Left image – Wikimedia Commons: Bishop John Sherrington 2024
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has slammed MP Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill as “wrong in principle as well as being fundamentally flawed”.
Archbishop-elect John Sherrington, Lead Bishop for Life Issues for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, released a statement after MPs debated and voted on amendments to Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill last Friday, 16 May.
In a remarkable step, Archbishop-elect John Sherrington said that the parliamentary process of the bill was “woefully inadequate and… lacked time for proper and sustained debate”.
The statement also complained that information and amendments had “been repeatedly published very close to key debates, leaving MPs with insufficient time for consideration. During the Report Stage, MPs had only five hours to discuss nearly 60 pages of amendments…
“MPs must have proper time to debate a law which fundamentally changes society. This has not happened and so the Bill must be rejected.”
The Bishops’ Conference also voiced its alarm at the rejection of an amendment offering an opt-out for hospices and care homes not wanting to participate in any way in assisted suicide.
“If this bill should pass, we have serious concerns about the ability of Catholic hospices and care homes to function effectively and continue delivering high-quality palliative care”, the statement said.
It also cited MP Edward Leigh’s concern that if “care homes run by religious orders will have to provide this service, those orders will have to get out of care homes altogether”.
Archbishop-elect John Sherrington added that “experience shows that even where medical professionals are granted conscientious objection to assisted suicide, their ability to opt-out is later restricted as access to provision takes precedence”.
On Friday 16 May, MPs debated Leadbeater’s bill in the House of Commons for the first time since it passed at Second Reading by 330 votes to 275. The debate is set to continue on 13 June, when MPs will have a final vote on the proposed legislation.
Fears about coercion, safeguarding, neglect of palliative care, and lack of guaranteed opt-outs for doctors and caregivers have been raised throughout the process of the bill.
Earlier this year, British Medical Association (BMA) consultants approved a motion stating that an “opt-in model” must be “adopted for providers, and no consultant shall be expected to be involved in any part of the assisted dying process, including having no obligation to either suggest assisted dying to patients, nor refer patients for it”.
A survey of Association for Palliative Medicine (APM) members recently reported that over two in five respondents said that “if assisted dying was implemented within their organisation, they would have to leave”.
If you’re reading this and haven’t yet donated to SPUC, please consider helping now. Thank You!
