Humanists UK and the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group (APPHG) has issued fresh demands calling on the Government to allow vulnerable people to be killed by assisted suicide. Michael Robinson, SPUC Director of Communications, said: “Humanists UK claim to be working towards a world where ‘kindness prevails’. Assisted suicide is not kindness. It is a lethally false form of compassion which implies some lives are worth less than other lives.”
Crispin Blunt MP and Baroness Bakewell DBE, Co-chairs of the APPHG, wrote to the Secretary of State for Justice during March 2021, urging him to set in motion a review into “the UK’s laws on assisted dying”.
Over 50 MPs and Peers signed the letter, which claimed police in the UK were “turning a blind eye” to people travelling to Switzerland for assisted suicide.
Henry Marsh, a patron of Humanists UK and assisted suicide advocate, was seen to bolster this campaign by accusing politicians in the UK of “a striking lack of compassion” and “great cruelty” for not supporting a public inquiry or promoting legislation.
SPUC’s Mr Robinson said: “Anti-life sentiments do appear to be festering in the humanist movement. Earlier this year Humanist Society Scotland, pushed to ban pregnant women from receiving resources and information outside abortion clinics. Now it appears Humanists UK is setting itself against the ill and vulnerable.”
Protecting the vulnerable in the UK
Both euthanasia and assisted suicide are illegal in the UK. SPUC has stressed how in many of the world’s regions where assisted suicide is legal, many who “choose” to die report that they want to avoid becoming a burden on family and carers.
53% of people killed by assisted suicide in the U.S. state of Oregon during 2020 said that they feared “being a burden on family, friends/caregivers” if they continued to live.
Similarly, over one third of Canadians who were killed by assisted suicide in 2019 claimed that they feared being a burden on family, friends and caregivers if they continued to live.
SPUC’s Mr Robinson added: “Here in the UK, we cannot make the same mistake. We must oppose every move to legalise euthanasia and assisted suicide. That would be a tragic step towards creating a culture where people feel their best option in life is to die.”