(LifeSiteNews) — The greatest lie of the suicide lobby is that euthanasia is necessary to reduce suffering in our society. In fact, it does precisely the opposite. The second greatest lie is that a euthanasia regime is the most fundamental – and, indeed, the final – frontier in society’s journey to the embracing the full autonomy of the individual. Choosing the time and manner of one’s death, we are told, is a human right. Suicide is not a tragedy, but a choice.
Of course, total autonomy is a myth – especially in the context of suffering, illness, vulnerability, and disability. That is precisely why disability rights organizations have been at the forefront of opposing euthanasia regimes in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and elsewhere. The issue transcends ideological lines; in 2023, the left-wing publication The Nation published a long essay titled “Can Americans Really Make a Free Choice About Assisted Dying?” concluding that the answer is no.
Some euthanasia advocates are disturbingly candid about this. After all, with increasingly scarce resources, doctors will have to make decisions: who gets suicide prevention, and who gets suicide assistance? Lord Falconer, the British peer who stated that pregnant women should be able to access assisted suicide, openly acknowledged that money and resources would likely play a role in decisions surrounding euthanasia:
Lord Falconer: financial considerations may apply “there’s only so much money to go around” pic.twitter.com/gZmcfFGVsx
— Nikki da Costa (@nmdacosta) January 16, 2026
READ: Canadian man’s effort to kill elderly wife via euthanasia rejected by judge
The suicide lobby sells choice, but doesn’t reveal the fact that, for many, there will be no choice. We have seen a nonstop conveyor belt of such stories coming out of Canada, but the latest comes from Australia, where a 71-year-old man with a motor neuron disease (MND) is now opting for “Voluntary Assisted Dying” because he cannot get the assistance he needs through Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme. The NDIS is supposed to provide support, funding, and other resources for people with disabilities.
But Tony Lewis does not qualify, because he is 71, and the cutoff for application to the program is 65. Instead, he qualifies for My Aged Care, which grants him less than a third of the care he could receive through NDIS. Lewis cannot eat or speak on his own, and has lost most of his power of movement. He now needs round-the-clock care, which his 65-year-old wife has been providing, apart from the one home visit and four showers a week that the available funding does allow for.
Lewis says that when his wife cannot care for him, he will opt for assisted suicide; he has insisted that he does not want to become a “useless lump of meat.” His wife, Gill, thankfully strongly disagrees with that view. “I would like to think that if he had appropriate care, and there was enough of it, he would be able to cope better,” she said. “It would be a lot less stressful. I try to shield him from the back and forth arguments and pleas for funding because he does not need that. This month, I’m already over budget.”
Lewis, meanwhile, has begun the application process for assisted suicide. That application process takes, on average, between nine days and a few months; Lewis’s wife says that it takes at least six months simply to procure a new assessment for her husband’s illness, which changes often because of the pace of his disease. Other Australians who suffer from the same disease are trapped in similar circumstances, cut off from essential funding with no alternative.
This scenario plays out wherever euthanasia regimes are implemented. Some advocates, like Lord Falconer, are honest about it. The suicide lobby almost never is. They sell assisted suicide with ads emphasizing able-bodied people who wish to be in control of their own destiny. To the millions of sufferers like Tony Lewis, that is a sick joke.
