Editor’s note. Dr. Saunders is a former general surgeon and is CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a UK-based organization with 4,500 UK doctors and 1,000 medical students as members.
Lord Falconer’s ‘Assisted Dying Bill’ seeks to legalise assisted suicide (but not euthanasia) for mentally competent adults (older than 18) with less than six months to live subject to ‘safeguards’ under a two doctors’ signature model similar to the Abortion Act 1967.
The Bill had an unopposed second reading in the House of Lords on July 18. This is not unusual for the House of Lords and simply means that the Lords were opting to debate it line by line rather than just rejecting it on principle.
A Supreme Court ruling earlier in the year put pressure on the Lords to give the bill a proper hearing and if they didn’t, doubtless Falconer would keep bringing it back, using up more precious parliamentary time and complaining that ‘we have not yet had the debate’.
For opponents to the bill – and there are many – the tactical options were either to kill the bill dead – as they did with a similar bill from Lord Joffe in 2006 – or to strangle it slowly in committee by amending it out of recognition before putting in the boot one last time.
They have opted for the latter, a kinder and more compassionate course of action for a piece of draft legislation which is already terminally ill. And a better plan for kicking it beyond the long grass [meaning hiding in the hope that it will be forgotten or ignored] to a place where no one dare retrieve it.
When the bill was debated in July thousands of people wrote to the Lords to complain about its loopholes and inadequacies and disabled people staged a mass protest outside Westminster Palace.
The depth of feeling against the bill across the political spectrum was underlined when the Guardian newspaper [a very liberal publication] changed its editorial policy to oppose it because of real concerns about public safety.
Already a massive fight is brewing this Friday with peers tabling a sack load of amendments aimed at exposing the bill’s weaknesses and inconsistencies. More are expected later this week and the government is already talking about extending the committee stage so that they can all be heard.
But in reality this is something of a phony war.
It is conceivable that the bill may yet come to a final vote in the House of Lords, but both sides are agreed that the chances of it clearing the [House of] Commons in the run up to the election are virtually zilch.
The most Falconer’s supporters can hope for is some sort of a ‘moral’–albeit Pyrrhic–victory by perhaps winning a vote over an amendment or two in a poorly attended committee debate.
The real battle will happen after next May’s general election and the chances of the bill progressing then will depend very much on who is in power. It’s very clear that the current House of Commons would not pass it.
Having said all that, it is crucial that those opposed to the bill make their voices heard. Peers have been buried in letters from the pro-euthanasia lobby in the run up to committee as the former Voluntary Euthanasia Society – aka Dignity in Dying – launch their attack.
Now is the time for those opposed to the bill to strike back and urge peers to put down this deficient draft legislation.
We don’t need this bill.
Any change in the law to allow assisted suicide will place pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives for fear of being a financial, emotional or care burden upon others. This will especially affect people who are disabled, elderly, sick or depressed. The right to die can so easily become the duty to die.
The law we have at present does not need changing. The stiff penalties it holds in reserve provide an effective bulwark against exploitation and abuse, but in so doing it still allows judges to act with mercy in hard cases. It also protects vulnerable relatives from being subtly coerced into assisting a suicide against their better judgment.
The pressure people will feel to end their lives if assisted suicide is legalised will be greatly accentuated at this time of economic recession with families and health budgets under pressure. Elder abuse and neglect by families, carers and institutions are real and dangerous and this is why strong laws are necessary. Where there is a will, there is an anxious relative.
Furthermore experience in other jurisdictions, such as Belgium, the Netherlands, and the US American states of Oregon and Washington, shows that any change in the law will lead to ‘incremental extension’ and ‘mission creep’ as some doctors will actively extend the categories of those to be included–from mentally competent to incompetent, from terminal to chronic illness, from adults to children, from assisted suicide to euthanasia. This process will be almost impossible to police. …
Chelsea Garcia is a political writer with a special interest in international relations and social issues. Events surrounding the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel are a major focus for political journalists. But as a former local reporter, she is also interested in national politics.
Chelsea Garcia studied media, communication and political science in Texas, USA, and learned the journalistic trade during an internship at a daily newspaper. In addition to her political writing, she is pursuing a master's degree in multimedia and writing at Texas.
