America doesn't usually get praise for its social safety net.
But Liz Carr, a British television personality and disability rights activist, says the United States did very well.
While many Western governments allow terminally ill people to end their lives through assisted suicide and euthanasia, these efforts have largely been hampered in the U.S., he says.
For Carr, who has been in a wheelchair since she was a teenager, this is extremely important because assisted dying laws put pressure on people with disabilities to end their lives prematurely and stop being a burden to their families and caregivers.
“We were told that these Western-wide regulations were inevitable,” Carr, 52, told DailyMail.com.
Liz Carr, 52, praises America for showing that legalizing assisted suicide is “not inevitable.”
But look what's happening in the US. At any given time, 25 states have bills to authorize assisted dying, but they continue to fail. The situation has been at a standstill for the past three years. There is nothing inevitable about this.
Carr is best known for his role as a forensic scientist in the BBC crime drama Silent Witness. He will return to US screens after filming the third season of the fantasy comedy Good Omens.
She has suffered from arthrogryposis multiplex, a rare genetic disease of the muscles and joints, since childhood, and has recently become an activist for the rights of people with disabilities and opposition to assisted dying.
Last month she showed her documentary on the subject, Better Off Dead? legislators and influential people in Washington.
Guests included California Democrat Congressman Lou Correa and Ohio Republican Brad Wentrup.
Proponents of assisted dying argue that terminally ill people should be allowed to die with the help of a doctor, either by lethal injection or by being given a prescription for lethal drugs to take at home to end their suffering.
But Carr and others say it has been terrible for disabled people in parts of Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada where it is allowed.
Catholics and other religious groups also oppose it on moral grounds.
Now the British Parliament, which has long been hostile to assisted dying, will consider such a proposal to allow the procedures to be carried out before the end of 2024 – in part due to pre-election promises by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Carr says these laws make disabled people feel “scared and unsafe.”
Liz Carr (right) plays the angel Saraqael in Good Omens, a British fantasy comedy series.
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The actress and disability rights activist features in a BBC documentary titled Better off Dead?, which examines the legalization of assisted dying and its potential impact on vulnerable or disabled people
“For someone who loses a job or a loved one and has suicidal thoughts, others will rally around them and support them by offering suicide prevention help,” she says.
“But as soon as it's a disabled or sick person, people think a medically assisted death is OK. They think it's better to die than to be crippled.
She highlights Canada, which has one of the most developed euthanasia programs in the world.
There, disabled people complain that they have been repeatedly offered lethal injections, when what they really want is help to live and move more easily.
A good example is Christine Gauthier, a Canadian Army veteran and former Paralympian who was offered medically assisted death when she fought to have a wheelchair lift installed in her home.
“As long as we are unequal and some groups are devalued, no safeguard will protect us,” Carr says.
Beginning with Oregon in 1997, ten U.S. states and Washington, D.C., have legalized assisted suicide.
Patients must be over 18 years of age and be assessed no later than six months after death to ensure they can make an informed decision.
This is usually reserved for residents of these states, but recently Oregon and Vermont have started allowing non-residents to travel and use their systems.
At least a dozen states have introduced bills this year to legalize physician-assisted death, but none have yet made it into legislation.
This has led to heartbreaking stories of people suffering from terminal illnesses calling on officials to pass laws that will allow them to escape their suffering.
A tragic example would be Ayla Eilert, who died in April 2022, just seven months after being diagnosed with cancer, which caused her terrible pain that doctors were unable to relieve.
The 24-year-old repeatedly asked for a physician-assisted death but was denied because such procedures are not legal in her home state of New York.
In September 2021, Ayla was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma and despite intensive treatment, the cancer spread throughout her body
The 52-year-old actress is known for her role as criminal Clarissa Mullery in the BBC crime drama Silent Witness (pictured)
John Carney, the Democratic governor of Delaware, last month vetoed a bill allowing assisted dying in his state, saying he was “fundamentally and morally opposed” to the procedures.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in Kansas and West Virginia decided to tighten assisted dying laws this year.
“That tells me people are really thinking,” Carr says.
“They don't want to instill fear in entire groups of people, especially those who already feel very vulnerable.”
Although most U.S. states prohibit assisted suicide, some people suffering from cancer or other serious health problems will still seek help from a doctor to end their difficult situation.
Last month, a 64-year-old woman from the US Midwest traveled to Switzerland and became the first person to use a “suicide pod” in a forest in the northern Schaffhausen region near the German border.
The 3D-printed capsule was designed so that a person sitting inside with a reclining seat could press a button that injected nitrogen into the closed chamber, allowing them to fall asleep and then die by suffocation within minutes.
The name of the woman who died was not released. Members of The Last Resort group who helped it use the futuristic “Sarco” capsule have been arrested by Swiss police. It's unclear whether the devices are legal there.
Organizers said the woman's death was “peaceful, quick and dignified” – but these claims could not be independently verified.
According to reports, the woman suffered from severe immune disorders.
A 64-year-old woman from the US Midwest traveled to Switzerland last month and became the first person to end her life there using a “suicide capsule”.
Carr wonders why a U.S. citizen would travel approximately 7,500 km to die in a pod when Oregon and Vermont allow out-of-state people to use assisted dying systems.
“I'm really interested in why she felt she had to do this when she had access to assisted suicide in her own country,” Carr says.
“Perhaps her list of medical conditions was not so severe that she did not qualify.”
Carr lived in the US for two years as a child and says she has fond memories of the “dinners and sweets” there.
He is looking forward to returning to American screens with the third season of Good Omens, in which he plays the angel Saraqael. The British show is available in the US on Prime Video.
He will also appear in the play Unspeakable Conversations in London, which depicts the extraordinary, real-life meeting between disabled American lawyer Harriet McBryde Johnson and Princeton University bioethics professor Peter Singer.
