Bishops were among the many members of the House of Lords speaking out against plans to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales.
Over 90 peers addressed the Lords on Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on the primary day of a two-day debate that’s to proceed next week.
The bill passed the House of Commons by a narrow margin and is now being scrutinised by the Lords.
The Bishop of London and former government Chief Nursing Officer, Dame Sarah Mullally, told peers that the bill was “deeply flawed”.
In a strong speech to the Lords, she said that “to alter the law is to alter society”.
“Any law that introduces selection for just a few just isn’t limited in its effect to only those few. If passed, the bill will signal that we’re a society that believes that some lives should not price living,” she said.
“The bill would develop into our state-endorsed position, and our NHS could be lively in its delivery. It is the role of the House to scrutinise, but there are not any amendments to the bill that might safeguard us completely from its negative effects.”
She then went on to stipulate her serious concerns with the proposals.
“I’m concerned for many who will face internal and subtle pressure to finish their lives within the absence of adequate palliative and social care or to avoid being a burden to their families,” she said.
“I understand the fear of many who they might be offered free assisted death before they’re offered the care and equipment that they might live. I’m concerned that we’re still at midnight about how the bill can be integrated right into a struggling health and social care system, because the Delegated Powers Committee report has shown.
“I’m concerned that the bill is unequal to the duty of stopping avoidable deaths as a consequence of the prevailing problems of discrimination, inequality and abuse. I’m deeply concerned that so many in Parliament should not heeding the voices of skilled and representative bodies which might be raising the alarm.
“Above all, the bill fails in its central claim that it delivers selection. A meaningful selection would see the measures within the Bill set alongside equally available, fully funded palliative and social care services. Without that being offered, this selection is an illusion.”
The Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, pointed to the experience of New Zealand – where she formerly served as Bishop of Waikato. Assisted suicide became legal in New Zealand 4 years ago following a binding referendum in 2020. Yet the recent five-year review found that a scarcity of clarity persists in legal definitions and operating principles.
Dr Hartley said it could be “irresponsible” to disregard New Zealand’s findings, and that it was troubling that the UK Parliament was considering passing into law laws with an identical lack of clarity.
“Only recently, New Zealand published its five-year review of the Act, highlighting significant practical challenges, concluding that the review committee is ineffective as an oversight body and recommending reforms. Five years on from the passing of a bill very like the one before us, it could be irresponsible to not take its findings seriously,” she said.
“Most strikingly, the report highlights confused principles for the service and even recommends that the New Zealand Government establish specific principles to underpin the Act.
“This isn’t any small matter—to be five years into providing the service without clarity on the principles on which it was built.
“For laws where the implications of poor drafting are so high, it’s alarming that such principles weren’t defined from the outset.
“Yet, almost a yr into the passage of this Private Member’s Bill, we’re still discussing core concepts, without sufficient detail on how a state-sponsored suicide service could be implemented.
“That should trouble us all.”
Lord Biggar, who can also be an Anglican priest and theologian, said the bill wouldn’t fix the “tragic dilemma” of end of life suffering. He warned that it would depart “poorer and fewer white” terminally ailing individuals with the selection of “grievous suffering and killing themselves”.
“If we were serious about reducing the amount of human suffering, we might not give attention to assisted suicide in any respect, reckoned to be chosen annually by as much as 7,500 people after a decade,” he said.
“Instead, we might give attention to ensuring the universal provision of adequate palliative care, which, as we have now been told several times today, greater than 100,000 fellow residents every yr need but don’t get.
“We have known that for many years and done nothing about it.”
Outside Parliament, opponents of the bill gathered to make their views known. They included individuals who have outlived their terminal prognoses, and experienced how worthwhile these extra months and years have been.
Joining them was Cecil Harper, 64, who was given two years to live in 2019 after being diagnosed with two forms of cancer. Still very much alive 4 years later, he was told by a health care provider in 2023 that he had “one yr to live”.
“When you’re told that you just only have, say, a yr to live; it does get to your head. But you’ve got to attempt to put that to the back of your mind since the doctors should not God,” he said.
Philip Wren, whose son Matthew died from terminal cancer aged 40, was also on the vigil outside Parliament.
He shared how his son wrote a printed article in November 2024 to elucidate why, as a terminally ailing cancer patient, he was against assisted suicide. In his last week of life, Matthew asked his father to assist him write again from his palliative care bed to emphasize that there was a greater option than assisted suicide.
Philip said: “A lesson I learned from Matthew’s final yr is that as long as an individual has a purpose, life can remain fulfilled even in essentially the most difficult of circumstances.
“We value the last yr spent with Matthew. There were some special times which meant that we’re grateful that he didn’t take the chance (had it been available) to simply end all of it.”
Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, which organised the vigil, said the bill was anything but compassionate and must be rejected by the Lords.
“This bill will force the NHS to facilitate assisted suicide for anyone who has been given six months to live,” she said.
“As the stories on display will show, many patients outlive doctors expectations, sometimes by years. The fact is that doctors should not good at reliably predicting how long someone has left to live.
“These stories show people from all walks of life who’ve faced the prospect of death with courage and located great value within the last months and years of their lives.”
She continued, “A terminal diagnosis just isn’t the top of the story. But Kim Leadbeater’s bill would nudge many vulnerable people towards seeing suicide as an answer to their illness. Hundreds if not hundreds of individuals annually would miss invaluable time with family members – and in some cases the possibility of recovery.
“The six-month safeguard on this bill is weaker still. Doctors who log out on these applications are more likely to be ideologically committed to assisted suicide. In practice, they can be more more likely to log out on a more pessimistic prognosis to uphold a patient’s so-called ‘autonomy’.”
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