(LifeSiteNews) — In 2017, Dr. Henry Marsh—a retired British neurosurgeon nicknamed “Dr. Death” for his euthanasia advocacy—said the quiet part out loud.
“So much of [the opposition to assisted suicide] is all bloody Christians,” he said in an interview with the Sunday Times. “They argue that grannies will be made to commit suicide. Even if a few grannies get bullied into it, isn’t that a price worth paying for all the people who could die with dignity?”
Albeit crassly, Marsh admirably summed up the debate: suicide advocates see the vulnerable as acceptable collateral damage; their belief that for people to “die with dignity,” they need to die faster; and “bloody Christians” are the primary bulwark protecting the vulnerable. We are rarely treated to such candor.
Marsh, who is now 75, was confronted about his comments again on November 12 during a parliamentary Human Rights Committee session on the impacts of MP Kim Leadbeater’s proposed law to legalize assisted suicide. His response again made headlines: he laughed out loud.
☠️SINISTER: DOCTOR LAUGHS ABOUT SACRIFICING GRANNIES!
Dr Marsh chuckles about his past comment that “sacrificing grannies” is worth it if it allows assisted suicide to be legalised. He seemingly only regrets it as he “didn’t realise it would get into the public domain”. Awful! pic.twitter.com/lDz8A8NWSi
— Right To Life UK (@RightToLifeUK) November 12, 2025
“I think you’re on the record saying … if there’s some cases of coercion, the greater public good is satisfied by having the system, is that fair?” Tory Peer Lord Simon Murray asked him.
“In principle, yes,” Marsh responded with a laugh. “I know I made a very crass comment about ‘sacrificing grannies.’ I greatly regret it and wish I hadn’t said it. It was very stupid of me, and I didn’t realize it was going to get into the public domain.”
READ: Canadian government forcing doctors to promote euthanasia to patients: report
Of course, the fact that Marsh—confusingly, considering it was a press interview—thought that the comment was a private one makes it particularly newsworthy. What assisted suicide advocates say for public consumption versus what they say in private often differs, and Marsh gave us a glimpse into his actual beliefs—which is why he wishes he hadn’t said it.
In fact, Marsh doubled down on the essence of his statements. “The principle is there is always a cost,” he told the committee. “Every time I operated, and it was not a theoretical risk, you can make things worse, but you justify that risk by saying more people benefit. It sounds rather inhumane and utilitarian, but that is the reality of normal medical practice.”
In fact, euthanasia and assisted suicide are in an entirely different category, with physicians being given a license to kill. This is not, as he well knows, “the reality of normal medical practice”—although it can become so if an assisted suicide regime is implemented.
Catherine Robinson of Right To Life UK pointed out that Marsh had not, in fact, retracted his comment, but had doubled down on the point. “Instead, he laughed, merely expressing regret that his comment made it into the public domain,” she noted. “This utilitarian thinking, where the protection that is owed to elderly people and sick and dying people is sacrificed for some alleged greater good, is typical of the extreme views many supporters of assisted suicide hold.”
Nikki da Costa, a former Downing Street advisor, concurred, stating: “The cost of some people’s choice is that others will die who do not want to.” Barrister Barbara Rich added: “So it is fine for influential people to privately advocate for a change in law under which vulnerable people will foreseeably come to harm, and their only regret is that their thoughts are made public?”
Marsh’s chuckling comments are reminiscent the disturbing reaction of Canadian euthanasia practitioner and abortionist Ellen Wiebe, who jovially told an interviewer that ending the lives of over 400 people by lethal injection was “the very best work I’ve ever done,” even when compared to delivering babies.
