On Wednesday, a British man was jailed for 14 years for selling poisonous chemicals online to allow people to commit suicide. Miles Cross sold the fatal drugs to four people, two of whom, tragically, have since died as a result. In court he appeared to defend his actions, arguing that he simply wanted to “help others end their lives”.

The case, believed to be the first of its kind in the UK, is shocking. But it is also symptomatic of a broader and deeply troubling trend: the normalisation of suicide across Western societies. The House of Lords is currently scrutinising the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which would legalise assisted dying in England and Wales. At the same time, society has rightly condemned reckless individuals who promote or provide instructions for people to end their lives.

One such individual, Dr Philip Nitschke, has long campaigned for assisted suicide. Nitschke, the inventor of the controversial Sarco assisted suicide pod, published an online suicide handbook that teaches people how to end their lives. People in England have allegedly used this information to decide how to end their lives, including one teenager, Tom Parfett. After the teenager’s death, his father said he “would still be alive and would have found the support he needed to get through his dark times if taking his own life hadn’t been encouraged as a valid option”.

Nitschke’s seminars on assisted dying introduced a Canadian man, Kenneth Law, to one specific poison. In 2023, it was reported that Law had been selling the poison online, in a manner very similar to Miles Cross. Law is facing 14 murder charges in Canada and is being investigated for criminal offences linked to the deaths of 109 people in Britain. Nitschke has been delivering suicide workshops in London as recently as September 2025, at which he instructed individuals on new methods of suicide that he has developed, the latest of which is a horrific suicide collar designed to strangle the wearer to death.

But enabling dying, possibly even through means of one of Nitschke’s devices, is exactly what many British parliamentarians are trying to legalise. If it becomes law, the Terminally Ill Adults Bill — which returns to the Lords on Friday following the Christmas recess — may give criminals like Cross legal grounds to appeal their sentences. If assisted dying is legal, then it wouldn’t be Cross’s act that was illegal, but merely that he did so without a licence and through the proper channels. It would also encourage fanatics like Nitschke, who believe that people should be given help to end their own lives — even while we maintain as a society that we have a duty to prevent suicide.

What’s more, campaigners like Nitschke may see a tangible financial benefit from legalising assisted dying. It has been reported that legal academics have advised that Nitschke’s suicide pod would be legal for use to end lives in the UK under the wording of the assisted suicide Bill, with Nitschke himself stating that he is ready to launch his suicide pods in Britain at the press of a button.

Up until very recently, we have lived in a society where life is valued, and where individuals who would seek to encourage others to end their lives have rightly been demonised and held to account. Of course, some who advocate for assisted dying do so out of a genuine desire to reduce suffering. But our nation’s ethical framework is in danger of being turned on its head if we wholesale abandon our duty to protect society’s most vulnerable. If that duty is surrendered, we should not be surprised when the line between compassion and coercion quietly disappears.