"Suicide Prevents Suicide"!

Assisted suicide is a form of suicide prevention, Westminster MPs have been told.

Alex Greenwich MP, whose Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill became law in New South Wales in 2022, made the bizzare claim while giving evidence before Westminster MPs considering similar proposals.

Greenwich was one of 46 witnesses selected by Kim Leadbeater to address her Committee as it considers her plans to allow those in England and Wales diagnosed as terminally ill, and deemed to have less than six months to live, to receive help to kill themselves.

The Australian told MPs: “Voluntary assisted dying in New South Wales is an important form of suicide prevention.”

In 2023, Greenwich said that the high rate of suicide among people who are terminally ill is “among the compelling reasons to grant choice to people at the end of life”.

During the final day of oral submissions, he claimed: “The Australian experience with voluntary assisted dying is that it benefits and strengthens the palliative care system.”

But contradicting the assertion, Danny Kruger MP pointed out that following the introduction of assisted suicide in New South Wales, in 2023 the palliative care budget had been been cut by AU$249 million, while the state had allocated AU$97 million “in new funding to assisted dying”.