Guest Column: Are There No Suicide Pods? Are There No Gas Chambers?
In a striking scene in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge asks two men raising money for the poor, “Are there no prisons? … And the Union workhouses? … Are they still in operation?” When the charity supporters reply that many would rather die than go to such places, Scrooge replied, “If they would rather die … they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” Later in the story, Scrooge is reminded of his dehumanizing words and is ashamed.
Recently, in real life Britain, Lord Falconer of Thoroton suggested to the British House of Lords that the poor might be better off dead:
Where the reason that you want an assisted death is because in your mind you are influenced by your circumstances, for example, because you are poor—should you be barred from having an assisted death because of your poverty? In my view not.
In Britain’s nationalized healthcare system, the cost of the procedure for the poor is not an issue. Rather, Lord Falconer seems to be suggesting that the poor should have the “right to die” if they are ashamed of being poor. Poverty, in this view, is a fate worse than death.
Most likely, Lord Falconer thinks his is an appeal to charity, like the charity workers in A Christmas Carol. In reality, his advice is indistinguishable from Scrooge. He might as well have asked, “Are there no euthanasia clinics? And, the gas chambers, are they still in operation? If they would rather die than be poor, then they had better do it.”
Now, Lord Falconer is not suggesting, at least not yet, that the state should round up the poor for suicide pods, though suicide pods are a real thing. However, he is suggesting that “being poor” should be added to the ever-growing list of things that make life not worth living. A few years ago, when advocates argued for death in Canada and Colorado, they argued that this was the compassionate choice for those with terminal, painful diseases and would die shortly. Why prolong their suffering?
But there is no slope more slippery than this one. In both Canada and Colorado, what gets someone approved for the death list has grown. In Colorado, severe eating disorders qualify. In The Netherlands, an early adopter nation of assisted death, euthanasia has been extended to sick children. In 2022, a Belgian woman who survived a terrorist attack was put to death to save her from stress. Ironically, the terrorists were not killed for their crimes.
In Canada, “medical assistance in dying,” or MAiD, is now the fifth leading cause of death. In 2016, the Canadian government insisted that only those facing “imminent death” would be eligible. By 2023, this grew to include patients struggling with mental illness and drug addiction. Last year, a Canadian man complained that his PTSD would not qualify him to take advantage of death. In another case a few weeks later, a young woman was granted the right to die for autism. The judge ruled that not providing MAiD in her case would cause “irreparable harm,” as if death for some is less harmful than living.
What other trials of life will be deemed suffering? A bad break-up? Not getting a wanted job? Just because? We once condemned the Nazis for whom and why they killed. Now, we’ve adopted their rhetoric.
Every person is made in the image of God and has infinite dignity and worth. Not just the healthy, and not just the wealthy. Human value isn’t lessened by pain, disease or, Lord Falconer, poverty.
The Church’s task in this moment is clear. We affirm life. We defend the vulnerable. We reject utilitarian thinking about human value. As Stanley Hauerwas said, “In a hundred years, if Christians are people identified as those who do not kill their children or their elderly, we will have been doing something right.”
Copyright 2025 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.
