A survey conducted by polling company Focaldata this month asked 5,033 people if they supported a commission into palliative care before a final vote on legalising assisted suicide in England and Wales.
69 per cent were favour of such a commission; 34 per cent strongly agreed, and 35 somewhat agreed. Just 15 per cent of respondents opposed the idea of a commission.
The Independent also reports that former prime minister Gordon Brown supports a review.
Westminster MPs are set to vote on Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill next week, on 29 November. The draft law would grant assisted suicide to terminally ill adults who have six months to live.
SPUC has detailed many problems with the “dangerous” Leadbeater Bill
Health Secretary Wes Streeting, he will vote againstthe Bill, has warned that: “I do not think that palliative care, end-of-life care in this country is in a condition yet where we are giving people the freedom to choose, without being coerced by the lack of support available.”
Meanwhile, a paper published by the Anscombe Bioethics Centre suggests that assisted suicide has a detrimental effect on end of life care wherever it is legalised.
Professor David Albert Jones, the paper’s author, studied the most “recent evidence”, which led him to conclude that assisted suicide laws “can have a seriously adverse impact on that which is true assistance in dying: palliative care”.
Fears About Assisted Suicide Laws Are “justified”, Says SPUC
SPUC’s Daniel Frampton, Editorial Officer, said: “There are very real threats posed by assisted suicide laws, and they may well prove fatal in the UK if the Leadbeater Bill is passed.
“The vast majority of palliative care doctors – dedicated professionals who care every day for the dying – oppose assisted suicide, not least because it undermines their good work and places unfair and unnecessary pressure on their patients.
“The more the public learns about the true ramifications of assisted suicide, the more concerns they have. These fears are justified. Canada is one such example, where there were 13,500 state-sanctioned assisted suicides in 2022 alone.
“One Canadian man who was kept waiting for ten weeks for cancer treatment eventually gave up and cancer patient waited weeks for treatment but was granted assisted suicide in two days, which was granted to him in two days. This cannot be allowed to become the norm in the UK.”
TAKE ACTION: Lobby Your MP NOW
SPUC is urging supporters and all people opposed to assisted suicide to lobby their MP now, asking them to oppose Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill. A which SPUC is opposing to help you do this.
For a terrifying insight into the threat that assisted suicide poses to people with disability, watch Liz Carr’s documentary Better Off Dead? – Better Off Dead? on the BBC’s iPlayer.
SPUC has also compiled stories of ordinary people opposed to assisted suicide, which you can access here for free for free online.
Please do all you can to oppose this bill. SPUC cannot emphasise enough how serious this threat is. It is being debated with frightening speed, so if we do not act immediately, we will soon find ourselves living in a country where the state can help someone kill themselves.
