Just two days before today’s parliamentary vote backing assisted suicide, Philip Bateman, a campaigner against the proposal, died peacefully at his home and surrounded by his family.
Bateman was diagnosed in spring 2024 with pancreatic cancer and told he had lower than six months left to live. Under the proposals voted on today, Bateman would have been eligible to hunt to finish his own life.
However, such a move was anathema to Bateman, a former pastor.
In May Bateman appeared on BBC Breakfast and outlined his objections to the bill, “It’s not assisted dying, it’s assisted suicide! It means a deliberate wilful act by an individual to kill themselves, and so you’re assisting someone to kill themselves. Call it by that and see what number of MPs vote for it.”
Bateman said he believed problems with life and death were best left to God, telling Sky News in November, “I need to live until God wants me to die. He will sort that out, not me. I do not know how it should occur, and I don’t need to know.
“This world is temporary, and I even have a greater one coming. I even have pancreatic cancer which not only affects my pancreas, but in addition my lungs. When we were told I had lower than six months to live, my wife Pauline couldn’t stop crying. Sitting within the hospital we sung praises to God. It’s now five months, and I’m grateful for this time.”
Bateman managed to survive greater than double the six months the doctors gave him, and identified to fellow campaigners that doctors can sometimes get such predictions staggeringly mistaken.
“Thirty-five years ago, one among my neighbours had lymphoma cancer and was given six months to live. He’s now 67 – imagine if he had taken his own life back then,” he said.
Beyond these practical concerns nevertheless, Bateman was unapologetic in stating his opposition to assisted suicide on faith grounds, believing it to be against “God’s plan and purpose”, no matter whatever safeguards are implemented.
This morning MPs voted on quite a few proposed changes to the bill. Among the changes agreed upon is that that the federal government should commit to a review of palliative care services. However, an try and prohibit assisted suicide for the mentally ailing was blocked by MPs.
