Pro‑life campaigners are sounding the alarm as the UK’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill edges toward its second reading in the House of Lords on 12 September, warning it poses a grave threat to church‑run hospices and care homes.
Archbishop John Sherrington, lead bishop for life issues of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, urged Catholics to contact peers in the Lords to oppose the legislation, saying there is “a real danger that some care homes and hospices may be forced to significantly limit or even fully withdraw their services” if the bill becomes law.
He further criticized the bill’s so‑called “conscience clause” as woefully inadequate, mandating doctors who refuse to participate in assisted suicide to direct patients to others willing to help, effectively eroding moral protections within healthcare.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster echoed these concerns, noting that in the vast majority of jurisdictions in which assisted suicide has been legalised, care homes and hospices have been required to facilitate it. An amendment explicitly exempting faith‑based institutions was rejected, increasing the likelihood that Catholic hospices may be compelled to violate their foundational principles.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, including Cardinal Nichols and Archbishop Sherrington, warned in June that the bill “puts in grave doubt” the future of many hospices whose mission is compassionate care. Without defeat of the bill, they cautioned, these institutions may “have no choice… but to withdraw from the provision of such care”
Amid this turmoil, SPUC adds that legalising assisted suicide would represent a dramatic departure from core medical ethics and endanger vulnerable groups. SPUC highlights that assisted suicide often places moral pressure on the frail, elderly, and disabled, and that the tradition of medicine, rooted in the Hippocratic Oath, rejects the deliberate ending of life.
SPUC and other pro-life voices are calling instead for real investment in palliative and hospice care, emphasising that no patient should feel pressured toward death through lack of access to compassionate, holistic support.
As the bill advances to the House of Lords, faith-based hospices and pro-life advocates are preparing to make their voices heard, as they contend the legislation risks turning havens of compassion into agents of death, and thereby undermining the sanctity of human life.
