignity in Dying is not a member.)
The authors of the report appear to be Tommy Sheppard MP (Scottish National Party) and Dr. Henry Marsh, Neurosurgeon. Marsh should be aware of the need for statistical values to confirm validity.
The Coalition is touting the “inadequacy of our assisted dying laws in forcing many UK citizens to choose an assisted death in Switzerland.” You can see below how the Coalition is putting an unpleasant slant on the numbers by claiming the current ‘cruel’ laws are “forcing people” to go to Switzerland while claiming others are barred due to social inequalities in the UK.
That is a downright nasty twist.
TOTAL NUMBERS
First, they provide Dignitas number of 554 British people having gone to Switzerland in just under 21 years. Calculated as 20 years, this is roughly 28 people per annum — a miniscule number, considering the population of the United Kingdom is 67,893,481 (as of Tuesday, March 12, 2024 based on Worldometer.)
This calculates roughly to ONE person per 2.5 MILLION people in the UK, per year.
Note the increased numbers of women going to Switzerland which seems to mirror the increase in NON-assisted female suicides in some jurisdictions after the legalization of Assisted Suicide / Euthanasia. If this is statistically relevant, this bias needs to be investigated.
Below is the table the Coalition’s “thesis” is based on!
They claim: “More affluent regions see higher rates of individuals travelling to Switzerland. This is hardly surprising, given the approximate cost of £15,000 to do so. Counties that are also further from an airport, meaning travel is significantly more difficult and expensive, often see fewer assisted deaths.”
Note that this is a straight table of ‘assisted deaths’ over 20+ years without correlation to population or other factor such as Race; Religion; Education level and Socio-Economic Status. (These are clearly relevant as shown by Oregon.)
ALSO, the Coalition does not provide any statistical significance levels!!
Below I added the population of the individual county in the third column [taken from Wikipedia Counties in England by population - Wikipedia ] and calculated the proportion of deaths per population in column 4. This shows infinitesimal numbers over a 20+ year period per population! (Note: the second number in the ‘population’ column show the ranking by size of population of the individual County.)
London naturally has the largest number of people and considering it is up to 10 times the size of the other counties, had the majority of people who traveled to Dignitas in Switzerland.
The Coalition does not want you to see these infinitesimal numbers. There is a tiny variation between the Counties, but these are not likely to be statistically significant consider the numbers are so small.
I will be happy to amend the article if a statistician can provide me p-values for the table. (Please DM me on 𝕏: @kevinhay77 or email the editor: editor@catholicarena.com )
TRAGEDY
Dealing with any illness — especially a terminal or progressive illness — is a tragedy.
Indeed, many people with terminal or long-term illnesses are suffering — but much of that is due to a dreadful lack of social supports and limited palliative-care in most every developed country.
Death is not the answer.
Kevin Hay
You can follow Kevin on 𝕏 @kevinhay77
(ps Typo in table for East Sussex corrected 19# March 2024. Also North Yorkshire & West Midlands removed because that extended table was published on the My Death My Dignity website.)