Campaigners in favour of medically assisted suicide in England, Scotland and France have apparently suffered setbacks that might make sure the controversial practice never comes into law.
A recent report by The Guardian suggested that the Westminster bill, recommend by Labour’s Kim Leadbeater, will likely never come to a final vote and so will fail by default.
Both sides of the talk have accused the opposite of using underhand tactics to get their way. Proponents of assisted suicide claim the opposite side has used procedural delaying tactics within the Lords to make sure the bill never becomes law.
Pro-life campaigners have identified that the federal government, which is officially neutral on the difficulty, has apparently been favouring the pro-suicide position with its actions. It has also been identified that extra scrutiny of a bill that may give state institutions the ability of life and death merits additional scrutiny and care.
Labour MP Florence Eshalomi told the Guardian, “Not a single royal college, skilled body or cabinet minister will attest to the security of this bill. Scrutiny should never be conflated with obstruction and it could be reckless for Lords to disregard the concerns of such a wide selection of experts.”
In Scotland, which is considering a separate but similar bill, it has emerged that when MSPs give their final vote on the bill, they’ll achieve this without knowing if there will probably be conscience protections for medical professionals.
Neil Gray, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, told the Scottish Parliament’s health committee that it doesn’t have the ability to legislate on the difficulty of conscience protections, because it is just not a devolved matter.
Essentially, should the Scottish bill change into law, the British government would have final say on whether or not it incorporates conscience protections.
Gordon Macdonald, CEO of Care Not Killing, told The Times that protection of conscience within the bill was removed “since it was not competent, but what has replaced it impinges on employment law so isn’t legislatively competent either.”
He added, “MSPs have a responsibility to know what they’re voting for, not only at hand over a blank cheque.”
In recent developments in Europe more widely, French senators debating their very own bill voted to include “medical assistance in dying” into the general public health code. However, they rejected the bill’s endorsement of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Instead, they added the next statements to the bill: “Everyone has the best to the most effective possible relief from pain and suffering.” And, “Everyone is entitled to this right until their death, with none voluntary intervention intended to cause death.”
Macdonald said of the developments, “From Paris to Edinburgh, we are able to see real reasons for hope, real reasons for us all to maintain speaking out.”
He asked opponents of assisted suicide to “keep writing to lawmakers and newspapers, and discussing the truth of those issues with friends”.
“The truth will out,” he said.
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