There are various concerns regarding euthanasia, including the potential for abuse, coercion and misdiagnosis in determining patient eligibility. Instances where people were misdiagnosed with terminal illnesses, only to later discover that they had benign conditions are not difficult to find.

You can make a difference and help stop the horror of doctor-assisted suicide by sharing the truth.

By Dr. Vernon Coleman

The following essay is taken, with permission, from Jack King’s book `Why they want to kill us’, with thanks to Dr. King. No one in politics or the media will debate euthanasia. As with covid, the truth is being suppressed. No one else will publish the arguments outlined in Dr. King’s book.

1) There is no known way of killing people in a peaceful, painless and dignified way.

2) In whichever country a law is passed legalising euthanasia, the parameters are likely to be extended quite soon afterwards. So, for example, if a law is passed legalising the killing of patients at the very end of their lives, the law will be extended to cover patients who are not terminally ill. And then the law will be extended to cover the mentally ill and to include children.

3) There is evidence that patients who are not ready to die will be bullied into accepting euthanasia.

4) The poor and those requiring benefit payments and State support will probably be bullied or blackmailed into accepting euthanasia.

5) Relatives who want to benefit from an elderly person’s estate will arrange euthanasia for mercenary reasons.

6) Hospitals which want to free up beds will feel free to kill patients.

7) There is a risk, too, that people who arrive at a hospital in an ambulance, having been given a powerful painkiller or tranquilliser, will be invited straightaway to accept a doctor-assisted suicide. And, because they are confused and frightened, they will accept the offer without properly understanding the consequences. Doctors involved in patient care should never, ever be involved in promoting, selling or even discussing euthanasia.

8) Some advocates of euthanasia claim that candidates for suicide must have a fatal illness. And some euthanasia programmes begin by saying that a patient must be expected to be dead within six months. Campaigners say that this excludes patients who might live for years. They’re wrong, of course. They’re wrong because prognoses are subjective and they are wrong more often than they are right. I could fill London with people who have been told to prepare themselves for death but who have lived for many years. The advocates for euthanasia assume that it is possible to decide that an illness is fatal. Anyone (doctor or nurse) who announces that an illness is fatal is a fool. I doubt if I am alone in having seen patients who have been told that they were incurable, recover and enjoy long lives – not uncommonly outliving the physician who had told them they were dying. Diagnostic errors are nowhere near as rare as doctors would like to imagine. Dr. Vernon Coleman has described how he was wrongly diagnosed with kidney cancer and given six months to live. That was nearly 40 years ago. In fact, the radiologists who had made the diagnosis were wrong. Politicians seem to assume that it is possible to predict when a patient is going to die. It isn’t. Very occasionally, a patient will conveniently die as predicted but this, I suspect, is more due to the voodoo or negative placebo factor than due to any brilliance on the part of the forecaster. Doctors, like witch doctors, can have a powerful influence on the outcome of an illness if they give a patient a firm and professional-sounding prognosis. In other words, if a doctor says to a patient: “You will be dead in six months” there is a chance that the patient will be dead in six months because the doctor said so. It is rare for patients to die before a forecasting doctor suggests but it is common for patients to live considerably longer. Selecting a patient as suitable for euthanasia on the basis of a prognosis is always dangerous and unjustifiable. Examples of mistaken diagnoses and erroneous prognoses are not difficult to find.

A 45-year-old mother of two was told that she had an inoperable tumour on her liver. With no family present, she was told that she had between two months and two years to live. (How any doctor can offer such a bizarrely wide prognosis is difficult to understand.) In fact, she had a benign liver tumour. She was not told of the error for a month. It was a year before the woman had recovered from the trauma of the mistaken diagnosis. But what if she had been persuaded to accept euthanasia? Another woman who was told that she had terminal cancer was found to be suffering from sarcoidosis. Once again, a wrong diagnosis had been made and this time the patient was treated with toxic chemotherapy and subjected to frequent CT scans and medical reviews. The mistaken diagnosis was maintained for four years. A third woman who had a history of breast cancer was told that the cancer had returned and had spread to her lungs. She underwent treatment, including radiotherapy. After five years of believing that she could die at any moment, the woman was told that the hospital had made a mistake and that she actually had bronchiectasis.

A 51-year-old man was told that he had advanced amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). A second doctor agreed with the diagnosis which had been made on the basis of a 10-minute examination. The man was told that he would never return to work and would soon be unable to walk. He was contacted by a therapist regarding medically assisted death and began to plan music for his funeral. The man closed his business and told his friends and family the terrible news. He was told that he would not live until the following Christmas. Eventually, the man saw a third doctor who told him that he had been misdiagnosed and actually had neuropathy caused by his diabetes.

A 65-year-old man was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and told that he was terminally ill with just six months to live. He was told to choose a hospice. He later found that his symptoms were actually caused by the statins he was taking. When he’d been told he was terminally ill, he stopped the statins and his symptoms disappeared.

These case histories are by no means unusual. In countries where assisted killing is in place there will, without doubt, be instances where misdiagnosed patients will choose euthanasia and will die quite unnecessarily. One of the main objections to capital punishment (a process which often takes many years and repeated examinations of the evidence) is the fear that a mistake will be made and an innocent person will be killed. The same objection can and should be raised about medically assisted dying.

Finally, to summarise, you should oppose euthanasia if:

• You are over 60 years of age or hope or expect to be over 60 years of age one day.
• You ever feel glum or down in the dumps, upset, worried, fearful or tired of life.
• You are forgetful or absent-minded.

You have any health problem (diabetes, arthritis, breathing troubles, heart problems, poor vision, poor hearing or incontinence to name but a small selection).

All of those problems and situations could enable doctors and nurses to kill you for your “own comfort” and to do so without asking your permission.

You can make a difference and help stop the horror of doctor-assisted suicide by sharing the truth. Make sure everyone you know reads this book to understand what is happening to us all. Buy copies of this book to send to MPs, newspapers, radio presenters, etc. I have bought and distributed scores of Jack King’s book.

Dr. King’s book `They Want to Kill Us: Here’s how and why’ is available on Amazon as a paperback and an eBook. Click HERE if you would like to buy this book.