Proposals to delay the introduction of assisted suicide in England and Wales has given opponents fresh hope that plans to legalise the practice shall be abandoned altogether.
Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who introduced the bill, has proposed delaying the introduction of assisted suicide in England and Wales until 2029, giving rise to hopes that the plans shall be ditched under a recent government.
It comes as a former Conservative MP called on Parliament to reject the bill, calling it “unsafe”.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is currently on the committee stage, having passed second reading last 12 months.
Critics of the bill fear that legalising medical suicide would result in pressure being placed on the disabled, the elderly and the vulnerable to finish their lives, either by relations and even by the NHS itself.
In November the bill passed second reading after many MPs were assured by the apparent safeguard of a High Court judge needing to offer approval to any decision to finish one’s life by assisted suicide. Now, nonetheless, what was for a lot of MPs a key safeguard has been watered right down to merely a “panel of experts”.
Caroline Ansell, who was the MP for Eastbourne and is now Director of Advocacy and Policy on the charity CARE, said of the bill, “That greater than five hundred amendments were tabled to vary the bill shows how unsafe it was – it still is. Over the last weeks, amendments rigorously designed to offer protections to vulnerable groups have been systemically voted down by Bill supporters on the committee.”
Ansell also raised concerns about hospices potentially having funding withdrawn should they refuse to offer assisted suicide and about firms arising that will kill for profit.
Ansell added, “Many MPs voted for the Bill last 12 months within the understanding that it might be improved and made protected through scrutiny down the road. This has not happened. Instead, scrutiny has been biased and rushed. This isn’t any strategy to legislate on any issue, let alone a problem of life and death. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is riddled with problems. Wherever MPs stand on the principle behind it, they need to reject it at Third Reading.”
