MPs to Debate Assisted Suicide on Monday July 4
Next week, MPs will debate assisted suicide in the House of Commons.on July 4th
Please urgently contact your local MP now to ask them to oppose assisted suicide. It only takes 30 seconds using this tool: https://righttolife.org.uk/
Assisted Dying
Sir, The Church of England is reportedly adamant that it will maintain its official policy on assisted dying at the General Synod next month (report, Jun 24). I would expect, therefore, that the church still strongly supports a royal commission on the topic, a stance adopted in 2014. This was backed at the time by senior clergy including the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, during debates in the House of Lords on Lord Falconer of Thoroton’s Assisted Dying Bill. Since then, the argument for a review of our laws has strengthened.
With proposals for assisted dying legislation progressing in Scotland, Jersey and the Isle of Man and with states and nations across the Commonwealth and Europe continuing to legalise this option, it is only right that we reflect on what our present laws really mean for people at the end of their life and their families.
If the church were to revoke its support for an inquiry, it would raise serious questions about whether it is truly committed to fair and open debate. And in that spirit surely it is time for church leaders to listen to people in the pews who, like me, have changed their views as a result of seeing terrible suffering and indignity towards the end of the lives of those they know and love.
Lord Carey of Clifton
Archbishop of Canterbury, 1991–2002; Newbury
Sir, Lord Carey of Clifton (letter, Jun 27) overlooks the important advances in care of the dying, and still proposes death as a solution to medical problems. The Health and Care Act 2022 now requires the NHS to provide palliative care services. Until now, palliative care needs had to be met by charitable fundraising, leaving more than 300 people a day unable to access specialist palliative care. The Church of England leaders are calling for better care for all: they recognise the dangers of licensing doctors to provide lethal drugs (“Church vows not to bend on assisted dying law”, Jun 24). Such lethal cocktails are experimental and unevaluated. Campaigners’ proposals have not contained safeguards, only vague qualifying conditions, which are easily widened in scope to include serious conditions such as anorexia.Palliative care doctors in Canada now report that patients are fearful they will be offered death rather than care. Neither physician-assisted suicide nor euthanasia has a place in modern medical care. People need high-quality care at all times, not fatal shortcuts.
Professor Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, director, Living and Dying Well;
Dr Claud Regnard, director, Keep Assisted Dying Out of Healthcare
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