MPs urged to withstand legalisation of assisted suicide

Christians are joining protests outside Parliament as MPs debate proposals to alter the law on assisted suicide.

The debate is happening in Westminster today after a petition backed by Dame Esther Rantzen gained greater than 200,000 signatures. 

“We consider dying people within the UK must have the choice of requesting medical assistance to finish their lives with dignity,” the petition reads.

The Christian Legal Centre (CLC), which will probably be joining the protests outside Parliament, called the campaign in support of adjusting the law “concerted, dangerous and misguided”. 

CLC chief executive Andrea Williams said: “Is this what we wish on this country? Assisted suicide is not compassionate. It deliberately takes the lifetime of an innocent human, made in God’s image. When you cross that line, you open up the door to all types of abuse.

“The media coverage on this issue in recent months has been very one-sided. It is time for the stories of life and hope to be heard and the voices of concern concerning the law changes being proposed.

“The slippery slope on these issues is real. The statistics and stories from countries which have recently liberalised euthanasia needs to be a warning to us all.”

Other groups collaborating within the protest include Care Not Killing, Not Dead Yet and Distant Voices. 

Dr Gordon Macdonald, CEO of Care Not Killing, has called today’s debate a missed opportunity to speak concerning the UK’s “broken” palliative care system and the £100 million “black hole” within the hospice budget.

“Changing the law would put pressure on the elderly, vulnerable and disabled people into ending their lives prematurely. This is what we see within the US State of Oregon, which has an assisted suicide system and where a majority of those ending their lives in 2023 cited the fear of being a burden on their families, carers or funds as a reason,” he said. 

“While in Canada, which has a euthanasia system, 1,700 of those whose lives were ended cited loneliness as a reason in 2022. We have also seen the deeply troubling cases of Paralympians, army veterans and disabled people being offered ‘an assisted death’ slightly than the support they should live.

“Then there’s the parable of the ‘Hollywood death’. Studies show those that ingest death row drugs as utilized in Oregon, removed from having a fast and painless death, slowly drown in their very own secretions and die of what doctors call a pulmonary oedema.

“And that is before we get to the worrying data from the US and Europe that shows legalising euthanasia and assisted suicide, removed from reducing the variety of suicides appears to be related to a rise within the numbers of individuals taking their very own lives in the overall population, perhaps since it normalises the concept and practice of suicide.”

Joining today’s protest is Nikki Kenward who lost all movement except the flexibility to blink in a single eye after contracting Guillain-Barré Syndrome. She said that it will have been easy to decide on assisted suicide if it had been available on the time, but is now glad she got to see her son grow up and get married. 

“I think that suicide is just not the reply, the reply is to be cared for with absolutely sensible, palliative care,” she said.